Case Study:
Case study of teacher CRP action research project
Teacher: Penny
School: Ngutu College
Learning Area: Creative Disciplines
Year level: 8-9
Context
- Independent, not for profit, socially just college K-Year 9 in 2023
- In its 3rd year of operation
- 49% of the school population are Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander
- We have 70% who are eligible for ILPs; 65% are free fee and most others have discounted fees; we will have a maximum of 350 by the time we are K-12; we have a target of 50% ATSI.
Ngutu College opened is in its 4th year of operation after opening in 2021 with the aim of doing schooling differently through the seamless infusion of Aboriginal ways of knowing, being and doing alongside western curriculum knowledge. The overarching philosophy of Ngutu, builds upon young people’s funds of knowledge and builds upon the individuality of all young people.
It is located in the Western Suburbs of Adelaide as an independent, non-denominational, socially-just college currently operating from Kindy to year 10, with the expansion to year 12 by 2026. Currently, there are 234 young people enrolled, with 104 young people identifying as Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander. In addition to the large cohort of Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander young people, 20% of Ngutu staff also identify as Aboriginal.
Penny has been teaching for around 18 years.
The pedagogical challenge
Theoretical Basis
Towards a Theory of Culturally Responsive Pedagogy (Ladson-Billings 1995)
Three key points that I wanted to focus on after reading Ladson-Billings were:
- Develop a community of learners through encouraging children to learn collaboratively.
- Provide opportunities for children to act as teachers by sharing their knowledge and culture
- Building a community of experts in their own respective fields, allowing for opportunities whereby the children could seek others for guidance, not just the educator.
Links to the five key ideas
Connecting to life worlds
- Provide young people with an opportunity to be exposed to and experience the Life Worlds of artists who may connect in a variety of ethnicities, age, gender and themes.
- Encourage young people to talk with families/caregivers at home about the stories/artworks/artists they value and have a connection to.
- Considering affect- whole group discussions were socially daunting for our young people, so it is important to provide them with opportunities to share their thoughts either individually to one another or in small groups.
Engaging in High Intellectual Challenge
- Engage in discussion using artistic terminology with visiting artists and each other as practicing artists.
- Developing and strengthening their own ideas for artworks and experimenting/developing their skills and techniques to see their ideas come to fruition.
- Visiting exhibitions and communicating with professional curators around processes before curating, preparing, and hanging their own artworks in their own exhibition.
The action research question
How will providing opportunities to engage in discussion around life worlds lead to improved voice and purpose in a creative discipline?
Doing the action research
The action research was conducted in two stages:
Part one was centred around exposure and inclusiveness as our young people were immersed in culture through learning and working with a First Nations artist, explore storytelling through art, to understand and follow the artistic process, engage in creative collaboration, learn to create and communicate their own ideas/expression through visual arts while gain inspiration for their own creative pursuits. The social outcomes of this experience provided our young artists with a feeling of connectedness and belonging, evident in the increase in engagement and visits to the art space, whilst allowing for moments of discussion around young people and Indigenous issues in a safe and supportive environment.
Part two of the action research looked to build on that connection. The class began to focus on the ‘artistic voice’ and how that comes out in the artwork we connect to and make. This stage involved engaging our artists in discussion to gain a deeper understanding of the purpose of art both in our community, for individual artists and for themselves. Inviting artists in and hearing their story in their own words was key to understanding that art is individual, and viewpoints vary between artists as they begin to form their own understanding of what art means to them. The most rewarding discussions were conducted in small groups or individually as our young artists began to open up:
‘What does art mean to you?’
Artist 1: “It’s like a way to tell your story…
it looks good, and (I) enjoy it.”
Me: “Did any of these artworks connect with you in any way?”
Artist 1: “This one.’ He points to an artwork by Mali Isabel.
Me: “Why do you connect with this one?”
Artist 1: “Because it’s the kind of art I do.”
Previously disengaged and a frequent non-attender, this artists’ focus changed as he began to find a connection “I am Arabana too.’ He began to share his knowledge on the collective mural and received a lot of praise and achnowledgement for his efforts. In our end of year reflection, we asked him what he thought about the residency. He said “I probably wouldn’t be doing art if it wasn’t for that.’
These are the artworks he produced for the exhibition.
The broader picture
Penny’s reflections:
With just under half of our young people at our college identifying as First Nations people, college places a high value on ensuring that Indigenous perspectives are included in every aspect of our planning, whether in the classroom, in our aims to build a community of First Nations educators and mentors or even in the design of our gardens and learning environments.
Other cultural considerations, such as gender, social-emotional wellbeing, physical and cognitive complexities are also taken into consideration as we seek to value and support each child with their own ILP which focuses on their strengths without centring on their difficulties as a deficit.
Action research and the knowledge that we can become researchers of our own practice has given me the confidence to work with our community on navigating the diverse needs of our young people. Moving on to become a mentor in action research to other colleagues, we are currently meeting and discussing the pedagogical challenges that others in our college community are experiencing as we seek to become a Culturally Responsive College.
Conclusions
Affective changes:
- Less walk-outs
- increased visits to the art room
- Increased engagement
- Increased focus time
- Artists feeling increased confidence to generate their own ideas
- Moving away from smaller works to larger-scale artworks which require more effort and time
- Increased level of skill (and pride) as artists spend more time practicing/improving their craft.
- Less reluctance to try new techniques
- Higher intellectual challenge- artists beginning to question the purpose of the artwork they are producing
Improving the affective environment of my classroom, the outcome of this research gave me more time to spend on building positive relationships with our young artists whilst reflecting upon my instructional core. Through the action research, I’ve learnt that explicit, instructional and experiential learning needs to be presented differently and with many different voices to meet the needs of every child especially in a creative discipline.