Blog # 3 Personal Research

I'm feeling pretty good with my research question. I feel like it's narrow enough to really do a quality study but with the sense of place dimension added, it allows for some depth. With sense of place added I can explore things like community connected-ness and social engagements rather than just engagement alone. I'm realizing that even just engagement can be measured it many ways.

I have really awesome student sand they are making my life so easy by giving me really awesome data. They're putting a lot of thought and effort into their work and especially into their reflections which gives me a great view into their learning lens.

For me the research hasn't been too hard to find. There's a lot of literature out there about student engagement. I feel like I'm finally asking the right questions to get me the right literature. For example I needed to discern between "What does student engagement look like?" and "How do you measure student engagement?" This allowed me to look at literature that was talking about measuring student engagement and others that attempted to create a measurement tool to measure engagement.

My research really tackles a few points. I really have to define engagement and sense of place because they  are in the title of my paper. There's currently a lot of literature on both so I'm feeling pretty good. I feel like I can somewhat wrap my head around sense of place after reading multiple lenses on it.

So overall I'm feeling alright about the research question and the research.

Blog #2 Research question

It sounds like everyone is having a similar experience focusing their research question down. Tara's words about not trying to tackle the world in a single Plan B are very wise indeed. But it's hard for me to not want to tackle the world with the amount of effort I've put into it.

I started out wanting to use data collected from my entire year, as I have been consciously filing away tests and reflections, thinking that my plan B was gonna be about my whole year experience. At the time my research question was clear. How can STEMS2 curriculum in a natural resource class inspire the next generation of environmental stewards? It really hit me after reading the 6th extinction that natural resource teachers have such a huge responsibility of training the next generation of environmental stewards in a time when we've never been so disconnected in our existence as a race. It's a monumental task, but one that natural resource teachers have great power to change. And yet, the curriculum we're teaching in natural resources, especially in Hawaii, is so far behind in the times and the culture.
                                              "If you teach a man to fish you feed him for life, but if you teach a man                                                    to respect fish, you feed his community for generations to come."

I wanted to use my Plan B to show how place based learning and STEMS2 curriculum was a solid platform to teach natural resources off of......

But I've finally succumbed to the realization that I won't tackle this all in my plan B...this is the first step int hat direction. For now I wanna show that a STEMS2 UNIT in natural resources can promote sense of place/engagement. Then one day down the road I can push for all units to include STEMS2.

So I've widdled my question down to:

How does the implementation of a STEMS2 unit in a high school natural resources class affect student engagement and sense of place?

I searched this question on google scholars and actually got some really good results. There's a lot of research done on engagement of students when exposed to the outdoors. Or when students are exposed to hands-on learning, and also when students are exposed to cultural places and ideals. There's also a lot of literature on how bridging community and school can be beneficial and this goes right along with my unit. I'm having lots of guest speakers and hopefully families coming together.

Overall I like the direction I'm going. I'm thinking about adding Hawaii into my question as in, How does a STEMS2 unit in a Hawaii natural resources class affect engagement and sense of place. I say this because I think circumstances are different over here and I want to acknowledge that fact.

Plan B Research Design

I'm finally starting to formulate my Plan B topic, and what I have now is, What are the effects of place-base learning on a natural resource class? After talking to Tara and bouncing between studying the power of learning journey and the impact of place based learning on a community, I've decided to stick to the original path of place based learning in a natural resource class. This way I can use the qualitative and quantitative data I've collected over the WHOLE year rather than just my unit, or just one learning journey.

I feel like I can cover several topics by going this route. I also feel like I can also start formulating my research questions without waiting for my unit to finish. Maxwell (2013) points out that "qualitative researchers often don't develop their final research questions until they have done a significant amount of data collection." But because I've had a whole semester of data to build off of, I feel like I can get a good start. I know my final research questions will change over the course of writing this Plan B, but just to get the ball rolling...

What are the effects of learning journeys in a natural resource class?
What are the effects of bridging community members to local schools?
Does infusing Hawaiian culture into NR class, have a positive/negative impact on students?

What are the effects of place based learning on SPED students in natural resources?
What is the direct impact on the environment when place-based learning is used in NR class?

I think at this point my research will use a mixed methods approach. Creswell defines mixed methods as a combination of qualitative and quantitative research. I think when I'm researching learning journeys, community bridging, and culture I will be using qualitative research. But for the questions on SPED and direct environmental impact, I will use quantitative data. I can also add some Kupu data numbers to the mix when answering the environmental impact question.

