Week 3 Reflection

Documentation is the record of observations made of a child's progress in a classroom. Documentation can be done through:

• photographs of the student's work
• comments written by the teacher
• blog posts made by the teacher
• video recordings of interactions between students

There are two main types of documentation we covered which are documentation panels and portfolios.

The Learning Stories Assessment Approach:

Observation that is written in a narrative approach, and is then added into the child's portfolio. The teacher adds in the relationship the student has with their peers, ideas that they may come up with, and how they may lead a play.

Conventional Style of Documentation: 

Conventional Documentation is a form of summative assessment in a classroom. The assessments are used to evaluate the students' learning, and see if the student has met the overall goals. Examples are through:

→ Report cards

→ Unit tests          

   

Reggio Emilia and Project Style of Documentation:

Reggio Emilia's Documentation is a form of formative assessment in a classroom. The purpose is to assess for the students' learning. It can be done through:

→ Observations made by the teacher 

→ Journals made by the student

❋ Reggio Emilia's approach is geared heavily towards emergent curriculum.

Prior to learning the material from this week, I knew slightly about the different types of documentation, but I never realized how beneficial documentation of the students' work actually is. To use this knowledge to better my classroom for my students, I will utilize ways of interactive hands-on learning that I can use to keep progress of their learning. I would find ways to incorporate group work to evaluate the way the students interact with each other, as well as ways they would be able to work individually. I believe that keeping the parents in the loop would be important as well, so they know how their child is doing in the classroom.