A Guide to Documenting Learning Read online

  Going Beyond

  To amplify your reading beyond this book’s pages, we have created discussion questions and prompts for this chapter, which are located at www.documenting4learning.com. To extend your thinking, reactions, and responses, you can connect with other readers by leaving comments on individual chapter’s discussion posts on our documenting4learning blog.

  We also invite you to contribute and share your artifacts in other social media spaces to connect with and learn from other readers around the world using the #documenting4learning hashtag on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram; or by mentioning @documenting4learning on Facebook and Instagram, and @doc4learning on Twitter.

  3 Documenting Pedagogy and Heutagogy

  If we want to change how students learn, we have to change how teachers learn.

  —Katie Martin

  It is important when documenting that teachers and administrators have a clear understanding of the distinctions between teacher-centered pedagogical and learner-centered heutagogical documentation.

  Defining the Difference Between Pedagogical Documentation and Heutagogical Documentation

  What Is Pedagogical Documentation?

  Pedagogy encompasses the methods, techniques, and strategies teachers use to facilitate learning. Pedagogical documentation is teacher driven and focuses on aiding this facilitation via the documenting process. Wien (2013) explains that:

  We have always documented as a society–from cash register slips to medical records, family photo albums to report cards. But pedagogical documentation offers more than a record. It offers a process for listening to children, for creating artifacts from that listening, and for studying with others what children reveal about their competent and thoughtful views of the world. To listen to children, we document living moments with images, video, artifacts, written or audio recordings of what children have said, or other digital traces. These documented traces of lived experience, when shared with others, become a tool for thinking together. To hear others’ thoughts makes us realize there are many viewpoints. Pedagogical documentation goes beyond the foundation of the developmental continuum to welcome both children’s perspectives and our study of their views.

  Kashin (2017) adds, “Meaning making is an opportunity to think deeply about the content of documentation so that it can become pedagogical.” In other words, by default documentation is not pedagogical. For example, some may describe documentation as the act of taking a photograph of students that captures a moment during an activity. To be considered pedagogical documentation, the action must facilitate learning. The photograph would need to be used in a strategic way to inform students on how they are doing, while moving toward exhibiting the learning focus or goal. If a teacher annotexts the photograph and gives it to the appropriate students to aid them in their reflection, the documentation now facilitates learning. Likewise, if a series of moment in time photographs are bundled to provide learners with an opportunity to reflect on what the visual snapshot timeline conveys, the photographs collectively facilitate meaning making about one’s learning growth.

  How Does Pedagogical Documentation Correlate With the SAMR Taxonomy?

  As mentioned previously, this book distinguishes itself from the Reggio Emilia documentation philosophy and other documenting frameworks by using technology strategically to share and amplify learning. It is the use of technology for the dual purpose of transforming and redefining teaching and learning. The SAMR model supports the awareness and application of using technology authentically to allow for such creations and innovations.

  Puentedura’s (2008) SAMR model describes a taxonomy that aids in classifying four levels of technology, pedagogy, and content knowledge infusion and how each level impacts teaching and learning. Application at each level is viewed through the lens of learner tasks and how the technology affects accessibility and transformative learning:

  Substitution: Technology acts as a direct tool substitute, with no functional change.

  Augmentation: Technology acts as a direct tool substitute, with functional improvement.

  Modification: Technology allows for significant task redesign.

  Redefinition: Technology allows for the creation of new tasks, previously inconceivable.

  This taxonomy has been interpreted in various ways by educators and educational groups. Therefore, it is critical that a team or network comes to consensus on what each level represents when students are engaged in documenting learning tasks. If the SAMR taxonomy is new for those involved, Image 3.1 can be used as a conversation-starter for coming to agreement on what each SAMR level represents. The image is based on the bulleted SAMR definitions, plus the inclusion of amplification as conveyed by Hale and Fisher (2013).

  Educators may claim that having students create book video trailers is a modern form of conducting traditional book reports. They may say that because students are going to be uploading their trailers to an online site (e.g., YouTube) they are functioning at the Redefinition and Amplification levels. Their reasoning may include that the video trailers are online where hundreds of people could potentially view them and provide feedback to their students. While this reasoning at first appears plausible, where is the evidence that the original book report task has been transformed due to the strategic use of technology? The act of publishing student work online does not guarantee that a transformative or amplified learning moment has taken place. Teachers and students need be strategic concerning how their desired audiences will be accessed (e.g., a tweet using specific hashtags geared toward a specific professional learning network). Without this purposeful pursuit, targeted feedback will not happen, unless by chance.

