Browsing by Author "Valtonen, Maria"

Pedagogical documentation is used as a tool to make children’s thinking and learning visible, both for the child itself and for others. As a method it helps us in understanding every child’s individual learning process. The purpose of the study is to find out which methods of pedagogical documentation kindergarten teachers use and what the aim of the documentation is. Pedagogical documentation, in the sense it will be described in the study, has its roots in the pedagogical philosophy in the city of Reggio Emilia in Italy. Therefore there also is an interest for how the philosophy is visible in the kindergartens. The study was executed by qualitative interviews. The informants were three kindergarten teachers all working in kindergartens with influence from the pedagogical philosophy in Reggio Emilia. The interviews were fully recorded and transcribed. In the transcribing process meaning condensation was used to make the analysing process more effortless. The result indicates that the most used methods for pedagogical documentation are taking notes and photographing. The documentation is used to make the child’s development, as well as the everyday life at the kindergarten, visible for the parents. It is also used to support the child’s learning process. The Reggio Emilia philosophy was visible in accenting the sense of community and the importance of participation. Even though the Reggio Emilia philosophy had similar characteristics in the kindergartens, it was pointed out that every kindergarten creates its own philosophy and the adaptation of Reggio Emilia-philosophy looks different in every kindergarten.