How to Document Learning in the Ontario Kindergarten program: Strategies and Examples

by Megan Bacchus · September 12, 2023

This blog post will help you document learning in Kindergarten! It is important to take pedagogical documentation as a way of assessing the students’ understanding.

Pedagogical documentation can be done through various methods, including video recordings and student work samples. In Kindergarten, you will rely more heavily on videos, audio recordings, transcripts of student conversations, products, and photos than tests or assignments.

If you’re new to teaching Kindergarten, or if you’re looking for new ways to document learning and – here’s the key – organize your documentation, read on!

What is Pedagogical Documentation?

Pedagogical documentation is the assessment of understanding through pedagogy. It can be a variety of things, including notes taken during teaching and student work samples.

This type of assessment is done to provide feedback on how students are learning as well as what they need in order to learn more effectively.

With pedagogical documentation, it is possible to see what the children are doing and how they are thinking about their work. We document learning because our assessments inform our instruction.

Noticing and Naming Student Learning

Documentation is all about noticing and naming student learning. It can be difficult to notice what students are doing, so pedagogy should always be an intentional process with a focus on not only the content that is being taught but also how it’s being taught and how the children are responding to this teaching.

In play-based learning, educators notice student learning within their play, and name it to the child to make it explicit. For example, “I see that you changed the design of your tower when it kept falling over. You made the bottom – or base – wider so it wasn’t tipping over as easily.”

The teacher becomes an observer and a reporter of what students are doing. You will likely find that certain types of documentation make sense in some situations while you might prefer other types in other situations.

What Are Some Types Of Pedagogical Documentation?

Every teacher will have their own preferred methods of documenting, organizing, and compiling evidence of student learning.

What works for someone else might not work for you. Think about your existing habits and figure out how you can document authentically, purposefully, and effectively.

Video Recordings and Photographs

Teachers often use video recordings to document children’s play. Videos show facial expressions, gestures, and other nonverbal communication. They open a window into the classroom for parents. They capture a moment that can be revisited and analyzed.

Videos are especially valuable in documenting the learning of students who are nonverbal, or who are learning English. You might choose to narrate what you observe while recording a video, or you might simply record the moment.

Consider how you will use the videos once you collect them. Will you use them to transcribe a conversation? Will you share them with students’ families? It is easy to collect videos, but using them purposefully is a bigger challenge.

The same goes for photographs. It’s easy to take a LOT of pictures and then forget about them.

How can you use photographs to document student learning? Some teachers set aside time at the end of a period or at the end of the day to share pictures taken and have students talk about their learning. It’s a great way to notice and name learning for students and have them share their thinking orally.

Transcripts

Transcripts can be a pedagogical tool as well. They are valuable for analyzing the children’s exploration and play, or to record their conversations with one another. You might also write up an interview between two students, which could illustrate how they work together to solve problems in unique ways.

In a busy classroom, writing out a conversation between two students or between yourself and a student (perhaps with the help of an audio or video recording) can often point out learning that you might have missed otherwise. I find transcripts are especially helpful when writing report cards or sharing student learning with parents because the child’s voice is the focus.

Anecdotal Records or Observational Notes

One type of pedagogical documentation is an anecdotal record. This might be a short note that you write down after talking to or observing one student, in which case it could simply say: “Mira sorted buttons by colour,” for example.

You can also take notes on several students at the same time and then categorize them by topic. For example, while one educator is leading a class discussion, another educator could be writing notes about how students contribute to the conversation.

Including the date and circumstances will be helpful in refreshing your memory when you look back through your notes.

Slideshows

Using pictures, videos, transcripts and observational notes in one slideshow might be a helpful way of organizing and sharing student learning with parents.

You can include the date as the header of a page, insert a picture or video, write notes, and copy and paste the overall or specific curriculum expectations.

This also makes a nice end of the year gift to families. Powerpoint and Google Slides are both great options for making slideshows.

Reflective Journals

These are journals where teachers might write about their own thoughts or reactions in a given situation, as well as documenting student learning. This might be most helpful for planning lessons, next steps, and extending student learning.

Learning Stories

Learning stories are where the educator documents what they have seen a student do in order to demonstrate their learning in the form of a narrative story. An educator might write directly to the child, talking to them about what they observed.

These are typically more reflective, and might be used in a class or school setting. They often ask students to reflect on their learning process as they move through an inquiry with others.

The stories can then be shared with the individual or the group at different times throughout an inquiry – for example, when challenges arose or after completing a task to share what went well.

Products and Artifacts

Students might create a tangible product that you might choose to keep in a portfolio or displayed visibly in the classroom or school. Examples: A student might create a book of their learning journey, or an art piece that captures the essence of what they are exploring.

