Renae Curless EDUC 554 Portrait of a Learner August 14, 2013 Part I: Student Case The student, Melanie,

is an eighteen-year-old graduate of a local neighborhood school. She plans on attending and commuting to a local community college and transferring to a larger four-year, out of state university in two years. In eighth grade, she transferred to her neighborhood high school from a nearby parochial elementary and middle school. At her high school, she was a member and leader of several year-round sports teams and school organizations. She has participated in after-school work-study jobs. Melanie has a large family that she lives with, and has several family members out of the house. She has a large friend group that she can rely on for advice and support, and was also close with several teachers at her high school. I met Melanie at the Leaders of Change (LOC) summer program, which recruits University City high school students to take a Statistics course and a Psychology course. The students are paid a minimum wage for their time and for completion of assignments, and the course is meant to model a typical college course in that its lecture based with a recitation that refines knowledge. The assignments are a few smaller papers, a midterm, and a final research project write-up with presentation that combines elements from both the Statistics and Psychology course. Melanie told me that her main motivation for joining LOC was the pay check as she does not hold another job in the summer. Her favorite class was the Psychology class because of the subject matter, which contrasts with her feelings on the Statistics class, which Melanie hates because of the subject matter, lecture component, and her belief that nothing could be done to improve it.

I observed Melanie throughout the summer. She attended all of the class sessions, excluding one during which she had to leave early for college placement exams. She was mostly attentive in class and actively took notes, participated in small discussions, and shared her knowledge with her classmates. In recitation, she was a little less involved, but always responded enthusiastically when directly questioned. She asked for a lot of advice about college, which I gave, and we had a few chats about her and her friends weekend plans. She asked for my help on her final presentation, but did not come at our arranged meeting time or contact me. She submitted a final paper (which can be found in the Appendix under Student Work), but did not attend the final presentation, and sections of the paper were incomplete. From my observations, it seemed that Melanie was willing to ask for help and understood the benefit of adult relationships and guidance, but that follow-through was the more difficult task. In high school, Melanie was active on campus. She participated in cheerleading, basketball, volleyball, soccer, and badminton, and was the Captain of the cheerleading squad and the volleyball team. She was a member of a knitting club and the President of a club called Girl Talk. Girl Talk facilitates discussions between older and younger teenaged girls at University City about growing up in an urban area and, how a young lady should carry herself. Although Melanie enjoyed her extra curricular activities, she had a difficult start to high school. Because she felt that she had covered her course material in her parochial school, she told me that she slacked off and, adapted in the wrong ways by cutting class. However, she transitioned well because her new school was in her neighborhood and she was familiar with the background of her classmates. We talked a little bit about her relationships with teachers and adults in her school. One of the reasons she enjoys LOC so much is because of the Psychology teacher, Mr. A. Melanie

remarked that she feels confident that she can turn to Mr. A or another one of her teachers, Mrs. S, if she needs resources or help in college, which is suggestive of a positive relationship with many of her teachers. As well, she mentioned her cheerleading coach as someone she typically seeks advice from. When asked about her favorite teacher, Melanie responded that her guidance counselor, Ms. M, was her favorite adult in her high school. Melanie described Ms. M as ballsy and sassy, and as someone who always wanted her students to do well in school and keep on the right track. Ms. M was the first adult that Melanie clung to in high school, although she wasnt explicitly sure about why. Melanie told me that students would talk to Ms. M in their free time during school, and that Melanie talked to her a lot when she had a lighter course load during senior year. A large part of my interview with Melanie was devoted to her college goals. She wants to eventually transfer to a four-year university in Florida or California to leave Philadelphia, and is still undecided about her major. Melanie thinks that she wants to study Nursing, Early Childhood Education, or Special Education, and also wants to work while attending college so that she can make some money. As far as her college expectations, she expects to have more challenging course work in college, but wants to build a strong GPA and not fall into the same traps as she did in high school and slack off or cut class. Of her high school coursework, Melanie said that her teachers werent sticklers, so the expectation for work was lower than her parochial school. Melanie expects that college coursework will be more difficult than high school, but not unmanageable, and wants to work hard on her assignments and build relationships with her professors so that she can win scholarship money for a four-year college or university. In addition to her academic goals, Melanie wants to pledge a sorority, have fun, live on campus, feel a sense of accomplishment, and be free.

