Literature Review Rough Draft
Jeremy Smith Introduction For one theme of this literature review, I read research articles that address the multiple health problems stemming from a lack of outdoor play in children. In another theme, research shows how environmental ed programs are an important part of high achieving schools, and how they help to close the achievement gap of minority students. Additional articles demonstrate how, notwithstanding, minority students spend even less time outdoors than white children. In an additional theme, research shows how formative experiences in nature help to awaken in children positive attitudes for future stewardship of our environment. Finally, articles show how the integration of digital devices into outdoor education, given our current technological and social patterns, are beneficial and even necessary for its success. This researcher’s action research study hopes to contribute to knowledge about how children interact with nature and each other through the integration of digital devices. In doing so, it hopes to gain additional insights into how the integration of technology into outdoor experiences may (or may not), promote language development in English language learners through extension activities that are integrated into the nature experience. Theme 1: Outdoor Play and Children’s Health This theme addresses the health problems in children that result from inactivity. There is information about this in the Coyle, Rivkin, Clements, and Louv writings. The Clements study, An investigation of the status of outdoor play. Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood, is from a British organization called the Children and Nature Network. It is actually an exhaustive compilation of many studies that look at changes in outdoor play in an international context. It contains articles from countries such as England, Canada, Switzerland, Norway, the United States, Denmark, and Australia. Across nations, researchers have found that the amount of time children spend outdoors has decreased, that the kind of outdoor play that children are engaged in has also changed over time, and that the barriers to outdoor play are similar from country to country. The impact on children’s health that researchers have found range from vitamin D deficiency, myopia, decreased cardiopulmonary performance, obesity, strength, balance and gross motor performance, diabetes, and ADHD. The articles also point out the many cognitive, social, and health benefits that increased exposure to outdoor environments provide to children. The authors cite cognitive benefits from play in nature, including creativity, problem-solving, focus and self-discipline. Social benefits include cooperation, flexibility, and self-awareness. Emotional benefits include stress reduction, reduced aggression and increased happiness. Children will be smarter, better able to get along with others, healthier and happier when they have regular opportunities for free and unstructured play in the out-of-doors. In the different articles, data was collected in many ways. Its collection ranges from very scientific numbers based data to attitudes surveys. A weakness in several studies is that several depend on interviews and surveys from adults and are based on their memories of childhood play patterns. Adult memory, (I know mine at least), may not be a reliable source of data. The seminal book Last Child in the Woods by Richard Louv is another exhaustive account of the benefits and dangers that revolve around children’s exposure, or lack thereof, to outdoor spaces. It’s probably the most widely cited text in this field of study. The book draws its information from an impressive list of studies in the notes section. It also includes a guide for readers to become involved in the growing movement of outdoor education. While the book is narrative in nature, it includes many references to data driven findings, including many of the ones discussed in the Clements compilation. Theme 2: Environmental Education Programs Increase Student Performance The Lieberman, G., & Hoody, L. report called Closing the achievement gap: Using the environment as an integrating context for learning is a product of the State Education and Environment Roundtable. This Roundtable includes education agencies from 12 states working to improve student learning by integrating the environment into K-12 curricula and school reform efforts. This Roundtable became interested in the potential of environment-based education programs to improve student learning, change long-standing pedagogical paradigms, and influence the way young people learn to live successfully in the world that surrounds them. Because of the limited amount of research on the efficacy of environment-based education programs, members designed a study to identify the most innovative and successful programs, describe their effectiveness, and analyze their commonalities and differences. They also sought to identify the factors that contributed to the success of these programs and any challenges they encountered during implementation. The article is an executive summary of the report that resulted from that study. It focuses on a specific area of environmental education: using the environment as an integrating context for learning (EIC). This term, which was coined by the Roundtable, encompasses the educational practices that the group believes should form the foundation of environment-based education programs in America’s schools. The report is based on a study of 40 schools from across the United States that have adopted the concepts and frameworks of EIC including: 15 elementary, 13 middle, and 12 high schools. It is informed by comments and experiences gathered through interviews with more than 250 teachers and principals, and more than 400 students. The article states that the observed benefits of EIC programs are both broad-ranging and encouraging.They include: • better performance on standardized measures of academic achievement in reading, writing, math, science, and social studies; • reduced discipline and classroom management problems; • increased engagement and enthusiasm for learning; and, • greater pride and ownership in accomplishments The 40 successful programs examined in this study share these fundamental educational strategies; they: • break down traditional boundaries between disciplines; •provide hands-on learning experiences, often through problem-solving and project-based activities; • rely on team teaching; • adapt to individual students and their unique skills and abilities; and, • develop knowledge, understanding, and appreciation for the environment –community and natural surroundings. In short, evidence gathered from this study of 40 schools indicates that students learn more effectively within an environment-based context than within a traditional educational framework. By providing a comprehensive educational framework, instead of traditional compartmentalized approaches, EIC appears to significantly improve student performance in reading, writing, math, science and social studies, and enriches the overall school experience. The report contains summaries of comparative analyses of comprehensive and discipline-specific standardized tests scores and GPA ‘s. For example, the assessments indicating that EIC students perform better than traditional students are as follows: In the nine comprehensive assessments given,100% showed that EIC students outperformed their peers in compartmentalized programs. In Language Arts, in the 17 assessments given, 100% of the students outperformed their peers. In Math, in the 7 assessments given, 71% outperformed peers. In Science, in the 4 assessments given, 75% outperformed. In Social Studies, in the 2 assessments given, 100% outperformed. In total, in the 39 assessments given, 92% of the assessments show that EIC students score higher than non EIC students. Furthermore, 100% of assessments also showed improved student attendance, behavior, and attitudes toward school. Educators also reported that the primary effects on the interpersonal skills of EIC students include: better ability to work in group settings (98%). (Environment-based learning helps students discover their own skills and appreciate those of others because it capitalizes on a variety of abilities.) It promotes stronger communication skills (94%). (As they work together, students learn to share ideas, discuss their reasoning, and develop new ideas that emerge from team discussions.) Acting with greater civility toward others (93%). (Working together in EIC programs, students begin to treat each other with more care and they exhibit more self-discipline.) Again, this study is based on school visits and reports from administrators, teachers, and children. It is mainly qualitative rather than quantitative. It is based on the opinions of participating students and educators, comparative analyses of standardized achievement and behavioral data, the observations of the researchers, and the research team’s interpretation and analysis of these opinions and observations. Although this study was not intended to be quantitative, the research team also collected as much quantitative data as possible to provide additional insight into the experiences of the study schools. Although evidence from 40 schools can not be considered conclusive, this study brings together a major body of knowledge gained from experienced educators and successful programs. A second source for information on the benefits of outdoor education on school performance is Joanne Lozar Glenn called Environment-based education: Creating high performance schools and students. It is a study that gives credit to and follows from the Leiberman and Hoody