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Engaging whānau with children's science learning

Asri Parkinson, Jude Doyle, Bronwen Cowie, Kathrin Otrel-Cass and Ted Glynn
Abstract: 

When their funds of knowledge and experiences from home and the community are connected to their school learning, students' learning is supported. In this study teachers used "home learning books" to invite contributions from home into science teaching and learning in the classroom. The flow of knowledge between home and school engaged students and whānau and enriched the science learning.

Journal issue: 

Engaging whānau with children’s science learning

Home learning books

ASRI PARKINSON, JUDE DOYLE, BRONWEN COWIE, KATHRIN OTREL-CASS and TED GLYNN

Key points

Children learn best when they can bring their knowledge from outside school into the classroom. It can be challenging to create a classroom culture that allows this, especially for Måori students.

In this study, individualised “home learning books” were used to invite families to share their knowledge related to a science unit. Genuine requests were made for information families reasonably might have.

The home learning books helped student confidence and engagement, enriched science learning and helped the teacher adjust their teaching to meet students’ existing knowledge.

The process changed dynamics—engaging families by inviting their contributions rather than informing them about school, and sometimes positioning the child as the expert as they exchanged knowledge between home and school.

The books work best as home learning rather than as homework when they are introduced with an invitation to parents to participate, and when classroom practices clearly signal that the knowledge they bring in is valued.

Some students (for example, those with little parental support) needed extra help.

When their funds of knowledge and experiences from home and the community are connected to their school learning, students’ learning is supported. In this study teachers used “home learning books” to invite contributions from home into science teaching and learning in the classroom. The flow of knowledge between home and school engaged students and whānau and enriched the science learning.

Introduction

The New Zealand Curriculum (Ministry of Education, 2007) states that the curriculum has meaning for students when it “connects with their wider lives, and engages the support of their families, whānau, and communities” (p. 9). The Ka Hikitia policy document (Ministry of Education, 2008) states that it is essential that Māori students are able to achieve as Māori while also succeeding as citizens of the world. The document highlights the pivotal role families and whānau have to play in this. The communication, understanding and connectedness required to achieve these goals is known to be challenging for schools and teachers (Education Review Office, 2010), in part because schools tend to concentrate on informing parents and communities about what is happening at school rather than seeking out and inviting into schools the knowledge and resources they have to offer (Bull, n.d.).

In this article we report on one aspect of a Teaching and Learning Research Initiative (TLRI) study that sought to understand how teachers might enact a more culturally responsive pedagogy in their primary science lessons (Glynn, Cowie, & Otrel-Cass, 2010) by building strong relationships between children’s home and school lives. Culturally responsive pedagogy acknowledges that students are competent participants in multiple communities in and outside the classroom. It positions the knowledge and experiences gained in these contexts to be both integral to, and rich resources for, successful learning. In the article we detail how two teachers used “home learning books” as “boundary objects” (Wenger, 1998) that travelled between home and school creating a space and support for respectful conversations in both settings. The books and the practices around their use provided an avenue for students to contribute their funds of knowledge from their lives out of school to the classroom curriculum. The conversations that took place broadened and deepened the children’s interest in and knowledge of science.

A funds of knowledge orientation

González and Moll (2002) coined the phrase “funds of knowledge” to describe the historical and cultural knowledge, strategies and resources that families and communities have acquired through their life experiences and cultural practices. A funds of knowledge orientation acknowledges that in the classroom students learn more effectively when they can draw on the funds of knowledge they bring from home, and that teachers knowing about these funds can open up new possibilities for learning and classroom teaching.

