Article Link: http://exchangepress.com/article/learning-stories-one-of-new-zealands-unique-contributions-to-early-childhood-education/5024512/
Learning stories are structured, written narratives of significant learning moments, highlighting children’s strengths, interests, abilities and learning dispositions. These credit-based assessments assess children in the context of everyday experiences and ideally involve multiple perspectives. A key aim of learning stories is to show children as confident, competent learners and reflect reciprocal, responsive relationships, which happen on a daily basis in a range of contexts. Collaborating with the learning community (children, parents, families/whānau, and other teachers) is valued. As the learning community discusses and makes decisions about children’s learning, teachers give attention to, and aim to highlight, key learning dispositions. Unlike more traditional forms of assessment, the learning story framework views teachers as active participants.
Learning stories are often written in the first person, placing the teachers within the story, which helps to recognise and acknowledge teachers’ views. Writing stories in the first person means teachers’ understandings and interactions with children become central to assessments. Learning stories written by a teacher who knows the child well become a catalyst for discussions about learning with other members of the learning community—children, parents, family/whānau and other teachers.
In New Zealand/Aotearoa, learning stories are widely used in early childhood education as the ...