report outlined above. Glenn’s report consists of a collection of 7 case studies of schools in Texas, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Kentucky, and Florida where schools are using the environment to motivate students to learn and bring new life and meaning into their school experience. These studies document current evidence supporting the premise that, compared to traditional educational approaches, environmental-based education improves academic performance across the curriculum. Their findings are consistent with the findings of Leiberman and Hoody. Again, they found that students who are in environmentally focused schools demonstrate better performance on standardized measures of academic achievement in reading, writing, math, science,and social studies. They also have reduced discipline and classroom management problems, increased engagement and enthusiasm for learning, and greater pride and ownership in accomplishments. They make a recommendation in the article that The U.S. Department of Education establish an Office of "Ombudsman for the Environment." The function of the office would be to establish close linkages and coordination with the relevant units of the Department of Education, and with the EPA, the National Science Foundation, and other government agencies concerned with U.S. education. The author cites the 1983 report A Nation at Risk, which showed how the United States has been losing its preeminence in education among other nations. Since this report, the National Commission on Excellence in Education has been working to improve our nation’s schools. Specifically, in 1994, Congress passed the national Goals 2000 legislation. The author of this article says that the environmentally focused schools in his study satisfy these goals because of their hallmarks traits of: integrated learning across disciplines, problem solving, decision making, independent and group learning, issues-based instructional activities, and a balanced variety of perspectives. The study goes on to claim that while schools can integrate their curriculum around different disciplines such as art, geography, or archeology, the environment lends itself best to integration between disciplines because it is naturally inter-disciplinary, place-based, and lends itself to inquiry-based learning and team teaching. Also, parents give environmental education a 96% approval rating, which bodes well for their involvement and school to home connections. What I like about this study is that it goes into more detail about the schools it studies, for example, several of the schools they study have high minority/high poverty student populations, which is not unlike the school I work in. The case studies show through a variety of different state assessments how their students have truly closed the achievement gap. The study compares primarily reading, language, and math scores between EIC focused schools and other schools in the states they are from. Scores are higher in all the schools they looked at. The case studies describes in detail strategies that the different schools use to create a more integrated, environmentally focused curriculum. Quantitative, state assessment based data is then presented from each school in charts and graphs to show performance. Theme 3: Outdoor Experiences Foster Environmental Awareness and Stewardship Attitudes I focus on this theme because I, (and I know I am not alone), am deeply concerned for the future of our planet. One of educators’ main goals in fostering environmental education is the awakening in children of environmental awareness and activism. In her study Life paths into effective environmental action, Louise Chawla notes that helping children develop a sense of empathy and sympathy (such as for wildlife) are a foundation for the development of caring for the natural world. She says that adults can help children to see the world through this lens. Children who have some of the strongest emotional ties to nature are more inclined to want to protect the natural environment and species. In her study, structured open-ended interviews were conducted with 30 environmentalists in Kentucky and 26 in Norway (35 men, 21 women). In interviews that lasted between 1 and 2 hr, people whose lives demonstrated their commitment to protect or improve the environment were asked to tell when and where they grew up and went to school, their parents' occupations, and their own vocations and environmental activities. They were then asked to tell the story of their most important environmental efforts and the sources of their commitment, to share their wisdom regarding how to work most effectively, and to describe their vision for wise development. Importantly for educators, most people described childhood as the foundation of their relationship with the environment. Childhood predominated in importance both in terms of the number of types of formative experiences with which it was associated and its frequency of mention. Only three respondents did not begin their explanations of their commitment with childhood. She says that the effect of the right type of nature experience can be lifelong, and that in many cases this involves repetitive, long-term nature activities. Interestingly, she found that it can also be related to experiences that more intensively immerse a young person in nature. Chawla refers to an important long-range study of 2,000 adults in which researchers Wells and Lekies found that childhood participation in nature activities (e.g., hiking, camping, or playing in the woods), had a significant, positive effect on both adult environmental attitudes and behaviors. People who participated in “wild” nature activities as children were more likely to have pro-environmental attitudes and behaviors as adults. They concluded that wild experiences as children are more likely to produce adults who have a lifelong commitment to nature conservation. Positive results were also seen from less wild activities such as planting flowers, but young people being more immersed in nature had the greatest results. Theme 4: Integration of Technology into Environmental Education is Beneficial The Chavez study is a frequently referenced source of information on the role of technology in environmental education. It describes an action research project done with 38 youth ages 8-13 in Los Angeles. Children were asked to perform different tasks in nature. Some involved the use of technology, and some did not. The technology dependent activities are “camera safari” and a geocaching activity. The non-tech activities are “etchings/rubbings”, and a “nature scavenger hunt”. Data were collected on two areas: (I) votes by activity and (2) observer notes by activity. The majority of youth voted "green" (or "it was cool," "it rocked") on every activity. However, more voted "green" for the activities of geocaching for treasure (92%) and camera safari (86%) which were the technology dependent activities, than voted "green" for the non-technology dependent activities of nature scavenger hunt (76%) and etching/rubbing (62%). Only one person voted "red" (or "it was dumb," "it was a waste of time") for any activity. The etching/rubbing activity received the highest percentage of yellow (or "not sure," "it was alright") votes. Observers noted increased engagement and interest around the tech supported activities. The data evaluated suggest the use of technology to get youth outdoors is positive. However, these findings are based on an exploratory study of 38 youth. Chavez is careful to state that the results cannot be generalized beyond the youth who participated. She states that much more research needs to be conducted with youth to confirm and refine these results. For example, exact replications of the study conducted (four specific activities) can test technology versus non-technology dependent activities. In addition, she says that follow-up studies might examine if the interest in these activities continues beyond the testing day. Another set of studies might examine age and use of technology in outdoor settings and specifically whether some activities are better suited to older or younger youth. This is a promising jumping off point for my own action research. Specifically, I plan to look at her question about how interest in the activities may go beyond the testing day. But beyond just interest, I’m curious to see if the integration of tech into outdoor activities will lead to more exploration and use of language in extension activities in the form of nature reports. Kevin J. Coyle’s study, done nearly a decade later in 2017, provides a more in depth look at tech devices in nature. Through this study it can be appreciated how much thought has been put into integrating tech and nature in the past decade. In summary, this National Wildlife Federation’s study found that: “there is a role for mobile technology and other forms of technology in helping children to experience nature and to develop a lasting affinity for the natural world and the outdoors. Digital Apps and technology that encourage children and their caregivers to make the indoor/outdoor transition have particular value because they affirmatively try to bridge the gap between these two worlds.Technology by itself is not what is keeping a majority of American children indoors and away from nature. While digital technology, in all forms, is very evident in children’s lives, its causal effect in keeping children indoors is probably overshadowed by larger societal shifts in parental concerns over risk and safety and even the very definition of good parenting. Digital Apps need to more affirmatively account for and address the powerful and persistent barriers that exist in society for