There are three phases for the documentation OF/FOR/AS Learning process that Janet Hale and I advocate for in our book A Guide to Documenting Learning. This blog post explores a little the “During Documentation” phase and ways to encourage “capturable” thinking in our students.
The actual moment of documentation changes one’s perspective when one is cognizant of the task of later reflecting and sharing that same moment. One does not just glance over moments, but strategically becomes aware of documentation opportunities that later on will help tell a particular story. The eye is honed to be aware of details, filter and discern opportunities to capture learning.
Sometimes the documenter learner is an outsider/observer to the activity that is happening. Sometimes they might be in the middle of it and sometimes an opportunity presents itself to step into the middle of the documentation by asking questions and digging deeper to help make the student learner’s thinking visible.
It is a good idea to have a few questions ready to connect with the student learner, help guide students from lower level to hight level of thinking or to get a broader range of perspectives.
What are some other questions or prompts, you can think of, that would help guide learners to share their thinking with a documenter? (Ex. “Tell me more…”, “What makes you say that?”)
PS. I created the above images with the PicCollage app , added a speech bubble on top of the image and added a text layer.
