A Guide to Documenting Learning

by Silvia Rosenthal Tolisano

  Mastery.

  Mastery, according to Pink, does not mean obtaining perfection. It means having the desire to improve. Motivated learners naturally investigate, research, and apply what they learn to improve their understanding.

  An example of this is Janet’s motivation to master sketchnoting as a cognitive notetaking technique. When she first began, it was a laborious and time-consuming process. Her mind was 100% focused on the rudimentary how-tos for using a digital sketchnoting tool. Over time, this lessened and she found more of her mental energy was focused on what she wanted the sketchnote to convey to viewers based on what she read or viewed. When she occasionally paused to study and reflect on the quality of her sketches to determine if she was improving, she did recognize visual evidence of her improvement. But more important to her was the realization that her thought-process while creating her sketchnotes had become an important part of her creation process and was becoming more sophisticated.

  Documenting provides evidence of one’s acquisition of learning over time, which motivates self-directed learners in their pursuit of mastery.

  Purpose.

  During his TED Talk, Pink stated that purpose is, “The yearning to do what we do in the service of something larger than ourselves.” Sharing and amplifying documentation artifacts embraces this motivational element. We have seen students more excited and engaged when they are producers of knowledge and content, as well as advancing their understanding when connected with local and global learning communities. Sharing with and learning from experts beyond a traditional range of influence embraces the foundational premise of heutagogy: self-motivation and the desire to expand one’s knowledge and understanding based on a topic of interest.

  The immediacy of receiving social media responses plays a neurological motivation role that often causes learners to want to continue documenting, sharing, and amplifying their learning. Price (2013), expanding on Wise’s (2004) comment, notes that, “Neuroscience suggests that every time you post a request on Twitter for a particular reference or news report you missed, and you get an immediate response, you get a little dopamine hit.” For some heutagogical learners, creating artifacts is all the motivation they need to continue investigating, researching, and applying their gained knowledge to new situations. Others find the extrinsic motivation of interacting with others via social media aids in expanding or refining their thinking and learning.

  Heutagogical documentation embraces the metacognition involved in documenting learning. When motivated learners capture evidence and reflect on it, what is discovered informs them of the next steps needed to further their desired learning. It also sheds light on a learner’s evolving pathway of understanding, including evidence over time of successes, failures, perseverance, and persistence that is leading him or her to reach a desired learning outcome or goal.

  Summing Up

  Pedagogical and heutagogical documentation represent two different approaches for thinking about how learning takes place. These approaches can be used solo or in tandem.

  For an in-tandem example, a teacher could document her students’ learning process to gain insight into their abilities and approaches to tackling new information. She reflects on the documentation artifacts to determine instructional needs that will best serve her students (pedagogical documentation). Simultaneously, she uses the artifacts that represent a newly attempted instructional practice as evidence for her professional learning. By reflecting on the artifacts in comparison to student engagement and results prior to the new practice she can determine if the practice is making a positive impact and decide what she needs to do next based on her reflections (e.g., seek assistance, tweak her delivery, keep on instructing as is).

  Defining the Difference Between Displaying and Documenting

  As mentioned previously, simply capturing snapshots of students during a learning activity does not facilitate learning; therefore, it does not constitute pedagogical documentation. Without an attempt in meaning making, reflecting, and thinking about one’s thinking in relationship to artifacts, the documentation serves no pedagogical or heutagogical purpose and creates mere display.

  What Is the Difference Between Displaying and Documenting?

  Displaying refers to making what has been done or happened visible to an audience. What is displayed may or may not be noticed (e.g., parents going to a school open hours may or may not stop and look at the student reports displayed on a bulletin board in the hallway outside the classroom; see Image 3.6), or may not convey students’ thinking or reasoning concerning what is displayed (e.g., teacher posts a summary card next to the display of her students’ illustrations of the four seasons from the viewpoint of one oak tree as it changes over a calendar year).

  Displaying is documenting without a specific purpose or goal being captured during the learning process or over time. Traditional displays may consist of posted papers, reports, photographs, or artwork to showcase and share what students have been learning or examples of best work. Displays can also be three-dimensional, such as dioramas, prototypes created for an invention convention, or history fair display boards. Once displays are taken down, they are usually sent home where, in the best-case scenario, continued to be displayed on a refrigerator door. In the worst-case scenario, they are immediately thrown away or put into storage.

  There are times when displaying from a documenting OF learning perspective is appropriate. For example, teachers are often charged with displaying samples of student work in the school’s foyer, that may be educational, holiday crafts, or athletic accomplishments. Teachers often create bulletin board displays of student exemplars emulating quality work. All of these types of displays can be motivating for some students because everyone who walks by sees their work.