children to have more outdoor time. These barriers are complex and revolve around new definitions of safety and security of children who are outdoors. In the past 20 or more years, the definition of parenting and childcare giving has shifted toward high concern over hazards and threats, and a standard of vigilant supervision of outdoor children until they are teenagers.” He discusses how out of the thousands of digital apps that claim to promote environmental education, relatively few are designed to create a true and lasting affinity with nature. He says that many of these apps are designed for the classroom, but not for group, school based outdoor activities and that they need to be because parents are increasingly unable or unwilling to take their kids out into nature and this role is shifting toward schools, park agencies, or outdoor education organizations. Coyle then gives some interesting app design guidelines to actually do this. These outdoor app guidelines include: Activate the senses and expose children to natural beauty, A focus on animals in nature, Create perceptions of safety in nature, Encourage physical activity, Foster nature adventure scenarios, Connect close-knit social groups, Provide for caregiver roles, Protect equipment outdoors, Extend the experience, Collect and store observations, Make it wearable and hands free, and Use mobile senses and all the technology features (photos, sound recording, geo-location, immediate identification, recording to databases, interfacing with social media and more). His findings point to the possibility that digital apps that employ many of these features can offer significant opportunities to educate young people on how to use technology as an enrichment to the nature and outdoor experience. Summary These studies relate to the action research I propose to conduct because, for one, they give background information on the problems related to screen time and insufficient outdoor play. They also show how environmental education has academic and social benefits, especially around Napa County’s 6 C’s. Other research shows how early experiences in nature create a positive mindset around the stewardship of the environment. Finally, they show how integrating digital devices into outdoor instruction can enrich students’ experiences. My action research will either confirm or refute findings that technology is an effective tool when teaching outdoor ed. It might also show if and or how integration of tech into outdoor experiences might aid in academic achievement, with a special focus on English language learners. The task now is to design an action research project that can collect enough relevant data to provide additional insights into if, how, and why or why not. I hope it does. I’m obviously biased in favor of outdoor ed, and since tech is the future, I’d like to show how it can work for the environment, for kids’ academic and social development, and for outdoor educators. Resources Chavez, Deborah J. (2009) Youth Day in Los Angeles: Connecting Youth and Nature with Technology USDA Forest Service. Retrieved from: https://www.fs.fed.us/psw/publications/chavez/psw_2009_chavez002.pdf Chawla, L. (1999). Life paths into effective environmental action. The Journal of Environmental Education, 31(1), 15-26. Retrieved from: http://0-web.a.ebscohost.com.library.touro.edu/ehost/detail/detail?vid=3&sid=b328b64f-1fe4-436b-971b-cbc49c795b3d%40sdc-v-sessmgr03&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#AN=EJ592056&db=eric Chawla, L (2000). Significant Life Experiences Revisited: a review of research on sources of environmental sensitivity Whitney Young College, Kentucky State University. Retrieved from: https://www.colorado.edu/cedar/sites/default/files/attached-files/Chawla,%20L.%20(1998).%20Significant%20life%20experiences%20revisited.%20Journal%20of%20Environmental%20Education,%2029(3),%2011-21..pdf Clements, R. (2004). An investigation of the status of outdoor play. Contemporary Issues of Early Childhood, 5(1), 46-50. Retrieved from: https://www.childrenandnature.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/CECCNNWorldwideResearch.pdf Coyle, Kevin J. (2017) Digital Technology’s Role in Connecting Children and Adults to Nature and the Outdoors National Wildlife Federation Retrieved from: https://www.nwf.org/~/media/PDFs/Kids-and-Nature/NWF_Role-of-Technology-in-Connecting-Kids-to-Nature_6-30_lsh.ashx Glenn, J. L. (2000). Environment-based education: Creating high performance schools and students. Washington, DC: NEETF. Retrieved from: https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED451033.pdf Leach, Ana (2018) Improving Children’s Access To Nature Begins with Addressing Inequality The Guardian Retrieved from: https://www.theguardian.com/teacher-network/2018/mar/01/improving-childrens-access-nature-addressing-inequality-bame-low-income-backgrounds Lieberman, G., & Hoody, L. (1998). Closing the achievement gap: Using the environment as an integrating context for learning. San Diego, CA: State Education and Environmental Roundtable. Retrieved from: http://www.seer.org/extras/execsum.pdf Louv, R. (2005). Last child in the woods: Saving our children from nature-deficit disorder. Chapel Hill, NC: Algonquin Books. Rivkin, M. S. (1995). The great outdoors: Restoring children’s right to play outside. Washington, DC: National Association for the Education of Young Children. Wells, Nancy M., Lekies, Kristi S. (2006) Nature and the Life Course: Pathways from Childhood Nature Experiences to Adult Environmentalism. Retrieved from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/252512760_Nature_and_the_Life_Course_Pathways_from_Childhood_Nature_Experiences_to_Adult_Environmentalism1 Wesson, Mark (2011) Connecting Children to Nature: Integrating Technology into Nature Programs and Incorporating Environmental Education into an Urban After School Program Colorado State University, ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, 2011. 1503695. Retrieved from: https://0-search-proquest-com.library.touro.edu/pqdthss/docview/916424289/4DAAF70ED06648B0PQ/1?accountid=40250 Additional resources to be looked at: Clements, R. (2004). An investigation of the status of outdoor play. Contemporary Issues of Early Childhood, 5(1), 46-50. Cole, A. (2007). Expanding the field: Revisiting environmental education principles through multidisciplinary frameworks. The Journal of Environmental Education, 38(2), 35-43. Coyle, K. (2005). Environmental literacy in America: What ten years of NEETF/Roper research and related studies say about environmental literacy in the U.S. The National Environmental Education & Training Foundation. Retrieved from: http://www.neetf.org/pubs/ELR2005.pdf (accessed May 6, 2006). Kumar, J., Muntner, P., Kaskel, F. J., Hailpern, S. M., & Melamed, M. L. (2009). Prevalence and associations of 25-Hydroxyvitamin D deficiency in US children: NHANES 2001-2004. Pediatrics, 124(3), 362-370. Palmer, J. (1993). Development of concern for the environment and formative experiences of educators. The Journal of Environmental Education, 24(3), 26-30. Palmer, J., Suggate, J., Bajd, B., & Tsaliki, E. (1998). Significant influences on the development of adults’ environmental awareness in the UK, Slovenia, and Greece. Environmental Education Research, 4(4), 429-444. 6 Pergams, O., & Zaradic, P. (2006). Is love for nature in the US becoming love of electronic media? 16-year downtrend in national park visits explained by watching movies, playing video games, internet use, and oil prices. Journal of Environmental Management, 80, 387-393. Satterthwaite , D. (2000). Will most people live in cities? BMJ: British Medical Journal, 7269(321), 1143-1145. Singer, D., Singer, J., D'Agostino, H., & DeLong, R. (2009). Children's pastimes and play in sixteen nations. American Journal of Play,1(3), 283-312. United Nations (2008). United nations population division: World urbanization prospects. Retrieved from: http://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/ wup2007/2007WUP_ExecSum_web.pdf. Verheij, R.A.,Maas, J. & Groenewegen, P.P. (2008).Urban rural health differences and the availability of green space. European Urban and Regional Studies, 307(15). DOI: 10.1177/0969776408095107 From Screens to Streams:
Technology Driven Strategies to Get Elementary Students Interested and Into in Nature Touro University California By Jeremy Smith Given the current social patterns related to the amount of time kids in general, but especially our majority of minority students, are spending outdoors versus indoors on screens, I think there is a way schools might shift their educational focus and goals to integrate an increased awareness of and interaction with the outside world. This is increasingly vital for the stewardship of our environment. Because screens are not going away, the shift in school focus leverages technological devices to increase student motivation to get into nature and interact with it. The project I plan to do with my students is a small part of this big idea, but I hope it provides insights into how it might be done. Abstract Key Words Introduction National State Local Statement of the Problem Background and Need Purpose of the Project Goal/Purpose of the Study Methodology Study Design Data Analysis and Interpretation Table 1 Table 2 Etc Recommendations and Summary References While my own personal experience as a parent of a “tech savvy” 15 yer old son has had a lot to do with my interest in children’s use of technology, I think my choice for this topic of investigation started several years ago during parent teacher conferences at Calistoga Elementary School. When I asked parents, “What is your main concern for your child?”, parents invariably responded with something to the effect