Documenting children's learning

I believe teachers need to document children's learning, making learning visible. So, what do I document, how and why?

For individual children's learning journey, I use the Learning Story model developed by the legendary Margaret Carr of New Zealand. My intention is to share with parents about what the child is interested in. I describe what I saw and what the child said. Based on that, I plan for how to support the child's learning so the interest will be extended and the learning becomes more complex.

Basically, I describe what I notice as the child's interest, how he is involved in pursuing his interest, how he communicates his passion, whether he persists despite difficulties, and how he takes up his responsibility for his own learning. And then I analyse what learning I think is happening and outline my planning about what could be the next step of development for the child. Finally, I seek parents' feedback by posing questions to solicit their comments.

To document the learning that is happening for groups of children, I use the model of Stories of interest/Planning stories. These Stories of Interest include documentation about how a particular interest has begun, what learning is happening, teachers' intentions/reflections on possible ways to extend the interest, and parent/family comments. The Planning Story model shows how the learning is unfolded as the stories are displayed as work in progress.  While teachers' planning and possibilities are outlined,  they are not something that is fixed in concrete. It's because the teacher, I believe, is obliged to follow the childrenʼs interests, to be spontaneous and responsive.

I think, both children and teachers need to work together in creating rich learning  experiences, and the parents can also contribute towards the planning of what learning will happen. So, the purpose of the documentation is to show the learning journey of the children, as supported by the teachers and parents. I think itʼs a good idea to use lots of photos, which enables children to revisit their experiences. If possible, documentation should be displayed at childrenʼs height. Also think about how much writing to put up on the wall, parents are unlikely to stand around reading lengthy paragraphs. Make the text short and sweet, perhaps using bullet points.

It's inevitable that only a small percentage of the learning/teaching that is happening is documented due to the constraints of time. However, the documentation will serve as the tip of the iceberg, showcasing the richness of children's learning and the wide array of opportunities to learn in the early childhood setting. I hope you will embrace your obligation to document children's learning as well.

P.S. the Learning Story model is also used at schools in New Zealand too, click here for additional information.

Blogging with young children

My interest in blogging started when I set up a blog for my kindergarten earlier this year. From an ICT symposium facilitated by the Core Education,  I learnt that using ICT in the early childhood programme is the way to recognize and acknowledge the ICT experiences children are having at home. With an aim to 'make learning visible to our families ', the kindergarten decided to have its own blog. We are aware that some other kindergartens have great sucess in communicating learning with parents and their extended families overseas through blogging,  and similarly my kindergarten community reflects a diversity of cultures, probably the blog will become an effective forum for the teachers to share the learning happening at kindy; and equally important, families will be able to give us feedback, share their views, add a different perspectives, and enrich the teaching and learning experiences.

The path to launch the blog has not been smooth. We organized a parents' evening to explain the reasons to have a blog and how to read and make comments. Despite the turnout rate was low, the parents who participated gave use huge support, so we determined to go ahead. As parents are a bit concerned about opening up the blog, we agreed to have a closed blog, and the kindergarten will invite only families to our blog. As we have chosen to use Blogger, which requires a Gmail account to read the blog; the response from the parents has been disappointing. Even though it's free to open a Gmail account, few parents took the time to do it. We've launched our blog for over 10 months, and only 15% of our families are reading and commenting on our blog. Are the families really so busy that they don't bother to acquire a Gmail? So, recently, we relaunch the blog and switch to WordPress. See how it will go!

Another strategy I suggested is to put the child's voice on the blog. I will regularly compose a post with the children and then send a personal invitation to their parent to go to the blog. Hopefully, the parents will develop a habit of reading the blog. I'll talk about the value of blogging with children next time.

Programme Planning in partnership with Parents

In New Zealand, the Early Childhood Curriculum Document highlights the strong partnership with families. My kindergarten has always had a strong commitment to work closely with the parents. We regularly communicate about individual children's learning through learning stories and group's learning through wall display and blogging. 

When parents are aware of the current interests or learning experiences at kindy, they are able to give us feedback and ideas to further enhance learning happening at kindy. We believe in teachers and parents working together to extend the learning opportunities for children. When home and centre are in sync, the teachers are able to develop better plans to build complexity into children's learning experience.

All along the team knows we have been doing okay with planning for the dominant group. But we're not so sure about small groups. It seems all our energy are invested in planning and documentation for the dominant group, whereas the interests of the small groups are insufficiently supported. Just like currently a large number of children are making weapons and the play theme is about the superhero; and the learning experiences and outcomes are acknowledged, documented and communicated with parents. But superhero play does not appeal to everyone, and a few children are simply not interested in it. For example, while most children make weapons with ice pop sticks, a couple of children spent long periods of time to create 3D objects in intricate designs.

