Epsom Normal Primary School (TLIF 5-023) - Kaitiaki of the future: reframing science through a local curriculum design approach Publications
Publication Details
Project Reference: Epsom Normal Primary School (TLIF 5-023) - This inquiry unfolded in four phases, as teachers explored the impact of taking a small group of students into the outdoors to explore their local environment.
Author(s): (Inquiry Team) Gina Potter and Fiona Lovatt
Date Published: February 2019
Overview
The project focused primarily upon a small group of students in years 1 and 3 for whom engagement, agency, and curiosity were an issue. Later, it also involved students who are English language learners and another who have additional learning needs.
We were asking the children, “What did they enjoy most about their time in the park?” (student voice). We gathered feedback from several children and the question came up of “How is being at the park different to school?” M. gave a detailed response of how the teacher talks for too long at the front telling you what to do and then tells you to go and do it. At the park, they choose what to do. (student agency)
Learning Story entry, 22 October 2019
The teachers and students made regular visits to a local park where the students led their learning, observed by their teachers who joined in to help or simply participate on request. Routines for reflection and ‘slow looking’ sat with science investigations driven by the students’ interests.
Learning in the outdoors proved a highly effective way of engaging these students in science learning, activating their curiosity, and involving them in sustained learning. The amount and quality of their talk increased, not only in the park where they were working, but also on the way there and back. Both students and teachers found themselves looking forward to the sessions. Something special seemed to happen when the teachers stood back and observed, allowing the students to lead the learning in this special place. The approach worked for all learners and the benefits were transferred to classroom interactions where students were more willing and confident to participate.
The teachers were left contemplating what it is we mean by ‘agency’. For these students, it seemed to involve being in small groups, with access to the teacher, the ability to initiate their own learning, and the freedom to talk as they pleased. As one student commented, the teachers seemed nicer in the park. The teachers believe that learning in the outdoors has multiple benefits. It does not have to take place off-site. Simply being outdoors and trusting students to respect agreed boundaries has multiple benefits for both students and teachers.
The inquiry story
This inquiry involved a Year 1 and Year 3 teacher, working with small groups of students from each of their classes. There were four phases to the inquiry. Initially, ten students took part. The five older students also took part in phases 2 and 3, along with students from two more target groups. A new group of six took part in Phase 4.
What was the focus?
Teachers at Epsom Normal School had had many conversations about student agency and what it looks like in the classroom. The teachers involved in this project were interested in whether transferring science learning to a natural outdoor environment might impact on students’ ability to lead their own learning. They were particularly interested in the impact on students who seemed lacking in confidence in the classroom. They also wondered about whether selecting a mixed-age group might facilitate tuakana-teina relationships between the participating students.
The team asked the following question:
Will transferring science learning to its natural environment – the outdoors – in a mixed age setting (tuakana-teina) have an impact on:
- engagement, agency, and curiosity for a small group of target students; and
- how teachers see their role when back in the classroom?
The focus group for Phase 1 were ten years 1 and 3 students who were finding it difficult to settle into the school, form relationships, or participate in group or whole class learning interactions. The older students participated a second time in 2020, when they were in Year 4. The second phase involved 14 English language learners from years 2 and 3 and was supported by the school’s ESOL teacher. The final phase focused upon three students with additional learning needs, a buddy for each student, and the learning support assistants who worked with them.
What did the teachers try, and what happened as a result?
Over five school terms, four different groups of students attended a once-a-week nature-based learning programme at a local urban park.
In the first phase, the initial group of ten mixed-age students was taken to a local park for half a day each week, over seven weeks. This learning experience combined elements of forest school philosophies (such as learner-centred processes and supported risks) with science learning conversations. Students’ interests were used to identify topics for further investigation and the teachers scaffolded learning conversations that supported the students to grow their understandings of the Living World and the Nature of Science. The teachers worked from a planning framework that enabled them to be flexible and adaptable in response to the students’ interests. They took books on indigenous trees and insects for the students to access if needed.
On arrival at the park, the students and teachers would gather at their ‘meeting tree’ to talk about what they had found the previous week and what they might want to investigate next. The students were prompted to recall the boundaries and were then free to engage with the natural environment. The teachers would roam, observing the students and helping when invited. At the end of the session, the group would again gather at the meeting tree and share what they had learned or discovered, and discuss any questions or wonderings the students wanted to follow up the following week.
The teachers were excited by the observable shifts in students’ agency, curiosity, engagement, and science learning and particularly the fact that the students were much more vocal at the park than at school. They wondered whether this programme might also work to further the oral language development of the school’s English language learners. A target group of years 3 and 4 students was identified to take part in Phase 2 (Term 1 2020), along with the five students who had been in the previous cohort and were now in Year 4. Unfortunately, only three visits could be completed prior to the lockdown.
With the support of their whānau and classroom teachers, the five Year 4 students who had participated in phases 1 and 2 continued their involvement in Phase 3. Adjustments were made to the programme structure, with a reflection time at the start of each session where children went to a place that was special to them. There they would spend a few minutes engaged in ‘slow looking’ – listening, watching, and thinking about what was happening in their special place and noticing changes. Some students chose to record this in writing or by drawing. This was also a time for the students to think about what they wanted to investigate that day.