of: “I’m worried about the amount of screen time my child is engaged in”. All the while, I have had to explain to parents that their children are increasingly using screens in the classroom as well. Our school recently adopted a “one laptop per child” policy which has shifted our pedagogical focus toward the increased use of laptops as a source of curriculum and instructional techniques and strategies. This parent concern I have been hearing for the past several years reflects the findings of one recent national study which shows that while more than four-fifths (83%) of parents questioned in the United States think it is important for their children to learn to use technology, nine out of ten would prefer them to spend their childhood outdoors, developing a connection with nature. In another recent study, almost all (96%) of the 1,001 parents with children aged between four and 14 quizzed for the National Trust thought it was important that their children had a connection with nature and thought playing outdoors was important for their development. (XXXXThe Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/jul/27/children-spend-only-half-the-time-playing-outside-as-their-parents-did). Despite these near unanimously expressed concerns among academics and parents, the amount of time children spend indoors and on screens has increased dramatically in the past several decades. It’s estimated now that children spend half as much time playing outdoors as indoors as their parents did. The National Wildlife Federation estimates that children spend half an hour a day outdoors, but 7 hours a day in front of video screens playing games, watching TV, and spending time on the computer. (XXXXhttps://www.apa.org/monitor/2008/03/outdoors) These activities are linked with the rise in childhood obesity, ADHD, vitamin deficiency, and general social/emotional wellbeing. A 2004 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey found that one-third of children and teens, ages 2 to 19, were overweight or at risk of becoming overweight. By 2010, about half of school-age children in North and South America will be overweight or obese, predicts an article in the (XXXXInternational Journal of Pediatric Obesity (Vol. 1, No. 1). More here…) Now we are in 2020, and something feels profoundly wrong, here. Because concurrently in schools, as teachers get used to the new one laptop per child technology, the hours students spend on screens in the classroom is also on the rise. (XXXX Is there a study to show this?) As an educator, I’ve always understood that my main role is not to ensure kids are educated, but that they are, first and foremost, kept safe and healthy. I feel like I have been failing my students in this most fundamental of tasks. (Studies show how today’s kids have a lower life expectancy than we do.) I fear that in this new technological and environmentally challenged World we are living in, our current educational model is actually having a detrimental effect on children. It could also be bad for the environment as kids become more disconnected from the world around them and into digital screen based worlds. As educators, focus must be on children’s health first, because the possibility of learning depends, after all, on their safety, health, and social wellbeing. In doing so, we would also be helping the environment through increased awareness and interaction with outdoor spaces. Many recent studies have shown that this common parent and educator fear is indeed backed up by science. In the health field, numerous studies have shown, (XXXXapa), that being outdoors more is linked to the following benefits, as determined by, for example: https://www.nwf.org/en/Kids-and-Family/Connecting-Kids-and-Nature/Health-Benefits-and-Tips (The following was cut and pasted from the Internet to maintain a direction, but not to plagiarize): Body
The good news is, studies have shown that increasing awareness of our natural environment leads to attitudes which bode well for its protection. (XXXXX find it again) While it is popular to blame technology for kids’ decreasing outdoor play time, it is not the only reason why this phenomenon is happening. For one, the increasing homework load kids have had over the past decades has reduced their time for outdoor play. (XXXX). It’s also been observed that parent attitudes and fears around unstructured, outdoor play have influenced the amount of time children spend outside. Mass shootings, coupled with our fear-based media that disproportionately amplifies such occurrences, have had a huge effect here. Not to say mass shootings are not, in fact, on the rise, of course. A specific concern in the community of Calistoga is that the majority of our students, (85%), are minority students who qualify for free/reduced lunch. The academic benefits for these students that come from the use of technology are well known. The use of technology in the classroom has specifically been shown to reduce achievement gaps in reading scores for English language learners. (XXXX) However, other studies show how and why minority students are underrepresented in outdoor programs. (XXX) In Calistoga families are increasingly fearful of ICE immigration officials detaining people in the community. Last year the story children told me is that “la migra” was in Calistoga looking to detain people. People have been “hiding” indoors to avoid contact with authorities. This is not to say that our families do not want their kids to have more outdoor play. In fact, my experience during the past three years as the teacher representative in the Spanish speaking parent group or, ELAC. has made me aware of the community's desire for more outdoor spaces for their children. Our local Spanish speaking parents began, without school input, an outdoor spaces initiative. They feel that there are not enough outdoor spaces in Calistoga. To address this problem, they developed their own committee to study the possibility of securing an exercise course, a picnic area, a soccer field, and a skate park. The group is called Adelante, which in Spanish means “forward”, or “ahead”. They have presented their plan to the local school board and town government. Unfortunately, they meet on Wednesday nights, so I’m out of these meetings until I finish this masters program. The last I heard, they secured funding for the picnic area and “ropes course”. I need to check in to see how this project is coming along. As I continue to read studies on these themes, I’m becoming more curious about the impact that the residency status of families has on kids’ ability to get outdoors and into natural spaces. Minority students already have challenges due to the economic and time constraints of their working parents. If we also consider the fears of coming into contact with immigration authorities, I suspect, the challenges to getting out of the house are increased. Compared to the 50’s, 60’s, and even 70’s and 80’s, when the common experience was for kids to go outdoors to play after school until sundown, most kids now go shut themselves into their houses. A telling quote here comes from the seminal work on kids’ interaction with the environment, called “Last Child in the Woods”, by Richard Louv. When asked why he prefers to play indoors, a child simply and honestly states, “It’s where all the electrical outlets are”. (Go on here, ...more studies and facts.) And yet while parents, educators, and researchers recognize that outdoor play and exploration is profoundly beneficial to children’s health, we also recognize that screen based technology is not going away anytime soon. It’s projected that...(XXXXapa) Thankfully, there is no denying that despite these concerns, technology in the hands of children has proven to have many educational benefits. For example, (XXXX,apa). Importantly, it has proven effective in closing achievement gaps among “English Language Learners”, and their “Other Language Learners” counterparts. (XXXX Can I use the Touro study done in Calistoga by one of our retired teachers for this one?) Proposal: Educators are faced with a new social, technological and environmental landscape that requires them to adapt their educational model in a fundamental way. At home, students are increasingly on-line and on screens at hourly levels that are unhealthy. In addition, the content children consume on screens at home is often violent. The two genres of “first person shooter” and “adventure” games make up around 50% of all video games sold, followed by role playing, sport, adventure, fighting, racing, strategy, and other genres. Notwithstanding, parents, out of a variety of fears, have reduced their childrens’ ability to be outside in unstructured environments. One proposal would be to flip the focus of schools onto outdoor learning environments. Schools necessarily shift their focus to provide more healthy outdoor play and learning activities that kids no longer get at home. I like the term “flip” because our schools’ role takes on the traditional role that outdoor after school time used to have for kids. Because the use of technology in classrooms has been proven to have many educational benefits, especially for English language learners, technology would still be used, but in ways that encourage outdoor learning. This proposal also leverages the technology use already going on in homes. Students complete lessons from school on their in-home devices. Inversely, schools reduce the amount of in-class screen time. If they are having more unstructured recess time, taking care of school gardens, and going on more hikes to the local parks and trails during school, kids would also be charged with using their devices at home, hence, homework, (their screen time), to complete related assignments. They