Melanies attitude towards college suggests a strong sense of self-efficacy and other meta-cognitive skills. She acknowledged that she was behind on her final project, which contrasted with some of her other classmates who were equally far behind but refused to acknowledge it and ask for help. Melanie has clearly defined goals for college (having a strong GPA, transferring in two years, and building relationships with her teachers), as well as realistic expectations for work, suggesting several self-regulated learning patterns (Ormond, 2012, pp. 356). It has to be acknowledged that LOC is an entirely different setting from the typical school year, and it is possible that the lack of real enforcement other than a paycheck and expected summer relaxation could lead to diminishing returns on Melanies self-regulatory strategies; however, it could be inferred that the strategies are not strong enough, or have not been practiced enough in the regular school setting, to be useful in LOC (Ormond, 2012, pp.357). Melanies answers suggest that school community and having a strong peer and mentor group is important. Melanies strong friend group and familiarity with her peers allowed her to make a smooth transition to University City High, whether other students without a solid friend group might have struggled. Her close relationships with her cheerleading coach, LOC teacher, and guidance counselor also seem to play a large role in her development throughout high school. That one of Melanies college goals is to have a good relationship with her professors is telling about her positive relationships with adults in her high school. I asked Melanie several questions on how she feels she learns best and what kinds of assignments she feels proud of. Melanie reported that she learns well from taking notes during class and more active lessons and projects. She does not enjoy writing papers because she feels it is hard to expand her thoughts and tends to repeat herself (this is a concern she shared with me in recitation, and one that I have tried to help her with in the short term). Melanie told me

about a project that she was the most proud of: Recycling Rewards. During the school year, Melanie participated in a work-study program called Work Ready. Work Ready helps local teenagers find jobs in community outreach projects for hourly pay instead of a typical retail or service industry job. Melanie described her work with Recycling Rewards. Local businesses and civilians signed up for the Recycling Rewards program and received a sticker for their recycling bins as a form of advertisement and identification as a member of the program. Recycling Rewards participants received points that corresponded with different coupons for local businesses. At the end of the program, Melanie made a tri-fold poster and worked on a presentation given at the Convention Center. Melanie said that she liked Recycle Works so much because she was able to show her creativity and artistic talent on the poster and was also able to show what she knew at the Convention Center. Melanies work with Recycle Rewards suggests that she values community engagement and authentic activities. Even though she acknowledged that her work in LOC is not her best, I think it is telling that she chose to work at LOC instead of looking for another summer job. Instead of looking for work in a service industry, she chose to attend classes to learn new information and help prepare her for college. As well, I have seen video footage of Melanie at school board meetings when her high school was on the list of school closings, even though she would not be attending next year. This involvement, as well as her membership in and leadership of several extracurricular activities, suggests that community and her social context are important in shaping how and what she learns. As well, her choice of Recycle Rewards as her biggest school accomplishment implies that Melanie enjoys creating work that supports the community and uses real-world learning, or service learning (Ormond, J.E., 2012, pp.332).

Because Melanie sets goals and believes that she can succeed in college, she shows a high level of self-efficacy (Ormond, 2012, pp.127). She has also expressed to me that she just cant make herself do the work required for LOC; that is, she is capable of doing the research project, but she just does not want to take the time to do it, showing a lowering of self-regulatory strategies. As Ormond (2012) writes, a large part of developing self-efficacy is previous success or failures, and because Melanie succeeded with Recycle Rewards and is proud of her work, she has developed a strong sense of self-efficacy that allows her to set goals and take the steps necessary to complete them in college (pp.129). As well, Once people have developed a high sense of self-efficacy, an occasional failure isnt likely to dampen their optimism very much; this could explain why Melanies beliefs in her college success were not dampened by her lack of effort in LOC (Ormond, 2012, pp.129). Part II: Implications My original definition of teaching and learning was extremely vague: the constant acquisition of new knowledge to help one succeed in a diverse context. My definition of what teaching and learning is has not fundamentally changed, but I have refined it to include the importance of culture and critical pedagogy. I like that critical pedagogy is concerned with, classroom teaching, the production of knowledge, the institutional structure of the school, and the social and material organization of the wider community, society, and nation state. (Wink, Joan, 2011, pp.50). This definition leaves no stone unturned, and acknowledges that everything affecting a students context influences his or her learning. Everything occurs in social systems, and people make sense of information through several contexts. Based on my personal beliefs about the purpose of education before I came to this program and my interview with Melanie is my belief that learning needs to be constant and