Overall I think my research will use the pragmatic worldview. Creswell says in this view,
"Researchers emphasize the research problem and use all approaches available to understand the problem."(Creswell) I use many different methods like testing, group discussions, reflections, projects etc...to understand how my students are affected by place-based learning.  Pragmatism is not committed to any one system....draw liberally from both quantitative an qualitative assumptions when they engage in research. (Creswell) As I stated above I will use mixed methods research.

Blog Post #5

What makes up a good unit?

When the word ‘unit’ comes to mind, the first thing I think of is many different lessons around a central topic.  For example, a unit on canoe plants would be made up of various lessons about plants that were brought to Hawai’i by canoe.  In this unit, students would learn why plants were brought on canoe, what purposes these plants serve, how they took care of the plants on their voyage on canoe, etc.  When it comes to the ideal timeframe of a unit, I think it really depends on how in depth the teacher wants to go into this topic.  A teacher needs to think, “How long will it take for my students to understand what I want them to know about canoe plants?”

A good teacher keeps in mind the students every step of the way.  If the students are not getting it, the teacher should consider spending more time on that concept.  Whereas if the kids are just breezing right through, that may be an indicator to the teacher that he/she could just quickly review this topic as students are showing they have already mastered the topic. This is why informative assessments in the form of exit passes, thumbs-up thumbs-down activities are extremely important in teaching.  These informative assessments INFORM the teacher of how to teach. It helps them to understand whether their kids got it or if they still need to deepen their understanding in that concept.  

 In some instances a unit could be as short as 2 lessons, some units could last a couple weeks, meanwhile, some units may need an entire quarter of the school year to deepen students’ understanding of the topic at hand.  I don’t think that there is a direct answer for how long an ideal unit should be.

Within a unit there needs to be essential vocabulary that the students must know in order to master the topic.  There also needs to be multiple different ways for students to show you that they understand what they have learned.  It is important for teachers to differentiate assessments based on their students’ needs and capabilities.  If a student of yours always bombs tests but can verbally tell you exactly what he has learned about various canoe plants, a teacher should take that into consideration.  We all know that everyone learns in different ways, so why should we assess them all in the same format?  This is where teachers can give choice: you can either take this test, answer this essay question, show me your portfolio, or do a piece of artwork that clearly depicts what we’ve been learning.  Of course, if you provide choice like this, each assessment should come with a detailed rubric assessing the depth of knowledge.  The rubric’s expectations should be similar for each assessment

Hayden's Blog #4

I wanted to use this free blog to sort of document my journey through this first quarter at Kalaheo.  I find myself redefining this masters program and the idea of place-based learning on a daily basis. And in doing so I’m constantly thinking of new ways to implement the things I learn in the classroom.

I recently saw a documentary called “Most Likely to Succeed” that really summed up project-based learning and also helped me to see the direction this master’s program is leading us. The movie was all about how our education system is 100 years old and not relevant to this modern day age where computers have taken the place of humans in the workforce. Therefore their point was that our education system is failing because we’re using an outdated educational system that was predicated on producing blue collar factory workers. The old system stressed learning all the subjects in silos and memorizing and testing students to retain information. What this movie was saying is that nowadays, where machines can think and memorize 1000 times the information that a human can, we have to create a new kind of student. We need students  that are able to problem solve, think creatively, and work together. These are the qualities that a computer cannot mimic, and therefore will be valued in the workplace as we move forward into the future.

As I learn about all these problems with our DOE system, it’s fascinating to me to see it play out firsthand in my classroom.

A perfect example is reflecting back to the first couple weeks when my co-teacher explained her concern with all the “Hawaiian stuff” I was teaching the kids. For one, she didn’t think it was relevant to Natural Resource class, and two she was worried that the kids would fail the tests and thus would reflect badly on her as a teacher. Her exact quote was, “I’m the one who has to answer for poor test scores, and at the end of the day, that’s my paycheck on the line. I think most of these kids are totally lost with all these Hawaiian words. Can we tone down the “hawaiianess” a little?”

This is one crucial problem I see with the DOE, hiring teachers who put their own prosperity over the education of the student. All I heard was, “At the end of the day, money, money, money, me, me, me.”

At the time I felt bad. I was assuming that our students were catching all the things I was telling them, but maybe she was right. What if they were completely lost and I was failing them as a teacher? These thoughts played on my mind for a bit.

But as I look back now 6 weeks later, I can clearly see the whole picture. We tested the students on everything we had learned in 1^st quarter. My co-teacher pretty much let me make up the test questions, and I think deep down she wanted to remove herself from the process because she believed that the kids would badly fail the test and she could look at me and say “I told you so.”