In science education, researchers interested in increasing the engagement in science of students from diverse backgrounds have successfully explored a funds of knowledge approach (Upadhyay, 2006). Barton and Tan (2009), for example, provide a detailed illustration of student use of funds of knowledge from their family, community, peer group and popular culture during a unit on food and nutrition. The students in their study were prepared to use their funds openly in school science because the teacher actively invited these funds into discussions and reading and writing activities as well as the science tasks. Barton and Tan highlight that it is important to consider how teachers mediate student funds of knowledge through “ways of being, talking, and writing that must occur in the right places, the right times, and the right ways” (p. 52). Thomson and Hall (2008, p. 89) go further. They argue that teachers need to “change what counts as important knowledge so that the dominant forms of knowledge are decentred and more inclusive models of knowing—and being—are recognised and taught to all”.

In the context of New Zealand language classrooms, Glynn, Berryman and O’Laoire (in press) note that while Māori students enter the language classroom with rich funds of cultural knowledge and expertise, all too often they do not get the chance to contribute this knowledge to the classroom learning. These researchers point out that Māori students’ success in the classroom may depend upon whether or not their language knowledge and lived experience can safely be brought into classrooms. Their work has highlighted the need for teachers to be able to deploy pedagogical approaches that identify and recognise student and community funds of knowledge and draw them into the classroom as legitimate resources for curriculum learning. One suggestion is that teachers build on and extend established practices to do this (Hughes & Greenhough, 2006). In the case of homework, however, it has been suggested that while it can connect students’ home and school lives in ways that are beneficial for families and students, it can also undermine student interest and enjoyment in learning. The outcome depends on how it is orchestrated (Robinson, Hohepa, & Lloyd, 2009). In this article we use Wenger’s (1998) proposition that different communities can be brought into conversation with each other through the use of boundary objects, people and practices to reconceptualise homework as home learning.

When boundary objects mediate between communities in ways that contribute to the co-construction of meaning, they serve as sources of energy and empowerment.

Wenger uses the term boundary object to refer to objects that reach across the boundary from one community to another. Boundary objects, therefore, are objects that traverse multiple social worlds while at the same time satisfying the specific informational requirements and practices of each. Boundary people or brokers are people who use their membership of multiple communities to carry boundary objects between them. Boundary practices are what support the mutual engagement of individuals from different communities. When boundary objects mediate between communities in ways that contribute to the co-construction of meaning, they serve as sources of energy and empowerment (Thomas, Hardy, & Sargent, 2007). It is this potential that we explore next.

Introducing the research and the teachers

This article focuses on one aspect of a two-year TLRI-funded study designed to understand the implications of a culturally responsive pedagogy approach in primary science. Four teachers participated in the study; this article draws on the data from two of the teachers and their classes. All the teachers were in mainstream schools. Approximately 40 percent of their students were of Māori descent. Classroom data were collected over the course of a science unit using digital video and photographs and researcher field notes. Student work samples were collected and the teachers and students were interviewed to gain insight into their perceptions of lessons. Students in both classes discussed in this article were surveyed to elicit their views of the books, as were parents in one class. For this article, data were pooled and analysed to identify the functions the home learning books served and what contributed to their success, or otherwise, as boundary objects.

Throughout the study, the teachers sought to ensure that the cultural knowledge, lived experiences and preferred pedagogical values of the whānau and communities of their Māori students were incorporated and affirmed within their classrooms. Two of the teachers (Asri and Jude) used home learning books as a core component of practices aimed at achieving this. The use of home learning books was an established practice at Asri’s school, and she had used them with her classes for a number of years. When Asri described their use, Jude decided to introduce home learning books into her class.

Asri’s story: Home learning books for sharing funds of knowledge

From the beginning of the year Asri sought to establish a classroom culture where it was taken for granted that her Years 5/6 children would contribute their out-of-school and everyday experiences and ideas to what was being discussed, and that they would feel safe to do so. To this end, the science unit began with a brainstorm about children’s experiences of the sea and beach activities. Asri also shared her own knowledge and experiences of the sea to support and encourage her students to share their experiences. Next, as the science unit was the first for the year, the students decorated the cover of their home learning books with a scene from the beach. The decoration process was important in helping students to develop a sense of pride in and ownership of their books as well as an understanding of the topic focus. To help establish that the use of the home learning books was valued and expected, Asri, or a designated student, signed the home learning books each day for the first month.

