Is your phone filled with 1000’s of photos of the children’s play?  Or maybe your classroom tablet is constantly giving you the message of “storage almost full” because you’ve got 4 years worth of photos on there… totalling a bazillion images of smiling faces, hands full of paint or towers built to the sky.  Capturing these moments is important, but the question needs to be asked, “Am I capturing meaningful photos of these moments?”

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been guilty of taking what feels like a red carpet photo shoot of the children’s day.  Taking on the role of paparazzi, “Over here Jane!  Show me the tower!  Stand next to it!  And…SMILE!”

Is there a place for these kinds of photos, YES!  Children standing proud next to their creations and sent off for their parents to swoon over.  YES, that is important.

However, do I need to take as many of these as I do?

This is where leaning on reflective practice can help dive into this and uncover what is meaningful to capture.

This was actually a conversation the pedagogical leader and I had at a centre I was supporting with mentorship for a time period.  We both found that the educators were taking a ton of photos and in the end it was too much to sift through.

Reflective Practice To Make Meaningful Change

We engaged in reflective practice and dialogue to think of an approach to support the team and reflect on capturing meaningful photos.

Resulting with an educator research project that used reflective practice to make intentional decisions and meaningful changes to their documentation process.

Also agreeing that we didn’t want this to be more work for them, as we know time is very precious and limited.

The goal was to take what they are already doing, documenting with photos, and adding a step of reflection to think about the why behind the photo being taken. Because documentation is about documenting the process of learning and this includes the educators as well.

The project would then help the team to make meaningful changes to their documentation process, and also create opportunities for educators to engage in conversation and connect with each other.

The pedagogical leader and I came up with 3 questions for educators to answer about any photo they had taken.

REFLECTIVE QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER

These questions were:

• Why did I take this photo?
• what are the children expressing/mastering/trying to understand?
• what changes could you make to the environment or what items could you add to continue this play?

While writing this blog post, I was reflecting on the question we came up with then and wondered if some alternatives were needed.  {This is the power of reflective practice, sharing our early years journey with others, as we are constantly learning from our experiences.} 

Here are a few more possible questions you could use:

• How can this photo advocate for play with parents and why?
• What did I learn about the child at this moment?
• What did I learn about myself as an educator during this moment?
• Why and/or how do I think capturing this moment will showcase the children’s learning?

Our intention is to bring awareness to the number and kind of photos being taken and to reflect on the why behind them.

Example of Capturing Meaningful Photos

Here is an example of the responses I had to a moment captured with photos.  The pedagogical leader and I both felt that it was integral that we participated in the project as well because our image of the educator is that we are all equal and continuous learning from each other is integral to our growth.

Capturing Meaningful Photos Is Personal To You

Taking photos is fun, and you want to capture so many heartfelt moments, cause as you know when you work with children, it’s all the time.  That is what makes it so rewarding!  

But when it comes time to create documentation, make the learning visible, having to sort through 100’s of photos can be very daunting and let’s face it, very time consuming, when you already don’t have much time for this to begin with.

If in the end you find that taking 50 photos of that play experience is needed and meaningful, great!  The goal is for you to know and understand the why behind the moments you’re trying to capture with meaningful photos.

Additional Resources for Documentation

Documentation Canva Templates

Making The Learning Visible

Pedagogical Documentation – What To Document