Activity 1.3 | Fostering Collaborative and Reflective Practices

“Collaborative dialogue means inviting comments, questions, and interpretations from children, families, colleagues, and community members to elicit multiple perspectives. This process opens avenues for discussion not to find answers but to explore the different ways of thinking about pedagogy, and to invite reflection on assumptions, values, and unquestioned understandings. Ongoing collaborative dialogue can enrich and deepen perspectives, and can challenge educators to consider new ways of seeing, thinking, and practising.” 

(Early Learning Framework, 2019, p.50)

Watch the ECA Learning Hub YouTube video, Perspectives on Documentation and Co-design: Interviews on Using Documentation to Provoke Collaborative Dialogue and Inform Programming Choices and join educators as they share their experiences of collaborating with children to co-design and document learning in a rich and meaningful way. 

Documentation provides an opportunity to share the traces of children’s learning, which opens up opportunities for collaborative dialogue. Documentation is a fluid process that shares observations and allows us to slow down to ensure we are in the moment with children. It allows us to focus on the program and co-design spaces and curriculum. Seeing children as the expert in their learning. Documentation and traces will enable us to engage in collaborative dialogue with colleagues.