 |
 |
|
What is ELS?
Support Expeditionary Learning
Our Publications |
Volume VII, Issue No.1
Our Practice: Inside
the Expeditionary Learning Classroom
The Never Ending Line: Part II Resources on Documenting Student Work
Our
Practice: Inside the Expeditionary Learning Classroom Our use of transcripts in the classroom stems from a desire to record a window into the childis world. We first encountered transcripts during a state early childhood conference. During a session on the Reggio Emilia philosophy, we were struck by the depth of language that children use as they construct new knowledge. Teachers were closely watching and recording preschoolersi actions, processes, and thoughts as they worked on complex projects. We were fascinated by the focus on the child and the respect for their work and abilities. We were inspired to adapt these techniques for use in our expeditions. At first, we used the transcripts as a means for communicating with parents, to give them a peek into the childis day. As we began to do more and more recording, we saw the value of in-depth documentation. Expedition vocabulary and concepts were evident in the conversations between children and in self-talk. We then added transcripts as a checkpoint along the way; for reflecting on what we had learned and to summarize important information in a group setting. The transcripts show not only the extent of vocabulary and depth of knowledge but show how all members of the community make a contribution. [This article is incomplete.]
Lessons
of the Reggio Approach Part II: Why Document? In the entryways to the early childhood centers in Reggio Emilia, Italy, calendars announce scheduled activities and projected curriculum for each of the classrooms. Next to the calendars, teachers post descriptions of what actually happened in the classroom. Accompanying excerpts from journals might explain, for example, the teacheris thinking about how a certain project evolved based on childrenis interests. Through this display—a first encounter with the school for community visitors or parents—the school community explains not only practical information, but meaningful examples of how teachers approach learning in the school. For Reggio educators, documentation is more than just an informational bulletin board or display of lovely student work because it explains the depth of the childis thinking and learning and provokes participation by the audience. Documentation is a working tool that helps Reggio teachers develop flexible, yet comprehensive curriculum plans that are respectful of children, said Lella Gandini, liaison for Reggio Children in the United States. Rather than a suitcase full of papers or photographs, documentation is selected, organized, and treated as records to revisit, and as important experiences and observations to study and analyze, reports Brenda Fyfe, professor of education at Webster State University in St. Louis, Missouri. Teachers come up with projected plans based on their interpretation of the childrenis interest and then record the childrenis activities, through extended or brief notes, slides, photographs, videotaping, or tape recording. They then share the recorded information with the children to push them to revisit the experience, and analyze it with their colleagues. Then, after reaching a consensus of interpretations, they revise the plans. So, there is a cyclical nature in the way documentation generates projected plans, and vice versa. Examples of documentation panels, integral to the Reggio approach, are seen throughout Reggio centers being discovered and pored over by groups of children, faculty members, or parents. The panels are finely designed display boards using inexpensive materials such as photos, student work, text of childrenis conversations, and meaningful explanation (see box Elements of a Panel). Because of the broad role of documentation, the product is not always formal and might serve simply to further understanding of a situation, with varying detail, depending on the audience.
Inviting Parent and Community Awareness
Displaying panels of documentation is a substantive way for teachers to communicate to the childrenis family what happens in school. The documentation, which could be a portfolio of student work or a display of one studentis work representative of the entire class, acts as a tool to help move parents from involvement to intellectual partnership, Fyfe said. In the panels, teachers unveil the process and thinking behind what the children are learning. Rather than the teacher acting as the expert imparting information about the curriculum, parents and teachers begin to work together for individual children and for the classroom community as a whole. For example, in much the same way Reggio teaching teams work, teachers might share a documentation panel with a group of parents and then ask them to think about how to move the project forward. In some cases, a family might remember their child mentioning something about the project at home, which could lead to a next step, according to Fyfe. Parents can also contribute to the classroom through helping with tape recording, taking notes, or transcribing for documentation projects. The Reggio system also views documentation as an important way to give the community at large, which funds the early childhood centers, a view into the classroom. In Reggio schools, teachers realize that the families bring aspects of the community into school with them and so the community is considered a vital part of the school, and educators are committed to relating what is happening in the centers to the wider community. The documentation panels create an archive of the history of the school and of the joy in learning passed down from one class to another.
