Week 3 Reflection

Last week, I learned about purposes and the process of documentation. I learned how important it is to document a child's learning, and how easy it is. I learned that in my own classroom, I would love the ideas of making a portfolio and having a class blog which shows families what the kids are doing each week. With these two areas of documentation, kids can revisit their work and it shows their progress over a long period of time. Taking photos is another great way to document their learning as well while doing an activity, so I would upload these photos to the class blog for viewing or put them in their portfolio. I also would like to use kids' work to document their learning, like their arts and crafts or story’s and sentences they write. I like how authentic that is and how it represents each child’s specific and individual abilities. 

The Reggio-Emilia approach focuses on expression in a child's learning. This can look like documentation which shows a visual of how they see the world. Kids can construct their own knowledge and the teacher is there for guidance. Children’s interest drives the curriculum and it shows a basis for understanding rather than measurement. They are evaluated by documentation of their learning; like panels or portfolios. The project approach is similar in that content could be driven by the student. With this approach, kids share the information they have learned with others rather than getting tested on it or documentation, which builds understanding.These two definitely have more freedom in learning and are formative, rather than the conventional approach, which is summative and has little freedom. The conventional approach is measured by things like academic performance. 

I can now better support the learning of future students by figuring out a balance of free learning driven by interest and summative evaluations. Like the one I created in class: