The Role of the Undergraduate in the UC Links Project

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to better prepare future undergraduates for their involvement in the UC Links project. It is designed to give the future undergraduates the benefit of past students experiences and knowledge. This will include an analysis of the winter 1997 undergraduate fieldnotes as well as adiscussion of teaching strategies appropriate for the UC Links outreach program site.

Paper

There are various theories and methods for teaching children and the effectiveness of any one method is partially dependent upon the learning environment in which it is applied. The idea for this research came about while discussing which teaching approach would be most beneficial for the children in an informal learning environment, such as the one present at a local Santa Cruz outreach program in conjunction with UC Links. The UC Links project is a partnership between the University of California and local children’s organizations, with the purpose of helping underrepresented children gain access to higher education. The idea is that the collaboration among the children, undergraduate students, university professors, researchers, staff of local organizations, and parents will foster a supportive environment that motivates the children to learn and pursue higher education.

This paper is an expansion on the original group research question regarding which teaching approach used by the UCSC undergraduates is most successful with the children at the local outreach program. This research is specifically geared toward the role of the undergraduate student in the UC Links project.

The purpose of this paper is to help future undergraduates involved in the UC Links project to better understand the confines of their role, and suggest ways they can maximize the program’s benefits to the children. An analysis of the winter 1997 undergraduates’ field notes will be presented so that the future undergraduates can benefit from past students’ experiences and get a feel for what kinds of activities take place at the outreach program.

UCSC undergraduate students participate in the UC links program working in conjunction with the local outreach project by providing assistance and companionship to the children participating in an after school program. Their role is to assist in the technology room which contains approximately 20 computers, a scanner, internet access, a printer, and various CD ROM games (mostly in English, some in Spanish). Their role is not to ‘teach’ or tutor the children, but rather to ‘play’ computer games with them and help to facilitate an enriched environment providing experience with computers, through which cognitive and social skills can develop.

The students take on various approaches in their ‘play’ with the children which are referred to in this study as “teaching approaches” (however, they were not teaching curriculum, rather providing guidance). The students are assigned to play with and observe the children twice a week and write 1 field note per week reflecting on the events that occurred.

The field notes written by the winter 1997 UCSC undergraduates working with the UC links program will be used to provide specific data as to the frequency of each teaching approach used by the undergrads and the overall successfulness of the approach (the experience). Two main criteria were used in analyzing these field notes:

the teaching approach used in each interaction was categorized into one of three teaching approaches (adult-run, child-run, collaborative) or under the “I don't know” category (see table 1 for operational definitions of these teaching approaches);
the interaction was reviewed on the overall experience of the child, positive or negative (a successful interaction between undergraduates and child is considered one in which the child had a ‘good’ and ‘fun’ experience, not necessarily whether the child actually learned a new skill or ‘cognitively developed’).

It should be noted that in several instances the category of teaching approach selected by the undergraduate within his or her fieldnote did not coincide with the operational definition and was therefore taken into consideration and reviewed aside from what the author initially selected.

Additionally, certain patterns were noted between child and undergrad, child and game, game and teaching approach, and undergraduate and teaching approach. For practical reasons the games were divided into four types based on the interaction requirements of the children:

(1) “Cognitively Demanding” games included those which require a higher level of cognitive thinking skills,

(2) “Creative-Click Around” games include exploration type games which involve the child in ‘clicking’ around the world provided in the game, requiring small amounts of cognitive thinking skills, such as reading or deduction of information,

(3) “Active/Arcade” type games are those typically found in an arcade, requiring focused attention of the child on ‘winning’ the game and scoring high points,

(4) “Technical Assistance” incorporates activities related to accessing the Internet and World Wide Web and assistance with various programs on the computer (see table 2 for a list of games included in each category).

There appears to be mixing between approaches, almost exclusively between child-run and collaborative.

In a total of 49 interactions analyzed, 44 were either child-run or collaborative; while 42 were successful/positive interactions between the child and undergraduate. The collaborative approach was used in 28 interactions with 26 being positive. The child-run approach was used in 16 interactions with 12 being positive. The adult-run approach was used in only 5 interactions and resulted in 4 positive experiences. It appears that the vast majority of the undergraduates practice either a child-run or collaborative teaching approach with the kids at the local outreach program.

Considering that this is an informal learning environment, it seems that most undergraduates are consistent in trying to provide informal guidance and to unobtrusively help create a positive atmosphere for the children where they can have fun and learn at the same time. There does appear to be somewhat of a pattern between certain children and certain undergraduates frequently working together which could have a possible influence on the successfulness of the teaching approach due to increased familiarity. The patterns between the game being played and child appears to be significant, with children continually returning to the same few games and engaging in similar interactions with the undergraduates. It seems that some children have become invested in a few particular games which they continually return to, building each day on their saved game from the day before.