  Image 3.1

  Based on the SAMR Model by R. Puentedura (2011) built on ideas shared by A. November (2010). Visual adapted by S. Rosenthal Tolisano (2011)

  Teachers and students must be strategic concerning how their desired audiences will be accessed (e.g., a tweet using specific hashtags geared toward a specific professional learning network). Without this purposeful pursuit, targeted feedback will not happen, unless by chance.

  Teachers do not have to start a task at the Substitution level and progressively move toward the Redefinition or Amplification level. Consideration for the entry point should be based on why teachers desire to use the SAMR taxonomy in relationship to how it will impact students’ learning and their instruction.

  Decisions should also be based on a teacher’s experience with various forms of technology. If he has never used a collaborative Google Doc with his students to support the writing process, implementing the use of this technology will redefine the task he is proposing for his students (e.g., collaborative editing, multiple authors). On the other hand, another teacher may already have experience using Google Docs. Simply asking her students to use this tool to collaborate will not redefine the learner task.

  To use a Google Doc as an Augmentation entry point, the teacher would ask students to not only collaborate with their classmates in writing a research paper, but would also require them to share their work publicly vis social media and request feedback and further resources via comments. The task of writing a research paper has now been redefined because it does not only rely only on the collaborative Google Doc technology, but it is also dependent on accessing human expertise and resources beyond the original authors via crowdsourcing.

  Regardless of entry point, here are considerations for how the documenting process correlates to the SAMR taxonomy:

  Image 3.2

  Substitution.

  Technology devices are used to capture learning. It could be a camera taking a photograph of an analog object, such as a picture of a LEGO marble maze created by a young learner (see Image 3.2). The use of technology did not change the learner’s task (getting a marble to travel from an entry point to an exit point through the maze). Likewise, nothing further was done with the captured image beyond it representing the student’s marble-maze creation. It serves only as a snapshot of what happened.<
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  When students have reached the age or stage of learning where they are required to keep track of their research for purposes of proper quoting or citing, traditional quotes and citation references are noted as either a bibliography page or footnotes. With substitution when posting a blog or a tweet, quote or cite references still happen at this level, but due to technology capabilities there is hyperlinked text that takes reader directly to the quoted or cited resource. Likewise, substitution includes replacing index note cards to archive and access resources with bookmark applications, such as Diigo and Google Bookmarks.

  Augmentation.

  The nuance at this level of the SAMR taxonomy is that the technology is still a direct tool substitute, but now there is recognizable function improvement in conveying information. For example, instead of a photograph conveying assumptions, what it captures and conveys is summarized and made visible using a screenshooting tool to annotate the image. This is especially important when creating artifacts related to learners’ tasks.

  Image 3.3

  Image 3.3 now includes annotexted information that informs viewers of the student’s thinking while performing the maze task. In this example, the annotations do not convey the student’s thinking, but provides the documenter’s explanation to aid viewers understanding of what is happening so there is no guesswork as to what is taking place at this moment in time. By including annotations when an image is shared or amplified, the documenter does not need to be present to convey the evidence of learning.

  Another example of an augmented task involving functional improvement is collaboratively collecting digital links, while researching those that are saved using a social bookmarking platform. This adds a functionality that allows accessibility from any device on any browser at any time for the learners to continue to collect, organize, tag, search, and retrieve their saved links. When considering this level in context of the digitally bookmarked reference links, it involves the learners needing to be curators. The act of curating resources cognitively demands more than the act of collecting because learners must make meaning of their choices, connect them to the chosen resources, and add value by including their reasoning for themselves and others.

  Modification.

  While learners benefit immensely by sharing their documentation artifacts with classmates, other classes, and colleagues, using technology strategically supports sharing beyond classroom walls and school boundaries and transforms interactive possibilities. It is not simply about actions such as tweeting an image or video out to the Twittersphere. It is about conscientiously reaching out to and connecting with strategic members in an analog or digital learning community to gain their input, feedback, and crowdsourcing assistance.

  The use of a central hub plays an important role when learners as documenters are able to take advantage of technology devices to capture, reflect on, archive, and share their artifacts at anytime, anywhere, and in any form.

  Image 3.4

  Strategic use of technology, including the metacognition of what to choose and how it benefits the learner, aids in making thinking visible in ways not possible in the past. A decade ago, there was no technology available for even the youngest learners to create annotexted images, screencasts, podcasts, infographics, and digital sketchnotes. All of these technologies promote modifications and make thinking visible and shareable.

  Image 3.4 captures moments that convey the young learner interacting with her created marble maze. Her teacher has used a collage tool to create an artifact that reflects a timeline of the student designing and modifying her maze, including a key I Wonder question that she kept asking herself as she modified her design, which led to adjusting, rebuilding, applying, and failing until finally she succeeded.

