Practice Analysis for Learning Environment and Context

Practice Analysis for Learning Environment and Context

Group Members	Roles	Commented On
Timothy Berkey	Will write implication and reflection sections.	Learning Styles (Group 1)
Kara Duquette	Will create tables	Emotions in Learning & Learning Styles
Chris McCown(Lead)	Will write the analysis section. Will edit the document for cohesive voice.	Learning Styles (Group 1)
Leilani Pearce	Will write introduction section.	Learning Styles (Group 1) and  Relationships in Learning (Group 3)

Introduction

Case 1- Jamie Diehl is a high school Family and Consumer Sciences teacher in Ennis, Montana. At Ennis High School, Diehl works with 9^th through 12^th year students as well as 7^th year middle schoolers teaching a variety of electives in Culinary, Interior Design, and Life Skills. One of her most challenging and rewarding classes is a senior level yearlong course that all students are required to take: Life Skills.

           It is in this class that Diehl has encountered both her most rewarding and most challenging teaching experiences. In Life Skills, she teaches skills such as nutrition, personal finance, and job and employment skills. In the FCS classroom, the layout is structured with lab equipment for the practical application lessons, such as cooking, with a space provided for typical classroom lecture in the middle of the room. She has had very limited control over the physical environment. The designated areas of instructional space, the kitchen, and the sewing lab area limit adaptations or modifications of the physical space. Students in her Life Skills class sit on stools at countertop high stainless steel tables. Table arrangement allows for small group work and discussions. And allows adequate view of the whiteboard and projector display for notes and presentations.   

           Beyond the physical tables and stools of her learning environment, she has found that the Life Skills course is impacted dramatically by student culture contexts. Ennis is situated in a rural community where the larger cultural systematic discriminations against minorities and women is often denied or downplayed. As Diehl teaches coed classes on the topics of job and employment skills, she opens up students to discussions of gender differences in the workforce, often encountering push-back from her male students. This cultural environment forces Diehl to think critically about how best to instruct her students. One of the ways she does this is by attaining demographic and attitudinal information about her students at the beginning of the year through note cards. These note cards allow her to understand better the individual experiences of her students and construct her lessons in ways which are most likely to have a lasting impact on her students.

Diehl’s challenging experiences within this context are also rewarding. She states that when students allow themselves and their cultural beliefs to be challenged in a safe environment, there can be rewarding moments of a student “getting it”. When a student “gets it” it usually is the result of observing the ways in which their peers perform and applying those observations to their own lives through discussions that involve prior experiences within their culture. Here, we see that while the physical environment of culture or layout may create challenging learning experiences, the physical environment of interactions with peers can result in positive growth and attitudinal change.

Case 2- Giana is an adjunct sociology teacher working at three different community colleges in Southern California. She has been working in this type of professor role for the past 10 years. She teaches the 100 and 200 level college sociology courses in person to students who range in age, ethnicity, and background. Most of her students are first or second year college students, however she does teach non-traditional college students as well. She enjoys teaching introductory sociology courses to students, as she believes it is a class that helps them regardless of their educational goals.

            Giana teaches students a massive scope of topics without having the time to delve deeper. Most of her teaching is based on introductory sociological principles that help to lay a foundation for students who are wanting to pursue a higher education at a four year institution. She finds that students who are in her classes tend to either be focused on understanding as much as they can about sociology, or are just hoping to be able to understand enough that they get a passing grade. Most of her class time is spent in discussion, which she feels helps students to synthesize the material.

            Giana teaches in Southern California, and she has the opportunity to teach a majority of students who are minorities. Many of them are the first in their families to attend college. She finds that this may impact their beliefs and values, however she tries to teach the same material regardless. Since she is teaching a science, she believes that the information can be applied to American culture, as well as Mexican culture. This, she says, is because the examples of how we socially construct our world applies across cultures. This can cause a bit of a push back in class, but since she is teaching adults, she finds that if she reminds them that they don’t have to agree with the lesson, that they just have to understand it, that many issues resolve themselves over the course of the class period.