Documentation Panels

Throughout a unit, a variety of pieces of evidence of student learning can be compiled into a visual representation of their progress. Examples: Students might be working in class on an inquiry. The teacher could create a “documentation panel” and put the work of the students at different points along their journey to display how they have progressed throughout that unit.

The Documentation Panel can include:

pictures, drawings or diagrams from students about what is being explored
pieces of artwork
student writing
photographs of students in explorations or play
overall or specific expectations from the Ontario curriculum

The Documentation Panel is a visual representation of student learning at different points in time, which can then be shared with parents, guardians or other educators for feedback on progress. It is one of the best ways to make documentation interactive and engaging for students.

THINK: How can you involve your students in documenting their own learning?

How to Organize Your Documentation

Documentation of pedagogy can be saved on a folder in Google Drive or on your desktop and organized by date, student name, or by each of the four frames. You might want to do a combination of these. For example, if you observe a group of students at the same time, you might write one observational note for the whole group. You might choose to copy it into each student’s file or file it by expectation or date.

Google Docs is a great way to share written documentation with a teaching partner. You can contribute to the same document in real time by sharing it. You might include a table with columns including student name, date, and which of the four frames you will categorize the evidence. (Remember – you will often observe learning that COULD fit into more than one of the four frames, but you can choose which one to focus on.)

If you find that your documentation is becoming unmanageable when one document becomes too long, consider creating an index of main points with subtitles that you can click on using the sidebar. When you’re looking for information about a student or subject, use the Find feature by pressing Ctrl+F or Command+F. This will search the document.

Google Keep is a popular option for people who like to use tags. In order to use tags, you can write a comment and/or take a picture (no videos available in Keep at this time) and “tag” it with the student’s name and any other way you might choose to categorize the sample.

For example, if I took a picture of someone counting, I could tag it with their name and “DLMB” (Demonstrating Literacy and Mathematics Behaviours) or “Math”. That way, when it is time to write report cards, I can choose the tag I want to write about, whether it’s a strand or a particular child, and have all of their information presented in one place.

BONUS: Google Keep is an add-on within Google Docs, so you can open Keep right within your document and copy and paste information. So, if you write your report cards (Communication of Learning) in Docs, you can paste examples directly from your notes.

For people with a teaching partner, however, as far as I’m aware, each note has to be shared individually with a separate account, so it’s easier to share a password and work within one account.

Google Forms are a great way to organize data by expectation. They can be used to respond to pedagogical prompts, record work samples for assessment and observation purposes, or simply ask students their thoughts about a topic.

Do you want to make your Communication of Learning more efficient?

The Ontario Kindergarten Curriculum provides teachers with guidance on how to plan, teach, assess and communicate about children’s progress. But it can be hard to keep track of all of the specific expectations under the 31 overall expectations!

That’s where these forms come in handy. With one click, you can see which Specific Expectations are covered by your observations/conversations/products. You don’t have to worry about finding the expectations and copying and pasting because I’ve done all the work for you!

Find out more information about my digital assessment Google Forms here! I know that it’s tricky, trying to document learning in a busy classroom. My goal is to provide educators with a simple tool that will help them stay organized while communicating their students’ progress effectively and efficiently – AND it saves paper – what could be better than that? Download now and start using it today! Click here right now if you want an easy-to-use documentation system that will make your life easier as an educator!

How to Document Learning: Where to Start

Consider the following:

What will be the easiest way to keep your documentation organized? A binder? Online portfolio? How will you work together with your teaching partner?
How will you share student learning with families? Students?
How will your documentation help students think about their learning, ask questions, and reflect?
When it comes time to write Initial Observations and Communication of Learning, what will you want to have? Pictures? Written examples?
If you change your mind, mid-year, will it be a problem? (It happens! You might find one way doesn’t work for you/your teaching partner/your class.)

For more information about Pedagogical Documentation from the Ontario Ministry of Education, check out this article: http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/literacynumeracy/inspire/research/cbs_pedagogical.pdf

Getting Ready to Report in the Kindergarten Communication of Learning?

This is a checklist to help teachers write the Term 1 and 2 Communication of Learning (report cards) in Ontario.

It is a questionnaire/checklist that reflects some of the Kindergarten curriculum expectations in each of the four frames: Belonging and Contributing, Self-Regulation and Well-Being, Demonstrating Literacy and Mathematics Behaviours, and Problem Solving and Innovating. The rest of the expectations will be addressed in either Term 2 or before the initial observations.

It is helpful to complete with your educator team. It will help identify any gaps in your own knowledge of student learning and allow you to identify areas in which you might want to gather further evidence.

There are qualifiers suggested (never, sometimes, often, always) but you can use the form however it suits you best. I jot down short observations and examples that I can use to jog my memory.

Did you like this article about how to document learning in a Kindergarten classroom?

How to Document Learning in the Ontario Kindergarten program: Strategies and Examples

What is Pedagogical Documentation?

Noticing and Naming Student Learning