Search

This case study uses documentation as a tool for formative assessment to interpret the learning of twin boys with significantly delayed language skills. Reggio-inspired documentation (the act of collecting, interpreting, and reflecting on traces of learning from video, images, and observation notes) focused on the unfolding of the boys' nonverbal communication skills that helped inform planning and implementing instruction. Documentation is displayed, with an interpretation of the learning and a demonstration of the boys' strengths and competencies. The authors discuss how a public display of documentation sparked a collaborative inquiry among teachers, family, and the children themselves. Implications for practice outline guidelines in using documentation to assess learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the use of documentation—to observe, record, and interpret the learning of children and their pre-service teachers to make that learning visible in order to point to it and engage in a collaborative dialogue. Inspired by the work of the Reggio Emilia infant-toddler and pre-schools in Italy, this study extends the idea of documenting young children’s individual and group learning to adult learning in a graduate seminar with nine pre-service teachers. Shifts made to teaching a seminar included professor and pre-service teachers co-constructing the meaning of a learning group, following a protocol to look at children’s work, sharing public reflections, interpreting the learning that took place both between and in each seminar. The explicit effort to document adult learning led to creating a collective body of knowledge that extended to documenting children’s learning in elementary inclusive classrooms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]