To tell - exploring assessment in ESE

Author(s):

Hanna Hofverberg(presenting / submitting)

Conference:

ECER 2016

Network:

30. Environmental and Sustainability Education Research (ESER)

Format:

Poster

Session Information

30 SES 06 B, Learning and Assessment by Telling and Imagination

Paper/Poster Session

Time:

2016-08-24

15:30-17:00

Room:

NM-Theatre M

Chair:

Alison Neilson

Contribution

Taking departure from empirical observations of a recycling school project called “do-re-do” in a crafts classroom in Sweden, this poster will discuss assessing methods in ESE (Environment and Sustainability Education). The poster thus relates to Network 30’s special call on assessment in relation to Environment and Sustainability Education (ESE).

Learner’s agency and learner’s action competence have been argued by many authors to be a core value in ESE (Jensen & Snack, 1997; Wals & Jickling, 2000, Jickling, 2002; Stable & Scott 2002; Öhman 2008; Stevenson et al., 2013). A joint conclusion, albeit with multiple interpretations, is how knowing in relation to environmental and sustainability issues are not just about learning what environmental and sustainability issues might be, but also cultivate a practical knowledge: developing the agency of learners in participating and taking action on environmental and sustainability issues (Stevenson et al., 2013, p. 2). In times of accountability, measurement and evidence of which formal education in Europe is facing, a crucial question is how we can assess practical knowing in formal education settings without, at the outset downplay its worth and importance?

Ingold (2013) argues it is a question of articulation. To tell, according to Ingold has two related senses: on the one hand it refers to being able to recount stories of the world and on the other hand, being able to recognise subtle cues in one’s environment and to respond to them with judgement and precision (p. 110). Thus, telling is a practice of correspondence: both in the verbal relating of stories and in the coupling of sensory awareness with material variation (ibid). Here, in what Ingold defines as the practice of correspondence, lies one of his main ideas, namely that knowing is movement (p. xiii). It is in the movement, the practice of correspondence that meaning and knowing unfolds. As an example Ingold states:

We say ´the wind is blowing´, because the subject-verb structure of the English language makes it difficult to express it otherwise. But in truth, we know that the wind is it’s blowing. Similarly, the stream is the running water. And so, too, I am what I am doing. I am not an agent, but a hive of activity (2011, p.17).

Knowing as movement raises methodological questions regarding assessment such as what methods are used in assessing ESE? And further, how are the methods used; what is “moving” or becoming vibrant in the assessment, and what is not? To be able to discuss these questions the poster will present three stories of telling provided in the empirical observations.

Method

The poster will present three stories of telling: a text story, an image story and a making story. The three stories are examples of how students in a crafts classroom (in Sweden called Educational Sloyd) expressed their knowing (or lack of knowing). The empirical data, that the poster draws upon, was collected in Autumn 2015 in an 8th grade classroom where students were asked to make something new out of a used garments. One purpose of the recycling project, named “do-re-do”, was for the students to learn about sustainable development. There were 15 students in the class and film recording was about 10 hours, distributed over 8 weeks. In order to discuss the three stories – text, image and making – the poster draws on Ingold’s (2013) idea of telling as a practice of correspondence and thus how knowing enfolds in the movement. The three stories are visually presented on the poster. However, as Ingold argues one cannot only observe without participating thus the assessment is further discussed by inviting the “poster observer” to participate in the discussion. This is achieved by poster observers being able to log on to an interactive blog using QR-codes Thus, the poster itself acts as an interface between the observer and the material discussed: text, image and making.

Expected Outcomes

In the first story, the text story, the students expressed their thoughts on the making process beforehand by writing down step by step their planned actions. However, the students changed their text stories after the process to match their experiences. A similar result occurred with the image story, where most of the students drew their product they wanted to make. Some of the students were surprised when they realised how different they have made the product as an image compared to “the real”. It could be argued that both in the text and the image stories, as the process went on, the students recognised “subtle cues in one’s environment” and responded to them “with judgement and precision”, as Ingold (2013) describes it. In the third story, the making story, the students expressed themselves by doing. A crucial parameter in the making story was how students were able, or not able, to continue the making process encountering the recycling material in the practice of correspondence. Based on the three stories the poster sheds light on three different ways of telling used in a crafts classroom. On the poster the stories work as a starting point for discussing what methods are used assessing practical knowing that relates to the questions of learner’s agency and learner’s action competence, but also how the method itself creates a certain way of telling, assessing and thus also knowing. Further, the poster functions as an interface to explore a poster’s capacity as a “presentation story”, compared to a paper – even if the two presentation forms are assessed from the same guidelines.

References

Jensen, B.B. & K. Schnack (1997): The action competence approach in environmental education, pp. 163-178 in Environmental Education Research, vol. 3 (2). Jickling, Bob (1992). Why I don’t want my children educated for sustainable Education, Journal of Environmental Education, vol 23, nr 4, pp. 5 – 8. Stable, Andrew; Scott, William (2002). The quest for holism in eduation for sustainable development. Environmental Education Research, 8(1), 53-60. Stevenson, Robert B., Broady, Michael, Dillon, Justin, & Wals, Arjen E. J. (Red.). (2013). International handbook of research on environmental education. New York: The American Educational Research Association and Routledge Ingold, Tim (2013). Making – Anthropology, Archaeology, Art and Architecture. New York: Routledge Wals, Arjen; Jickling, Bob (2000). Process-based environmental education seeking standards without standardizing, in: Jensen, Bjarne Brunn; Schnack, Karsten ; Simovska, Venka (Eds), Critical Environmental and Health Education: Research Issues and Challenges (Copenhagen, The Danish University of Education Research, Research Centre for Environmental and Health Education), pp. 127-149. Öhman, Johan (2008). Values and democracy in Education for Sustainable Development. Malmö: Liber.

Author Information

Hanna Hofverberg (presenting / submitting)

Uppsala University

Education

Malmö

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