Week 3 Reflection

This week, my learning has continued to grow with the concept of documentation. Documentation is a dynamic record of a child's progress. Documentation and observation are closely tied together. Teachers who are intentional use both elements to plan instruction and set up an engaging learning environment for their students. Documentation is important to evaluate a child's progress throughout a period of time, and it can be used as a communication tool with families. Documentation can also serve the teacher, so that he or she can evaluate the effectiveness of their teaching methods. 

I learned that documentation is unique and can include...

- photos of the child's work

- comments from the teacher

- graphs or data from assessments

- pictures, webs, or artistic expressions 

One method of documentation is the portfolio method! I really like this method because children can truly see their progress as the year progresses. When I was in kindergarten through 6th grade, my school did portfolios. Your portfolio would get passed through all the grades! At the end of the year, we had portfolio day, and our families were invited into the classroom! They would help us pick which work to select for our portfolio, and we were able to select 3 pieces. It was cool to see all of our work from the year and sort through everything. We would write a brief reflection on the piece and why we chose it! It is was amazing at the end of 6th grade to see how I progressed since kindergarten. This is definitely something that I want to implement in my future classroom! 

Conventional vs. Reggio Emilia Styles of Documentation- 

- Both methods of documentation are useful but different from the next! They are similar because they are both methods of documentation that are used to assess and monitor a child's progress. 

- Conventional methods are usually summative, meaning that they are usually high stakes, graded, and determine whether students have met overall goals. Summative assessments usually include tests, benchmarks, or standardized tests. Children are usually compared by their scores to a group of students. 

- The Reggio Emilia style is formative, meaning that these methods "inform" the instructional methods of the teacher. They are used as an assessment tool for learning and are usually low- stakes and apart of everyday life in the classroom. The Reggio Emilia approach tends to view collaboration as a group and project based learning as critical components! 

The knowledge that I learned this week regarding documentation will greatly shape the practices in my future classroom! The portfolio assessment is definitely something I want to implement because it allows children to feel a sense of pride in their growth and development. Also, I love the concept of project based learning because children can really take charge of their individual learning. Although I will have to use conventional methods to some extent, it is important to mix in some elements of the Reggio Emilia approach because they are so beneficial!