            Many of the classrooms she is assigned have older technology, older desks, and older teaching supplies. She is used to carrying chalk as well as dry erase markers with her. She still has students hand in printed papers, and she still gives out paper tests. She has found that her smaller classes give her a bit more freedom than do her large classes that are held in lecture halls. Having little to no control over the learning environment has given her more motivation to focus on her pedagogy and material. She feels that students can sometimes get so accustomed to lectures, that they feel uncomfortable when asked to have group discussions. Especially when they may have differing opinions.

            Giana finds that in the end, her students enjoy being pushed to question their accepted reality and that she hopes they continue to take sociology courses during their college careers. She feels that her work is rewarding, and that is why she continues on teaching without being on a tenure track. When her students leave her positive feedback on their faculty surveys at the end of the semester, she knows what she is doing is making a difference.

Analysis

Case 1 Worst - After reviewing Jamie Diehl’s statements concerning her experiences involved with her senior level Life Skills course, we can gather that students are accruing and constructing knowledge in a unique learning environment. The life skills course content is geared toward preparing students for their upcoming transition into adult life. Although the physical environment of Diehl’s classroom doesn’t invite adaptations or modifications to the physical learning environment, it is sufficient for her students to learn within. The invisible context of the learning environment impacts her student’s individual model of reality in many ways. Those contexts include cultural, power, knowledge, and real life environments which affect student comprehension within the learning environment.   

Diehl’s physical classroom is an open floor plan and is comprised of a sewing lab area, an instructional area with stainless steel tables and stools, and a kitchen lab area. This traditional ‘Home Ec.’ classroom arrangement is organized and permanent. Tables and stools in the instructional area are often situated to allow small group discussion and activities. The lighting and sound quality of the classroom is sufficient to allow learners to see and hear subject matter as it is delivered through instructional methods of lectures and demonstrations. Technology utilized in Diehl’s classroom consists of laptop and an overhead projector to deliver digital information (notes and presentations) and videos. Students have access to laptops and WiFi to complete learning tasks. She said “an ideal environment would be to create spaces that were flexible or mobile.” The ability to move tables or interactive lab spaces such as food prep tables when needed would allow more room and space for activities and projects. Currently, she works within the physical environment and its limitations to provide effective instruction and learning activities.

The life skills course content often incorporates and relies upon individual perspectives that promotes an in depth review and discussion of society’s cultural norms and requirements. In turn, students in Diehl’s class also bring with them their own models of reality, experiences, and culture. From our text, Mackeracher (2004, p. 193) states that “Culture is never neutral. It pervades the teaching-learning environment, brought there by both learners and facilitator.” Everyone has their own preconceived idea of how the world and society interact. Mackeracher (2004, p. 193) goes on to talk about culture as an “integral part of our model of reality. We derived it from the various groups to which we belong- family, community, workplace, religion, age, race, gender, language, ethnicity, sexual orientation, profession or occupation, and so on.” A good example of Diehl’s interaction with student culture context affecting the learning environment would involve class discussion of the gender pay gap within the personal finance unit. Diehl explains to students about how society has made it acceptable to pay females less of a wage than males. And that some professions are stereotypically male or female. As discussion continues, some of her male students don’t accept or acknowledge there is a systemic gender discrimination occurring in the workplace. As a result, all students have to realign their beliefs about gender roles and acts of discrimination in the real world.

Another invisible context that is present in the Life Skills class is the power context. Students in this course represent various social class divisions. These divisions are visible among students involved with the content of the higher ed unit. Their future plans for post-secondary education often transfers into peer competition and creates a power environment where students might be ambitious and determined or unsure and exploring postsecondary options such as college, trade schools or the military. This competition also supports the theory of ‘positionality’ which describes an individual’s location within a shifting network of relationships defined primarily in terms of race, gender, and class (Maher &Tetreault, 2001). Moreover, Diehl says she notices some students express entitlement or privilege in ways that affect student learning and how they are preparing themselves for their future employment opportunities. Some students plan to work for a local family business and have no need for college or employability skills. As a result, some students do not take advantage of learning opportunities related to preparing a FAFSA application or cover letter/ resume.

