Documentation is a practice embodied by the early childhood educators in Reggio Emilia, Italy. In Reggio, the teachers view documentation as a part of the process of progettazione - an Italian term used to convey the complex web of hypothesis, observation, prediction, interpretation, and exploration involved in teaching and learning.
Documentation in various forms - photographs, videos, field notes - helps to make student learning visible. It provides a trace of the process that children and teachers engage in during their explorations together.
For us, documenting means spending focused time with children, observing their thinking, and recording their words and work. When children see us (as adults/educators) carefully documenting their work, they realize that we know what they are doing is important and meaningful, and they begin to take their work more seriously as well.