bring their individual experiences and thoughts into the classroom through written assignments, photos, videos, audio recordings, etc. They bring them to class through digital platforms and create a shared community in the classroom. This shift could lead to increased awareness of the environment, which is vital for our society. It would also lead to improved mental, social, and physical health of our children. Given their institutionally structured nature, schools are, I believe, equally if not better equipped/positioned than families to ensure kids get the necessary amount of safe, outdoor, unstructured playtime that they need to develop in a healthy and socially and environmentally beneficial manner, while at the same time ensuring that their in-home screen time is dedicated toward more creative, constructive, and generally positive learning. The school shift in technology use needs to be re-directed toward student and environmental health, sustainability, and general wellbeing. All this points to a profound re-positioning of the role of schools in child education. They will increasingly need to become places where children are engaged in unstructured play and interaction with the natural world. It happens in a safe, structured, teacher-guided environment, where parents feel it’s safe for them to explore outdoor environments. Using tech tools at home also plays into the recent trend in education where people are increasingly learning in non-traditional and technology assisted, independent contexts. We are learning tech tools on our own to satisfy professional and communication needs. (More here…) A lesson/project in a school like this might look like the following: “Take a walk with a parent or a friend. Use a phone/camera to take a picture of a plant or animal from your house or outside. (It can be a pet!) Send the picture to your teacher through Class Dojo, etc. We’ll present it in class on (day; time (weekly)).” Or, “Ask a family member to download from the app store iNaturalist or iNaturalist Seek. (etc..)Take pictures with your app and tell us what plants and animals you identified with the help of this app. We will share your findings with the class on (day of week) Ongoing collection of local plant and animal species photos and information would lead to group or individual reports in a Google Slides format. There are a variety of resources teachers can use to do such a technology based nature project. “What if?” questions: Can schools create assignments that ask kids to go explore outdoor spaces, given safety and insurance concerns? Can parent waiver forms be used? (Even so, if they still had to be inside, they’d be using their indoor screen time doing classwork instead of video games exclusively.) Can schools afford to procure and let kids take handheld devices home? Also, in order to involve parents, are the apps in Spanish? A family outreach program might include education that encourages and teaches parents to get outdoors and interact with their kids more often. So far, my research project plan is to look at my third grade students’ experiences on two outdoor field trips, one in the fall and another in the spring, to the 3,200 acre Pepperwood Preserve. Our Title 1 school receives funding to participate in their SCENIQ program, which trains students on environmental inquiry. Through a year-long, nine hour program that includes visits to Pepperwood in the fall and spring and a school-based lesson in the winter, classes participate in hands-on grade-level specific activities. Students record written and visual observations in creative bilingual nature journals. Students practice discovery skills, learn to support their ideas with evidence, and gain knowledge of our local environment. SCENIQ was one of the first environmental education programs to be accepted to Sonoma County’s Upstream Investment Portfolio. The Portfolio is a select collection of local, evidence-based programs proven to help eliminate poverty in Sonoma County and ensure equal opportunity for quality education. The program promotes the Next Generation Science Standards, which aim to eliminate the practice of “teaching to the test.” Instead, they shift the focus from merely memorizing scientific facts to actually doing science—so students spend more time posing questions and discovering the answers for themselves. SCENIQ is aligned to the Next Generation Science Standards and puts students in the science driver’s seat. My action research will be done with my 3rd grade class of 22 students. The inquiry will set up our two trips to use, in the fall, a traditional, non-technologically assisted experience in nature; and in the spring, an experience which will include the use of iPads, smart phones, or digital cameras. In both formats, students will be asked to comment on their observations with three writing prompts: I notice… I wonder… and, It reminds me of. As an extension activity, students will use the data they discovered in the field to create reports. The first report will be in a traditional, handwritten and arts/crafts style format. The second will be a slideshow in Google Slides. I’m interested to see how technology might enhance student motivation and success in Pepperwood’s three main focus areas: to practice discovery skills, learn to support their ideas with evidence, and gain knowledge of our local environment. The second trip/experience is really open right now to exploration. A lot depends on my own learning curve in using tech devices with kids. Data collection Informal observations of the kids in nature Nature Reports (quality and depth of information) Thoughts about the experience the experience questionnaire A corollary question for me is how the use of tech in nature might alter kids’ experience of nature. Do kids get more or less out of the experience in terms of motivation, understanding, (insights), reporting, and further study? On the tech side. Does the camera or video device limit a child’s perception of things in nature due to its “click and done” style of observing and capturing, or does it focus it in a lead to further questioning and understanding? On the nature journal side, do kids perceive more in a direct, first person non-tech experience in nature when they slow down enough in order to draw what they see in a detailed manner? Should we focus on teaching this way of interacting with nature? Is it developmentally appropriate? Is the use of tech devices to interact with record nature more suited to children than nature journals? (XXXX I read something about this. apa needed.) Because on our first outing to the creek the kids were so excited turning over rocks that they did not want to slow down to draw anything. This can be structured in a lesson. It goes into the realm of teaching mindfulness to kids, which is also a big theme. I suspect in the interest of balance we would want to do both. Another query is: In a social-emotional sense, do kids demonstrate different behaviors with their peers outdoors when the tech is there or not there? Finally, does the use of tech devices for these purposes increase ELL student learning around concepts and language? Also, can we show that any of this has an impact on test scores, (which ones), and/or should we even try to show this? Is our “smarter balanced” test reflective of the new focus this kind of learning proposes? The data might be too stretched to show any of that conclusively, anyway. will the integration of tech devices unlock ELL and specifically newcomer interaction, knowledge, and expression around their experiences? OK, here is my new and perhaps more interesting pondering that came out of my original ponderings on environmental education:
Minority students, specifically Latino and Black, make up only 10% of the kids who are attending outdoor kindergartens so far (Wait. In Washington? Where did I read that? Maybe it was in the latest REI catalog, or maybe not.) IF this is, in fact, a trend, then why? And if it becomes one, then how can we reverse it? Because, the latino student population is BY FAR, (about 80% in my experience teaching in Northern California), the biggest student population in the upcoming ranks of students. We need to direct our educational efforts at Latino students, here, AND internationally, students abroad. They will be the majority of future leaders who will work on environmental education, awareness, and action. SO, how do we design internationally available, digital, “2.0” 5G? outdoor curriculum to fit with their languages, social contexts, environments, and cultural values? Of course, I’m also thinking about how to get parents involved in this. (They own the cell phones in the family.) The other question is: How many of these apps designed to get kids in touch with/out into nature are already multilingual? I imagine iNaturalist is, since it is used internationally. Is iNaturalist doing this on crowd source based platforms like Wikipedia? Are other countries doing similar projects? Time to ask Google. (I bet this has already been thought about and worked on a hundred times but I enjoy thinking about it nevertheless.) Sometimes I think that my frustration with tech is that it's moving too slow. It feels like we are having growing pains. (Will it ever stop?) As a teacher, I think this can translate into tech tools, such as on-line reading and math programs, not being aligned to our more traditional paper book and workbook (Common Core aligned) curriculum. I'm using a patchwork of materials where the computer based programs are typically used to enrich our more traditional curriculum. The programs I use, such as Freckle, Lexia, Epic, Prodigy, and Xtra Math, for example, are supplementary. What we really focus on in our grade level scope and