Pedagogical Documentation and Making

​If you've thought about running a makerspace in your classroom or school, you've probably heard of Laura Fleming and her makerspace planning model.

The key to the success of any makerspace is the voice of its' students. Our students' passions, interests and needs should be the driving force in the creation and implementation of our makerspaces.

Also important to note is that “no two school makerspaces should ever be exactly alike, because no two school communities are ever exactly alike” (Fleming, 2015).

From personal experience, I found our space to be much more rewarding for our students when I kept this in mind. I used to constantly compare the space we had last year to others I would see on Twitter. To be honest, I wasted time when I should have been channelling my energy to support the learning of our own students, and not to compare their learning to those of others. Personalizing the space to meet your students’ passions and interests will make the space successful, not the flashy gadgets you put inside it.

A key learning for me was to realize that our role in this environment was not to choose the tools the students would use to explore, innovate and create. Our role is guide their explorations (regardless of tool) and facilitate opportunities in and outside the classroom to ensure that meaningful and relevant learning occurs.

So how does one ensure that they know their learners best in order to provide the most enriching and productive learning environment?

(Enter Pedagogical Documentation....)

My UOIT M.Ed professor, Dr. Janette Hughes introduced me to the concept of pedagogical documentation (also known as "learning stories" in New Zealand and "pedagogical narration" in BC) as an option to explore for my project on makerspaces this term.

Pedagogical documentation is a form of documenting the learning in one's classroom/space that makes learning visible. Documentation can take many forms: video, photographs, conversations, anecdotal notes etc.

It calls on the teacher to accept the "humility of not knowing" or not to make assumptions about how their students learn. It requires one to document learning in order to wonder, question and reflect upon the learning experiences that are happening. One must look at learning through a student lens if we are to truly understand our learners and what environments/scaffolding we need to provide them in order to help them succeed.

Wien, Guyevskey & Berdoussis (2011) state that through the documentation process, teachers curate, analyze and reflect upon their understanding of what is occurring in the classroom through multiple lenses.

Through this analysis, we can come to new understandings about how learning occurs.

It is hoped that through the creation of this blog, I will be able to document the learning of students in our school, reflect on teaching practices and dialogue with our colleagues and students about how they envision continued learning experiences.

Ultimately, it will become a process which will inform our decisions of when and what to offer students in our maker environments. It is hoped that by listening, observing and making learning visible in our learning communities, we will be able to positively impact the delivery of meaningful and engaging learning opportunities in our classes.

References: Wien, C. A., Guyevskey, V., & Berdoussis, N. (2011). Learning to document in Reggio-inspired education. Early Childhood Research & Practice, 13(2). Retrieved from http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=PROF&sw=w&u=peel_dsb&v=2.1&it=r&id=GALE%7CA276438062&asid=7abc5f78d42b7827f3aaa6a41376660c

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