Learning, Place and Identity: an investigation into the affordances of 'a pedagogy of place' amongst indigenous Australian students
Professor Ruth Deakin Crick
This project, "Learning, Place and Identity: an investigation into the affordances of 'a pedagogy of place' amongst indigenous Australian students" led by Ruth Deakin Crick (University of Bristol, UK) represents important cutting-edge research in education. Professor Crick is conjoint with RISIW and working closely with Professor Terry Lovat.
Background
Singleton High School is a large comprehensive secondary school, with 1350 students, situated in the richly resourced Hunter Valley New South Wales, Australia. The traditional land owners, Wonnarua people ('people of the hills and plains') have territory located in the upper Hunter Valley, however, the Indigenous students hail from a variety of groups.
Fed by ten small rural to large township primary schools, this traditionally aligned agricultural and mining community, like most communities, is experiencing rapid knowledge growth and constant social and economic change. It is situated in a strong economically productive mining and agricultural community (population 22,000) most students graduating from this school who are wishing to stay and work in this traditional community are guaranteed employment in either of these fields or the related service industries. However, Singleton High School also serves areas within the locality where low aspirations of families, some third and fourth generation welfare, contribute to underachievement of students.
The School has a student population largely Anglo-Saxon in origin, but with a significant proportion of Aboriginal students and an increasing number of immigrant families from refugee and skilled migration. For both parents and students this community affords unique employment opportunities that require minimal success beyond the compulsory years with only 10% of Singleton High School Students gaining entry to university/higher education courses at the conclusion of their schooling.
The School’s agenda for reform is informed by a publicly funded independent inquiry (The Vinson Inquiry) into public education in New South Wales, the NSW ‘Quality Teaching Model’ and the ‘Productive Pedagogies Project’ in Queensland, in which the principles and practices of ‘authentic assessment’ were developed. The School is equipped with full training facilities with multiple on-line access
Rationale
Recently the schools in this cluster have experienced an increase in enrolments of Indigenous Australian students, especially in the junior years. Many have problems making the transition to a large comprehensive high school. The result has been a marked increase in truancy and partial truancy from the classroom. Retention of students is low with a number of students not meeting the requirements of the School Certificate (year 10) or dropping out before examination period. Numbers of students attempting Preliminary (2 students) or HSC (2 students) is minimal.
Aboriginal students have a general lack of engagement in activities within the schools and mostly don't value the need for formal lifelong learning. Parents of Aboriginal student have expressed frustration when trying to access resources and at times misunderstand the intentions of the schools.
The Aboriginal students at Singleton High School have been identified as requiring support and intervention using the following data:
- English Literacy and Language Assessment (ELLA) state wide tests.
- Secondary Numeracy Assessment Program (SNAP) state wide tests.
- PWA (Primary Writing Assessment)
- BST (Basic Skills Testing) primary
- OASIS (the school's computerised records system) data on attendance, truancy and retention data to HSC
- SIM (computer system) data on suspensions and misbehaviour
These assessment and measurement tools above have revealed that Aboriginal students achieved below the state average for Year 7 and Year 8 students in literacy, numeracy, writing and basic skills. OASIS data reveal significant truancy and erratic attendance among a group of Aboriginal students.
However, as (Antone, 2003) argues Aboriginal literacy is more than just the development of reading and writing skills. Aboriginal literacy is a wholistic concept, with spiritual, physical, mental, and emotional elements, involving relationships between self, community, nation, and creation. This project will explore a pedagogical, relational model of learning and assessment which has been designed to facilitate the acquisition of formal knowledge and skills through a learning journey which begins with and is grounded in place, culture and community, and takes into account the narratives, meanings and values embedded there, through the eyes, mind and heart of the learner.