But what happened was the complete opposite. The kids aced the test, nailing questions like, “What does mo’oku’auhau mean?” or “Name the 6 mountains that surround Kailua and match them with their mo’olelo?” I purposely made the questions things that should be intuitive, rather than things that would need to be memorized. Basically if they were paying attention in class, they  should ace the test, and sure enough they did. As an extra credit question, I asked what’s the most interesting thing you learned in class so far? The students said they loved learning about their ahupua’a and their genealogy because those were things they would remember for life, rather than just this year. They loved learning how to build aquaponics because they got to build it themselves and it was something they could do at their own home.

One of the questions that they struggled on was a watershed worksheet, one of the few things my co-teacher did add to the test. She had them label headwaters, tributaries, estuaries and floodplains on the diagram. These are not normal words we hear every day in Hawaii and on top of that, she only took one day to go through the worksheet with no context attached. They bombed that portion of the test. It’s a classic example of the “spray and pray” teaching style where you throw a bunch of unknown terms at the students and pray they memorize it for the test.

The results of this test were astounding for me. It’s given me a boost of confidence and fulfillment knowing that my attempts at place based learning are taking hold. I’m surprised at how well all of our students, even the ones not from here, are connecting to this place and viewing themselves as part of the picture, rather than an outside spectator.

Blog Post #3 Sense of Place

Why does Sense of Place matter and what does it mean to the practice of teaching for there to be multiple senses of place in any one moment and in any one place (i.e., a classroom)?

I remember in 7^th grade when my sense of place changed overnight. I had always enjoyed going to schoo.l It was a chance to hang with friends and scope chicks. But after transferring from a quaint peaceful elementary school, I suddenly found myself in a rough intermediate school. I eventually I started getting bullied and my sense of place really changed. I would get anxiety waiting for the bus to pick me up or as we pulled up to school. I remember there was a point where I really dreaded going to school. It affected the way I interacted with friends and my learning.

I try to keep that in mind when I’m teaching because I have to realize that every student is at a unique point in their life. Although middle school is probably the worst times for most kids, these kid of anxiety situations come up at any age level. Every set of eyes perceives the school and classroom a different way. And surely the way they view that class has a lot to do with the teaching “place” I create, but mostly I think it’s determined by all the other senses of place that Gruenwald speaks about. It’s the perceptual, social, political, ideological, and ecological “places” of their life in and out of school that ultimately determine a comfortable learning space.

First you have the surface level of how much “capital” every student has. At Kalaheo, most kids are financially comfortable so the students with shabbier clothes really stand out. That’s material capital, but there’s also a diverse amount of cultural capital. With the high rate of military students we have a lot of students from all over the country who travel a lot and because of this I feel like the students have a wider perspective of the world. At the same time we have kids who have rarely drive over the Ko’olau’s and so their sense of place is much more “limited” geographically, but maybe much deeper to Ko’olaupoko.

But you can’t judge a book by its cover and even though these surface level factors exist, I would say majority of the factors that make up a student’s “sense of place” come from internal experiences. Most often when a student is acting up in class, there’s something going on at home. School can be a get away from an ugly home-life. Or school could be a dreaded place like it was for me in 7^th grade.

So I have to recognize that there are multiple senses of place happening in every moment of class. I have to cater to those that are engaged in the lesson and enjoying that space. I also have to cater to the unengaged students who maybe aren’t having a negative experience, but disinterested in the topic. Then you have the kids who aren’t even in the same world as you and their thoughts are floating on girls, boys, puberty, what’s for lunch, how big the surf is, how bad their home life is etc…Then there’s more serious things like people who have problems with someone in their class and feel unsafe and uncomfortable; Or students who used to date each other; or students who are about to. All these factors can co-exist at the same time and affect everybody’s willingness and ability to learn.

I think we as teachers have to understand the uniqueness of each kid if we wish to reach them. We can’t ignore the little interactions we have with students that can make or break them. After watching the movie “inside Out” I really connect with the idea of “core memories.” These are memories that stick with you throughout life and can negatively or positively affect your decisions down the road. We as teachers have to try to create positive core memories in our class. We have to be aware of what grading and tests do a student’s sense of place. No matter how excited a student is about the material they’re being taught, when they see that D or F on their grade sheet, it can seriously kill their motivation to strive high. Or when a student raises his hand to ask a question and we as teachers shoot down their ideas or tell them they’re wrong, that student may never raise their hand again.

I have a greater understanding of “sense of place” after reading the powerpoint and readings. I think it has changed my view of “place in my classroom and I want to work to make it a safer more comfortable environment for my students.

