Documentation Examples > Examples of documentation to aid teachers' own reflections

On June 5, with eight class days left before the end of the school year, I got my students started on an analytical essay about Lord of the Flies by William Golding, the book they had spent the previous 3 1/2 weeks reading and thinking about. I chose to begin the week by showing a simple five-minute slideshow of pictures that I had taken over the previous month. I entitled the slideshow, "Working Together in World Lit. I." I added a few titles that emphasized different types of collaboration. When it was over, I told my students that I wanted to remind them of how well they had been working together because we were about to embark on our final piece of collaborative work.

Looking back, I was struck by how smoothly that Monday went - and the rest of the week, too. Then, on Friday, the day the paper was due, there was a higher rate of completion for this challenging assignment than any other major piece of work we had done all semester. I had to wonder if it had anything to do with that little slideshow.

I have done the same paper in the same way before and have considered it very successful. But this time felt even better. The kids give me a hard time every time I take out the camera, but they always want to see the pictures afterward. I think it makes them feel seen and valued. Collectively, my students displayed greater confidence, and in most cases, greater proficiency than usual in completing this assignment which I consider to be the most challenging assignment of the course.

This is a unit in which I have been employing documentation for several years, and this time around I added many more opportunities for students to learn from one another and to revisit their thinking in very deliberate ways. How did those opportunities, combined with pictures of themselves learning from each other influence not just their work and learning, but their attitudes toward that work and learning?

None of the students mentioned any of the photos or video or any of my other documentation efforts in any of their reflections, but I feel that it had a quiet, positive effect on the atmosphere of the classroom, and the depth of their engagement in the material.

Joan:

What a wonderful way to return to school after a vacation! Were I, a student in Jen's class, would be reminded not only of the various occasions on which I had successfully worked with my classmates or benefited from such work, but of the various ways I knew how to work with them - the kinds of groups, tasks, and strategies that seemed to lead to higher quality learning and products for us all.

The slideshow may also have reminded the students of their whole-class reflections after such collaborative experiences. They were used to articulating what they had learned from others and what behaviors had contributed most to their collaborative learning. They had also offered advice to themselves about how to improve their collaborations.

Years ago, I went to a "Descriptive Review of Child" training led by Pat Carini. In introducing the work we were going to do together, she told us that in the small town in which she'd grown up, no problem had ever arisen that hadn't been soluble by those who lived there. Generally, they responded by pooling their wisdom, skills, and energy to develop and implement a solution. The moral for our work at the training: the answers to our questions about students and teaching were in the room - in us - as long as we were willing to do our most sound, most imaginative thinking together in conjunction with the problem before us.

When Jen showed her slideshow, I believe her students understood her to be saying, "The answers are in the room - in all of YOU - so remember that you really do know how to work together to find and assemble them." Such a reminder could only be empowering!