Learning and place: the interventions
It is an approach to the acquisition of formal skills and knowledge which begins with a personally meaningful context or object for the individual learner and progresses sequentially, through eight pedagogical steps, to a publicly assessed outcome. The approach has been piloted in a series of applied research and development projects (Deakin Crick, 2007), aimed at achieving programmatic outcomes which free learners from the artificial constraints imposed by subject boundaries. The hypothesis is that this approach may also help to counteract the assimilation process that continues to be detrimental to Native communities, which are sub groups within a dominant, capitalist culture. It enables the learner to build an integrated and personally meaningful skill and knowledge base, whilst at the same time developing personal capabilities and competencies for learning how to learn and for active citizenship.
The purpose is to lead learners from their personal interest/engagement with an object, place or space into the world of knowledge as it is presented to them by the contemporary networked/technological society. It supports learners in recognising themselves in formal and informal representations of knowledge which connect personal experience with the world as it impacts on the person. This approach offers a model of ‘personalised and culturally relevant learning’ which makes a significant contribution to the contemporary debate about learning and values (Lovat and Toomey, 2007) because it moves beyond rigid oppositions, for example between the academic and vocational, the universal and contextual, the personal and the public and facts and values.
The proposed research focuses on the person who is learning and on the social and pedagogical contexts that facilitate the development of dispositions, values and attitudes for learning which enable the learner to reflect ‘backwards’ to their own experience, identity and story and to project ‘forwards’ towards a personally chosen outcome which is meaningful to them and capable of validation by publicly accepted assessments. The research is grounded in the notion of critical self-motivation and self-regulation which forms the basis for learning how to learn (Dweck C., 1999; Dweck and Heckhausen, 1998;Ryan and Deci, 2000;Boekarrts et al., 2000; Pintrich and DeGroot, 1990;Pintrich and Schunk, 1996). It is rooted in student choice of a personally meaningful and first hand experience of a place or object (Boud and Miller, 1997; Kolb, 1984; Jarvis, 1987). Students choose to participate (or not) in learning relationships, in a ‘living system’ in which key elements include teacher practices, qualities of leadership, and the values which create a climate conducive to lifelong learning (West-Burnham, 2005;Wheatley, 1999;Senge et al., 2004; 1990). Having made this choice, the dimensions of learning power (clusters of dispositions, values and attitudes) function as ‘scaffolding’ for the sequential development of progressively higher order learning and thinking capabilities within a particular domain. This process leads to the formulation of an assessed learning outcome, or product, which can be assessed summatively and can meet the requirements of the formal curriculum. The outcome includes a workbook which demonstrates the process of learning (Deakin Crick et al., 2007; Millner, 2006).
This embodied, archaeological approach to learning raises pedagogical questions in three areas: first about the relationship between the personal (student voice and choice, developing the personal power to learn) and the public (publicly assessed learning outcomes); second about the nature of the relationship between learner and teacher during the process of ‘scaffolding’ of the student’s learning journey; third about the sequencing of the learner’s encounter with the formal curriculum in the process of knowledge assimilation and transformation. It is the latter question which is the particular focus of this project, specifically the relationship between a personally chosen, culturally significant space or place and the formal, assessable outcomes of the curriculum.
Theoretical Resources
The material effects of socio-spatial transformation processes, (the economic, cultural, social and political changes associated with the late modernity and their association with space) may be conceived of in theoretical terms and be associated with linguistic practice, but it is the power relations of an institutional setting which invest language with its authority to define reality (see for example the work of theorists in the Marxist tradition such as (Freire, 1972, Althusser, 1971, Ball, 1990); critical theorists like (Habermas, 1984) or notions of Foucauldian govenmentality (Foucault, 1980). Globalization, urbanization, and the proliferation of a neo-liberal economic system have material effects on the way that people live and how they understand their identity. 'Place', as the site in which inequality and social reproduction becomes a social reality (Bourdieu, 1991) is therefore a critical starting point for approaching the textuality of space and its relationship to empowerment through lifelong learning and active citizenship.