  Image 3.6

  Any time a teacher displays student work outside the classroom walls, there is an opportunity to share the learning with a larger audience. Even more powerful is when what is being shared literally incorporates the students’ voices. For example, an art teacher had her students create informational narratives about their soon-to-be-displayed artwork and created QR codes for the narratives to accompany the artwork. Passers-by could study the artwork and listen to each artist share his or her thinking behind the piece on display (see Images 3.7 and 3.8, and scan QR Code 3.2).

  Given the array of online tools now available, it is not difficult to create displays that audiences can view and experience in a shareable and amplified way. With the ability to upload and publish instantly at little or no cost, anyone can create content that can be accessed by local and global audiences. This does not imply that students are to be given the freedom to do so at any time while in a classroom environment, nor should every artifact created be put on display. Rather, the point is that the ability to share and amplify artifacts has become much easier and provides learners with experiences in being producers beyond what was possible just a decade or so ago.

  QR Code 3.2 Scan this QR code to access Jamie’s explanation of her displayed artwork.

  http://langwitches.me/jamie

  Image 3.7

  Created by Jamie Bielski

  Image 3.8

  When students and teachers capture moments from an ongoing flow of learning they can freeze a moment in time or home in on significant moments to observe, study, and interpret in connection to the learning focus and goal. Whether this is done from a pedagogical or heutagogical viewpoint, the purpose is to intentionally move beyond the mere act of capturing what is taking place to contemplating and reflecting on what is taking place as evidence of moving toward understanding or application of the learning focus or goal.

  For example, look at the side-by-side visuals in Image 3.9. The left-side image’s white box provides a caption, but interpretation of the photograph is left up to the viewer to infer. The right-side image’s white box provides a bit more detailed caption, but more importantly its annotexted photograph provides key details related to the learning. The annotexter
had to first reflect, contemplate, and decide what was important information to convey in a concise, yet meaningful message.

  Using documentation as display can be a first step for new documenters. If documenting for display is done strategically over a period of time, it can become a documenting FOR or AS learning opportunity. For example, an individual tweet cannot convey much about a learner. But when viewed as growth over time by studying a series of tweets, the tweets collectively reveal what the learner values or believes on a more complex level.

  With this said, it is important to balance displaying with purposefully documenting opportunities wherein the act of learning while it is taking place is captured, reflected on, and shared with others to gain helpful insights and feedback.

  What Is Acceptable as Evidence of Learning When Documenting?

  Often times, educators, both teachers and administrators, assume that everyone knows and speaks the same educational language or interprets it the same way. Think about the term learning. Ask a few colleagues and you may be surprised at the variations of definitions shared. Whether documenting from a pedagogical or heutagogical perspective, when engaging collaboratively in the documenting process, all stakeholders need to come to consensus on answers and examples to these questions:

  What does learning mean to me? Why?

  What would I consider evidence of learning in general?

  What would I consider evidence of learning for my students?

  What would I consider evidence of my own professional learning?

  Image 3.9

  It’s Time to Take Action!: Chapter 3 Action Step

  Think of a moment when you captured learning taking place. Perhaps you took a photograph of your students as they were reading with their first-grade buddies or programming during coding time; or videoed them acting out a scene from Romeo and Juliet. Maybe you captured your own learning while attending a lecture or workshop via notetaking that included a screenshot of information you found beneficial, or videoed yourself during a classroom lesson so you could watch yourself to see if you or your students were asking the most questions.

  Did you share your captured moment(s) with anyone other than yourself? Did you display your artifact somewhere for others to view? If yes, retrieve your saved display artifact as a base for this activity. If not, this is a perfect opportunity to capture a moment of learning! You can capture your students learning or your own learning, whichever you prefer.

  Once you have your display selected or created, you need to determine the analog space (e.g., hallway bulletin board) or digital space (e.g., blog post, Twitter) that you will use to share and amplify.

  Now it is time to turn your display into a documenting artifact, whether textual, visual, or auditory. Think metacognitively about what you selected to capture and why:

  Why did I capture this exact moment?

  What does it represent explicitly, and most importantly, what does it infer?

  How does this particular moment fit in with the same or related learning focus or goal relates over time?

  Record your reflection about the captured learning and post using your selected sharing/amplifying platform (e.g., analog—stapled index card reflection, or QR code auditory reflection for bulletin board sharing platform; digital—reflective tweet with display image or video attached, or blog post with lengthier explanation and embedded image or video).

