DOCit SUCCESS STORY
DOCit Helps Streamline Pedagogical Documentation for Teachers
Background
New curriculum documents include a focus on pedagogical documentation - a new concept for many teachers. With 25 plus students in a classroom, pedagogical documentation can quickly become overwhelming and hugely time-consuming for many teachers.
Goals
Make pedagogical documentation easier, less time-consuming and more intuitive for teachers.
Implementation
After testing DOCit in pilot programs in 2012, Hamilton Wentworth District School Board and St. Andrew School rolled it out to all kindergarten teachers and ECEs.
You can see what expectations have been covered and what areas you still need to work on for each student.
— Kelly McBane, Kindergarten Teacher, St. Andrew School
Overview
District leaders, principals and teachers from Hamilton Wentworth District School Board and St. Andrew School in the Halton Catholic School Board were all seeking ways to make pedagogical documentation easier, less time-consuming and more intuitive for teachers.
They found a solution in Pearson’s DOCit program, an online tool that streamlines the documentation process and helps capture learning in the classroom.
Challenge
When full-day kindergarten was introduced in Ontario in 2010, and when the curriculum and related documents were formalized by the Ontario Ministry of Education in 2016, the documents included focusing on pedagogical documentation–a new concept for many teachers.
But the work of recording and using pedagogical documentation is often easier said than done. From clipboards and binders to collage apps and even recipe cards, teachers used a collection of tools to document student learning. Then there was the onerous process of compiling these bits and pieces of documentation into a meaningful record of learning, checking it against the curriculum and determining what a child had learned and where they needed to grow.
With 25 plus students in a classroom, pedagogical documentation quickly became overwhelming and hugely time-consuming for many teachers.
Kindergarten teachers, like Kelly McBane from St. Andrew School, reported spending upwards of 30 minutes daily outside class time completing the documentation process for her class.
Solution
After testing DOCit in pilot programs in 2012, Hamilton Wentworth District School Board and St. Andrew School rolled the program out to kindergarten teachers.
St. Andrew School gave DOCit to all 10 of its kindergarten teachers, while HWDSB made the program available to all 500 of the district’s kindergarten teachers and early childhood educators.
In both cases, DOCit was installed on iPads, laptops and even smartphones making it easy for teachers to document learning quickly and easily.
Mary Elliott, an education consultant with HWDSB, says with DOCit teachers can now easily capture learning in their classrooms.
“Teachers have the flexibility to upload different media—video, still pics, audio– and have all the documentation you need in one place,” explains Elliott.
McBane–from St. Andrew School–agrees. She’s been using DOCit for two years and loves that the program includes provincial curriculum for grades K-2—including the new curriculum released by the Ontario Ministry of Education in September 2016. This means that as teachers observe and document student learning, they have access to the curriculum expectations and can attach any expectations they see emerging.
“It’s my pen and paper. It’s my lesson plan. I use it daily,”
says McBane.
“What I love is, if you have five kids contributing to an inquiry-based activity, all you have to do is click the five kids and it’s automatically added to their records. You can see what expectations have been covered and what areas you still need to work on for each student.”
Results
Major time savings is one of the biggest results reported by teachers from HWDSB and St. Andrew.
Makes documentation easier and faster
“I spent roughly 30 minutes daily doing documentation–importing the pictures, typing up notes, and saving them to kids’ files,” explains McBane. “Then I’d have to go through my kindergarten expectations document, and match up which expectations were met.”
But with DOCit, McBane can do pedagogical documentation on the fly in her classroom.
“It saves me a great deal of time. I can take pictures of the kids or record videos right in the midst of what they are doing and how they are doing it. I’m able to do documentation right then and there. Before it would take me forever, I would go home, type it into the computer, go back and import pictures. With DOCit it’s all in one place.”
Elliott says DOCit has also made it easier to meet the ministry’s directive that educators create documentation that is pedagogical. “The way that documentation becomes pedagogical is the reflection piece. And DOCit allows them to capture the learning in the classroom, reflect on the learning and plan next steps.
Documentation for educators who co-teach is also easier with DOCit. “This was one of the few platforms where you could share access,” explains Elliott. “Both educators have equal access to DOCit so they can both input and share a learning story.”
Create personalized, efficient report cards
Another area teachers expect to save time thanks to DOCit is report cards. While most schools already send home some form of Kindergarten report throughout the year, 2017 marks the first year Ontario’s Ministry of Education has required teachers to complete a new Communication of Learning report.
With teacher reflections and student learning already recorded and tied to curriculum and expectations in DOCit, McBane says teachers can basically cut and paste from DOCit to the Communication of Learning document.
“It’s going to cut a ton of time and parents will receive comments that reflect on how students are learning as individual as opposed to a generic comment,” explains McBane.
Address the needs of each student
McBane says DOCit also helps teachers tell a story about how students are learning and how they think.
“What DOCit allows you to do is look at the individual and how they are growing. And in what areas they’ve achieved and in what areas they still need to achieve in. You get to have that personal touch with the kids and reflect on how they are learning as individuals. You can really focus on what that child needs and who they are.”
McBane says DOCit also helped deepen her understanding of pedagogical documentation. Initially when she first started doing documentation, she explains she was mainly recording what students were doing. “It was very, ‘One student said this, the other said this. These students are learning how to cooperate’,” explains McBane.
“Now I’m able to look at students when they’re in a group and see that this student is an analytical type of thinker, this is why, and this is how I can help this student grow a little bit more. It is truly amazing if you set up the right provocations you can have some really incredible inquiries.”
“You can really focus on what that child needs and who they are.”
– Kelly McBane, Kindergarten Teacher, St. Andrew School
“It saves me a great deal of time.”
– Kelly McBane, Kindergarten Teacher, St. Andrew School
“DOCit allows them to capture the learning in the classroom, reflect on the learning and plan next steps.”
– Mary Elliott, Education Consultant, Hamilton Wentworth District School Board