She Blinded Me...With Interpretation!
Interpreting Documentation is not as Easy as one Would Think
To help me frame my thought processes over this experience, I am going to use the question prompts provided the Making Learning Visible Project.
Am I documenting my own words and actions as well as the students'?
Yes, I think so....but I question whether I'm prompting them too much. I notice when I watch and listen to myself, I often try to guide their thinking and paraphrase meaning that they haven't even reached yet? I don't think I'm asking the right questions. I still need to step back and not force the documentation. I wonder because I think I have something to prove or write about? Is it becoming too forced? I need to let the documentation happen more naturally.
And...I also sound like I'm shouting a lot. This is probably because it's often very loud in the makerspace - and I'm often interrupted by students during documentation. I can sometimes hear frustration in my voice - I'm documenting this wonderful experience and then we other students disrupting the quality of the recording by asking questions. How does my tone when I'm frustrated impact teaching and learning in our makerspace? How does it impact the learner if they can recognize my frustration? What kinds of protocols can we set into place so that we are all respectful, patient and cognizant of the documentation process? I mean, I don't want to become too formal and place too much emphasis as to not to lose the naturalness of the moment, but I do believe we certainly could put some protocols into place.
Perhaps, most importantly of all - I need to share this process with the students and tell them WHY I am documenting and what purpose it is serving for the makerspace. Have I even told them this? I don't think so - not a great move when we are supposed to be building partnerships! First new change on Monday!!
(I also need to work on my visual literacy skills and develop a steady hand with the camera - it's very hard to follow this video :)
Does the documentation help me re-examine things I did not initially notice or understand?
One thing I have definitely noticed, really disappoints me about my teaching is what (or whom) I appear to deem valuable in the makerspace. More documentation appears to be of boys in the space, rather than girls. Do I portray a gender bias in teaching or value one gender over the other? Really, it's a pretty disturbing thought and one practice that must be eradicated RIGHT AWAY!
One of the reasons could be - especially when we are dealing with coding and electronics, that the boys in our school are open to more learning. The problem then is two fold - I must adjust my documentation practices that so that I'm representing the learning of ALL the students, not just the ones who happen to be done first (which happens to be usually the boys). Secondly, we need to encourage the participation of more girls in these activities. How do I encourage our girls more in the makerspace? How can I find out more about what they are interested in and orchestrate learning opportunties that are perfect for their needs? How can it be seen that I do visibly value their learning! Do they notice? That is the last thing I intend! Hmmmm....more to think about.
Once I realized how I was documenting in the makerspace, I began to review my anecdotal notes. I often capture snippets of conversation as students are making. Because I do not identify who says what, when I share this form of documentation as captions on learning stories, I am much more impartial. How can I then, retain this neutrality when I document through visuals?
Does the documentation suggest next steps for teaching or learning? Does the documentation raise questions I can discuss with my colleagues or students?
Documentation certainly helps me to suggest next steps for teaching and learning. During our collaborative work periods in the learning commons, as I am documenting student learning - I will often spontaneously share the documentation I'm collecting with their classroom teacher. We begin a dialogue about what we are seeing and sometimes this work gets transferred to the classroom. While this experience is quite common with our kindergarten and primary teachers, there are more who are embracing the makerspace learning in the library learning commons and transferring it over into their classrooms to meet various curricular expectations. Through dialogue and discussion about what is happening in the space, learning partnerships and relationships are being formed that will only serve to benefit the learning of our students.
Students were very engaged and motivated when making dog homes out of loose parts in response to The Forest of Reading Book - Stanley Goes to School. We capitalized on this engagement and transferred the learning to apply making to the Gr 1 science curriculum.
Students were faced with the problem that Stanley needed a new home. They had to identify the purpose for his home and appropriate materials for building. Students then had to test their home to see how they met the success criteria we co-constructed together.
Students let their imaginations roam in response to the Forest of Reading book, Snap! Various creations were made using our loose parts bins. One of our grade two teachers saw the engagement and stories that were emerging from these creations. We shared our documentation and she brought it back to classroom to use as writing prompts. What resulted was magic. A reluctant writer wrote her first story.
After reading The Forest of Reading book Sometimes I Feel Like a Fox, Kindergarten students were very excited to make masks of animals they felt like they identified with. The teacher continued the learning in her classroom by inviting their "learning buddies" in grade seven down the next day to help the students write about their experiences.
Interpreting documentation is also helping us to get to know our students better and find their strengths in learning. Just recently, I was sharing a picture I took of a student who was playing with some Snap Circuits. I wish I had gotten a video! I described the experiences he went through that day, saying that his maker mindset and focus was phenomenal for the entire afternoon. This was a different experience to what she was witnessing in class and we talked about how we could use this learning to move forward.