sequence planning meetings is still the textbook based learning. And this is ok. I think it's really good for there to be a balance between screen time and book/activity time. It just that sometimes I wish it were all integrated and planned out ahead of time so that I don't spend so much of my time figuring out what to use. So much of my job involves managing 22 kids and all the rest that goes along with it, I don't have time to be a curriculum designer. Sure, I'll plan how to deliver it and differentiate it, but to design lessons takes, for me at least, a huge amount of time. Also, we are expected to enter all grades into Illuminate, but this takes additional steps to integrate our paper tests into the digital system, such as filling out bubble sheets and taking pictures of them with our laptops. And then, the Smarter Balanced assessment never seems to really reflect what we are teaching anyway. The curriculum is still catching up with the test. Sometimes I think wouldn't it be great if, and this may sound a bit big-brothery, everything were streamlined into one big package? (Probably Pearson or McGraw Hill)... Our online, learner centered and instant feedback giving curriculum, that has all the 6C's figured out already across all curricular areas, would feed grades directly into Illuminate for parents to see, and would also automatically populate our report cards.... and ALSO be aligned in a smarter way to the Smarter Balanced Assessment? Some company could make a killing off of this idea. But then, of course, where would this leave us teachers? Would we turn into tech support? How would we teach kids about passion through our passions? How would we teach them how to search through our searching? How would we teach them it's ok to make mistakes through our mistakes? And then what would happen when a bigger company comes along with a better idea and makes everyone re-learn the entire system? Maybe this experience of fumbling through these technological changes is not such a bad thing after all. I think the very nature of education requires a constant dis-satisfaction with current ideas and practices and a constant striving for the next better thing. That's learning. Look how far we have come. The more diversity and freedom that happens here, the better. But, that other way would probably make my job a lot easier. The other reason the tech is moving too slow is because when I see the use for it, I want it now. For example, in relation to my big question, I want all my students to have cell phones. Now. And they don't. And they won't. But they neeeed them because I discovered this app called iNaturalist and played around with it last weekend down by the creek in downtown Santa Rosa. You point your camera at a plant or animal and in a few seconds it tells you what it is! Isn't that crazy? It knows what a mallard duck is. It knows what blackberries are. If it doesn't know exactly, then it gives you a few suggestions. If you want, you can pin the plant or animal onto the internationally used map/database of biodiversity around the world. Someone pinned one of the plants growing in my front yard! (Which I did not plant.) If my kids could use this tool they could create a database of some of the local flora and fauna in Calistoga, and then present on it. We can also do something like this on our field trips to Pepperwood. I think we can still do it, but it will be a bit different. Maybe I can get iPads and upload photos from those. Today, I took them down to the creek in Calistoga (headwaters of the Napa River) with their nature journals. They were so busy and excited looking for bugs under rocks that most of them didn't have/take the time to draw. We'll have to do it tomorrow morning, based on their memories of what they saw. But if they did have cameras, they could have captured those images quickly and find out with more accuracy, what the bug, or plant, was. After taking this nature journaling class I had this big idea that if kids observed nature carefully and slowly, they might appreciate it more. I still think this is true, but in today's context at least, it was not going to happen, with a few exceptions. I can better see how the use of tech might enhance this experience for all kids. https://docs.google.com/presentdocs.google.com/presentation/d/1QQCABajnmAFW5yZTGDV8uP04bNgg0BZWEw5KvCPBk50/edit?usp=sharing
I feel like I'm looking for the "question of all questions" that will address all of my problems and interests. Gotta narrow it down. I'm trying to blend ELL development into a pbl activity that uses technology in natural settings. Question is something like, "Does the use of technology in a natural setting enhance student, and specifically ELL's experience, leading to more engagement, learning, and language rich presentations? "
After doing the Falk readings I think I have a path forward to setting up a research able question, but I want to consult with a professor to make sure I'm on the right path. It’s my first time in an online school setting. I’m 49, and I honestly lack the technological background that might have made all of this easier. (Oh, how I envy the younger generation’s skills in the mysterious arts of computational technologies. Ahem.) I’m frustrated that I may have missed deadlines, but I feel like it’s because of my lack of computer skills, and not effort. I’ve spent my most of my free hours doing this for the past couple of weeks. I might be a slow processor and typer. But I’ve thought a lot and tried to work a lot out in my head, which takes time, too.
This email, (which will be pirated in order to post on the 790 Weebly page), is an attempt to describe my childhood and personal and teaching experiences that may have led me to these questions. It’ll try to explain how my big questions formed, then morphed, and then morphed again, as my experience in teaching, technology, and now in the masters program, grew. Again, I apologize for the long narrative, but I’m a semi-old dude who likes to tell stories. A Personal Narrative on the Formation of a Master’s Degree Thesis in Innovative Learning... A long, long time ago….. Childhood. Nature. My earliest memory from growing up in Sebastopol is a hot day when our goat died after knocking its water bowl over. I remember coming home and finding it dead.Then the burial and placing a flat rock over its grave. I was two or three. In the next two decades, with more success at 3845 Twig Avenue, we also raised dozens of chickens, 3 seasons of pigs, 2 sheep, and another goat. Our neighbor, Marie St. Marie, would sometimes bring her barrel racing quarter horses by to graze our small back field. I was a member of 4H, and raised the pigs to butcher and sell the meat. My friend Patrick Albini’s dad owned the local butcher shop. When it was time, one of his employees would come by in a brightly painted orange pickup truck. It had a big box on the back for hanging carcasses. My mother and I would collect eggs and butcher the chickens. With money I earned from raising the pigs and selling their meat, I bought a Schwinn SX2000 BMX bike. My neighbors and I used to like to ride our bikes down to the local creek. We’d ditch the bikes in the bushes, and explore the creek for hours. As a kid, it was by far my favorite thing to do. We’d walk what seemed like miles north and then east along the creek out into the floodplains around the laguna past Todd Road. We picked sweet, ripe, blackberries along the way, and fished for catfish trapped in the evaporating pools of summer with screens from house windows. Being out there I would feel so immersed in the experience that the hours would fly by. I had similar experiences in eighth grade when we camped at Camp Cazadero and explored the redwood lined creeks which flowed into the Russian River. Being in nature, immersed in the intensely beautiful and life filled creeks, exploring, made a mark on me. The first interactions I had with computers happened in Gravenstein Junior High, which was next door to my home. We had a computer lab with Texas Instruments computers. This is in 1981 or I982. As I remember, one of our math teachers had applied for a grant and acquired for our school 10 or so. Our assignments were to program them so that these little square boxes on the screen would shift from one location to another. At home, these computers could be loaded with floppy disks to play simple video games similar to the ones we played on Atari consoles. When we were not playing Dungeons and Dragons, late nights playing Atari became another of our favorite pastimes. In high school, the emphasis on programming continued. The one thing I remember that the teacher in this class said was, “GIGO” (Garbage in, garbage out). He said this when students did not have success in their programming. They were unable to make things move on the screen. We did not use word processors to write papers at that time. I never took a typing class on one of the electric typewriters at Analy High. As I peck at this keyboard now, I still regret not having learned to type quickly. When we learned to drive, our trips usually took us to the local beaches, lakes, and forests to explore nature and one another. In college at UCSC, I did use an Apple II to write and print papers in my Spanish Literature classes with one of those loud, percussive sounding printers. But it spat out gobbledigook on a final paper, which made me miss a deadline, lowering my grades. Maybe it was this which instilled in me a lifelong mistrust of getting too dependent on technology. I’ve adapted to the increasing influence of technology in our lives, but I’ve never been a leader of this movement. And yet it’s amazing how far things have evolved and I have evolved alongside these dramatic changes. Integration with and