The initial home learning task for the sea unit was that the students should ask their families about their experiences with the sea. The written instructions for the task were as follows:

For home learning this week you are to find out what knowledge and experiences you and your family know and have had with the ocean. You might want to share about a holiday or a time you were at the ocean, maybe sharing a souvenir, photos, video etc. Or does someone in your family know a myth or legend about the sea that they would like to share with you or share with our class? Has someone in your family worked at the sea? Does someone in your family know a lot about how the ocean works or about what lives in the ocean? We will have a sharing time on Friday at 1.40 pm so families are more than welcome to come and share their experiences, myth or legend or just come and support their child with their sharing.

Two parents came in on the Friday and talked with the class about their experiences with the sea. The children responded very positively to a father’s story about being a fisherman and a mother sharing about holidays spent exploring the seaside. Most other children had talked to their parents and brought back and shared their stories about the sea. Asri commented that asking the students what their families knew about and had experienced of the sea, and having family members come to class to talk about their experiences “hooks the children in more and shows what they already know is valued at school”. She noted students “have more confidence when sharing home learning, be it for topic knowledge sharing or experiences sharing because they have had support from someone at home”. Throughout the class discussions, Asri’s actions highlighted that students sharing what they knew was valuable because others could learn from this. Her expectation was reinforced by the allocation of a quiet time for the children to record their thoughts about what they had learned from listening to their peers. One student noted, “I learnt today from Isaac not to jump off a bridge when there is a stingray.”

The children’s home learning contributions enriched and expanded the children’s science learning. For example, Tayla’s sharing of her interview with her uncle who was a kaitiaki for the local community introduced the topic of conservation:

My Uncle is a Kaitiaki for the Kaipara Harbour. Kaitiaki means guardian or protector, so you can be a protector over your whenua (land), awa (river), taonga (treasure). The purpose of his job is to protect our natural resources. The resource he protects is kaimoana, which is fish and seafood. It is important because we need to protect and preserve our seafood, our beaches and our wildlife for the future generations ... He was chosen by the people of my marae for this job. He does this job because it makes you feel good to help the environment, so that you look after these resources for the future.

Subsequently, another class member reported on a newspaper article about people taking undersized fish. This contribution led to yet another student sharing the Māori cultural practice of returning the first fish caught to the sea and a vigorous discussion about whether a pāua a student brought in was undersize.

By listening to the children’s experiences with the sea, and by reading through their home learning books, Asri was able to see what knowledge and experiences they had to bring to the unit. Specifically, she found out that most children’s experiences were to do with boogie boarding or swimming. Very few had been on a boat and out to sea or had really examined sea creatures. She was able to adjust her teaching to accommodate this.

For another home learning task, Asri’s children had to find a myth about a jellyfish from another country or create one of their own. The children found a number of myths from different countries. Through an examination of the different myths, the children came to appreciate that different people and cultures had different understandings of, explanations for and relationships with the same natural phenomena. This task was valuable because the students also spent time, with Asri’s guidance, thinking about how and why some of the myths from different countries were very similar.

Yet another home learning task required the children to list three echinoderms or crustaceans. They had already examined a range of these in class and the purpose of this activity was to provide an opportunity for the children to extend and consolidate their knowledge. What proved particularly interesting was that some of the children found that their parents did not know what echinoderms were. Students were experts in some of the more technical language and they delighted in knowing and teaching it to their family. At the same time the students learned from their families’ knowledge and experiences and were later able to teach this to others at school. One parent noted: “My child definitely enjoys this extra bit of learning and especially the fact that she can share it with her family.”