Observing and Understanding Children
In order to begin documenting a classroom experience, the teacher must observe the children and listen carefully to their conversations. In one example of a documented project, five-year-old children were corresponding with a preschool in Washington D.C. by fax. The teacher noticed that the children wondered how these letters could have arrived by fax at the local tobacco store. Over an extended time period, the children began discussing their theories, including one in which a bird transported the fax across the ocean. Each child drew a picture of his or her own idea, and then they had more conversations. But the children liked best the theory that a plastic pipe had transported the fax through Italy, around a tree, through the ocean, past an island and the Statue of Liberty, to Washington D.C. As a group, the class did a large drawing of this image and then took the time to create a model of it. In cases like the one above, the teacher,
whose role is of participant-observer and researcher, does not simply
rely on her memories. She observes as she takes notes, tape records
and/or takes photographs, and then later can go back to those records
of conversations, and interpret them. Each tool used has its own
potential and limitation. For example, the photographer must decide
on which child to focus. Using a variety of media helps overcome
those biases. The teaching team then reviews the transcript or notes
on the conversation and the photographs, and brings their view of
the most important points to a group of teachers. Picking photographs,
Gandini said, is often particularly difficult. While it is important
to narrow down the selection, Reggio teachers often place the photographs
that were not selected in a transparent pocket available for those
interested in more detail. As teachers revisit the conversations
and activities of the children, the team gains new insights into
what the children were thinking at the time and reach new levels
of understanding. Observations, looking at records, and interpreting
them with other teachers allow them to hypothesize about childrenis
learning processes and desires, and are all important to help design
a curriculum that is
Story
Making in the Classroom I find myself in need of educational documentation and assessment tools that speak to the unique strengths, needs, interests, and diversity found among the infinite combinations of individuals which comprise my first- and second-grade classroom. How might story devices document and articulate curriculum in a manner that meets the academic and social needs of the students? I have just started responding to these questions in my teaching and my path into the questioning is through story. Last year, my students and I read many legends and stories about and by Native Americans, primarily Northwest coastal but including some Plains and Southwest Native stories. Sitting in front of a blank wall, we collectively fleshed out the physical landscape. In more than 15 books, we had read about mountains, volcanoes, rivers, caves, deserts, etc. As the children rapidly poured forth the landscape, I wrote the words on small strips of paper and they attached them to the wall. We repeated the process for characters and objects: Clamshell Boy, Little Firefly, Cloud Eater, Jumping Mouse, Basket Woman . . . fire sticks, berries, baskets, the four directions, rocks, and feathers. The children began drawing and cutting out pictorial representations of the word labels they saw, and taping them in between and around the words. The whole process for this initial stage lasted nearly all of the afternoon. Soon characters and objects from many settings were nestled side by side, looking at one another. No matter that there were easily a half dozen more Bumblebee Sisters buzzing around the paper hive than there had been in the original story, or that several Grandmother Suns shone down from just below the ceiling. Every child had taken part in the creation of our wall. As the year evolved, our notion of
what constituted
The
Never Ending Line: Part II Experience Two students discovered a trap door
under the carpet in our room. We managed to pry off the lid (using
the principle of the lever which we were studying in simple machines)
and the class was anxious to climb down and explore. I knew I was
going to succumb to the excitement anyway, but I figured I might
as well try to use the experience to promote their learning. I challenged
them to convince me that exploring the trap door would have educational
value before I would let them climb down. They said they would measure
the perimeter of the school (it was a crawl space that went all
around the school).
Resources
on Documenting Student Work Windows on Learning (includes book, video, and teacher materials workbook). Inspired by the work of educators in early childhood centers in Reggio Emilia, Italy, Judy Harris Helm, Sallee Beneke, and Kathy Steinheimer have put together a practical approach to documenting what happens in school. Based on their own experiences working with teachers and children in schools and early childhood centers throughout Illinois, the authors have compiled a useful set of tools, including a book, video, and workbook of teacher materials. While the book is geared toward young children and the examples are mainly from early childhood centers, many elements of its straight forward approach are applicable to documenting project work at any age level. The first part of the book Windows on Learning—Documenting Young Childrenis Work ($19.95) describes the value of documentation; a framework for deciding what and when to document; an in-depth account of the types of documentation (such as portfolios, project narratives, observations of child development, products, and self-reflections) including samples. In Part II, the authors explore how to collect, organize, and share documentation with various audiences, including children, colleagues, parents, and the community. This section also relates how documenting work helps teachers learn about their own practice and make decisions about curriculum and assessment. Part III provides a detailed example of the documentation of one project. Teachersi Materials for Documenting Young Childrenis Work: Using Windows on Learning ($9.95) is a step-by-step system for documenting student work, including sections on preparation, documentation, analysis, and presentation. Windows on Learning: A Framework for Making Decisions ($40) is a 20-minute video set in a classroom at the Valeska Hinton Early Childhood Education Center in Peoria, Illinois, which describes and films the documentation process. In The Languages of Learning: How Children Talk, Write, Dance, Draw, and Sing Their Understanding of the World (1994), Karen Gallas, a first- and second- grade teacher in Brookline, Massachusetts, documents and describes how careful attention to children's thinking, and the many ways that children have of expressing their thinking, theorizing, and understanding, leads to a rich curriculum in which every child has a respected voice. Gallas describes her work as a teacher-researcher and the role of the arts in teaching and learning. This inspiring narrative is useful for gaining new tools to help children achieve literacy, new ways to think about learning and creating curriculum, and ways to document the complexity of classroom life.
All the above resources are published
by Teachers College Press (New York: 1998). To order, call toll-free
800-575-6566 or send a fax to 802-864-7626. |
