Fieldwork: Unexpected Positives and Negatives - and Crying

As an unexpected positive of my time in 5th grade science is that when the students aren't working on the mapping project (which is what I am really there to see), they are doing a "seed challenge" where they each plant tiny seeds in soil-filled film canisters. Little do the students know, these seeds are super-infused with some kinda growth hormone so they grow fast. Each day the students return to class they measure the progress their plant has made and make other observations. This has provided great place-oriented observations that I did not anticipate.

The unexpected negative came when the students had to add support sicks to the soil because the leaves of their plants were getting too heavy for the stems. One little boy accidentally ripped a leaf off of his plant. The negative was that he had a total meltdown, crying over the loss of his plant. Not even the whole plant. Just one leaf. He was SO sad. I tried to comfort him, and told him to make a memorial to the leaf in his journal, but this had little affect. He was simply devastated at having killed his plant. Or so I thought. Turns out this kid has meltdowns all the time as a result of any perceived failure on his part.

And that's why it's important to talk about your observations with teachers who know the kids. The little boy cared no more about his plant than when he cut his paper wrong, or couldn't find his book.

Fieldwork Jounal 5: Building Blocks of Mapping

Turns out there are many steps to teaching 10-year-olds to make a scaled map of their classroom. After teaching two seperate sessions of the lessons, I recommend that students:

• Consider the room
• Orient to cardinal directions
• Determine unit of measurement (non-standard in this case)
• Gather Data (length &width of room, longitude and latitude objects)

THEN begin plotting the data on a piece of graph paper. Translating data to paper as you collect it simply won't do for 10-year-olds. We actually didn't get to plotting the data on graph paper at all this week. One thing at a time.

But students had lots of fun choosing non-standard units of measurement. My favorites included: a trashcan, an injured students crutches, the class sugar glider* (students were encouraged to use a stuffed animal sugar glider, and not that actual animal).

*This is what a sugar glider baby looks like:

This is what they can do when they grow up.

Field Work Journal 4: Reflection

I was able to gather lots of data this week as 5th graders began learning how to map their classroom on a scale (more on that later). I am now floating through the phase of the fieldwork process where you hope that your data will actually show you something, or provide some kind of meaningful insight, even if it's only meaningful to me. I'd setting for that. I am learning a lot and enjoying my time collecting information that I perceive relates to students' understanding of place, but I am not at all sure that combing through the mountains of information I will have come December, will really show much of anything.

I do take solace in the notion that all I may be able to "conclude" by next May is that I have a lot more places to look for information on the subject in the years to come. Seems kind of inevitable actually.

Fieldwork: Sidenote - what's the point anyway?

I wouldn't want anyone to have to read my Thesis to figure this out, so I will try to explain what I am looking for in my fieldwork.

My thesis is about Place. It is about how children come to understand their physical place in their own world. It is about how I think an increased understanding of place will help children to see how they occupy and affect space in their lives. My hope is to show that physically creative acts (art making, for instance) are an important way of teaching children to engage with their world, and to develop a stronger understanding of place.

My fieldwork is designed to seek data about students understanding of place through two case studies. One study revolves around the aforementioned mapping work. Maps are clearly about place, and thus provide direct, if creatively limited data for analysis. The second study is based around a creative sculpture project that uses materials from, and is completed at a specific place. The sculptures will provide far more abstract data about place, but may provide stronger data about the physical acts of creativity that interest me.
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This is a collage map of Chicago I made for Social Theory class. The collage process itself was exploratory and physical. The choices I made about materials (all from local papers and magazines), and where to place the outline of the city, and how to include the flag imagery, brought me to a new understanding of the place that is Chicago.

Field Work Journal 3: 5th grade map readers

I got a chance to meet, greet and map this week with the 5th graders I am working with. We are working in their science class to understand how to read maps; what different types of maps are used for, and how to identify the key, the scale, the cardinal direction, and other important characteristics. After two sessions of work with a wide variety of maps, it seems that most students are quite good and locating features to help them decipher a wide variety of maps. There is some struggle understanding scale, but translating Miles, to inches to centimeters is hard!

Next week, students will start making their own maps, which is important to my study. I can't wait to see what they do.

Personal reflection: anxiety

No rip on fieldwork planning, but it does not yet make for interesting blogging. Perhaps when I have something to reflect on, I can regale you with hilarious anecdotes about this one time...during fieldwork...

For now, most of what I can reflect on is anxiety.

Will I be able to observe what I am looking for in student's work?
Is someone' s understanding of something observable anyway?
Will my presence and leading questions make any "data" I collect wholly bunk?
Will I get too distracted by the social/psycho drama of teaching that I forget to look for data?

Worksheets don't fail me now!

At left: Cubist Anxiety

Fieldwork Journal Step 2: Design a Worksheet

Fieldwork Journal Step 2: Design a Worksheet

This week may well commence some actual fieldwork. I am pulling together a worksheet to help me keep track of what is likely to be a series of slightly disjointed observations/participation/instruction in three 5th grade science classes.

The goal: Observe ways in which students' creative engagement with physical materials affects there understanding of their own "place"- their own physical presence in the world.

Worksheet Basics
Date/Time:_____ Student Section:___
Instructional Material Covered:________
In Class Assignment:________
Student Questions:________
Student Responses:________
Personal Reflection on the lesson/work produced:________

Thought of the Day

I may take this back, but considering the mountain of tasks associated with the Thesis Fieldwork I intend to complete this fall in parallel with my desire for a meaningful blog, my thought of the day is to use the blog as a Fieldwork Journal. My fieldwork, in its current entropic state, has enough disparate elements that some of them just might be helpful or useful to others who are considering thinking about knowing how to approach the Study of Art Education.

Fieldwork Journal
Step One: Induce Stress
Create a self-imposed agenda - due dates, goals, measures of "success", in as much as that is possible in qualitative research

Prezi - a mixed bag

Trying out the new on line tool like PREZI has been a mixed bag of frustration an elation. My first complaint is the name "prezi" which is both cutezi and stupidzi. My other complaints have to do with the difficulty of controlling the view of your presentation. The ease of image upload and manipulation is a true delight, but controlling the zoom on the "path" leaves much to be desired.