ARC Project 2011 – 2013 Pedagogy & Place University of Queensland and Education Queensland

1. ARC Project 2011 – 2013Pedagogy & PlaceUniversity of Queensland and Education Queensland

2. Professor Peter Renshaw & Dr Ron Tooth Seven participating Centres … Barambah EEC Paluma EEC Pullenvale EEC Bunyaville EEC Nudgee Beach EEC Moreton Bay EEC Tallebudgera Beach Outdoor School

3. LBC Pedagogical Tools • Deep Reflective Responding • Attentiveness • Interpreted Walks and Journeys • Story and Drama • Creative Response • Investigation & Inquiry • Games and Play • (Tooth & Rowntree, 2009) Pedagogy of Place MatrixBased on Ballantyne & Packer 5th Pedagogy research, 2008 Experiential Elements Being in the Natural Environment Life Learning in Real Places Full Sensory, Mind and Body Engagement. Experiencing Local Contexts and Places Learning by Doing Adventure and Challenge

4. Initial Research Focus: Understanding how the Pedagogy of different places drives Learning Beyond the ClassroomDocumenting levels and types of student learning arising from these different places

5. Place … a growing area of interest for Outdoor and Environmental Education researchers …

6. Places are pedagogical … People, and others species, live emplaced lives, and an analysis of place reveals the many ways that places are profoundly pedagogical. That is, as centres of experience, places teach us and shape our identities and relationships. (Greenwood in Stevenson et al, 2012)

7. Place as Text … where we read the world … Teachers who are place based recognize the educational potential of teaching and learning outside the classroom. For them, community and place become additional “texts” for student learning. (Smith, 2012)

8. Where do the Centres sit … two powerful traditions Ecological Place-based Pedagogy … “ involves learning to live well… what’s important is that children have an opportunity to bond with the natural world, to love it, before being asked to heal its wounds” (Sobel in Gruenwald, 2008, p.10) Critical Place-conscious Pedagogy …“ involves critiquing … the injury in the social and ecological world and then … acting to implement socially just and ecologically sustainable ways of being ”(Gruenwald, 2008, p. 9)

9. The Research Journey … understanding the Pedagogy of Place in individual Centres … • Workshops and a great deal of dialogue • Began by naming site specific pedagogical tools • Some didn’t have names so centres named them • Matched the local to Pedagogy & Place (5th) Matrix • Started to collect, collate and analyze evidence • Began to write about insights, changes, findings • Centre visits and more dialogue • Saw unique pedagogical affordances of each place • A Book proposal emerged

10. The Book … an exciting idea … seven centres … Chap 3 Belonging to Country at Barambah Chap 4 Rapt in rainforest at Paluma Chap 5 Story, Place & Agency at Pullenvale Chap 6 In the Midst at Bunyaville Chap 7 Shifting sands at Nudgee Beach Chap 8 Crossing Edges at Moreton Bay Chap 9 Reading the Waves at Tallebudgera

11. Just taking students into place is not enough to create authentic learning …. Experiences must be mediated by passionate & skilled teachers using powerful pedagogy ….

12. Belonging to Country at Barambah Identity

14. Rapt in rainforest at Paluma: Learning in & about sacred places • Placed-based pedagogy inspired by the place itself • Deep personal connections of teachers with this place • Tropical cloud forest setting - trees harvest water from clouds • ‘Rapt and Wrapped (immersed) in Rainforest’ • A deeply sensorial experience and aiming to inspire changes of behaviours • Paluma superpowers (sensory perception) as a tool for reconnecting students to the natural environment • As the clouds roll in across the forest canopy students are invited to taste, smell, touch and experience the cloud with their entire body • The indigenous Nawaigi may also have practiced dadirri or listening to country

15. The journey continues… • Students reflect on their sensorial experiences to develop and chronicle meaning • I like that you can hear the different birds singing their calls. The breeze. Hearing the water. Hearing the birds fluttering their wings. The noise that the trees make because I have never heard a sound like this before. • It’s a chance to get away from it all and not think “Oh no!, my homework is due today!”, or “What do I make for dinner tonight?” • There are no words that describe it. It gives me this feeling in my chest. I want to just stand there forever. I didn’t expect anything like this - it is so unique. • Fostering mental health through connections with significant places • This place is special because it makes me truly remember how precious nature is. It has the ability to calm people after a big day. • I’m the only one here. There’s no one and nothing that can hurt me. • Here nothing cares if you’re slow, or horrible at maths or any school subjects. It just comforts you in your hard times. It has a peaceful relaxing air about it.

