A Guide to Documenting Learning

by Silvia Rosenthal Tolisano

  When the device or a cloud storage account informs a user that space is about to run out, it is most likely the first time a decision needs to be made regarding the images or videos worth keeping and the ones that need to be deleted. The user lets out a deep sigh and begins the arduous task of looking at each photo and listening to each video in myriad collections to determine those that are worthwhile to keep. Inevitably, the user

  Is truly amazed at just how many images and recordings have been made and most importantly, totally forgotten about

  Begins to thoughtfully determine what images and videos are important and need to be saved and why

  Image 6.2

  When documenting, thoughtful determination should happen prior to the documenting process begins so that learners do not end up with too many photographs or videos that can cause a paralyzed state of mind when confronted with what to do with it all (see Image 6.2).

  Think Strategically: Using Guiding Questions to Aid in Preplanning

  After filmmakers determine the purpose and focus of their movies, they spend a significant amount of preplanning time asking guiding questions related to their key question: How will we best capture the perfect shots, sequences, and dialogues? Similarly, reflecting on pre-documentation needs and guiding questions is an important step in preparing to “take the perfect shots” or “include an important conversation in the script” in the during-documentation phase that will be transformed in the post-documentation phase. Table 6.1 provides guiding questions to use during the planning process.

  Determine a Specific Focus and Articulated Goals

  What learning will be in focus and why? Like filmmakers answering the question What is the purpose of the movie? teachers and students need to pre-determine what learning is going to be specifically in focus (no film pun intended), as well as the articulated goals based on the focuses during the documentation process. Table 6.2 provides several examples.

  Think Metacognitively

  After determining the key focuses and goals, it is time to think deeper about why these areas are important to the overall learning. Look back at Image 6.2 and notice the two-way arrows connecting the two steps: Thinking Metacognitively and Look for Learning. The back-and-forth idea has been purposefully placed there to express the overlapping connections among thinking metacognitively while determining the focuses and goals and looking for the learning’s potential visible moments.

  Metacognition does not happen in isolation. It is a fluent practice that causes someone to question and be aware of his or her thinking, choices, reasons, decisions, and reflections when planning documentation:

  Why did I choose a specific learning focus?

  How are these focuses connected to potentially other areas?

  What would make more sense to document in lieu of previous or potential future documentation?

  How might an intended audience influence the documentation?

  What and how should I specifically be looking for learning?

  What will I accept as evidence of learning based on the focus and goal?

  Thinking about potential personal bias, what perceptions or preconceived notions may influence acceptable evidence? What external factors may influence acceptable evidence?

  Look for Learning

  While primary and secondary learners will be actively looking for learning in the during-documentation phase, it is important to already be preplanning for this step in the pre-documentation phase. What type of learning will you need to look for to capture evidence of the learning?

  Looking for learning will have its starting points in curricular standards, objectives, and desired skills, but it is not as simple as taking a quick look at these in a teacher’s guide or curriculum map. Questions that need to be considered at this time include:

  How will you recognize learning when it is happening in real time?

  How might the learning evidence over time help you look for learning in the present moment?

  How will you look for learning in individual students? How will you consider differentiating the learning?

  How will you remind yourself to look and capture learning as you are teaching, facilitating, and multitasking in the during-documentation phase?

  Preparing in advance to look for learning will truly help you to remember what to look for when it comes time to document in the during-documentation phase.

  Media Platform and Tool Selection Based on Learning Focus and Articulated Goals

  How will the learning be captured? Before moving on to the during-documentation phase, it is important to consider the best media platforms and tools to capture evidence of the specific learning focuses and articulated goals (see Image 6.3).

  In a documenting learning context:

  The term platform represents a social-media environment, as it enables a community to make friends, meet, share ideas, communicate, and learn together (e.g., Twitter, Instagram, Diigo, YouTube, Facebook, WordPress).

  The term tools refers to objects, devices, or apps that support and allow learners to solve a particular problem or complete a given task (e.g., PowerPoint, TodaysMeet, PicCollage). While teachers and/or students are determining the best platforms and tools, they need to be aware that their selections may change or need to be added to in the during-documentation phase.

  Image 6.3

  A filmmaker plays a critical role in the technical direction of a movie, including working with the lighting and filming crew before and during filming to ensure that the shots taken will be of the highest quality and provide the most dramatic backdrop (Sokanu.com, 2017). Likewise, the selection of the media platforms need to capture the dramatic moments of learning that will best convey meaningful evidence of the learning process. Therefore, the guiding question that needs to be posed now is

  What learning evidence are you truly looking for?