Although mathematisation and complexification of the material world has been taking place since Aristotle, recent developments have rendered humans inseparable from techno-scientific practices and dependent on interrogations of spatial systems they no longer control (Jaros, 2003) with wholesale fragmentation and loss of direct links between things and images, concepts and signs (Canguilhem G., 1992, Crary and Kwinter, 1992). In short the technological revolutions of the recent years have so altered objective qualities as to force us to alter how we represent world to ourselves, acknowledging the ‘new economies of time and space’ (Giddens, 1991) an environment characterized by a flow of generalized energy (Deleuze and Guattari, 1994), complex information networks and ‘space-time compression’.
New technologies challenge the boundaries separating traditionally ‘autonomous’ domains of science and morality, nature and culture, but also of memory and consciousness, of duty and right. Indeed, some of these changes have been described by many as body-invasive, as ‘incorporations’. Some go so far as to abandon the Cartesian causal, linear systems of thought in favour of models of society based on the theory of complex systems. To bring the educational curriculum closer into contact with the material condition of humanity today means simply to take this new condition on board. And to do so in such a way that it might open fresh opportunities for creating a consensus about the notion of stability and sustainability of bodily life on this planet without destroying the technological base on which our prosperity depends.
The socio-cultural research model of knowledge sciences developed in response to this challenge puts forward a conceptualisation grounded in local context-based bottom-up genealogical approach. It may, for example, be found already in Walter Benjamin's Arcades Project (Benjamin W., 1999), in Michel Foucault's Archaeology of Scientific Reason (Foucault, 1972), and more recently in e.g. Alluquere Roseanne Stone's War of Desire and Technology at the Close of the Mechanical Age (Stone, 1995). It is this archaeological approach that informs the pedagogy in this project. It is well in keeping with the idea of learning as a way of establishing one’s identity in the material world, a way of ‘naming of the world’ (Freire, 1972), an ‘integrative, whole body process that consists of rational, intuitive, affective, sensory and volitional ways of knowing’ (Clark, 1997). This is a capacity almost synonymous with that of communication and consciousness. Learning and living are therefore inherently integrated and may be thought of - at least for the operational purposes of measurement and evaluation - as a form of ‘assemblage or flow of generalised energy’, and consequently in the context of ‘energy management’ and dissipation in the broadest sense.
Research Aims and Objectives
The overall aim of this research project is to explore the relationship of culture, identity and place to the development of ‘intentional learning’ and learning to learn capabilities in a cohort of Aboriginal students.
Research Questions
1. What are the relationships between culture, identity and place and intentional learning?
2. How do the dimensions of learning power scaffold the journey from a personally chosen place to learning outcomes?
3. What is the impact of the ‘pedagogy of place’ on the learning outcomes of the study cohort?
Research Design
This research project draws on the methodology of design experiments (Cobb et al., 2003) in which the goal is to design an innovative learning environment whilst simultaneously investigating the salient aspects of human personal and social cognition and learning involved with those innovations. In this case the innovation is the pedagogy of place methodology described earlier, led by 3 teacher researchers with a cohort of 53 students in one school. Students will receive a minimum of four hours per week of curriculum time for their projects. The research will progress through six phases. First, teachers will be inducted into the hypothesised learning processes and practices. Second, baseline data will be collected before the interventions begin (via Learning profiles and school achievement data). This will provide information on student learning dispositions and attainment. The third phase is the interventions, led by the teachers who will monitor and evaluate them throughout one school year, through researcher facilitated focus groups, and mentored conversations. The researchers will collect qualitative data throughout the interventions, through narrative enquiry, interviews, focus groups and documentation. In phase four, at the end of the school year the base line data collection will be repeated in order to assess the impact of the interventions and to compare this with the qualitative evidence. Phase five is the integration and theorising of all the phases and strands of the research and their relationships, and the final phase is the completion of an academic report, professional publications, and ongoing professional development strategies.