In Asri’s view, one of the main benefits of the home learning books was that they promoted learning with and about families. She explained that the label home learning book was intended to highlight that “we never stop learning regardless of where we are, be it at school, home, and out and about”. It was also intended to remind the children that home learning tasks were not about doing extra schoolwork at home but about children learning in and from their families and bringing this learning into the classroom. Asri considered home learning tasks promoted the idea that “our experiences are also valued, not just the specific curriculum learning”. One disadvantage Asri identified was that “it can be a bit disheartening for some children when their families are unable to help them out with their home learning”. She provided time for students to complete their home learning tasks at school from 8.30–9.00 am.

Comments from the students (22) who responded to a survey on the use of the home learning books indicated that they enjoyed activities that involved them learning from and sharing ideas with their families, particularly when families had rich experiences to share as was the case with the study on the sea. Responses to a survey of family members (11 responses) indicated that the concept of home learning was generally well understood, with reports of mothers, fathers, siblings and grandparents contributing to home learning activities. This said, one of the 11 respondents reported their child thought it was “an interruption to his time at home” even though “it is something he enjoys and can do, it boosts his confidence and helps his learning”. This comment highlights the challenges for teachers in developing activities that build positive home–school learning connections for each of their students all of the time.

Jude’s story: Introducing home learning books

Jude decided to introduce home learning books into her class after hearing Asri talk about how she had made use of them. She bought books specifically for this purpose. The children coloured a picture of the three whales legend (a local legend of how three hills formed) for the front cover of their home learning book. This legend had special meaning for the school because the majority of the students belong to Tamapahore Marae on Mangatawa, which is one of the hills/whales from the legend. The students “bombed” or tagged their name on the back cover to personalise it. They then covered their books with Duraseal. The overall presentation was therefore something of which the children could be proud, and relate to, and which was robust enough to travel back and forth to home.

The first class activity with the home learning books was for the children to compose an invitation to their parents to an after-school session to introduce and explain the science topic they would be studying in Term 2. The children were very proud of these invitations. All of them included the invitation in their portfolio of work they later discussed with their families. A number of students, in conversation with a researcher, identified that the invitation was one of the things of which they were most proud. One student explained: “This was for a science meeting and we had a meeting in the library. Mum thought that it was amazing.”

At the meeting Jude explained that the children would be studying space, and in particular how we get day and night and the seasons. This would then link into Matariki celebrations. Jude introduced the home learning book as something parents and families could use to share their ideas and experiences with their child and the class. Parents were appreciative of the chance to find out what their children would be learning. Their comments suggested it was a novel experience to be briefed about what their children would be learning in this way. They sought clarification from Jude and the research team about which of their own experiences might be relevant to what the children would be doing.

In preparing for this meeting, Jude invited two important kuia, affiliated with many of the hapū and iwi of families in her class, to be present—and to indicate how Māori knowledge connected with and contributed to these topics. Their participation was an important signal to Māori students and their families that Māori knowledge and understanding were important and needed to be affirmed. It was important in signalling Jude’s respect for, and valuing of, knowledge and expertise located in the community outside the school, and Jude’s desire for her students to benefit from this. One of the kuia volunteered her nephew, an expert in celestial navigation, to contribute his expertise and present a major talk to the school. He did this with a full pōwhiri from the school.

In Jude’s view the parent evening had “set [the] scene for all that this is a learning journey together”. It had been important in “getting the book happening, getting it used”. It was her perception that the children whose parents had been at the meeting were more likely to have used the home learning books during the unit, not necessarily writing in them but nevertheless using them as a forum for conversations at home. One student explained:

Every time the teacher tells us what to write in our home learning book we do it. So like this one we did, like, day and night. And you explain how we get the seasons and explain what a constellation was. My mum wrote these two and wrote these three.

The children recorded their small-group inquiry learning questions in their home learning books, and in this way were able to discuss them with their parents.