  For example, a bilingual kindergarten classroom is working on phonemic exercises to improve the pronunciation of certain sounds and words in the target language: German. Given the need to hear the children speaking, taking photographs or creating sketchnotes may not be the best media to capture the intended learning.

  This is not to say that images cannot capture the learning in action. The annotexted image (see Image 6.4) expresses the goal of a lesson wherein the children are working on using a strong exhaled breath at the onset of saying “Hallo!” While the teacher’s annotation may convey this young girl was successful, the audience may not believe it given it looks like the pea is rolling off the child’s hand due to her tilting it downward. Only by looking at the video footage (scan QR Code 6.7) can a viewer observe the evidence that she does, in fact, say “Hallo!” with a strong enough initial breath release to cause the pea to roll off her hand.

  QR Code 6.7 Scan this QR code and watch the second video to see this child saying “hallo” in action.

  http://langwitches.me/phonetics

  Let’s take this thought concerning the selection of the best media platform or tool one step further. While recording these young learners via video did provide evidence of their breath capabilities, what if the articulated goal requires more evidence than what can be portrayed in a video?

  The bilingual kindergarten teacher, Mariana Stürmer, is in the midst of conducting an action research project wherein one of her articulated goals is to determine if a specific set of phonemic exercises practiced over time aids her students in articulating specific target-language sounds (e.g., nuance between Ich and Ach; long German e, as in wie geht’s; umlaut vowels). She decides that she needs a control group who will not receive practice opportunities based on a generated set of phonemic exercises and a second group who will receive the specific exercises. She decides to use her afternoon class as the control group (see Image 6.4).

  Given her goal and instructional plans, she ponders the best media platform options and decides that audio-recording each student at the mid-mark (one month) of her action research project, and again at the end of two months
will provide her with evidence of learning over time to determine if the set of phonetic exercises do improve pronunciation in the target language. She knows that an audio recording will provide the clearest-sounding evidence of proper pronunciation, or lack thereof. Mariana also realizes there could be value in periodically filming her students, possibly one or two at a time, to see if they are forming the correct mouth and tongue positions when making the specific phonemic sounds. She decides that these two media platforms will be the best: audio recordings as evidence of the specific goal, and bi-weekly video recordings to provide ongoing evidence of learning to aid her in providing immediate feedback to each student who will be observing his or her video recordings alongside Mrs. Stürmer.

  Image 6.4

  Spending time thoughtfully considering the best media platforms and tools pays off later in the documenting process. Capturing learning moments is a busy time wherein aspects of learning are taking place simultaneously. Students are applying their past knowledge and discovering new knowledge, and teachers are coaching and facilitating. There is not a lot of time for the documenter(s) to be introspective in the moment about deciding how to best capture the learning while it is taking place. These decisions, as well as who will be the documenter(s), need to take place in the pre-documentation phase. Think of it as applying the adage: Measure twice, cut once. As in life, this does not mean that everything will go picture perfect. There may be a need for additional or replacement media platforms or tools once the during-documentation phase begins.

  While the application of selected media, platforms, and tools is an inherent part of capturing the learning taking place in the during-documentation phase, consideration for the choices (boldfaced titles) based on what is to be captured (bullets) belongs in the pre-documentation phase (Table 6.3).

  Summing Up

  Once a teacher, student learner, or professional learner has clarity concerning the documenting purpose including the specific focuses, articulated goals, and pre-selected media platforms and tools, it becomes easier to envision the desired artifacts to capture the learning in the during-documentation phase.

  During-Documentation Phase

  The during-documentation phase may seem simple—document the learning while it is literally taking place—but it is much more complex than that (see Image 6.5). How will the act of capturing learning truly transpire?

  Purpose and Perspectives When Documenting

  When capturing images and videos for everyday life and learning experiences, it is important to think about purpose (Why am I doing this?) and perspectives (What do I want to say? Who am I saying it to?). This is especially true when snapping images or recording videos that will be shared via social media platforms (e.g., Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat).

  The documenter metacognitively considers: What message do I want to convey? Why is this message important to me and to those who will be viewing the image/video? This takes on an even stronger meaning when the documenter curates what has been captured by adding a commentary during post-documentation. Learning deepens when a documenter is cognizant of both the purpose and perspectives while the learning process is taking place.

