Place-Based Pedagogy For Deep Learning Beyond the Classroom: Local Advocacy and Gobal Connects.

Author(s):

Peter Renshaw(presenting / submitting)Ron Tooth

Conference:

ECER 2014

Network:

30. Environmental and Sustainability Education Research (ESER)

Format:

Paper

Session Information

30 SES 04 B, Agency and Learning Spaces

Paper Session

Time:

2014-09-03

09:00-10:30

Room:

B115 Sala de Aulas

Chair:

Leif Östman

Contribution

This research on place-based pedagogy arose from an Australian Research Council grant (2010-2013) to Dr Renshaw at the University of Queensland and Dr Tooth at Pullenvale Environmental Education Centre. We worked together for three years with innovative educators in a range of environmental education centres across Queensland to document their place-based pedagogies and collect data on students’ learning with regard to knowledge, values and identity for sustainable ways of living. We regard the engaged professional work of these educators as specific instances of design-based research. Our research project, therefore, actually documents local approaches to the global challenges of learning to live sustainably, and provides empirical evidence of transformational learning with regard to students’ knowledge, values and identities.

Innovative pedagogies for reforming school learning such as Authentic Pedagogy (Newman & Associates, 1996) and Productive Pedagogies (Hayes, Mills, Christie & Lingard,2006) have been critiqued as neglecting the affordances of place per se, and the unique benefits of learning beyond the classroom (Ballantyne & Packer, 2009). Place-based pedagogies in turn have been critiqued as neglecting to address active civic and political engagement (Gruenewald, 2003; Stevenson, 2008). We draw upon such debates to clarify different approaches to place-based pedagogies, including critical placed-based pedagogy, pedagogies drawing on narrative approaches, as well as inquiry methods, aesthetic responsiveness, and Aboriginal connectedness to country (Tooth & Renshaw, 2009; Tooth, Wager & Proellocks, 1988).

The educators we studied worked intensely in local sites but their design-based research has global implications. Their sustained professional dialogue on place and pedagogy enabled innovative and effective practices to be invented at each site. In this presentation we focus in particular on one site called Karawatha which is a preserved forest remnant within a suburban area of Brisbane, Australia. It was preserved in the 1990s through the advocacy of a local community action group led by a local resident and self-taught naturalist, Bernice Volz. Part of the pedagogy employed at Karawatha foregrounds the life and values of Bernice, and students have the opportunity during their excursion at Karawatha to talk to Bernice and explore her views and her life. Students are invited to develop their expertise as ‘environmental advocates’ by combining scientific investigations in the Karawatha forest with artistic and narrative expression to record, reflect on, and communicate their growing knowledge and passion for Karawatha. Bernice Volz originally documented Karawatha’s flora and fauna via an international scientific data network called PPBIO, which is coordinated in Manaus, Brazil by Dr William Magnusson and in Brisbane, Australia by Dr Mark Hero. Multiple PPBIO sites are monitored in Brazil, Nepal as well as Australia. Students learn that they can be part of this scientific engagement and contribute to a global knowledge network about their local environment. In this way the place-based pedagogy enacted at Karawatha links environmental advocacy to personal commitments and civic action (as exemplified in Bernice’s life) as well as to the development of scientific understandings and inquiry regarding the diverse eco-systems within Karawatha. Next, we focus on evidence of student learning following the Karawatha experience.

Method

Over many years of professional engagement in environmental education at Pullenvale Dr Tooth had heard from teachers about episodes of compelling behaviour change in their students after the Karawatha experience. Such change occurred both inside and outside the classroom, including efforts to influence fellow students and parents to live more sustainably, practical efforts for litter reduction, a greater respect for small animals (such as lizards and ants) on school grounds, increased personal calmness and empathy for one another, and civic responsibility for looking after gardens and trees on the school site. Teachers had tracked their students’ learning in various ways, for example, by sharing professional journals, case writing about memorable insights and events. In the ARC project (Renshaw and Tooth, 2010-2013) we added to this corpus of evidence using a range of data collection techniques such as recording KWH activities (What do we know about this? What do we want to know? How can we find out?); engaging students in inquiry circles focussed on the experience at Karawatha; and small group interviews conducted after the excursion. In examining the data, we were surprised by the depth and eloquence of some responses from students. For example, one student expressed herself as follows: after I’d done this program ..I’ve become more alert and observant with my surroundings and it has given me a new confidence to go out and see the environment, instead of – just sitting and think oh I like the environment, I like nature, but not actually doing anything about what’s happening. (Interview with year six student) In categorising students’ responses we abstracted three key foci: (1) changes in self; (2) changes in relationship to others and place; and (3) changes in learning at school. The changes to self were in terms of their personal qualities such as confidence and enthusiasm and an emerging new identity. The changes to their relationship with others were concerned especially with their sense of agency to influence others and do things to protect the environment and their realisation that even children have the power and responsibility to act for others and to protect the environment. The changes with regard to school learning were concerned primarily with more-positive engagement and realising the relevance of school learning more. These changes were explicitly linked to their realisation of the importance of direct experience of natural places for longer-lasting and deeper change to occur.

Expected Outcomes

In reflecting on the data from the project, we are impressed by the transformational rather than simply incremental changes in students’ thinking and their civic sense of responsibility. In student responses, we hear the authentic voice of children coming through into changed behaviour in very different ways. There appear to be ‘multiple pathways’ into learning and change from the Karawatha experience that reflect and mirror the key elements of this pedagogy of place. These elements work independently and together as ‘hooks’ that capture the attention of students and engage different kinds of learners. It might be one pathway predominantly or a combination that leads to authentic engagement and deep learning in different students. Some are captivated by the sensuality and beauty of the place as it is experienced through deep attentive listening, others by the personal embodied knowledge and values that they are exposed to and create for themselves, and others by the imaginative power of the unfolding narrative of Karawatha in space and time. In the responses of students, we have noted their awareness of the tension that exists between the abstraction and detachment typical of some classroom learning and the personal change and commitment to action that is associated with learning to care for the environment in a natural setting. We have also observed that when the multiple elements of place-based pedagogy combine and unfold over extended periods of time as part of a single ‘mediated experience’, that dramatic and transformational change can be achieved. Engaging students and teachers with this kind of pedagogy is what we urgently need to develop the knowledge, values, and practices of environmental sustainability and to prepare them for living in our complex and changing world.

References

Ballanytne, R., and Packer, J. (2009) Introducing a fifth pedagogy: Experience based strategies for facilitating learning in natural environments. Environmental Education Research, 15(2), 243–262. Gruenewald, D. (2003). The best of both worlds: A critical pedagogy of place. Educational Researcher, 32(4), 3–12. Hayes, D., Mills, M., Christie, P. & Lingard, R. (2006) Teachers and schooling making a difference: Productive Pedagogies, Assessment and Performance. Sydney: Allen & Unwin Newmann, F. M. & Associates (1996). Authentic Achievement. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Stevenson, R. B. (2008) A critical pedagogy of place and the critical place(s) of pedagogy, Environmental Education Research, 14(3), 353-360 Tooth, R., and Renshaw, P. (2009) Reflections on pedagogy and place: A journey into learning for sustainability through environmental narrative and deep attentive reflection. Australian Journal of Environmental Education, 25, 95–104. Tooth, R., Wager, L., and Proellocks, T. (1988) Story, setting and drama – A new look at environmental education. Australian Journal of Environmental Education,4, 31–34.

Author Information

Peter Renshaw (presenting / submitting)

The University of Queensland

School of Education

St Lucia

Ron Tooth