Beyond the button

Beyond the Button
From the
Pedagogical Documentation Exhibit facilitated by Diane Kashin, RECE
April 23, 2016, Algonquin College Perth Campus hosted by Raising the
Bar and the Lanark Early Learning and Child Care Association
Assembled by Kathy Boelsma, Early Literacy Specialist Lanark County

Making our thinking visible
This documentation was created and shared with early years educators
on a Saturday in April, 2016.
It took courage to “go public”.
Thank you to Dr. Diane Kashin for leading us through this experience.
Please view this ebook with the idea of appreciating the many
perspectives presented, the visual literacy skills and the eagerness to
learn and apply our learning. Examine, reflect and talk to someone
about what you think about some of these ideas.

The Learning Story
An example of a Learning Story by Tom
Drummond

Writing a Learning Story
Writing a Learning Story by Pat Holborn

Learning Stories: The
Power of Narrative
Inquiry
by Diane Kashin, RECE
https://tecribresearch.wordpress.c
om/2016/03/19/learning-storiesthe-power-of-narrative-inquiry/

• Quotes from the previous blog posting:
• “Even though it appears that learning stories are more about one child, they can be used to capture
the learning of a group. It is a means to engage in research. It is narrative inquiry. “
• “Narrative inquiry is the process of gathering information for the purpose of research through
storytelling.
• Narrative inquiry focuses on meaning making. “
• According to Connelly and Clandinin (1990), “humans are storytelling organisms who, individually
and socially, lead storied lives. The study of narrative therefore is the study of the ways humans
experience the world. This general notion translates into the view that education is the
construction and reconstruction of personal and social stories; teachers and learners are
storytellers, characters in their own and other’s stories” (p. 2).
• To make meaning requires the researcher to seek multiple perspectives to give the story shape and
dimension. The perspective of the teacher as researcher is part of the story. Learning stories
provide a platform to hear the voice of the teacher. There is an opportunity to go beyond
identifying a skill or indicator from a developmental continuum.
• What is required is “active, engaged early childhood educators who are not external, passive
observers of children and objective producers of knowledge about children” (Pacini-Ketchabaw,
Nxumalo, Kocher, Elliot & Sanchez, 2014, p. 15).

Thank you for learning together.