Windows on Learning: Documenting Children's Work

Description

This book presents an approach to thinking and communicating about documentation. The authors studied documentation in their own urban school and from a number of early childhood programs including the schools of Reggio Emilia. The result is a framework, a collection system, and display methods that work in U.S. schools. The book shows how documentation can reconcile demands for meaningful, engaged and intellectually stimulating learning experiences with demands for accountability. Methods are applicable to many different curriculum models, including thematic teaching and the project approach. The book first presents a framework of three windows as a way to think about the power of documentation. Then a variety of ways that documentation can occur is presented in a documentation web with five types of documentation. A chapter for each type of documentation shows how it can be collected, analyzed, and shared. The book features extensive examples of children’s and teachers’ work in urban, rural and suburban environments. At the end of the book is extensive documentation of the Mail Project, one project in an urban prekindergarten program for children at risk. The web is segmented and applied throughout the mail project documentation so the reader can see how the different types of documentation were used to capture the learning that occurred in this outstanding project. A companion book "Teacher Materials for Documenting Young Children's Work" also available on Amazon.com provides forms, schedules, and display ideas for implementing the ideas presented in "Windows on Learning". A section of "Teacher Materials" lists course objectives with coordinated readings in "Windows" and assignments for incorporating documentation into assessment or curriculum courses or during practicum or student teaching experiences in early childhood education.