The correlation between game and teaching approach seems to be the strongest and most influential in determining which teaching approach will be engaged in and what the overall experience will be. This signifies the possibility of the child directing the teaching approach through their needs with the game. It seems that certain games facilitate certain teaching approaches. ‘Oregon Trail’ and ‘Where in the World is Carmen SanDiego’ (cognitively demanding games) are both examples of games which commonly require a more collaborative interaction between two or more people (either child and undergraduate or child and child). Collaboration appears to be necessary to work through these games and be able to progress to the next level. Accordingly, there are games that do not require so much collaboration and facilitate a child-run approach. At times the child may be searching for some adult-run assistance while at other times they may be more comfortable engaged in a child-run approach. It seems that the type of game being played and the dynamics of the relationship between child and undergraduate are major influences that cannot be overlooked.

After being exposed to the UC Links program, we now look at ways in which the undergraduate can provide a positive experience for the children who participate in informal learning environments such as a local UC links outreach program in Santa Cruz. Here we examine ways in which the undergraduate students (as educators and collaborators) at the outreach program can facilitate learning and social development within their own interactions with the children and among the children as a peer group.

When an adult works with children it is important that the adult keeps his or her dialogue decentered. To decenter is to move away from one’s own perspective and knowledge base (center), and to attempt to come to the position of the person with whom one is conversing. This is necessary for communication to exist among all people, yet it is particularly relevant when working with children. In order to share our knowledge with children, adults need to remember to take on the imaginative and sometimes naive viewpoint of a child. The following quote is conversation between a parent and child regarding the child’s first day of school. Here we see the confusion that blocked learning when the teacher failed to decenter towards the imaginative perspective of a child:

I spent that first day picking holes in paper, then went home in a smoldering temper. “What’s the matter, Love? Didn’t like it at school, then?” “They never gave me the present.” “Present, what present?” “Well now, I’m sure they didn’t.” “They did! They said: ‘You’re Laurie Lee, aren’t you? Well just you sit there for the present.’ I sat there all day but I never got it. I ain’t going back there again.” (Donaldson, 1978)

The undergraduates in the UC links program need to remember what it was like to be a child. Due to the informal setting, the children view the undergraduates as friends, not as teachers, thus the undergraduates should act accordingly. They should decenter from the teacher role. The undergraduate’s purpose in the program is not to dispense their knowledge to the children, but rather to guide the children’s learning and overall development and provide a good role model as a representative of the university.

This is not to say that the undergraduates will not educate the children. Learning will take place naturally within the interactions of the undergraduate and child, whether it be the learning of social skills or geography from the “Where in the World is Carmen SanDiego” game. However, the undergraduates should not feel responsible for teaching the children something new.

Decentering also applies in a general sense. This means that one who wishes to educate cannot hold a standard set of expectations for all children. As a collaborator of learning with children, one must be flexible and sensitive to the students’ needs, which may vary depending on the activity or dynamics of the situation. Taking on the role of collaborator rather than teacher means assessing what the child needs as opposed to focusing on what you think they should know. An educator must also incorporate an awareness of the varying cultural and socio-economic backgrounds of their children while attempting to draw on common experiences.

Another useful technique for the undergraduates is Jerome Bruner’s idea of “scaffolding”. This strategy involves providing ongoing guidance, hints, feedback and/or advice in order to contribute to the advancement of the learner’s Zone of Proximal Development (Vygotsky’s term for that area just beyond the learner’s current capabilities) (Sroufe, Cooper, & DeHart, 1996). Children also implement this tactic when working with their peers or younger children. Scaffolding occurs in successful peer tutoring programs. In the case of a cross age tutoring program (fifth graders helping younger students) at an elementary school in Palo Alto, California, the tutors came from the same Latino cultural background as the tutees. This made it easier for the tutors to decenter to the tutee’s perspective. Also, the younger children viewed their tutors more as friends than teachers. Thus, the use of scaffolding, decentering and the friend versus teacher factor were three ingredients of this successful informal learning environment (Vasquez, Pease-Alvarez, & Shannon, 1994).

It is crucial to promote a positive sense of self-esteem during the middle childhood years. The following adolescent years are extremely trying on children. If a healthy self esteem is not already in place during middle childhood, it makes life even harder on the child during adolescence. Also, low self esteem blocks learning. Children tend to have a higher self esteem in cooperative learning environments than in settings which stress competition (Sroufe, Cooper, & DeHart, 1996).