In the final phase, the teachers explored the impact of the approach for students with additional learning needs. Three such students were identified, along with three other students who the teachers believed would make good buddies. The learning support assistants who worked with the students also went along to the sessions. Because of the Covid-19 Level 2 restrictions, the sessions for these students were all held in the school grounds. There were four sessions, and they were more structured than the others had been, though the teachers did try to give the students choices and ensure the spaces were open enough for the students to feel they had some agency over what happened in the programme. Activities included a scavenger hunt and finding ingredients to make potions. The teachers used visuals to help explain instructions and directions.
What happened as a result of this innovation?
Students in the first cohort seemed comfortable with the shift to a space where they had greater agency over their learning while feeling reassured that there were physical boundaries. They became more questioning of classroom routines and less reliant on teacher direction. When in the park, they were deeply curious and engaged in many rich conversations about the world around them. There was an endless stream of talk on the walk to and from the park. The students became more willing to participate in classroom discussions, but the teachers were not sure whether this related to increased curiosity or increased confidence. In the park, there were many examples of them deeply engaging in an activity for extended periods. There were some examples of this transferring into the classroom, especially for Year 1 students whose ability to initiate play with their friends grew with their growing confidence.
Teachers found the experience of being observers and responding flexibly to what the students required of them was enjoyable. They were talking less and listening more. Students commented that their teachers were nicer to them in the park, gave them choices, and let them talk and share their ideas. The teachers began to wonder about the use of space and why teachers tend to make so little use of the outdoors.
There was little time for the teachers to observe shifts for the students in the second cohort, cohort due to a Covid-19 lockdown. However, teachers noticed these English language learners enjoyed the opportunity to talk about the things they saw at the park.
The students in the third cohort were no longer these teachers’ regular students, but they slipped happily back into the programme. They displayed a great deal of independence, had clear ideas for their investigations and had ideas for further visits and alternative routes to the park. The ‘slow looking’ times engaged their curiosity and were a springboard into discussions and investigations into questions such as whether cicadas are alive or dead when they shed their skin and what had happened to the mushrooms they had seen on a previous visit. The students were highly engaged, active learners in the park, and often reluctant to leave. Was this the result of the degree of choice they were given there? Feedback from these students’ classroom teachers was that the students seemed more confident in class, and more willing to share their thoughts and opinions. The critical friend interviewed the students and found they talked a lot about the sense of freedom they experienced in the park, that they were treated fairly there, they could talk about whatever they wanted, and that they were learning about nature.
While the students involved in Phase 4 required a more structured approach, the teachers were still careful to offer choice. The teachers were looking for times when students took advantage of this and made independent decisions or changed the direction of the learning, such as when the children decided to use strips in the newly mown lawn to run races. The buddy system worked well, with the buddies offering suggestions and encouragement and the learning support assistants learning to pose questions that would provoke curiosity and wondering. The students were highly engaged, and this seemed to lead to other unexpected benefits, such as in the development of fine motor and social and communication skills.
The learning support assistants appreciated having been introduced to a different way of supporting their students by taking their learning outdoors.
What did they learn?
The inquiry team found that it was very difficult to measure engagement, curiosity, and agency. These were apparent, but there were also other beneficial outcomes. Their learning included the following:
- Outdoors learning lends itself naturally to science-based learning but can also foster learning across the curriculum. It has possibilities for diverse students.
- Open spaces like parks provide a space for reconsidering the idea that learning only takes place in the classroom. It gives students the opportunity to have their voices heard and provides them with time and space for their stories and their explanations.
- Students valued having the time and freedom to talk about what interests them. They value being in a smaller group and having access to a teacher when they want to ask questions, seek help, or simply involve the teacher in their learning.
- Students may have a different perception of agency’ than teachers. For these students, agency seemed to mean being trusted to initiate their own learning and having time and space to simply talk about their learning.
Inquiry Team
This inquiry project was designed and run by Gina Potter and Fiona Lovatt.
Ally Bull (Evaluation Associates) was the project’s critical friend.
Additional external expertise was accessed from and Cathy Catto (Toybox on Rāwhiti).
For further information
If you would like to learn more about this project, please contact the project leader, Gina Potter.
Reference List
Bull, A. (2015). Capabilities for living and lifelong learning. Wellington, New Zealand: NZCER.
Dumont, H., lstance, D., & Benavides, F. (2012). The nature of learning. Using research to inspire practice. Practitioner guide from the innovative learning environments project. Paris: OECD Publishing.
Dickie, I., Ozdermioglu, E., & Phang, Z. (2011). Assessing the benefits of learning outside the classroom in natural environments. EFTEC: United Kingdom.
Forest School Association: https://forestschoolassociation.org
Kellert, S. (2005). Building for life: Understanding and designing the human-nature connection. Washington, DC: Island Press.
Malone, K., & Waite, S. (2016). Student outcomes and natural schooling. Plymouth: Plymouth University.
Ministry of Education (2015). The New Zealand Curriculum for English-medium teaching and learning in years 1–13. Wellington, New Zealand: Ministry of Education.
Timperley, H., Kaser, L., & Halbert, J. (2014). A framework for transforming learning in schools: innovation and the spiral of inquiry. Seminar Series 234. Melbourne: Centre for Strategic Education.
Tishman, S. (2017). Slow looking: The art and practice of learning through observation. New York: Routledge.
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