Transforming Learning: Transforming Places and Spaces for Learning
Paper Presented to the CEFPI Conference
Facility Design and Learning: Has the Paradigm Changed
Conservatorium of Music, Sydney
21st April, 2004
Susan Groundwater-Smith
This paper discusses contemporary understandings of situated and productive pedagogies and what they mean for changing educational practice. It argues that designing for learning must not only relate to re-conceptualising places and spaces in terms of new facilities, but more importantly, re-examining old and “tired” learning environments that are virtually antithetical to transformative learning. The focus is upon school environments (K-12) and takes account of innovation and change in early childhood education that, in turn, has influenced schooling more generally. Finally, the paper argues for wider consultation with students when consideration is being given to facilities’ design.
Introduction:
The discussion that follows focuses upon ways in which schools might seek to engage students more deeply and profoundly in their learning in terms of experiences that are structured such that they are connected, dynamic and worthwhile. That, in effect, they are engaged in what Freire (1995) calls “intellectual kinship”:
The state of ‘intellectual kinship’ provokes in its subjects the feeling of finding oneself immersed in a pleasant ambience in which intercommunication takes place easily, with a minimum of disturbances. … It is one in which a mutual affection, ‘softening’ the ‘rough edges’ of the subjects involved, helps them in building their relationship as opposed to hindering them. (p.ix)
Freire is not suggesting that such a relationship is a form of uncontested consensus between those participating in the learning space, rather it is one that is painstakingly built upon tenets of mutual recognition and respect. It requires “the maintenance of intellectual responsibility and rigorousness in discussing any subject” (p.xi) by seeking for clarity and challenge and engaging in cognitive risk taking.
Contemporary understandings of pedagogy have indicated that such engagement is not merely a whim of the educational imagination, but is critical to transforming learning in productive and positive ways. That is, that students need to feel welcomed and supported; that the learning materials relate to their lives and highlight ways in which learning can apply in their own life worlds; that they have some control over their learning and be involved in authentic problem solving and inquiry tasks; that they are set challenging but achievable tasks; that they can question and reflect upon what they have learned; that their curiosity is arisen; that they can share new knowledge with others in a multi-directional flow – student to student, student to teacher, teacher to student; and that they can understand and employ the language of learning (McCombs & Whisler, 1997; Darling Hammond, 1997; Lucas & Greany, 2000; Claxton, 2001 and Rodd, 2001).
This paper proposes two areas that deserve attention directly in relation to transforming learning. The first of these is that associated with the notion of constructivism as an important way of understanding learning; the second is to do with pedagogy, that is the critical intersection between teaching and learning. It will then turn to contexts for learning including issues associated with social geography, equity and access and those related to facilities for learning.
Transforming Learning:
Constructivism and Learning:
Much of what happens in classrooms over the past one hundred years or more has been based upon a transmission model of schooling (Darling-Hammond, 1997). The teacher tells and presumably the students learn. Indeed, Slavin (2002) in his trenchant criticism of educational practice argues that:
At the dawn of the 21st Century, education is finally being dragged kicking and screaming into the 20th Century. The scientific revolution that utterly transformed medicine, agriculture, transportation and other fields in the 20th Century almost completely bypassed the field of education (p. 16)
He goes on to suggest that if Rip van Winkle were to awake after one hundred years he would not find much to surprise him in today’s schools. Thirty years before Slavin’s outburst Toffler (1971) wrote in Future Shock:
Today children who enter school quickly find themselves part of a standard and basically unvarying organisational structure: a teacher led class. One adult and a certain number of subordinate young people … they gain no experience with other forms of organization, or with the problems of shifting from one organisational form to another. They get not training for role versatility. (p. 409)
Certainly, this situation has been contested over the preceding century, for example Dewey (1916) said “education is not an affair of ‘telling’ and being told, but an active and constructive process” (p. 46); he continued “no thought, no idea, can possibly be conveyed as an idea from person to another. Learners must interpret new ideas in the context of their present interests and understandings if they are to have thoughts at all” (p. 188). Even so, it is still the case that the dominant model, particularly in secondary schooling, is one of direct instruction by the teacher. This, I believe is partly attributable to the custodial nature of schooling, a matter to which I shall return later in the paper.
But all is not gloom and doom. Constructivism, that is the notion of building knowledge through experience and social interaction is steadily, if slowly, being recognised in schools. It offers an alternative way of fostering student learning. Strongly influenced by Vgyotsky (1978) it is seen that knowledge is not some static “out there” commodity that can be passed from one to another, but is a dynamic process influenced by communication and culture. Teachers need to be aware of the “zone” of student development and build upon that by providing supportive and appropriate scaffolds.
