Tab 4: Understanding and Addressing Each Child's Needs

During the Mathematics Concepts course of the summer, I completed a Learning Story for a student, Dan, in the preschool practicum. The purpose of the Learning Story is to document a child’s learning in a holistic fashion and share it with their parents. Children develop mathematical thinking and reasoning skills even before the elementary years (Van de Walle, Karp, Bay-Williams, Wray, & Brown, 2019). I documented Dan’s learning through play, and witnessed his development of geometric understanding with friends as they arranged large wooden blocks to create a hideout. The student used various methods and blocks to build a fort, and later came to the realization that rectangles made for a better impenetrable “wall” for the fort. Dan demonstrated problem-solving skills and cooperation with peers through the play task. The exploration of shapes points to Dan’s burgeoning math expertise and geometrical understanding at his developmental stage.

Through the construction of the Learning Story, I had the opportunity to communicate with the student’s parents on Dan’s mathematical learning progress and development. Positive communication breeds a healthy relationship between parents and teacher, letting families know that we are a team invested in the academic, emotional, and social development and learning of the student. The Learning Story is a holistic lens through which educators can view the development of the child.

The Learning Story provided a learning opportunity for me, as an educator, to modify my understanding of assessment and its role in the classroom. It also provided me with a tangible form of holistic assessment that I can utilize to strengthen my relationship with families, and to prove to parents that we are a team seeking to educate their child in a manner that is not solely focused on numbers. Though it does not assess students in the traditional manner, the Learning Story still provides evidence of students reaching academic standards. This artifact demonstrates my care for the well-being of students and their learning in every aspect. It shows that I am an educator who understands the developmental stages of children’s mathematical, emotional, and social learning process, which is unique to each student.

I hope to utilize Learning Stories as an educator in my own classroom as not only a way to monitor student growth and to share that progress with families, but also as a way to inform future instruction. By following the unique learning process of each student and documenting their strengths and differences, I can better teach each of them and engage them in academic material. I can challenge students where they need to be pushed and scaffold instruction where there is a need. While there are trajectories and patterns children follow in their development as a learner, each child is unique and needs access to an environment that allows them to grow as an individual. As an educator, I hold the perspective that I can maximize the development and motivation of each student with insight from both my own observations in the classroom and from the family.