Documenting Children's Work

02/11/2008

If you want your eggs hatched, sit on them yourself.
Haitian Proverb

In her May 2003 Exchange article "Assessing Mathematical Learning: Observing and Listening to Children," Juanita V. Copley talks about the importance of documentation as a means of assessing mathematical learning...

"Collecting samples of children's work and documenting the results is perhaps one of the most beneficial efforts towards understanding a child's mathematical learning over time. One of the reasons that multiple, continual assessments are recommended for young children is the variability of young children's knowledge and skills. Often, the variability occurs within one day, one hour, or even from minute to minute. A collection of children's work, along with their verbal comments about their work, is quite helpful and necessary to understanding children and the support they need to facilitate their learning.

"Gaby's picture of the counting circle and her verbal explanation informed the teacher that she understood pattern and had actually begun to generate and extend the +2 pattern on her own. Ryan's representation of the story 'Mrs. Ryan and Her Houseful of Cats' and her words, 'One cat on the roof and seven cats inside . . . eight cats!' indicated that she understood eight as made up of two parts, seven and one. The rectangular quilt made by a prekindergarten class and the many conversations that took place about the shapes and patterns they identified in the quilt over a period of several weeks demonstrated that children listened to others and began to increasingly identify colors, shapes, and sizes.

"The drawing of the blue creature with the 'million' legs that was discovered during the archeological dig in the sand table indicated that Jeffery could identify color and size attributes of an object, but had difficulty counting and representing the specific number of legs. All of these are just samples of documentation. Analyzed separately, each of them gives a small piece of information about the child's mathematical understanding. Analyzed together, with a child's other documentation samples collected over time, a teacher can assess a child's understanding and learn how best to support further learning."

Check out the Exchange Curriculum Tool Kit

Exchange has bundled some of its most popular curriculum resources into a "Curriculum Kit" and has put a highly discounted price tag on the collection. The Curriculum Kit includes:

Beginnings Workshop Book #5 — Curriculum: Art, Music, Movement, Drama
Beginnings Workshop Book #4 — Curriculum: Brain Research, Math, Science
Hearing Everyone's Voice: Educating Young Children for Peace and Democratic Community
Connecting: Friendship in the Lives of Young Children
The Wonder of It: Exploring How the World Works
Out of the Box Training Kit: Recognizing the Essentials of Developmentally Appropriate Curriculum

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