Improved Record Keeping Can Enhance the Overall Educational Experience for Students
Montessori record keeping plays a pivotal role in the Montessori classroom, tracking a student's social, emotional, physical, and academic progress as they learn. Proper record keeping can help teachers and parents understand the child's strengths and challenges, helping them plan the most successful route for their education.
Record keeping became part of the Montessori process through the education of Dr. Maria Montessori herself. While attending medical school in Rome, Dr. Montessori was taught to take copious notes of her various scientific observations. This habit stuck with her as she began her career in education, as she recorded students’ progress to help her better understand how each child learned. This type of record keeping is part of what makes Montessori education more individualized than other schooling methods.
Different Methods of Montessori Record Keeping
While all Montessori educators would agree that record keeping is essential, there is less agreement on the best method to track a student's progress. A simple online search of record-keeping techniques reveals that most teachers are using hand-written notes to track student progress. Some of these methods are simple, using a blank piece of paper to take notes. Other teachers have tried printing their record-keeping spreadsheets in order to have templates to capture a significant amount of information by hand. One such teacher even shared her frustration about a time when she tried to graph her student's concentration levels throughout the day. Most of the examples you will find all have one thing in common: Montessori teachers often become frustrated with the record-keeping process and continue searching for a better solution.
There are several drawbacks to these types of hand-written Montessori record-keeping systems:
- It is time-consuming to record every observation that is essential to the child's development.
- Not all record-keeping systems are created equal, creating discrepancies from classroom to classroom.
- At some point, all of the information will need to be aggregated to share with parents and other stakeholders in the student's education.
Montessori school management software, such as EDNA (Education DNA), are designed with many of these pain points in mind. Online record keeping can provide time-saving functionality to educators while providing a consistent view of a student's progress as they advance throughout their Montessori education. Let’s take a look at some of the benefits that online Montessori record keeping can provide.
The Benefits of Montessori Record Keeping Software
Consistent Record-Keeping Leads to a More Cohesive Educational Experience
Montessori classrooms tend to operate independently from one another, having differences in their lesson planning and record-keeping procedures. These discrepancies can often be detected by parents as their children progress from classroom to classroom, giving the perception of a disorderly educational system. By using record keeping and lesson planning software, all teachers can now record observations in the same way, using similar measurements to track progress. Furthermore, teachers and administrators have less confusion regarding the scope and sequence of the school's lesson plans. As a child progresses to new classrooms, each teacher will have a more complete understanding of how that child learns and the individual areas where they may need assistance including their social, emotional, and physical development. This will increase the pace at which a child can progress while giving parents the confidence that their child’s needs are being met.
Improved Lesson Planning
School management software should have lesson planning, record keeping, and progress analysis built within one simple platform. This provides teachers with all of the information they need to make calculated decisions regarding their classroom efficiency and performance. If record-keeping reveals that several students are falling behind on a lesson or skill, the appropriate adjustments can be made in a timely fashion. Does this lesson plan require different prerequisites? Does the child need certain lessons re-presented or presented in a different manner? How are we identifying areas of strength and challenge for each child? Without proper record keeping, many of these questions may never get asked.
Time Saved for Teachers
Most Montessori educators are looking to free up more time in their day. Having software that simplifies record keeping can help accomplish this. Working after hours to prep for parent-teacher conferences is no longer necessary, as these programs can aggregate large amounts of data into student reports that can be viewed by parents daily. Teachers can use this additional time to focus on Montessori lesson plans, individual attention for students, and preparing the environment.
With Access to Records, Students can Create an Educational Portfolio
Montessori record-keeping software is a perfect way to store information regarding the academic, social, emotional, and physical development of a student. By keeping this information in an online database, progress can easily be shared with the parents and students. This gives students the ability to create a digital scrapbook of their school years, including photos and work. This information can stay with the child as they grow, and be utilized to build a personal portfolio for the college admissions process, allowing colleges to have a better understanding of a child that is beyond transcripts and standardized test scores.
Increase Parental Understanding and Involvement
Record-keeping software makes vital information available to teachers, administrators, students, and parents. By having access to these records, parents can track their child's social, physical, emotional, and academic progress with the click of a button. This allows parents to become advocates for their child’s education and can give them insight into the areas where their child needs help. Keeping parents informed also makes parent-teacher conferences more efficient, as the need to cover an entire semester of information in one meeting is no longer necessary. The platform gives parents and teachers the ability to share correspondence regarding the student daily if necessary.
The Next Step to Improve Your Record Keeping Process
If you would like to learn more about how record-keeping software can improve classroom efficiency and create consistency across your Montessori school, contact our team at EDNA. As Montessori educators ourselves, we wanted to connect school administrators, teachers, and parents to create a synergy in service of the child. We believe that EDNA can help you and your school improve the overall education experience for students and their parents. Reach out to our team today to receive pricing information and a free instructional demo of our Education DNA (EDNA) product.