From Ann Pelo's workshop, we learn that Ann has supported and documented the interest of a group of five girls in learning cartwheel over a year. It was amazing and inspiring. The team thinks we should challenge ourself to devote time and efforts to extend the interests of small groups. Most important of all, we want to have parents'  input, so we decided to start a folder to document the experiences and interests of small groups. The folder will be updated weekly and displayed near the entrance where parents could have a quick look when dropping off or picking up their child. 

On the cover of the folder, we write: this folder encompasses how we at kindy are learning together. It's a collection of events, moments and thinking that is shaping our current quests with our learning community. 

Birthday Celebration

The first week back from the holidays had been extremely busy with several children turning five and going to school. We have a tradition of hosting a birthday mat-time to farewell the children. The families of the birthday children are invited to the mat-time too. The routine includes looking at their learning story portfolios and art folders; reading out a birthday card signed by everyone, children and teachers; blowing candles on a play dough birthday cake; and playing a party game.

The idea of reading the portfolio is to involve the child to revisit and reflect his learning journey, which hopefully helps the child to get ready for the next step of his growth and development. I love to draw the children's attention to their first photo, pointing out that they have grown up physically. As I'm a petite adult, whenever I comment that they have grown taller with long legs and long arms, the child tends to agree and proudly suggests that he is nearly as tall as I am.

When browsing their learning stories portfolio, I will let children choose a few stories of special importance to them to read out loud. It's a moment for the child to assess his learning and achievement. I feel good when the child picks out projects in which he has invested lots of time and energy.  But when the child says his favorite moment is the christmas party or the trip to the museum, I will start questioning whether the teachers have done enough to support the child's learning. I know I'm a bit silly. Who doesn't love Christmas with Santa giving out presents?

For the birthday cake and card, the teacher usually involve the birthday child in making and decorating them. It is a nice moment of one on one, and the child will also learn the little poem to be glued on the birthday card. Later during the mat-time, some confident children choose to read out (from memory sometimes) the poem, or everyone will help reading out the poem together. The birthday child and his family really enjoy the opportunity to show off their 'literacy skills'.

Since the kindy community has become diverse in ethnicity recently. We worry that families of other cultures may feel uncomfortable with the way we celebrate, so we wrote up a note to parents with children turning five, explaining what we are doing at kindy and that it is up to them whether they want to involve their child in the celebration. So far, no parents opt out. It proves that we are worrying too much. It worths the trouble though, as we respect parents as part of our programme.

Use of camera in early childhood

My kindergarten used to put out two cameras in a basket and let the children help themselves. The cameras did not last long and both were broken in less then six months. Subsequently, the head teacher lost faith and no more camera for children. I believe that young children are competent learners and problem solvers. So, I let them use my camera often.

My camera is still in good order. I guess it's because they need to ask me first before they can lay their hand on my camera. It gives me an opportunity to remind them about how to look after the camera. The children learn fast, they understand that the privilege to use the camera is conditional on using the shoulder/ wrist's strap in case the camera drops; they know they need to return the camera back to my safe hands after they have finished. If they are beginners, I will go through the basics of which button to press to shoot a photo; how to check the screen to confirm whether their fingers are in the way; and which button to press to view the images taken and so on. Also, I will supervise for a while before I let them move out of my sight.

Let children use the camera addresses adult-child power imbalances in documentation of children's learning. The children are allowed to have a say and their voice is heard/visible. Yesterday, a child asked me for the camera to take a photo of his Lego construction.  As I was documenting another child's learning, I could not lend him the camera and I offered to take the photos instead. So, the boy asked me to capture only the part made by him, and he wanted me to avoid the adjoining part built by another child. I notice that children always have a sense of purpose in using the camera to document their learning.

Similarly, photography initiated by children provides rich insights into how children experienced art. Rosemary Richards of Massey University has done a research called "young visual ethnographers: Children's use of digital photography to record, share and extend their art experiences". She found out that photos taken by children reveal their perspectives; and that children looking at photos together with an adult heightens consciousness of the art experiences. So many times during the day, the children invite their teacher to enjoy their art,  "come to see my painting, do you like it?" Use of camera by children enhances the joint experience.

Specifically, photographs promote interpersonal and interpersonal dialogues. The child has some images to refer to when revisiting, evaluating, analyzing, and simply talking about his art experiences to a teacher or a friend. Even though the child looks at the photos on his own, he is looking at the artwork with fresh eyes , as Rosemary says, he is "having a sense of audience". He is taking up the role of an audience as well as the artist. The experience helps the child to develop metacognitive skills to think, to critique, and to improve.