Jude offered the children an opportunity to share their home learning with the class each day. This allowed the mother of Kevin, a Chinese boy with limited English, to contribute what she knew about the Chinese New Year. This contribution helped her son to feel part of the class. Kevin made extensive use of his home learning book. He sourced and recorded additional information, which he shared at school. His family was already supportive of his reading, but this was the first time Jude had had evidence of the wider discussions and the input he received from home. She found that Kevin was now more forthcoming and confident. To assist one Tongan child who had very little family support, Jude asked a Tongan child she had taught the previous year to find out the Tongan names for planets. The child asked her mother and then shared this information with Jude’s student.

The value Jude saw in the home learning books came from two sources. First, the richness of ideas that came from home to school. This was “information I wouldn’t have normally had. The stories were important to the children because they were coming from their family.” She found that this led to greater student engagement in what they were learning. Jude considered that initially the children who benefited most from the books were those who were already having conversations with their family. However, as the home learning books became integrated into how the class worked, more children and their families used them to contribute to their child’s learning and the curriculum in the classroom. Jude noted that, as she persisted, the books became more successful in bringing home knowledge into the classroom in ways that could not have been predicted.

Student survey responses (22) were unanimous that the home learning books were valued for the way they stimulated and supported discussion and the sharing of ideas. In recalling a conversation they had had, one student reported, “Well it was my question, ‘If the earth spins why don’t we fall off?’ I shared it and my Mum and Dad and brother helped me figure it out and I went to the computer to find evidence.”

Discussion

Schools and teachers need to find ways to bring children’s home and family knowledges and cultures into conversation with school knowledges and culture so that children are able to use all the resources they have available to them to learn at school, at home and in the wider community (Grant, 2010). We have come to understand home learning books as boundary objects that can help bridge the communities of home and school for children. As used by the two teachers, the home learning books anchored and provided a touchstone for conversations between children and their families and whānau, not all of which were recorded. Unlike the vast majority of one-way school–home transactions that are dominated by school requirements and formats, home learning books fostered conversation about family and community knowledges at home and at school. The books embodied ako or the alternating of teaching and learning roles. Students might learn something at home and then at school be positioned as teacher when they shared this learning. They might also be positioned as expert in conversations with their families. In these ways the books opened up a space where children and their families and whānau talking about science and science-related matters was made possible, relevant and important. The students were given agency over learning this process.

For the teachers in our study, their use of the home learning books was not simply a matter of the school saying to families “We want help with this” but rather “We want to listen to and learn from what you know.” This focus revealed a breadth of knowledge and experience that enriched the children’s home and classroom experience. The books served as a means whereby the funds of knowledge from children’s families and communities could become resources in the classroom curriculum. Consequently, the teachers came to appreciate the wealth of knowledge the children and their families had to offer, and they became more comfortable with positioning themselves as learners from and with students some of the time. They felt less compelled to position themselves as the source of all knowledge. Understood within a Māori cultural framework of tuakana–teina, the teachers sometimes took on the teina position without abdicating their overall responsibilities.

Home learning books on their own do not automatically establish connectedness that stimulates conversations to draw children and family funds of knowledge into the classroom curriculum. Home learning books are not simply about more of the same at home. They are about recognising that much learning takes place out of school, activating the rich resources families and communities have that are relevant for students’ science learning, and helping children make meaningful connections between what they are learning at school and their lives outside school. The two teachers in our study sought to avoid home learning books sliding back into being vehicles for homework tasks through the tasks they used and the way the books were embedded in classroom practices that signalled they were genuinely interested in and affirmed children’s and their family’s funds of knowledge. These practices included providing opportunities for students to share what they had learned from home, setting aside time for students to reflect on what they had learned from their peers, and teachers sharing their own funds of knowledge with their students.

From their experience, the two teachers make three suggestions:

1.Home learning books should be introduced with care and, if possible, teacher hopes for their use explained carefully to parents. It is important that students and families understand the distinction between home learning and homework.