  Remember to use the #documenting4learning hashtag on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram; or by mentioning @documenting4learning on Facebook and Instagram, and @doc4learning on Twitter.

  Here are a few more questions that can take the conversation concerning acceptable evidence even deeper:

  What does learning look like in school? Does it look different at home? In one’s profession?

  How has learning and evidence of learning changed in the last 20 years? Ten years? Five years?

  What motivates learners to learn?

  Should evidence of learning look different for pedagogical documentation versus heutagogical documentation? Why or why not?

  How does reflection and sharing of learning evidence contribute to amplifying and learning growth for myself, my students, and others?

  Be aware that agreement on what evidence will be, as well as what it can potentially look like, will most likely take multiple meetings to draft, plus time for iterative action research to revise, refine, and eventually reach consensus.

  When agreement has been reached, be certain to inform parents and caregivers of what has been determined, given pedagogical and heutagogical practices involved in documenting FOR and AS learning can be vastly different. Another worthwhile endeavor is to conduct workshops for the local community at school or in their workplaces to create and nurture learning communities. These communities can then be accessed when students are engaged in their learning processes to have authentic audiences and experts aiding in expanding or refining their knowledge, understanding, and application.

  It is important that teachers as professional learners have safe-place opportunities to ponder and grow in their understanding of what evidence of learning looks and feels like when engaged in the documenting process. A definition of what learning is and what evidence of learning looks like will take some action research and iterative cycles before a this is it is reached. Networking with other educators, schools, and districts who have established or are also embarking on providing more documenting FOR and AS learning opportunities can also be helpful. By using the #documenting4learning hashtag on Twitter or Instagram, searching for @documenting4learning on Facebook post, or visiting www.documenting4learning.com, you can reach out and connect with similar teachers, schools, or districts to mutually grow in the understanding of the documenting process and its application together.

  Here is an example of what a school determined would be acceptable evidence of learning for a particular documenting opportunity. On the teachers’ journeys of implementing blogfolios across their K–12 school, they decided the faculty would also create learning-thinking artifacts by creating professional blogfolios.

  They soon realized that everyone was not on the same page concerning what constituted evidence for their students’ blog posts and their own. They knew that they had to have a schoolwide conversation about (a) what was acceptable evidence when their students, and themselves, wrote and published their blog posts, and (b) determine how to make these expectations visible and shareable. Based on their discussions, they finally reached consensus that all posts must include four components: title, artifact, reflection, and categories (see Image 3.10).

  Teachers need to see and experience how artifacts can be evidence of learning that are ten times more powerful than giving a one-time summative assessment or tallying points to create a letter grade. Teachers as primary and secondary learners need ample opportunities to experience how to look for learning while the learning is happening. They also need time to learn how to recognize evidence that supports their students’ learning growth over time, as well as applying the now literacies. This is not an easy task. It takes practice, just like any worthwhile teaching strategy.

  A school or district needs to create professional learning that embeds the practice of capturing and reflecting on evidence of learning for various focuses and goals. Professional opportunities wherein teachers can select, reflect on, sharing, and amplifying their artifacts over time instead of relying on pre-scheduled teacher observations twice a year is so worthwhile. Consider having teachers

  Image 3.10

  Capture comments and contributions via a platform that allows users to create and curate stories and timelines using posts from bi-weekly Twitter chats throughout an academic year based on a targeted learning outcome or goal.

  Communicate with local or global colleagues through the use of blogfolios with embedded artifacts that showcase and reflect on the growth and understanding of a specific set of student-ownership strategies for a semester that are read and commented on by participant and worldwide
community.

  Curate artifacts, resources, and visuals that provide evidence of understanding for a specific topic using an appropriate platform, such as Pinterest. Each image, URL, or video is not merely displayed on a board, but needs to include a curation description or explanation for each pin that serves as an annotation for the what this pin is about . . . , how this resource can be used when learning about . . . , and why this resource is important because . . .

  Summing Up

  Fight the urge to merely display snapshots of what was done or final products, and convert display items into documentation artifacts by making the process of thinking and learning visible and meaningful. Have a clear understanding for yourself and as a classroom or school community of what learning should look like.

  Similar to agreeing on what evidence of learning looks like when using a rubric or other evaluation tool, it is important for teachers and students engaged in documenting opportunities to have a clear understanding of what evidence is and what it will look like in the artifacts during the learning experience.

  Going Beyond

  To amplify your reading beyond this book’s pages, we have created discussion questions and prompts for this chapter, which are located at www.documenting4learning.com. To extend your thinking, reactions, and responses, you can connect with other readers by leaving comments on individual chapter’s discussion posts on our documenting4learning blog.