The knowledge context is also something that Diehl stated was present in her classroom environment. Because she teaches in a small rural community, knowledge systems that students create have limitations or ‘patterns of ignorance’ that might allow for inappropriate or incorrect assumptions (MacKeracher 2004). Adolescent students that she works with, often have a sheltered or narrow minded epistemology concerning truths and verifiable knowledge of specific life skills. This might be a result of inexperience and a sheltered upbringing. Some student knowledge systems are developed as a result of family values and local resources that might not align with Diehl’s content, ideas or skills that she teaches. This is a good representation of a ‘local knowledge system’ (Harding, 1996). Where local groups develop a knowledge system unique to and represent their values and beliefs. Diehl does notice a discrepancy among learners in the pursuit of knowledge. She states that students who are open to accepting different ideas and perspectives in her life skills class are usually students who have been exposed to early childhood education. They realize the importance of knowledge and becoming a consumer of education. Because education often means opportunity.

The real life context has a continuous presence throughout Diehl’s year long life skills class. The content of her course relies heavily on real life situated learning/cognition through examples of societal and cultural norms that influence student learning in preparation for transition into adult life. From Hansman and Wilson (2002) we learn that “situated learning emphasizes setting and activity as dialectically integrating people, tools, and context within a learning situation.” Diehl conducts mock interviews with her students along with members of the community and creates a real life experience that helps support the importance of resume and interview skills.

Case 2 Best - In analyzing Giana’s teaching experiences in relation to the learning environment and contexts that she encounters, we can gather that both the physical environment and the invisible contextual environment affect student learning in different ways.

The physical environment of Giana’s classroom is a challenge to adapt and enhance student learning. Some classrooms in which she teaches are either lecture hall type or small classrooms. Class size also impacts the learning environment. She states that “smaller classes in the older college tend to be more engaging. Having fewer students makes a lesson feel more interactive.” Some classrooms she teaches in are older and have traditional desks which are bolted to the ground and can’t be moved. Other classrooms where she teaches, do not have white boards where she can write notes to explain ideas. She stated that controlling the lights also would help accommodate instructional methods and learning. Although Giana’s settings are permanent and she changes classroom locations, she does her best with what she has to work with.

The contextual environment that Giana experiences in the classroom include a cultural and a power context. The cultural context she encounters with student learners can be explained in terms of her student population. Some students speak English as a second or third language and are ethnically diverse. Within the content, she teaches about different cultures and their power structures among various societies. These topics she covers, some learners might be positioned outside of their comfort zone, which may affect learning. She addresses these cultural perspectives in a productive way. By explaining to students that they don’t have to agree with what she is teaching, they just have to understand it. Though discussing cultural appropriation and safe spaces she provides an open forum to look at the world from another person’s point of view. Similarly, the idea of individual perspective also encourages the facilitator to provide an environment in which learners can find their voice in a supportive and safe atmosphere (Tisdell, 2000).

Within the power context, Giana attempts to create an equal playing field by explaining that “we all come from different backgrounds and understand theory and social facts differently.”

She also encourages class discussion etiquette by allowing students to say “ouch” or “that hurt” in response to a comment or an inappropriate assumption voiced by a peer. In other examples, Giana explains students are enrolled in her class for the reason of fulfilling a requirement or getting an easy A to transfer to a 4 year university. Which can also affect student motivation and effort in learning.      Implications

These invisible contexts within the learning environment are present in Case 1, in Diehl’s life skills class. They represent examples of how students use their experience, culture and individual models of reality to interact with content and information. Early in the course she addresses cultural assumptions and expectations by having students write on a notecard a list of what it is that they want to learn about in regards to ‘life skills.’ By doing so, students have the opportunity to develop their course. By better understanding her students’ cultural assumptions, Diehl is able to create very specific and different learning environment. Additionally, students’ cultural expectations are utilized in developing course content as Diehl provides an open forum for discussion of important concepts and perspectives in which students can learn about gender discrimination and roles.

Peer performance and competition is also an example of the power context that help motivate learners to define their paths and transition into adult life. Students who successfully navigate through the learning environment and its contexts often ‘get it’ and develop relevant life skills. It is through this peer interaction and these low stakes comparisons that the physical environment plays a role in the development of student success. This case brings up the reality that invisible contexts that affect the learning environment will always be present and can act as learning obstacles if they are not identified and addressed in a productive way where learning and experiences can develop an open mind and acceptable perspective.