2.Authentic and meaningful tasks should be used. That is, tasks that seek out funds of knowledge and expertise from families and communities that they might reasonably have.

3.Curriculum time should be set aside for children, and their families, to share their home learning so that the funds of knowledge they have can inform and enrich the classroom curriculum.

References

Barton, A., & Tan, E. (2009). Funds of knowledge and discourses and hybrid space. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 46(1), 50–73.

Bull, A. (n.d.). Community engagement and the New Zealand curriculum. Retrieved 23 March 2001, from New Zealand Council for Educational Research: http://www.nzcer.org.nz/pdfs/community-engagement-new-zealand-curriculum.pdf

Education Review Office. (2010). Promoting success for Māori students: Schools’ progress June 2010. Education evaluation reports. Wellington: Author.

Glynn, T., Berryman, M., & O’Laoire, M. (in press). Transformative pedagogy and language learning in minority language contexts: The case of Māori in Aotearoa/New Zealand. In Innovation in language learning and teaching.

Glynn, T., Cowie, B., & Otrel-Cass, K. (2010). Culturally responsive pedagogy: Connecting New Zealand teachers of science with their Māori students. The Australian Journal of Indigenous Education, 39, 118–127.

González, N., & Moll, L. (2002). Cruzando el puente: Harnessing funds of knowledge in the Puente project. Journal of Educational Policy, 16(4), 623–641.

Grant, L. (2010). Developing the home–school relationship using digital technologies: A Futurelab handbook. Bristol: Futurelab.

Hughes, M., & Greenhough, P. (2006). Boxes, bags and videotape: Enhancing home–school communication through knowledge exchange activities. Educational Review, 58(4), 471–487.

Ministry of Education. (2007). The New Zealand curriculum. Wellington: Learning Media.

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Robinson, V., Hohepa, M., & Lloyd, C. (2009). School leadership and student outcomes: Identifying what works and why: Best evidence synthesis iteration [BES]. Wellington: Ministry of Education.

Thomas, R., Hardy, C., & Sargent, L. (2007). Artifacts in interaction: The production and politics of boundary objects (AIM Research Working Paper Series No. 52). Retrieved from Advanced Institute of Management Research: http://www.aimresearch.org/uploads/pdf/working_papers/052rtpaper.pdf

Thomson, P., & Hall, C. (2008). Opportunities missed and/or thwarted: ‘Funds of knowledge’ meet the English national curriculum. The Curriculum Journal, 19(2), 87–103.

Upadhyay, B. (2006). Using students’ lived experiences in an urban science classroom: An elementary school teacher’s thinking. Science Education, 90, 94–110.

Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice: Learning, meaning, and identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

KATHRIN OTREL-CASS is a senior lecturer at the Centre for Science & Technology Education Research, University of Waikato.

Email: kathrino@waikato.ac.nz

BRONWEN COWIE is Director of the Wilf Malcolm Institute of Educational Research, University of Waikato.

Email: bcowie@waikato.ac.nz

TED GLYNN is Foundation Professor of Teacher Education at the University of Waikato and a Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand.

Email: glynn@waikato.ac.nz

JUDE DOYLE teaches year 3 and 4 students at Arataki School. She leads the year 3/4 syndicate and is in a co-lead teacher role for the school's ICT and Culturally Responsive Practice professional development focus. She is a teacher member of the Culturally Responsive Pedagogy and Assessment in Primary Science TLRI research team. Previously, she was a teacher-researcher on the Quality Teaching Research and Development Science (Waikato) Ministry of Education project.

Email: jdoyle@arataki.school.nz

ASRI PARKINSON teaches year 5 and 6 students at Vardon School. She leads the senior syndicate and is committed to culturally responsive teaching as part of creating an inclusive teaching space. She is a teacher member of the Culturally Responsive Pedagogy and Assessment in Primary Science TLRI research team.

Email: asri.parkinson@vardon.school.nz