Early Childhood Educators' Reflections on Pedagogical Documentation

Abstract

Pedagogical documentation is viewed as an indicator of quality early learning experiences in many countries. This study aimed to provide a comprehensive perspective on pedagogical documentation by investigating its benefits, challenges and suggestions based on educators' experiences in a Reggio Emilia-inspired preschool in the United States, which gives crucial importance to documentation in the teaching and learning process. Ten early childhood educators were interviewed, and their documentation examples (portfolio, newsletter, journal, bulletin board) were reviewed. The findings showed that pedagogical documentation is primarily used for reporting the children's progress and making the learning process visible to families. Although educators expressed pedagogical documentation as a tool for reflection on their teaching, they also viewed this as a challenge and did not integrate reflections into the majority of the documentation. Moreover, a variety of other challenges and suggestions concerning the pedagogical documentation processes were discussed. The results present implications for optimizing the pedagogical documentation practices.