The long-standing and persistent transmission model produces students who may appear to have a surface understanding but it is often built upon poor understanding or even misunderstanding. Ference Marton (1994, 2003) has been long aware of the misunderstandings held by students, particularly in the areas of mathematics and science. He has argued that understanding is derived through the experiential relations between the individual and a phenomenon and that changes in that person’s understanding constitute the very heart of learning. He and his associates further argue that in order to arrive at a new understanding we must first discover the learner’s current apprehension or misapprehension of the phenomenon.
If it is our intention as educators to authentically foster engaged learning that is continually transforming and reshaping understanding among our students then we also have to take account of engaging pedagogies; that is the processes that lie at the intersection between teachers and learners. Some thought needs to be given to recent work in the United States and Australia in relation to “productive pedagogies”.
Developing Engaging Pedagogies:
Growing out of the research of Fred Newmann and Associates (1996) at the Centre for Organisational Restructuring and Schools (CORS) Wisconsin a set of empirically constructed standards of ‘authentic instruction’ were developed for schools in that region of the United States. These were subsequently used to inform the Queensland School Reform Longitudinal Study (SRLS) conducted 1998-2000 (Hayes, Lingard & Mills, 2000) and resulted in a policy of the development of rich tasks for learning and a framework of pedagogies that would enhance student engagement in their learning. This policy is particularly important in that it is research based and founded upon clear learning principles, themselves of a constructivist kind.
Turning first to ‘rich tasks’. The Education Queensland model of rich tasks draws upon a range of ideas including those of John Dewey, Lev Vygotsky, Paulo Freire and Ted Sizer[1]. They are based on the following principles:
- Human development and growth occurs when learners are confronted with substantive, real problems to solve;
- Teachers act as mentors who initiate and lead students as novices into the use of appropriate cognitive, linguistic, social and electronic ‘tools’ as a form of scaffolding to solve problems;
- Schools are ‘mindful’ in that they are ones where students, with their teachers, engage in intellectually rich activities that are publicly demonstrated through ‘exhibitions’ of learning.
A rich task is a culminating performance or demonstration or model that is purposeful and models a life role. It presents substantive real problems to solve and engages learners in forms of pragmatic social actions that have real value in the world…. To be truly rich, a task must be transdisciplinary (EQ P.7)[2]
Rich tasks are scaffolded by the productive pedagogies framework whose elements are:
- Intellectual Quality – higher order thinking, deep knowledge, deep understanding, substantive conversation, knowledge as problematic, metalanguage.
- Connectedness – knowledge integration, background knowledge, connectedness to the world, problem based curriculum.
- Supportive Classroom Environment – student direction, social support, academic engagement, explicit performance criteria, self regulation.
- Recognition of Difference – cultural knowledges, inclusivity, narrative, group identity, active citizenship[3].
Clearly the development of rich tasks within a productive pedagogies framework is commensurable with the belief that students in our schools can be identified as competent learners engaged in intellectual kinship with each other and with those who will assist their learning. Achieving such an outcome, while laudable is not an easy or comfortable matter. Much is determined by the contexts in which the students learn: the geographic region; the school; and, the classroom. In other words pedagogy is situated.
Contexts for Learning:
It seems so obvious to state that schools are located in a range and variety of social spaces. However, much of the literature on learning does not take account of the situated nature of learning. Patton (2000) drawing upon the work of Deleuze argues that social cartography is constructed and segmented. This is both in terms of the apparatus of government (in effect those who decide upon the location and building of schools) which is coded, and rigid; and of the collective wills and desires of those who occupy the space, these being variegated and significantly determined by class, race, ethnicity and gender.
While building codes for government schools in Australia may vary state by state there is little to suggest that local social geography is taken into account, particularly in past years. The High School in Broken Hill could easily be relocated in Punchbowl without us noticing the difference, other than in terms of the clientele. Similarly the primary school in Oberon might just as well be in Bateman’s Bay. Schools in the non-government sector cannot afford to be sanguine either. Elite independent schools may have larger buildings, more stone, fewer portable classrooms and more entrancing gardens, but in the end they are all identifiable as school sites whether in Geelong or Rose Bay.
Much of this uniformity arises from a view that it is more equitable and just to provide the same learning spaces, irrespective of geography. However, there is a compelling argument to the contrary. In reporting upon the distribution of disadvantage in Australia, Vinson (2003) argued:
…neighbourhood effects are stronger at certain times in people’s development. In particular, it seems that neighbourhoods affect life chances during early childhood and late adolescence; the very times when a just society would be most anxious to open up life opportunities to children and young people…. The development of mental and scholastic abilities in the crucial early years of schooling can be dampened or supported by neighbourhood effects. (p.6)
He continues by indicating that social geography can and does contribute to inter-generational reproduction with concentrations of joblessness, and raised rates
of crime and incarceration (p.9). Haraway (1988) has suggested that there is such a thing as ‘situated knowledges’. Her argument is that one’s personal knowledge has to do with diverse and complex socio-historical and political positionings which in turn are moulded and shaped by place. These knowledges and learnings are not always productive and helpful, either to the individual or to the society. There is an argument here for design that is not only more encouraging of good and sound pedagogy, but is also more facilitating in building a sense of self worth among students and their communities. If this means differential provisions in favour of the most disadvantaged in our society, so be it.
