When it came to documentation, I learned very quickly that how we do documentation in Kindergarten is very different from how documentation is done in other grades, because it is based more squarely on observations and conversations, and it is up to you as the educator to find ways to make that learning visible for yourself, the students, other educators and parents. Although I would not say that I have found a method that works well for me yet, I have experimented with a few different methods and ideas given to me by other educators. Below are some examples of what my documentation looked like across my two LTOs this year, and what I think it might look like in the future.
The first method of documentation that I explored was using Pic Collage to store and organize the photos I had taken of student learning. This tool is fabulous, however, I did find it rather time-consuming to put together. The benefits of it are that it’s easy to display in the classroom (all you have to do is print it) and it’s also then easy to share with parents. The downside is that there are no direct organizational attributes in the system – all Pic Collage does is allow you to group photos together.
One reason why I do love Pic Collage is that it was easy to display our learning in a fun, colourful, interactive way in the classroom. This is the bulletin board I put together – I would print out a few collages each week to display on the board. The students loved seeing themselves and their learning represented!
Another method that I tried using was Google Keep. This was introduced to me by my NTIP mentor Jenn Whitty (Valleyview Public School) and she said that it worked well for a few reasons which I agree with:
1. You could share the “account” with more than one person, meaning both the educators could add photos and comments to the same page, making it great for that collaborative relationship
2. You can add writing underneath each photo as I did above – great for when you have those conversations during learning where you can write down what the child said to use later in a possible report card comment
3. There is some organization in the fact that you can “tag” each child and then they will all be grouped together so that you can see all of the information for one child together in one place
The one downside to this method is that there is still very little organization to it. Yes, you can group all pictures for 1 student together, but that’s it.
A teacher that I met during my NTIP classroom observations, Kelly Houle (Clara Brenton Public School) showed me her method of documentation – she would create a very simple table for each child, divide it up into the 4 frames, print it out and then have it with her during small group times where she can write down anything she needs to.
I do quite like this idea because I am more of a note-taker myself. The only difficulty that I have with this is that I have then created an extra step for myself to enter this information somewhere digitally where I have photos of the child as well – otherwise, it’s just not practical for report writing.
One thing that I would like to explore is Microsoft One Note as another teacher, Erin Newburn, said that she uses it because it gives her better organization of the documentation.
My Future Documentation
For me, I am looking for my documentation to be organized, allow me to have both photos and text, and be able to be shared with another educator. I also do not want to have a computer in front of me when I am working with a child as I want to be present for the learning. What I think this looks like for me going forward is this:
1. Pic Collage is great for creating learning stories to display in the classroom and share with parents
2. Potentially using a physical notebook of some sort where I can write anecdotal notes during learning times
3. Creating some sort of digital system (Google Keep, One Note or something else) to compile all of the photos and my notes together
I am hoping to be able to participate in a Google Keep PD session over the summer as I’d like to explore this option further.