critical so that the student can make sense of their environment and critically analyze their social context. Learning new information should be empowering and help everyone navigate their surroundings. Because of the reproduction of social inequalities in Americas public school system, I want learning in my classroom to come from a social justice and critical pedagogical standpoint. The best learning happens when students are actively involved, instead of, [accepting] the passive role imposed on them (Freire, P., 2005, pp.73). In my initial definition, I wrote that teaching and learning occur simultaneously and are not mutually exclusive. Freires (2005) assertion that thinking of knowledge as a gift from those in power to those with less power echoes my belief that it is a mistake to think of the teacher as the keeper of knowledge, and important to acknowledge that students teach us so much every day (pp.72). Something that I wish I had included in my original definition is the idea of mindsets. This is also related to some of my suggestions about Melanies mindset and metacognitive skills. Carol Dweck (2010) delineates the difference between a fixed and growth mindset: fixed mindsets are complacent and think, Im dumb, so whats the point, whereas growth mindsets see intelligence as growing and failures as minor setbacks. Similarly to highly efficacious students, students with a growth mindset tend to believe that they can learn new material, even if it is initially challenging. Learning will not work on a fixed mindset, so it is important that teaching incorporates a growth mindset, grit, and resiliency. One aspect of student-centered learning and efficacy that I observed in Melanie and in most of the LOC students is the balance between interest in authentic activities and assignment completion. For the final research project, students chose a topic that interested them related to stereotypes, and based on their first paper on chapters of Claude Steeles Whistling Vivaldi (readers can view Melanies paper under the Student Work tab in the Appendix). In Melanies

case, she drew on her experiences in a parochial school and in an urban neighborhood school to ask the question of how suburban students view urban students. As previously mentioned, even though Melanie has shown a strong affinity for authentic, student-centered learning, she admitted that she was not working hard or that interested in her LOC final project, and she did not present her findings as a final assessment. It is difficult to say how much of the lackluster presentation attendance, not just from Melanie, but from almost all of the LOC students, is a product of LOC being an ungraded summer class, and how much is due to students unfamiliarity with their task. In recitation, the other TAs and I showed the students how to research background information, and they learned how to create a research survey in their Statistics class. Even with this, Mr. A told us that the students had very little familiarity with how to conduct a research project and write the final paper. Because the actual lecture and recitation have almost full attendance for both of the weekly class sessions, I speculate that the lackluster final project performance could be the result of low self-efficacy for this assignment. If the students had been appropriately scaffolded for this kind of project, or if they had been exposed to these elements before, it is possible that they would have felt more confident about their final project and more would have completed and presented their information. However, it is important for me to remember that a large part of the lack of project participation could be due to the students current social context: in the summer, students want to be outside with their friends instead of conducting a research survey and writing an eight-page paper. My observation at LOC also led me to add the importance of student-teacher relationships and modeling in my definition of teaching and learning. Learning will not occur if students do not respect their teacher, and a teacher will not do his or her best job if they do not

have some sort of positive relationship with their students. In my own experience, I have seen high school teachers that were knowledgeable in their content area and had the pedagogical tools to succeed, but did not enjoy teaching or teach well because they did not like high school students. At LOC, one particularly poignant moment happened when Mr. A went over the expectations for college midterms and their performance on the Psychology midterm. About half of the students had actually completed the midterm, and Mr. A put a chart on the board explaining that if the students decided not to take their college midterm, they would most likely have a maximum possible grade of a 75%. Mr. A also told them that oftentimes, scholarships have minimum GPA requirements, and by neglecting their work, they were consciously jeopardizing their chances at finishing college. For once, the class was silent and not one student was tapping away at their cell phones. I think that the students could tell Mr. A was disappointed in the midterm results because of his abnormal tone, and they all appeared to be taking his talk seriously. To me, they all looked shocked when they realized that their highest grade possible was now a 75%, even though they were not paid according to their final grade. I think that Mr. As words and message carried weight with the LOC students because they all respect him immensely and view him as a good teacher with their best interests at heart. As well, Melanies interview referenced that she could reach out to Mr. A if she struggled in college, which I think contributed to her positive sense of self-efficacy. Because Melanie has such strong relationships with adults and values the help they give her, she could have affirmed a belief that she can succeed in school. Thus, my definition of teaching and learning is heavily influenced by the need for strong self-efficacy, student ownership, social context, and positive mentor-apprentice relationships. To me, all of these aspects of teaching and learning are inextricably linked. Students should feel

that they own their knowledge and can use it in an authentic and constructive way, while teachers should actively try and learn from their students and not consider themselves as the holder of power. Rather, the teacher begins a mentor-apprentice relationship with a student with more knowledge, but gradually helps the student construct his or her own knowledge and learning so that the apprentice becomes a mentor. Learning happens constantly, and knowledge is constructed in every context a student inhabits. My experiences with the student study and as a TA for Leaders of Change have given me concrete examples for all of the above elements of teaching and learning.