Schools that are welcoming and accommodating places, not only for students, but for the communities of which they are a part can contribute to the development of social capital. Communities high in social capital, where there are dense and complex social relationships, explicit and clear information networks, well established norms and social stability have measurably higher levels of wellbeing than those that are alienated, fragmented, intolerant and vulnerable (Baum, Palmer, Modra, Murray & Bush, 2000). Joined-up social services that bring together education, health and social provision provide positive outcomes that are demonstrable and measurable (Fegan & Bowes, 1999). A challenge to designers of educational facilities is to develop places where positive learning for all can be achieved; where schools can be accessed by many stakeholders and serve a range of purposes[4].
Thus far, in this section upon contexts, I have focused upon the macro issues. I would like now to turn to spaces within schools.
Classrooms, Passages, Windows and Doors- Messages to Students:
Those of us who were studying and practising education in the 1970’s well remember the rhetoric of ‘deschooling’ (Illich, 1971). There was a hope that ‘schools’ could be liberated from their custodial function, and become aggregated sites for learning. Shopfronts, parks, private homes, galleries and museums[5] could all be spaces between which students could flow, free of the surveillance and discipline of power as described by Foucault (1979) who believed that factories, schools, barracks and hospitals all operated upon the same principles of control. Now, three decades later, there are few traces of what became known as the open education movement. In spite of some new buildings and internal reconstructions (Angus, Beck, Hill & McAtee, 1979) about which educators seemed very excited, today’s classrooms continue to resemble those present at the beginning of public school education in Australia. The bolted down desks may be gone and in the case of primary schools floors may be covered, but the hard surfaces remain in the wide echoing corridors of the secondary schools where classrooms are self- contained, windows are barred, doorways have surveillance panels, rows of tables and chairs continue to face the front, high spiked fences enclose grounds. A great challenge for facilities designers is not only to consider how to design new buildings, but how to develop and refurbish old buildings such that they can serve new purposes.
Lessons from Early Childhood Education:
One promising area of innovation is that arising from changes in early childhood education. In the main, these changes are moving from fixed notions of child development and the ascendancy of play to regarding young children as powerful learners who can and will flourish in environments that are challenging and purposeful. Leading the field is the Reggio Emilia early childhood program established in Italy following World War II. Giudici, Rinaldi & Krechevsky (2001) noted that the work of Reggio Emilia is ecological and attempts to build a close relationship between the community and the pre-school. Reporting on a plenary paper presented by Associate Professor Alma Fleet to The Annual Conference of the Alliance of Girls’ Schools (Australasia) Groundwater-Smith (2003) recorded:
So what is distinctive about Reggio Emilia schools? Professor Fleet enumerated some key characteristics: all participants in the educational community, including the children and their parents are respected; listening and collaboration are key ideas; time is not a commodity to be broken into tiny discrete parts, but a gift to be used carefully; the aesthetic is to be valued; complexity in ideas and relationships is to be sought out and nurtured; there is to be a valuing of the unexpected. ….. Every architectural decision is based upon the philosophy of the program. Tools are of quality ‘we don’t find yoghurt containers or colouring-in at Reggio.’ (p. 7)
This is not rocket science! Schools that respect learners and respect the community can be developed as exciting places that interconnect ecologically with all who participate in them. Importantly, Reggio Emilia pre-schools remind us of the benefit of consultation – consultation with all of the stakeholders. Too often when we are considering what is to be done with the instruments of education: curriculum; assessment, pedagogy and learning environments we fail to contact and consult the consequential stakeholders, the students themselves[6].
Consulting Students:
It is generally agreed that school improvement comes about when evidence of school practices is systematically collected and interrogated; evidence about the curriculum, assessment, pedagogy, school pastoral care policies and the like. Generally, however, the students themselves are either not consulted at all, or are, at best, treated only as a data source. Raymond (2001) has noted that there are three further steps that can be taken: discussion, where students are active respondents; dialogue, where students are co-researchers; and, significant voice where students are researchers, initiating, inquiring, interpreting and developing actions. Groundwater-Smith & Mockler (2003) have detailed ways in which schools might be engaged in all of these practices.