Editing Documentation (section)

== Documentation in early childhood education ==
Documentation, as it pertains to the early childhood education field, is "when we notice and value children's ideas, thinking, questions, and theories about the world and then collect traces of their work (drawings, photographs of the children in action, and transcripts of their words) to share with a wider community".<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last=Susan |first=Stacey |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lznoCAAAQBAJ |title=Pedagogical documentation in early childhood : sharing children's learning and teachers' thinking |date=2015-05-11 |isbn=9781605543925 |location=St. Paul, Minnesota |oclc=909907917}}</ref>

Thus, documentation is a process, used to link the educator's knowledge and learning of the child/children with the families, other collaborators, and even to the children themselves.

Documentation is an integral part of the cycle of inquiry - observing, reflecting, documenting, sharing and responding.<ref name=":0" />

Pedagogical documentation, in terms of the teacher documentation, is the "teacher's story of the movement in children's understanding".<ref name=":0" /> According to Stephanie Cox Suarez in "Documentation - Transforming our Perspectives", "teachers are considered researchers, and documentation is a research tool to support knowledge building among children and adults".<ref name=":1">{{Cite web |last=Rivard |first=Melissa |title=Documentation: Transforming our Perspectives {{!}} Project Zero |url=http://www.pz.harvard.edu/resources/documentation-transforming-our-perspectives |access-date=2018-10-26 |website=www.pz.harvard.edu |language=en}}</ref>

Documentation can take many different styles in the classroom.  The following exemplifies ways in which documentation can make the research, or learning, visible:

# Documentation panels (bulletin-board-like presentation with multiple pictures and descriptions about the project or event).
# Daily log (a log kept every day that records the play and learning in the classroom)
# Documentation developed by or with the children (when observing children during documentation, the child's lens of the observation is used in the actual documentation)
# Individual portfolios (documentation used to track and highlight the development of each child)
# Electronic documentation (using apps and devices to share documentation with families and collaborators)
# Transcripts or recordings of conversations (using recording in documentation can bring about deeper reflections for both the educator and the child)
# Learning stories (a narrative used to "describe learning and help children see themselves as powerful learners"<ref name=":0" />)
# The classroom as documentation (reflections and documentation of the physical environment of a classroom).<ref name=":0" />

Documentation is certainly a process in and of itself, and it is also a process within the educator.  The following is the development of documentation as it progresses for and in the educator themselves:

* Develop(s) habits of documentation
* Become(s) comfortable with going public with recounting of activities
* Develop(s) visual literacy skills
* Conceptualize(s) the purpose of documentation as making learning styles visible, and
* Share(s) visible theories for interpretation purposes and further design of curriculum.<ref name=":2">{{Cite web |title=ECRP. Vol 13 No 2 |url=http://ecrp.uiuc.edu/v13n2/index.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181027021640/http://ecrp.uiuc.edu/v13n2/index.html |archive-date=Oct 27, 2018 |access-date=2018-10-26 |website=ecrp.uiuc.edu}}</ref>