April Fools was a month early today (blog 12)

1. Discuss the importance of documentation to teaching and to a child's learning.

2. What are the challenges of documentation to the classroom teacher?

3. What are some strategies that would help address these challenges?

1. Documenting is important to teaching because it reinforces the teacher’s ideas and can help debunk some misconceptions and biases. Often times when there is a chaotic environment or a lot of activity in the classroom, minor details will be left out and the impression of the class is not an accurate representation of what was actually learned. Documenting can reveal the actual progress, beyond the overall impression which can be misleading. Teachers will learn to be better ‘listeners’ and will then become better teachers. Communication is made easier between the students and the teachers, because although their thinking may never behave the same, they will have the opportunity to witness how a child thinks and will then have a better understanding of what the children are trying to communicate. The students will benefit (BEING MORE PREPARED TO RESPOND TO FUTURE LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES)

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2. Understanding documenting is difficult for teachers who were not brought up with it. Appreciating its efficacy is foreign to the conservatives. Incorporating it into the daily schedule is a challenge, because a teacher’s time is already stretched in many directions. Selecting the best means of documentation is also a great challenge, because there are so many variables to consider. The activity being documented, the goals for the students and the teacher, the detail required in the documentation and the permissions regarding the type of documentation and the abilities of the documentor must all be taken into consideration.

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3. Strategies to effectively document are essential. In order to avoid unnecessary burdening of the teacher and permit the most pertinent documenting, each activity being documented should have a customized documenting system. Different modes of documentation accomplish different things, as we discussed in class today. For example, an acting or dance performance will not be done justice with a few notes on a notepad, a documentation mode that reflects the media, such as a video recording would be most applicable. However, documenting a student’s thought organization for an essay question would not be well documented with a video recorder, but in this case written notes are effective. In order to avoid begrudging the documentation process because of the time pressures, a teacher would be better off to incorporate documentation into the daily routines of the classroom and the students. If it is a music class, leave a tape recorder running during everyday rehearsals. An Art teacher could set time out once a week to critique the students’ progress in their projects as a class.

P.S

I found that today was more useful in building my understanding of documenting. Having an intellectual and balanced discussion about how to use documentation to resolve issues in the classroom was much more stimulating and impactful than "reading" the assignment. Kaitlyn and I were able to address differing points and form a stronger sense between us of what documenting can accomplish.

P.S.S

that april fool's remark is in reference to the fact that HARDLY ANYONE showed up to class. Was this a joke?! I don't know if they all had 'golden hangovers' or if they were absent for honest reasons. But the fact that there were only 4 of us, and only one of us had completed the reading assignment was incredibly disrespectful to Jen and was a bad showing on all our parts, myself included, with the exception of Kaitlyn who actually came to class on time and prepared.