Documenting – A need to start?

In today’s reflection, I will like to provide my opinion on one of the items which Professor Lee Peng Yee spoken on during the Secondary Mathematics Seminar 2011. He talked about the need for teachers to document their success, and “not to reinvent the wheel”.

Much of what we accomplished as middle managers in the school remains intangible. Our budget proposals, curriculum improvements, departmental plans and policy reviews usually do not result in the same kind of instant satisfaction that can be felt when a research paper has been accepted, a project proposal has been funded, or a student finally understands a concept that had long been puzzling. For this reason, it can be particularly important for middle managers to document the nature of their successes and reflect in which we can keep printed material and a computer folder for electronic documents, and begin storing items related to our achievements. Consider what would not be the same at school were not for you? How many new improvements did you initiate or, in times of trouble, how was the issues resolved? How has research been enhanced or learning enriched through the policies you introduced?

With such rich source of information, did we document it down? or is it only found in your personal storage memory? Hence, it is important that whenever we set aside documents related to some activities, include a note about why that initiative was important. This is especially true for our teachers, many of whom do not document their years of experience in teaching and learning. However, be selective! We do not want to simply include every document that we create, rather choose only those related to the teacher’s best achievements. This portfolio of success will soon become tangible to the teachers. Teachers can then share such rich teaching and learning, as well as review it whenever things are not going well or when teachers sense that the middle managers’ policy has been ineffective. Teachers can also refer to it for examples during mid and end of year reviews, which serve as data evidences to support their teaching and learning. More importantly, teachers can study it to reveal about their own best practices whenever they or others faces challenging situation they have not encountered before.

So, let each IP department start this important task of documenting their best teaching and learning practices today.