ABSTRACT:  What challenges do preschool teachers encounter when they attempt to represent student development?  This thesis explores teachers' experiences using two methods of representing preschoolers' development: The Teaching Strategies GOLD™ Assessment and Reggio Emilia inspired documentation panels.  Use of these methods is increasingly common in early childhood contexts across the United States, and in many publicly funded contexts, educators are expected to use both methods simultaneously.  Interviews with Reggio Emilia inspired educators who use these methods suggest that the representations of children these methods produce are strikingly different from one another and not always meaningful to educators.  These interviews also suggest that when educators must use both methods of representation simultaneously practical and philosophical tensions can arise which have the potential to undermine teachers' percieved effectiveness.

 

KEY WORDS:  Early childhood education, Teaching Strategies GOLD™, Reggio Emilia, documentation, assessment, preschool, data, dissonance, innovation, representation.

 

WORKING PAPER:

Depicting the Young Child: Innovation and representation in publicly funded Chicago preschools (Masters thesis, 2014)