dependence on our phones and computers is becoming more and more inevitable and ubiquitous with 21st Century living. You’ll see, however, a bit of reticence on my part to embrace technology wholeheartedly as I develop this capstone project. I suppose it does not matter one way or another as my pre-digital age attitudes are grains of sand in this exponentially growing transformation of our global society. I feel like someone from the middle ages complaining about the advent of the printing press. The changes happening are profound and have had impacts on our brains in how we think, remember, and interact with each other. How do I interact with and see technology currently? Without going into too much detail, I use my phone and my laptop a lot to communicate and get information, but I do not feel a need to participate in Facebook or similar platforms. I do not feel like I want an “online persona” or to share my world with people online. I try to not use devices too much. I worry about my fifteen year old son’s use of screen devices. I see his world as very different than the one I grew up in. He seems to get so much of what he needs from his phone. He does not go out to meet with friends or invite friends over like we used to as kids and teenagers. He can stare at his phone all day, if we let him. He seems to have an insatiable appetite for the world there and the streams, rivers, and oceans of information it provides. My friends have similar experiences with their kids, as do the parents of my students. They all talk about how their efforts to reduce their children’s screen time. During parent conferences this is by far the biggest concern that parents discuss about their kids. It’s been uncomfortable for me as an educator to inform them that their kids will be spending a good portion of their day on screens in school, as well. Kids are increasingly staying indoors, and watching screens. In the meantime, outdoors, there is an increasingly urgent environmental dilemma unfolding. I’m worried that kids are getting too detached from the outdoors to be aware of the environmental problems. If they are unaware, how can they do something about it? Because to care about something you have to be aware of it. You have to focus your attention on it. Alas, it seems like kids are focusing their attention on the amazing dance of nature, and their place in it, less and less. So in my recent years of teaching I have been trying to awaken kids to the natural world and to inform them of environmental causes. I have not felt particularly successful in this, until just recently when I discovered nature journaling. I took a teacher training class on this at Pepperwood Preserve. It felt like I had finally “seen the light” and found a curriculum designed to get kids back in touch with nature. Through direct observation and interaction with the natural world, through drawing and recording their thoughts and questions about the details they observe, children can learn to appreciate nature more. The book “Last Child in the Woods” has been a favorite read of mine lately. It talks about how more and more children are moving indoors, and reflects on the consequences of this. I feel passionately that we need to teach our kids to observe their world closely, and to think critically and deeply, in order to make connections between themselves and it. Only then might they solve the big problems that face our environment. This is why the core idea of nature journaling, that of the importance of direct, prolonged observation and discovery of nature, has really intrigued me. In this class I learned from reading John Muir Laws about why it is hard for us to do this. Through evolution, people’s brains evolved to identify things quickly and move on. Hunter gatherers needed to know: Can it eat me? (Then run.) Can I eat it? (Then, consume.) Once something has been identified, we quickly move on to the next thing. This mentality served us well to survive by consuming nature. In an evolutionary historical context, we have behaved this way in order to survive. But this consumer mentality has led us to consume our resources to the point of global collapse. It has also led to our consuming of each other. Not like cannibals, of course, but as slaveholders and societies that take advantage of groups of people in order to benefit from the profits of their labor. As our treatment of nature and of other people becomes more problematic to the prospects of our ongoing existence, we are in dire need of a dramatic mental shift. I think we need to learn to be protectors and caretakers, rather than conquerors and consumers. Environmental justice and social justice go hand in hand. We need to develop a new mentality of appreciation, stewardship, and conservation of nature. I can see how the direct, prolonged, observation of nature could be an important part in our ability to train our brains to do this. We can begin to see a bigger picture of the world and our place in it. If we slow down long enough to attempt to draw something, we can begin to see the connections between plants, animals, the elements, and ourselves. Unless we take care of each other, this will be impossible. We need to help each other rather than take advantage of each other. The parallel narrative to this one about kids’ increasing focus on technology, is in fact, one about the dramatic demographic shift that has taken place in California in my lifetime. Since I was a child, around twenty percent of my friends were latino. Now in our local schools latinos make up around seventy to eighty percent of the population. While these people have thrived in many ways, they have also been taken advantage of. Their labor has been cheap. They have taken the agricultural jobs that the dominant society has moved away from. In schools, as can be appreciated in “The Flat World and Education” by Linda Darling-Hammond, immigrant children have been systematically underfunded and ignored. As a child, I had always had positive interactions with latino friends. At seven, I had my first kiss with our neighbor Alicia Aragon in the tall grass behind her house. Later, my best friend Joey Gonzalez, who’s mother is Pomo Native American and father Mexican, shared many formative experiences growing up. Rubén Arceo and I would bass fish in the local ponds and shoot bb guns. (One of my biggest regrets in life has been killing songbirds with that gun.) In high school I took three years of Spanish. When my Spanish teacher announced a Rotary Scholarship opportunity to study abroad, I jumped at the opportunity and spent a year in Spain, during my senior year. Upon returning I had found a new appreciation for Spanish speaking people and culture. After two years at Santa Rosa Junior College, I enrolled in Spanish and Latin American Literature at UCSC. I studied abroad for another year, this time in Costa Rica. When I graduated, I went to Sonoma State to get my bilingual teaching credential. During my first year of teaching second grade at Roseland Elementary, Proposition 227 passed, making bilingual education illegal in California. We went from teaching a strong, dual language curriculum where both languages were taught with the end goal of creating bilingual, biliterate citizens, to a subtractive bilingual model where as soon as kids met grade level standards in their home language, they were transferred into English Only instruction. Out of frustration and disillusionment, I joined the Peace Corps. There, in Paraguay, I was lucky to be part of a pilot program in bilingual education. The country was coming out from under a thirty-five year dictatorship under Alfredo Stroessner. During this time, Guaraní, which is still spoken by the majority of the population, was prohibited in schools. Now, they are interested in regaining their cultural identity through Spanish-Guaraní dual language education. I gave workshops to local districts and trained teachers in bilingual education techniques. We built classrooms, we brought running water to our local school. I learned to play guitar. I met my wife, and upon returning to California, we had a baby. I could not find a bilingual teaching job around Santa Rosa, so we moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico. There I taught for five years in a dual language school called Valle Vista. The program was strong. Our students did well on big tests. We could have stayed, but my wife was homesick and we moved back to Paraguay for three years. I tried to open a private school in her hometown of Horqueta, but it proved to be too small for the school to get enough students for us to survive. Luckily, my old director’s position in the Peace Corps opened, and I got it. But his experience was bitter sweet. Due to big budget cuts from the federal government, prior to my hiring, the program was already slated to be cut. I managed the last two groups of education Volunteers in the program, and returned home. Two other big factors influencing our return was the dengue fever spreading over the area which killed three people I knew, and the uprising of a revolutionary group called the Paraguayan People’s Army, right in my wife’s home region. They are a land reform movement. Their goal is to drive out foreign landowners, mainly from Brazil, and secure land for local Paraguayan farmers. They exploded a remote controlled backpack bomb at the local police station a few blocks east of our house. Then they blew up a judge’s house a few blocks west of our house. The last straw was when they firebombed my father in law’s radio station. He had been asked by the occupying government forces to read over the air announcements about rewards for the capture of Paraguayan People’s Army members. We decided to move back to the United