The Interventions
The interventions will be led by the three teachers. Their induction and participation will be a crucial part of the research since what is proposed will require quite major changes in pedagogical practices, with power being progressively given to the learner. This will need to be ‘internalised’ by teachers and research teams, including learners. At the heart of the intervention is a journey from learner personal choice and meaning making through a series of eight steps which culminate in a publicly assessed ‘product’. Embedded in these eights a step is a sequence of thinking and learning capabilities which were observed and recorded through the process of the earlier pilot studies. These are particularly relevant to each 'step' and call for increasingly sophisticated creative and critical thinking skills of the learner. They also provide a framework for assessment and evaluation. The process is scaffolded through the learning relationship between the student and the teacher/guide and through the formative use of learning power dimensions. Students record their process in a work book and participate in identifying and selecting the assessment criteria for the end product.
Data Collection
Data will derive from three elements of the project. Statistical data on baseline and post intervention will be collected for 53 students and 3 teachers in the sample group. The same data will be collected from the whole student population in order to facilitate a comparison of the sample students’ profiles with the whole population. Data of a variety of qualitative forms will be gathered from the sample group to systematically monitor the process and progress of the intervention studies. The teacher researchers will generate data, collected through focus groups, as they monitor and evaluate the interventions. Together the data collection will allow the generation of emergent theory about the ‘person’ who is learning and their relationship to their chose ‘place’ and to the ‘public’ world of skills and knowledge; tracking of student learning and thinking competencies; evaluation of relational assessment practices, a before and after measure of the impact of the interventions and student outcomes; comparison with a control group and with qualitative data. The following variables form the basis of the data to be collected:
Student variables: dimensions of learning power: changing and learning, meaning making, critical curiosity, creativity, strategic awareness, learning relationships and resilience (ELLI profiles); attainment and demographic variables.
Semi-structured interviews: 3 teachers’ and 5 students’ discourse about their experiences of teaching and learning within these interventions, on two occasions.
Narrative Interviews: 4 learners and 3 teachers on 2 occasions.
Observations: Field notes focusing on 2 groups of students x 10 hours; Documents and records of learning processes: teacher plans, records or tasks, student work books, portfolios, artefacts.
Teacher Focus Groups: 3; student focus groups 3 both undertaken at regular intervals throughout the process.
Data Analysis will proceed in a series of overlapping stages. First the quantitative measures of learner centred variables and attainment will be analysed to provide a baseline, to explore relationships between variables and provide data that will inform the interventions and be used for student and teacher self evaluation. The second stage will focus on the pedagogical processes through analysis of the various forms of structured qualitative data. Data will be analysed inductively and iteratively using principles of grounded theorising (Glaser and Strauss, 1967). It will also be subject to narrative analysis. Third, the quantitative measures will be analysed post interventions to assess the impact of the interventions; to integrate theoretically with qualitative data; and to compare with a control group. The final stage will be a full integration and theorising of all baseline, process and outcome data in order to answer the research questions.
Ethics Ethical issues will be taken into account as the research progresses. Following the Graduate School of Education’s ethics policy the principal investigator has held a meeting with the departmental ethics co-ordinator and submitted to the Research Office the Research Ethics Form (for departmental policy see www.bris.ac.uk/education/ethicnet.) If this proposal is funded it will be reviewed by the Ethics Committee, Faculty of Social Sciences and Law. This research is also guided by the BERA Research Guidelines.
Outcomes for Users
The students themselves will be key beneficiaries of this research, since it is aimed at helping them to re-engage with formal learning through strengthening their learning identities, and equipping them with learning capabilities.
The school will benefit through the acquisition of knowledge and know how, and through the development of school based research and development which will support and strengthen relationships and outcomes.
The school’s networks will benefit through dissemination and networking with local business and community groups, to help support learning and a positive attitude to learning inside and outside of school.
The research community will benefit from new knowledge and knowledge co-generation.
Project Management
The project will be a University of Bristol Project, in which the Principal Investigator works in partnership with The Australian Institute for Social Inclusion and Wellbeing, University of Newcastle and Singleton High School.