Documenting with Learning Goals in Kindergarten

Our team has previously shared how we document children’s learning with tools like Seesaw and Google Forms. However, the tool we’re sharing in this post is about what we document with regards to noticing and naming the learning. It’s a compilation of “I can” statements in the form of Learning Goals in Kindergarten which correlates to the 2016 Ontario Kindergarten Curriculum and the Growing Success Kindergarten Addendum. We use this tool in the process of pedagogical documentation after lingering in the description phase of documenting what we see and hear and move to the interpretation phase. It’s not the only resource that we use and we don’t solely write about what is on there, but it is an important tool or guide. It not only helps us determine how individual children learn, but who they are as learners, and helps us garner a stronger image of the child. I can’t stress enough that we do not impose these learning goals as pre-established criteria that could limit the child or their learning, but rather, we may refer these goals and continue to look beyond them and beyond that of the curriculum to form better understanding of the richness and complexity of each child.

“The time adults spend observing and documenting, and then interpreting and reinterpreting documentation will make our time with children all the more meaningful and responsive. In addition, teachers learned the value of interpreting and reinterpreting documentation with children. As Carlina Rinaldi explains, this is done “in order to develop with the children, theories that give meaning to events and objects in their world”(Rinaldi 2001). -Gandini and Kaminsky

As an educator with a constructivist stance I believe that one of my roles is that of a researcher; to explore learning experiences side by side with children and strive to understand children’s learning and provoke their ideas. Our early years team uses pedagogical documentation as a way to capture and communicate learning stories including children’s ideas, feelings, and skill and concept development. These collections build relationships in learning and are reflected upon by our early years team, administrator, families, and children. Through the process of pedagogical documentation we, as educators, listen, observe, record conversations, discuss with families, and collect artifacts to understand the learning, how it develops, and how we can support it.

Rinaldi(2001) describes pedagogical documentation as “visible listening”. We are reminded to slow down and document what we see and hear without judgment. There are many protocols on documentation to refer to, but many urge the documenter to move to interpretation slowly and question what makes us come to those conclusions. What is the evidence of learning? Children have their own theories about their learning, and as educators, we use what they see and hear to make meaning of their meaning making. We allow ourselves to linger in the description phase and be curious about their learning before moving to interpretations, reflections, and advancing thinking.

Learning Goals in Kindergarten is a tool that I’ve created by compiling my learning from various sources referenced below to help our team better notice and name the learning of the four frames. I continue to tweak it overtime as our team and other local teams use it. It all came out of a need to notice and name the learning for the frame Problem-Solving and Innovating.

When my educating partner and I began our journey of documenting with the four frames we were feeling quite comfortable documenting reading, writing, and numeracy skills. We attribute that to all the wonderful learning TLDSB has been doing in these areas as well as our own professional development. The one frame that we felt the least equipped to document was Problem-Solving and Innovating. In our program we were noticing that children were problem-solving and innovating very differently from one another, but we didn’t have the language to communicate how they were developing within these differences. In fact, we used the words problem-solving regularly in their Communications of Learning, but felt as though there was deeper learning happening that we weren’t conveying. We had questions. What are the precise skills and concepts children develop in Problem-Solving and Innovating? Are they learning goals? How can we support learning goals in kindergarten? How can we extend the learning? How can we support children to take their next steps in learning in Problem-Solving and Innovating? How can we ensure we are not limiting the image of a child?

We felt as though we had lots of learning to do around noticing and naming the learning children were doing with regards to Problem-Solving and Innovating. So we turned to different resources from around the world to help develop a tool that we could use to help us document all the amazing learning our little learners were doing. We too are on a learning journey with regards to pedagogical documentation and are now equipping our littles with vocabulary to help communicate their innovative thinking. After developing learning goals for Problem-Solving and Innovating I felt compelled to do the same for the other three frames. You’ll be able to view Learning Goals in Kindergarten with all four frames on the document here. 

Like stated in the Growing Success Kindergarten Addendum, noticing and naming the learning serves as a vehicle for sharing learning goals and success criteria where educators help make the learning visible to children by offering language to help them describe their own learning.

“By “noticing and naming the learning”, providing guidance through descriptive feedback, and supporting the development of self-assessment skills, educators enable Kindergarten children to begin their development as autonomous, self-regulating, lifelong learners.” -Growing Success – The Kindergarten Addendum

As you peruse Learning Goals in Kindergarten, or perhaps even try it, please feel free to share your ideas with me at melanie.maxwell@tldsb.on.ca. I’m open to feedback as we all strive to better the learning of our youngest learners. Learning together as connected educators not only moves all of our learning forward, but supports us in understanding the learner over the learning.

“Schools need to be “learner-centered” not “learning-centered”. There is a difference.”

-G Couros

Please keep in mind, if you do use this tool, that it is not meant to box children in or limit the image of the child, but to give educators language to support writing documentation that showcases children’s learning. I continue to remind myself to always be open to uncharted thinking and learning that may go beyond any framework or tool.

 

References

Critical and Creative Thinking Learning Continuum

Applied Design, Skills and Technologies curriculum

Ontario Ministry of Education. (2016). Growing Success – The Kindergarten Addendum: Assessment, Evaluation, and Reporting in Ontario Schools. http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/policyfunding/growingSuccessAddendum.htm

Ontario Ministry of Education. (2016). The Kindergarten Program

Pedagogical Documentation, Capacity Building Series http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/literacynumeracy/inspire/research/CBS_Pedagogical.pdf

Reflections on the Relationship Between Documentation and Assessment in the American Context: AN INTERVIEW WITH BRENDA FYFE, Lella Gandini and Judith Allen Kaminsky