In our second case, we find a different context with different implications. Because Giana teaches at the college level, her students have chosen to continue in education versus high school students who are often without agency in their education. Because of this, Giana students may have a higher desire for engagement. This context of the classroom is one that most instructors and facilitators are aware of due to experience: not every student is interested in the learning required. It is important for instructors to decide to what degree they are interested in involving themselves. Some instructors take the tact of pushing each student individually so that all achieve higher performances. This is admirable, though in my experience is less common and realistic. Because of a standard distribution, the majority of students will likely earn an average grade. However most instructors achieve their status by being at the top of their distributions in education. It is important, therefore, and we learn from Giana, that instructors provide a space for everyone to do well, without requiring everyone to do so.

Due to the subject Giana teaches, she sees a large impact from the cultural contexts that impact a classroom. Her experience provides us with some useful tactics for handling these issues. Her encouragement of students to speak up when offended creates a space where cultural assumptions are allowed to be challenged in a safe way. She has a very practical suggestion of having offended students voice their concern with a word such as “ouch” which is enough to create space for the offender to consider their comments and the offended to interrogate their feelings about the comments. If an instructor leads discussions, this may prove to be a useful tactic in addressing the invisible context by making it audible.

Reflection

            Our group divided responsibilities for the different sections of this paper. In doing so, we set up a situation where we could work smarter, not harder. However, due to a few miscommunication issues, we ended up working smart and hard. We are working at eliminating the issues which cause the miscommunications and shoring up our communication patterns to be more efficient. One of the highlights of this assignment was the interviews that we were able to conduct. The information that we received was interesting and the differences in the education levels provided a good comparison between collegiate and high school education. The assignment requirements were also interpreted in a unique way. Through the interview process, we noticed that people we interviewed didn’t explain one particular teaching experience, but a conglomeration of teaching experiences that were identified in relation to our group topics concerning the learning environment and context.

Table 1. Practice analysis

	Educator 1	Educator 2
Name of the case	Jamie Diehl - Worst	Giana - Best
Why best/worst	Physical Environment is highly unadaptable and this has a significant impact on course. The cultural influence of the community also forms a barrier to students’ development and growth. Immature level of students and lack of experience.	Physical Environment is ever changing but adaptable. The cultural diversity is present and offers different perspectives to enable an open forum of discussion. Content is directly related to social /cultural structures with participants/ students. Maturity level of students and their experiences.
Main theoretical ideas that we can learn from the cases	Physical, Cultural, Power, Knowledge, Real life context environments. Positionality/Situated Cognition	Physical, Cultural, Power environments.
Main tools/strategies we can learn	Get to know students expectations and cultural story/backgrounds through inquiry at the beginning of course. Using high level thinking to use application of ideas and situations/scenarios.	Providing an open, safe and acceptable learning environment to allow different cultural perspectives to be identified along with course content. Allow discussion and identify misconceptions of cultural roles.
How to improve this case	Provide an immediacy with students to encourage the self-disclosure of cultural assumptions. Provide/ create scenarios or situations that confront assumptions and present varying perspectives and engage peers in dialogue.	Acknowledge that student’s cultural perspectives and experiences does not make them neither good nor bad people. But rather provide a unique lens to view the cultural experience of peer students.

Reference List

Hansman, C. A. and Wilson, A. L. (2002). “Situated cognition: Knowledge and power in context,” Adult Research Conference. Kansas State University Libraries. New Prairie Press. Retrieved from http://newprairiepress.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2379&context=aerc

Harding, S. (1996). Gendered ways of knowing and the ‘epistemological crisis’ of the West. In N. Goldberger, J. Tarule, B. Clinchy, & M. Belenky (Eds.), Knowledge, power and difference (pp.431-54). New York: Basic Books.

MacKeracher, D. (2004). Making sense of adult learning (2nd ed.) Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Maher, F.A., & Tetreault, M.K.T. (2001). The feminist classroom: Dynamics of gender, race, and privilege (expanded ed.). Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.

Tisdell, E.J. (2000). Feminist pedagogies. In E. Hayes & D.D. Flannery (Eds.), Women as learners: The significance of gender in learning (pp. 155-83). San Fransisco: Jossey-Bass.