[wab11]

I have a few burning questions (that may or may not be relevant to our first live session).

– Documentation – We are constrained by school expectations to “post” on Toddle 3 times per week, per child (these can be individual posts or group posts). What experience do others have with documentation in the early years on Toddle? How do you balance the expectations of these “three posts” per week to meet expectations vs visible documentation in the learning community for children to see and reflect on with learners?

-Early Intervention – What are some approaches to utilising an “early intervention TA” (who is not trained in this role) to enter and guide specific learners in play, as opposed to “pulling out” groups of children to work on specific skills in play? Interested to hear other people’s experiences with early intervention, as we know (and so does research) that early intervention is crucial to developing a solid foundation for academic success in the future.

[Donita Bell]

Ooooh @EmmaBurchall I love these questions! What a great set of questions to add to our list from the initial survey! Documentation has not been mentioned by participants… yet! But when Amy and I were planning our sessions, it was an essential element of all the pedagogy and practices that connect to play, social emotional learning and other topics that had our members curious.

I have posted a chapter of a book in the ‘Resources’ section – ‘From Teaching to Thinking’ by Margie Carter and Ann Pelo. Chapter 3 delves into the ‘Why’ of documentation which links very well to your question. I look forward to hearing from our participants. I also address this same question in my current context – how do we balance the visual documentation for our students and planning (for teachers) with the expectations of posting to Toddle, Seesaw or other platforms that schools use? It is a great question. I would love to put it out to everyone – ‘Why’ do we document students learning? This might unlock some of our beliefs and understandings of how documentation can be more meaningful and purposeful.

I will also add a link to a great video from IB: PYP: ‘Documenting Learning in Early Years” by Ann Van Dam and Sean Walker: There is a plethora of ideas around how and what to document.