Part two of session two immediately followed the reminder
sessions and was exactly the same for children in all conditions. Reminder prompts (i.e., documentation or worksheets) were
cleared away and the researcher told children they were going to
learn two new things about Panama. All groups of children then
received the same new information, presented in the same way. The
new learning experience followed the same procedure as session
one, this time including the presentation of only two new facts,
focusing on the Panama Canal and the President of Panama. As in
session one, the researcher presented children with facts and props
(i.e., miniatures of a canal boat and the president of Panama) in a
scripted conversation that connected with their prior knowledge,
and children contributed to the conversation. The rationale for presenting children with new information after the reminding sessions
was that it allowed us to observe whether differences between
groups would extend into new learning, and eventually to test
whether reminding was effective primarily for information learned
before (but not after) the reminder, which one would expect. Presenting new information after the learning session also mimicked
the way that documentation is typically used in Reggio classrooms,
as part of ongoing exploration of a topic.