In a recent post (Where’s the Beef?), I identified the problem with sharing ‘activities’ in online environments.
How do we help educators and leaders identify visible learning as opposed to visible activities?
Silvia Rosenthal Talisano carried the conversation further, with the suggestion of the #document4learning hashtag for sharing learning openly in social media.
My colleagues in the Ontario Early Years Division are interested in the answer to this question:
What system level structures and strategies are you finding that are supportive in moving from a culture of activities towards a culture of learning with evidence of children’s thinking and learning as the foundation?
What examples can you share?
Resources:
Ontario Capacity Building Series: Pedagogical Documentation
Hi Donna,
What a great question. At the York Catholic District School Board our Early years team, led by Denise Cave, was able to buy an iPad for each teacher (K-1) and showed them how to use it to document student learning. The monograph you showed was the anchor for the professional learning. It’s amazing what your kids can do with an iPad and a place to store their work (we use GAFE). At the older grades, much time to professional learning has gone into teaching teachers how to use e-Portfolio (part of the Desire to Learn suite) for students to make decisions about the four questions in the IPP –Who am I? What are my opportunities? Who do I want to become? What is my plan for achieving my goals? We have a strong team leading learning here: Patty Zaroski, Michelle Bulger, Ines DiTullio, Daniel LaGamba and others. The emphasis has been on the students making the choices about what work best answers those questions, with help & discernment by the teacher in a supporting role.
Both these initiatives have been centrally supported by the Superintendents in our Curriculum Dept & our FIO & IT Department who work closely together at our Board to bring technology-enabled learning to our students.
Would love to hear other ways Boards are doing this!