Blog #2 Portrait of a School

Portrait of Kalaheo High School

Kalaheo High School sits at the base of Mahinui, a series of rolling hills that makes up the dividing line between Kailua and Kaneohe ahupua’a. A mile down the road from our high school sits Castle High School. I think it’s important to talk about the culture of Castle to understand Kalaheo. Castle gets students from Kaneohe all the way to Kahuku, the majority of them being “local” kids, and when I say local I mean born and raised here, no matter what ethnicity. Even the “haole” and Japanese students at Castle are descendents of kalo farmers and fisherman, so they have a deeper connection to land and resources.

In contrast, at Kalaheo, a third of our 1000 student population and faculty are military, residing in the nearby Kaneohe Marine Core Base. The other third are the sons and daughters of mainlanders who recently moved here in the last 20 years to dwell on the white sands of Kailua. There are some local haole families that have been in Kailua since the 50’s. They are the stereotypical stoners/surfers/beach bums that Kailua is famous for. And then we have the few Kanaka Maoli sprinkled into the mix. They go to Kalaheo either because they come from a long line of Kailua lineage or their parents didn’t want to send them to Castle, a school with a subpar academic reputation.

               

            Kailua High School to the south, which scoops up all the Waimanalo kids, and Castle to the North, which scoops up the country windward kids, have a reputation as rougher schools in comparison to Kalaheo. Kalaheo is viewed and views itself as the smaller, more academic, more military, and more “white” school. Kalaheo students are either from the marine base, lanikai, or coconut grove (the area all along Kailua beach). The cost of living in these areas could be twice as much as the neighboring school districts of Kaneohe and Waimanalo. What has happened is the iconic white sandy beaches of Kailua have drawn wealthier families, (many millionaires) to move into Kailua, thus forcing out the native people and local families. This stigma of being the “whiter” school certainly impacts the way Kalaheo kids view themselves. Whether or not they’re proud of this stigma is uncertain to me. But the students definitely see the difference between their school and Castle and Kailua. They call those the “local” schools.

Within the confines of our school, the culture of the students and faculty are very unique compared to other public schools I’ve been to. First off is the lack of school spirit. I’ve had teachers who worked at Kalaheo for 15 years tell me that the school has always struggled with school spirit, meaning low attendance at the sporting events, lack of enthusiasm at school rallies and club weeks, and limited after school activities. I was told even the teachers have a reputation for not having school pride.

The answer to this riddle is fairly obvious after working at other public schools. At Castle, first built in 1951, the faculty are Castle High graduates themselves. Some are even 3rd generation Castle grads. The teachers and office workers know all the families of their students, many are related to each other, and there’s much more of an Aunty/Uncle vibe going on.

Kalaheo was built in 1976, so they don’t have a long enough history to have 3^rd or 4^th generation students. On top of that, being a military fed-school, many of our students and faculty stay for 1 or 2 years and then move. It’s very hard to garner school spirit when your faculty has such a high turnover rate. Teachers don’t connect with their students on a deeper level because either consciously or subconsciously, they know they won’t be there for long. It’s a very transient school. Another answer to why we don’t have after-school activities is that most of the kids live within walking or biking distance to home. So when that bell rings at 2 PM, they are gone in a flash. They’re not waiting for busses or parents to get off work. Kalaheo is notorious for being a ghost town ten minutes after the bell rings.

The one arena that Kalaheo thrives is the basketball culture. We always have one of the best teams in the state and have won multiple state championships as recently as last year. When you go to Kalaheo basketball games, that’s where the families show up in numbers to support.The culture of the school and community absolutely affect my teaching environment. For one thing, because our community is very affluent, we have an invested parent community. What I mean is that everything that is taught or said in the classroom is heard by the parents at this school. Many administrators have warned me of this fact. Unlike Castle, where parent involvement was hard to come by, Kalaheo has a very active parent voice. This is turn makes the admin much more watchful of what the teachers are teaching, knowing that they have parents breathing down their necks. These parents expect that if they send their students to the more affluent high school, they better be getting a good education. However there are some good effects to this problem. The students are much more academically inclined and you can tell they have support from their parents. My students are respectful, and engaged during class.

The culture inside my classroom is pretty awesome. My classes are all pretty evenly distributed, with 1/3^rd being military, 1/3 being local kids, and 1/3^rd being Kanaka Maoli. This makes for very interesting discussions because we have so many different lenses to look through. At the same time, I have to be very careful to cater to all viewpoints when I’m teaching. Sometimes when I’m discussing Hawaiian language and the Kanaka are nodding their head, I have to remember that the military kids are totally lost. This has made me a better overall teacher when I have to where 3 different hats to relate to all of my students.