  Image 6.5

  For example, a popular documentation challenge that has been circulating online for some time now is the Photo-a-Day Challenge. Participants are asked to take one photo a day for a predetermined timeframe. A specific challenge may be geared toward a specific group, such as travelers, photographers, fashionistas, foodies, parents, students, or educators. Challenges last for various lengths of time: a calendar year, a school year, a month, or a week (e.g., I Love My Spouse seven-day challenge). Some challenges last a lifetime (e.g., My Bucket List challenge).

  The challenge may have rigid goals to be captured (e.g., on May 3rd, take a photograph of something blue; on the 1st day of each month, take a photograph of the same tree in your front yard); other times, it is open and up to the documenter’s interpretation. Likewise, the challenge may be limited to a specific focus, such as funny faces or finding heart images in the world around you; to broadly defined focuses, such as change, parenting, or learning.

  Exploring how the awareness level of purpose and perspective deepens by taking a color challenge. In the next day or two, plan to photograph something blue for this chapter’s action step.

  It’s Time to Take Action!: Chapter 6 Action Step

  The 1-Day Blue Color Challenge

  Take time to notice all the blue hues in the world around you. As you collect your blue world, take as many photographs as you like, but remember that you can only post one photograph that you believe best defines blue in your world.

  By the end of the day, upload and post your selected photograph to Twitter or Instagram using the hashtag #documenting4learningblue. Add a comment that explains why your representation of blue is important to you.

  QR Code 6.8 Scan this QR code to read more about The 1-Day Blue Photo Challenge.

  http://langwitches.me/blue

  If you would like to extend your challenge experience, share your capturing-blue narrative by writing a blog post reflection about your experience of noticing all the blue you saw around you, as well as your thought process for taking the just right image.

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

  As a documenter considering the documenting purpose and your perspective, you may be surprised at how you suddenly become hyper-aware of all that is blue around you. Remember, you are looking not only for simply the evidence of blue, but for a meaningful representation of blue to you. Paying attention to what is blue may cause you to also notice the intensity of non-blue colors, which creates a perspective you may not have planned. Likewise, you may begin to see shades of blue that you never noticed before in objects, gadgets, places, and natural phenomena. Which representation of blue should you photograph and why? Marcel Proust, an 1800’s French novelist observed: The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.

  After completing the action step, ponder these questions:

  How did the purpose of documenting something blue add to or change your perspective about blue as you observed the world around you throughout your day?

  How did the purpose and your perspective(s) affect what you looked for and why?

  How did observing the world around you shift your thinking today?

  These three questions capture the essence of what metacognitively takes place in the during-documentation phase. For example, a blue-color documenter shared on Twitter using #documenting4learningblue that participating in the challenge, “Made me aware of how we take the sky for granted, yet it is the limit for possibilities.”

  Taking time to participate in the action step blue-photo challenge will help you internalize documentation as a learning process. Transferring your discoveries to a classroom perspective: how will documenters (students and teachers) best capture evidence that best conveys the learning focus and goals? Being engaged in the during-documentation phase is not about simply glancing around to see what is happening. It is about being hyper-aware of opportunities that will strategically aid in conveying evidence of the specific focus and articulated goals that collectively tell a particular learning story. See Figure 6.1 for a blue-color challenge participant’s reflection.

  With time and practice, one’s eyes and mind notice details in the moment while simultaneously filtering and discerning the best moments to capture what is being learned. Looking for what needs to be seen and later interpreted plays a key role in determining what is worthy of capturing, which makes the during-documentation process highly personalized and creates a strong sense of ownership for primary and secondary learners.

  Cultivating Collaboration

  Documenting opportunities are naturally collaborative. While there are times when learners will have moments of solitude, in gen
eral, documenting learning is a team sport. Just as a soccer team has individual players who have strengths they bring to the game, the team has to work collaboratively to reach its goal of winning games, and eventually, a title. To convey documented learning, it is most often based on a team effort of learners working toward reaching the same focus and goals. Even when someone is involved in a heutagogical documenting opportunity, it does not mean the learner has to go solo.

  In the during-documentation phase, be aware of the learning that needs to be captured and conveyed when sharing and amplifying artifacts. Learners should ask themselves these questions while capturing the desired evidence of learning:

  What is the purpose—focus, goals, criteria—for capturing these moments?

  How is what I am capturing helpful in conveying the specific focus and articulated goals?

  How can I best make my/our thoughts, ideas, and thinking visible to others?

  How does my point of view affect and contribute to this learning opportunity?

  What am I thinking now when faced with later needing to select and filter the captured texts, images, and videos as evidence of learning?

  How do I perceive feedback from outside experts or persons of interest may influence the ongoing documentation when amplifying the evidence of learning?