  At the modification level, documentation is not simply displaying what was done. It transforms artifacts into making the learning process and thinking visible to the learner, as well as sharing it with a wider audience. When transforming learning and teaching in the context of documentation that functions at the Modification level or Redefinition level, the learners’ artifacts become increasingly metacognitive.

  Redefinition.

  While the marble-in-a-maze documentation example concludes at the Modification level, for it to be functioning at a Redefinition level, with the addition of amplification, the teacher-documenter could co-create a step-by-step tutorial video where the young learner shares recommendations for how to best build a marble maze and suggests ways to successfully navigate a marble through the maze.

  QR Code 3.1 Scan this QR code to view young learners in action with their marble mazes.

  http://langwitches.me/marblemaze

  The teacher could share it on YouTube and add hashtags such as #kindergartentutorials or #kinderchat to strategically connect the student’s insights with others interested in learning from and with young learners or with preschool or kindergarten teachers.

  Redefinition’s call for using a wide range of technology to create new tasks that were previously inconceivable, documenting’s call for sharing and amplifying plays an integral role. For example, in the not too distant past, students and teachers could not have dreamed of documenting their learning using digital portfolios and crowdsourcing to ask for comments and feedback via various social media platforms.

  Experiencing transmedia documentation, which Heick (2013b) defines as, “A narrative that extends beyond multiple media forms that also plays to the strength of those forms,” embraces documenting and the need for learners to make their learning and thinking visible in multimedia forms. Using a variety of media (text, image, audio, video) throughout a documenting opportunity not only captures the explicit learning taking place, but often highlights hidden aspects, perspectives, and interpretations of the learning.

  Take a moment to study Image 3.5. The first two levels of the SAMR taxonomy primarily support documenting OF and FOR learning opportunities. The two remaining levels, and Amplification, primarily support documenting FOR and AS learning. Advancements in technologies allow learners and documenters to rethink how to best capture the learning evidence, as well as create tasks and artifacts that are not possible in an analog environment. Likewise, the documenting process at the latter levels increases the transformative nature of both pedagogical and heutagogical documentation.

  As students, teachers, and administrators embark on or continue growing in their understanding and applications of documenting learning, it is important they are aware of how technology plays a role in supporting documentation. Over time, when they have reached a point of perceiving documenting as ubiquitous with the learning process, the technologies that aid in conveying thinking, reflecting, sharing, and amplifying in purposeful and meaningful ways will simply be tools readily available in a documenting toolbox.

  What Is Heutagogical Documentation?

  Heutagogical documentation is learner driven and focuses on self-motivated and self-directed learning.

  It can be further defined as documentation directed to aid self-awareness, fuel motivation to learn, and support decision-making concerning what wants or needs to be learned or can be learned next.

  Price (2013) explains that “[Educators] will have to accommodate the social desire to shift from pedagogy to heutagogy, and support learners to become more independent and self-determined.” Price also acknowledges that “Heutagogy is equally applicable to children as it is to adults. It’s defined by approach, not age” (p. 208).

  Self-motivated and self-directed documentation is needed for both students and teachers as learners. Educators need to ponder questions such as:

  How can I differentiate between waiting to be taught and wanting to learn in my students and myself?

  How can I make time for self-directed learning opportunities when time flies by at ever-increasing speed?

  How can I embrace passion and motivation opportunities for my students and myself when external demands seem to always take priority?

  Motivation is a mind
set that is often perceived as lacking in schools. Pink (2009) explains motivation from a business viewpoint:

  The good news is that the scientists who’ve been studying motivation have given us this new approach. It’s built much more around intrinsic motivation. Around the desire to do things because they matter, because we like it, they’re interesting, or part of something important. And to my mind, that new operating system for our businesses revolves around three elements: autonomy, mastery, and purpose. Autonomy: the urge to direct our own lives. Mastery: the desire to get better and better at something that matters. Purpose: the yearning to do what we do in the service of something larger than ourselves. These are the building blocks of an entirely new operating system for our businesses.

  Image 3.5

  In reality, these building blocks are applicable beyond business settings. They are compelling for education settings as well. Heutagogical documentation supports Pink’s concepts of urging, desiring, and yearning.

  Autonomy.

  Learning is innately self-motivated and self-directed. What young child does not curiously explore his or her surroundings, or incessantly ask, “Why?” Autonomy is defined as freedom from external control or influence; independence. In a classroom or professional learning environment where heutagogy is supported, learners do not rely on a specific teacher or workshop to engage meaningfully in the act of learning. Documenting opportunities that embrace autonomous perspectives are not driven by receiving a grade or fulfilling required learning hours. Motivation to begin or continue a desired learning path is encouraged. Realistically, there needs to be a balance of pedagogical-based and autonomous self-directed learning opportunities in classroom and professional settings.