16. Story, place and agency at Pullenvale Self, Others & Place Story Thread – Real Life Blanket Role ‘Connected Kid’ Embodied Knowledge Student Voice Agency

17. It has really, really helped with language … with words like arachnids and myriapods … you have to have this experience … to write a proper story … with scientific talk … like a grownup. (year 4 student) Well, I think that even though we think of ourselves as a very small rock or whatever, we’re actually quite big … the ripples will grow bigger after a while … (year 7 student)

18. Slow time Slow pedagogy Relational

20. Like Shifting Sands I think more deeply into the question and answer it more deeply and I give a longer answer and a more developed answer than if I just hadn’t gone there and I would just answer it randomly.

21. To learn about nature and how things live in the nature and animals. You have more experience and you can see what is happening instead of imaging it in your head.

24. PERSONAL GROWTH ADVENTURE CHALLENGE FUN

26. Early Findings

27. Student Engagement with PlaceBeauty and awe Attentiveness Knowledge Thinking Reflection BodyPathways into behaviour change

28. Surface, Mastery and Appropriation Surface: represents a level of competence and knowing that is rudimentary, partial and lacking in specificity. Mastery: represents a competent level of knowing or understanding without a sense of commitment or personal transformation. Appropriation: represents a deeper level of understanding and personal meaning making. Wertch, J. V. (1991).Voices of the Mind. Cambridge: Harvard Uni Press.

29. What kind of Pedagogical & Learning effects are we seeing? The Pedagogy of particular Places is the enabler that produces different kinds of ‘learning effects’. The data suggests a range of first, second and third order effects. Body (embodied) Knowledge - First order pedagogical effect: … development of whole mind body sensory skills through increased ability to … see, hear, and touch … that deepens and heightens understanding, knowledge & connected thinking through direct experience. (Sensorial Grounded Knowledge - SGK) Wellbeing - Second order pedagogical effect: … development of a sense of wellbeingand health … feelings of oneness with place, self and others … created by silence … aloneness … absence of other people. (Wellbeing Health Oneness - WHO) Aesthetic - Third order pedagogical effect: … development of anexplicit awareness of the aesthetic, of beauty, awe and wonder … of spiritual and sacred responses and values that create a sense of purpose, meaning and desire to act for change. (Aesthetic Values Sacred - AVS)

30. Key Finding In these Centres it’s the staff and their deep connection to place, their understanding of its pedagogical affordances, and the ability of teachers to inspire students in real places that makes the difference to the quality of learning beyond the classroom. This is what allows students to engage with the knowledge, values and practices of sustainability in an active, hopeful and optimistic way.

31. Watch out for the book …

32. References Gruenwald, D. A. and G. A. Smith (2008). Creating a Movement to Ground Learning in Place. Place-Based Education in the Global Age. D. A. Gruenwald and G. A. Smith. Stevenson R, Brody M, et al., Eds. (2012). International Handbook of Research on Environmental Education. New York and London, Routledge. Tooth, R., and Renshaw, P. (2012). Storythread Pedagogy for EnvironmentalEducation. In T. Wrigley, P. Thomson & B. Lingard (Eds.), Changing Schools (pp.113-127): Routledge. Tooth, R., and Renshaw, P. (2009) Reflections on pedagogy and place: A journey into learning for sustainability through environmental narrative and deep attentive reflection. Australian Journal of Environmental Education, 25, 95–104.