Assessment beginning with stepping back and listening??

I have found these resources very helpful!

The concept of documentation is a procedure used to make learning visible, so that it can be recalled, revisited, reconstructed, interpreted, and reinterpreted as a basis for decision making. In-depth documentation can reveal the learning paths that children are taking and processes they are using in their search for meaning. Documentation is a tool for helping teachers and children reflect on prior experience; listen to each other’s ideas, theories, insights, and understandings; and then make decisions together about future learning paths. Taken from p.274 The Hundred Languages of Children

Traces of learning e.g. notes, photos and videos can be shared with children so they can examine their work.  Teachers scaffold the children’s reflections with probing questions which encourage the children to take their thinking further, or to look at their ideas again and explain to others. Children learn to self-assess.

The concept of a responsive curriculum and negotiated learning, that puts documentation at the centre of learning and teaching may raise questions from some observers.  As we share the advantages of this learning, mindsets experience change.

Documentation moves us beyond an interest in outcomes and moves us to an exploration of relationships and feelings that form the stuff of educative experience. (Yu, 2008)