States. This time, I had already secured a teaching position in Petaluma in a new dual language school called Loma Vista. I taught there for two difficult years. Morale was low. Our principal quit halfway through the second year. We were losing many of our English dominant students as test results did not compare favorably with neighboring schools. We were teaching combined classes. It was difficult to find qualified teachers. Etc etc. I took a job in Calistoga. That’s where I’m at now. I was happy because it paid significantly more than other local schools. I finally felt like I could provide for my family. The problem has been for me that the school does not teach in Spanish. Calistoga tried dual language instruction in the nineties, but the program was not successful. Without the bilingual model, I have struggled to address the language needs of my English language learners here in Calistoga. This year, I have two newcomer students from Guatemala. They have next to no English. It’s a challenge to differentiate for their needs in the classroom. Luckily, we began a newcomer classroom for them for a couple of hours a week. I employ my classroom assistant to teach them basic vocabulary and reading. But there are still holes in my instruction that need to be filled. How do I get them better integrated and functioning in this system? When I heard about this master’s program and its focus on closing the education and opportunity gaps for migrant children through the use of 21st Century learning techniques and technology, I applied. I hope to learn new skills that will help me to address these students’ needs in an English Only educational model. This confluence of the big themes in my teaching career, that of increased technology, increasing environmental problems, and an increasing population of language learners, is happening in this master’s program.The irony is this: How can I have just enrolled in this master’s program where technology in education is an emphasis, and simultaneously be discovering nature journaling and what I initially perceived to be a need to get AWAY from technology? My next question was, of course, How can we mix the two? Can technology be used to stimulate all kids to get back into nature, while at the same time teaching them language, thinking, and digital skills? Or, does it impede their experience of nature and isolate them? I suspect that like in the Eric Clapton song, "It's in the way that you use it." For example, the use of cell phone cameras in nature might motivate kids to observe more closely and slow down enough to photograph things that interest them. They could take these photos, and look at them again in the classroom to study, write about, and present them. But then my worry became: Do cell phones promote this quick “click, got it, move on” surface level “hunter-gatherer” interaction with nature? Again, a nature journal, where you draw something that gets your attention, forces you to slow down and observe more deeply. Instead of getting a bird with a gun like I did as a kid, we might learn to capture a bird by observing, drawing, and appreciating it. During the first week of school this year, I was very excited about nature journaling and I took my kids out on the back field, by the creek to draw plants and bugs. I was impressed with their ability to find bugs where I could not. We caught these bugs in small, transparent containers, and also picked and drew leaves. It was a very new experience for all, but we did record the following observations I had learned about in my class: I notice, I wonder, It reminds me of. These three questions are the ones aimed at getting kids thinking more deeply about nature. We discussed or drawings and observations, being careful not to say “great drawing”, because it’s not about that. The quality of the drawing does not matter. The drawing is a tool to help you slow down and see more details. We then put their drawings and written observations on the wall to share. I’ve also placed a bird feeder and a squirrel feeder in the tree behind our classroom in order to increase their interaction with nature. (They were asking me for a class pet. But I told them I’m not comfortable having animals in cages.) To integrate technology, my initial idea was to take photos of the pages out of their nature journals and place them into Google Slides presentations through Google Classroom. I have started training them on how to make slide presentations on Google Slides. We did animal presentations where the kids learned to search for images of animals off of Google. They filled out each slide with I notice, I wonder, It reminds me of statements. Then they presented their slideshows to the class. My two newcomer students from Guatemala really loved the experience of cutting and pasting images. I also taught them to use Google Translate, where they spoke into a mic in Spanish and had their voices translated instantaneously into spoken and written English. They then copied and pasted these phrases into their presentations. Wow! It felt like a very powerful experience for them. They were learning language through an authentic, self directed and interest based activity, which was greatly aided by technology. I thought that the student observations in these animal presentations might provide some good baseline data in the future. This thought made me think that if I’m collecting baseline data, then what am I going to teach specifically to see if my teaching worked. For example, can I teach kids to be better observers and record better, more in-depth observations? If so, how? Or should I not teach this and see if technology has an effect on kids’ ability to do this on their own? Here is where big questions started to develop on what a capstone project might look like. Here is a first, rambling stab at it: Does the use of digital technologies enhance students’ experience in and engagement with nature, or impede it? Or, how do children’s recorded observations of, and visual/oral presentations to a group of their peers of nature compare when they use traditional nature journals, pencils, and watercolors vs using (ipads, cell phones, and/or other??) What insights might any observable differences in (quality, profundity, creativity, pride, engagement, etc.. give us into the effectiveness of one style compared to another? How do we measure effectiveness? Specifically, as all this relates to language, how does it affect students’, (and specifically second language learners’), ability to demonstrate language acquisition? How may this be appreciated/measured in comparing notes, finished written projects, and oral presentations? (Can they use Google Translate on both?) What unexpected outcomes might we find? Am I trying to teach something curriculum based and then see if they get it, or am I leaving things open to observe what happens? (In setting up this study, to what extent do I want them to learn from me, or me to learn from them?) I thought we should first compare methods separately. On a first trip, I’d take them nature journaling. Then on the second, I’d let them use only cameras, microphones, etc. Then, for the third nature experience, ask them to pick one method they prefer or use both methods in any way they want and see what happens. Then I started thinking that perhaps it is misguided to be comparing the two methods to see if one is “better” than the other. Maybe more interesting would be to see if, or how, kids mix media techniques learned through both traditional and technology supported methods of observation and presentation for all three trips. But this might not give me time to train them on the technology in time. In any case, what would all of this say about or changing interaction with our surrounding world, and especially outdoor spaces with and without technological devices? Do they affect our perception of nature? How would we know? What other data could be collected? We might measure and compare the amount of time a kid spends observing a particular natural phenomena with journal vs camera/video device. I don’t think there will be any surprises there. But how would the shortened interaction of snapping a photo affect a child’s perception of that phenomena, measurably? When cameras are used, how will kids record their three observation prompts in the moment like they would with a journal? Voice recordings, digital notes? Paper? Then, will the final presentations of their products be more language intensive or less with the integration of technology? Can kids learn more and write more about their drawings, or about their photos/videos? What would happen if they photograph their drawings? What would happen if they draw their photographs? Can web searches yield more based on student’s photos, or drawings? Which will be a bigger motivator? Can kids really perceive more about nature in a prolonged sit down experience in the first place? How would structured lessons around observation in the field affect outcomes? What do I want to see as evidence of kids’ perception? Zoom ins? Linear details? Verbal or visual? Connections? Connections between what? Also, how will my instruction potentially sway the results one way or another, due to my own biased desires for a particular outcome? (Not trying to pretend to be too scientific here.) What is nature? What do kids think nature is? And for a third grader, developmentally speaking, how can we expect to measure perceptiveness of the kinds of things I might expect them to? How will their reflections be unexpected, insightful, ignorant, etc? In short, how will growth be measured and what is growth? |
AuthorJeremy Smith teaches third grade at Calistoga Elementary School. Archives
July 2020
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