What Is Kidwatching? - Blog Post #2 - Cindy Black

Kidwatching is sitting, watching and listening to our students. It is a realistic way to look at how students learn. It takes what we as teachers know about our students and turns it into instructional practices. We have information on our students to start but how accurate is it to us? I believe that we each see of our students differently and what myself might would see may be something totally different from another. Luckily there is two of us in a kindergarten room. As we both are able to kid watch our students we can conference together and discuss our findings on each student. This is also a great resource for parent conferencing.

Interacting with students as they engage in learning experiences play a huge role in kidwatching. A child's "zone" for development in a cognitive state is where a child is able to do with a teacher what he or she may not be able to do alone. We as kidwatchers need to be able to seek out this zone and recognize that "what a child can do with assistance today, she will be able to do by herself tomorrow."  (Vygotsky 1978,87)  This will help to plan for future experiences to capitalize on their learning.

I also love the fact that this article states how children have their own way of doing things and all we need to do is watch. Each child learns differently and we as teachers need to be able to see these patterns and discover the uniqueness of each child. More importantly that errors in language learning are not mistakes. Always keep things positive so we do not make children anxious and reluctant to want to express themselves.

I not only get the opportunity to watch my students in the classroom, I get to watch them in the cafeteria, playground and during related arts. I kidwatch every minute of the day! So all my mental notes need to be applied on paper and or a chart I write down daily. "For a kid watcher, time spent observing, gathering data, and interacting with children is time well spent."