Winter Staff Development Day: Documentation, Storybook Analysis, and Dual Language Learning
By Coco Delaporte and Amy Shin, Teachers
On an especially windy winter day in February, the Bing staff came together to delve into the topic of pedagogical documentation. Adrienne Lomangino, our pedagogical specialist, and Emma Vallarino, the manager of Bing’s Kordestani Family Program for Parents and Educators, led the session by asking us to tease apart a portion of the book Pedagogical Documentation in Early Childhood: Sharing Children’s Learning and Teachers’ Thinking by Susan Stacey.
The community at Bing sees documentation as an essential component of teacher learning and setting a successful stage for children in the classroom. Documentation is collected in the classrooms by taking photos and videos, note-taking, drawing, and transcribing children’s words. While most visitors may only get a glimpse of the work on the display boards throughout the school, there’s a host of intentions and value that goes unseen. In this article, we will break down the various aspects of play documentation in the classroom and explore actions our teachers take to continuously expand on our current practice.
The portion of Stacey’s book the teaching staff examined speaks about using documentation in the classroom as a means to reflect and highlight experiences that happen on a daily basis. We sift through collected information in order to identify dominant strands of children’s thoughts or ideas. Documentation showcases what children are doing and what is valuable. The act of synthesizing collected information also serves as a guide for teachers to hone in on what needs support, scaffolding, and further support learning.
Documentation can also be a means for visually presenting what is valuable and important to the community where the children belong. A display of this information can be summarized using a documentation board displayed in the classroom. This allows for staff and visitors alike to understand and view a classroom’s philosophy, approaches, and beliefs. It reflects and illustrates our learning environment, drawing readers in to understand and follow what is happening in the classroom community. Documentation boards can be found in each Bing classroom as well as in the atrium.
Once the teaching teams had an opportunity to discuss the various aspects of pedagogical documentation, we gathered to share our findings. We found that documentation allows teachers to be more mindful of children’s interactions and our own biases, misconceptions, and perceptions about children. They allow us to uncover themes in children’s play and reveal next steps to best support their learning. The teams found that they all shared the desire to build a more sustainable culture of documentation.
Another finding from the discussion was the need to revisit photos to analyze patterns of children’s interests as they emerge. One strategy was to create a binder for compiling photos and short documentation notes from each area of the classroom to provide quick insight about the classroom in its entirety. Another suggested method was to create a template that can help structure and standardize documentation. Some stated the importance of including one strong anecdote in their documentation per week, while others spoke about placing priority on speaking about documentation during their team meetings.
After the documentation discussion, we delved into an analysis of story time books. Choosing a good storybook is a foundational component of a meaningful story time. To refresh our repertoire and consider the nuances of new and classic books, teachers broke into small groups to examine what to consider when selecting a high-quality storybook. Some of the visual aspects to consider include whether the book has clear text and illustrations that are also clear and easy to interpret. Other considerations are whether the book is age appropriate, a topic of interest, and accessible for children with different learning needs. Because children feed off their teacher’s energy, another important aspect is whether the storyteller is excited about the book. Teachers each brought a book they were excited about to reflect on and introduce to the group.
In the afternoon, director Jennifer Winters shared important statistics about the diversity of our Bing population; for example, there are 48 languages spoken across the Bing community and nearly three-fourths of the children are exposed to a language other than English at home. The floor was then open for teachers to share their own experiences highlighting and appreciating the diversity of languages and cultures in the classroom. Several teachers described how they invite children and their families during story time to translate songs to a language spoken at home. Teachers also shared how each child felt recognized and displayed a sense of pride when their languages were represented. Mara Beckerman, Bing’s music and movement specialist, remarked on how the song “Friends 1, 2, 3” is utilized to help represent the children’s languages in the classroom. In addition to singing it in English, she explained how the song can be sung in various languages and how she observed children being overjoyed when their language was represented.
“Learning and teaching should not stand on opposite banks and just watch the river flow by; instead, they should embark together on a journey down the water. Through an active, reciprocal exchange, teaching can strengthen learning and how to learn,” the late Loris Malaguzzi once said. He was the visionary thinker behind internationally renowned municipal infant-toddler centers and preschools in the small city of Reggio Emilia in northern Italy, famous for their innovative and progressive educational philosophy and practice. Just as their philosophy rests on the importance of reciprocal learning, the Bing community continues to strive to improve and sustain our learning journey with children and the rest of the community by thoughtfully representing and celebrating each child.