There is a distinction among collaborative and cooperative. Cooperative environments are when children work in groups of their peers, while collaborative environments involve people working together which may involve children working together with adults. Informal learning environments are optimum for collaboration among the children. As opposed to a typical classroom, the less structured surrounding of an informal environment allows the children to talk with each other, build off of each others’ creativity, and learn to get along. In a paper presented to the Jean Piaget Society in 1982, researcher E. Forman proposed three important factors that facilitate cognitive advancement in cooperative learning situations among peers:

The children must work on a concrete task, one in which the context and much relevant information in included;
The information must be ambiguous enough to support at least two different conclusions;
The peers must view coming to a group consensus as a goal of the interaction. The activity is not complete if the children maintain different opinions and do not reach an agreed upon solution (Sroufe, Cooper, & DeHart, 1996).

Other benefits of cooperative learning include: improved interpersonal relationships, which includes cross-ethnic and cross-gender relationships, improved role-taking abilities, and greater achievement (Bohlmeyer and Burke, 1987).

Social psychologist Elliot Aronson demonstrated how improved levels of self esteem lead to all of the aforementioned benefits of cooperative learning in his studies of the early desegregated classrooms of the 1950s. His observations led him to develop a very effective cooperative learning technique called “jigsaw”. In jigsaw classrooms minority children with limited English are able to actualize their potential because they are not being compared to the other students (Aronson, 1995). Therefore, in order for learning and social development to occur in an informal setting, the undergraduates should not match the children against each other by comparing their achievements.

For our purposes we are more concerned with the social benefits of cooperative learning than the academic benefits. The local outreach program is an afterschool program where the kids come to have fun. While the children are not there to learn any subject matter, it is an ideal setting for the children to learn how to work together cooperatively. This is were the undergraduate can provide guidance (http://www.cet.fsu.edu/tree/GOOR.html). With the upcoming addition of internet access to more of the computers at the UC Links site, the children can collaborate with people across the globe (The following website contains such addresses, http://137.48.46.72/htmldocs/techcoop.htm).

The undergraduate students could set up a group activity following the aforementioned guidelines, such as a group art project, and then take a position in the background. The undergraduates should remain present as a resource of information for the children, but they should not run the activity (Baker-Sennet, Matusov & Rogoff, 1992).

There is no one teaching method or approach that best suits all children at the UC Links project. The most important aspect to having a successful interaction between child and undergrad is an approach which embraces sensitivity towards each individual child’s needs in relation to the constructs of the game or activity engaged in. Each approach proves to have its merits in certain situations and no one approach is effective in all situations, that is no one approach is universal. What does appear to be universal, however, is the need for sensitive observation on the part of the undergrad in order to best suit the needs of the child and facilitate cognitive and social development in an enriched environment. Also, scaffolding, decentering, and promoting the development of social skills through cooperative learning, are certain strategies that would be worth implementation the part of the undergraduates at the UC Links project. We believe that this research can carry over to other informal learning environments as well as schools, home, in the community, or anywhere children are involved. We hope that this research can help provide additional insight to those studying similar issues.

TABLE 1

Operational Definition of Teaching Approaches

APPROACH DEFINITION

1.) Adult-Run: Responsibility for learning, guidance, and joint activity is taken by adult (traditional classroom environment). Adult’s stress is on transmission of knowledge. For example: doing things for the child; giving the child answers, leash-like guidance (leading children to the adult-desired answer).

2.) Children-Run: Responsibility for guidance and joint is given to the children. The adult provides enriched learning environment and minimum guidance when asked by a child for help. Adult’s stress is on kids’ creativity, novelty, and discovery. For example: letting the child do most things on their own, giving the children hints or clues but not answers (in order not to prevent children’s creativity) when the they ask for help.

3.) Collaborative: Responsibility for guidance and joint activity are shared between the adult and the children (creating transformative, interactive environment). The adult is responsible for the guiding process while the children are responsible for how to manage their own learning. Adult’s focus is on promoting child’s agency and child’s transformation of participation in the activity. For example: both the child and the adult work together on the activity goal shared by the; both can provide answers and raise questions according the activity demands; there is a lot of sharing and conversing going on between the child and the adult.

TABLE 2

Operational List of Game Categories

CATEGORY GAMES

(1) Cognitively Demanding: - Where in the World Is Carmen San Diego? - ¿ Dónde Está Carmen San Diego? - Treasure Cove/Mountain - Oregon Trail - Mine Sweeper

(2) Creative-“Click Around” -Snoopy’s Campfire -School Bus Series -Lion King -Doll House

(3) Action/Arcade -Space Invaders -Pac Man -Galactica -Dig Dug

(4) Technical Assistance -World Wide Web Internet - Program assistance

Bibliography

Aronson, Elliot (1995). The Social Animal. New York: W. H. Freeman and Company

Baker-Sennett, J., Matusov, E. & Rogoff, B. (1992). Social process of creativity and planning: illustrated by children’s playcrafting. In P. Light & G. Butterworth (Eds.) Contexts and Cognition: Ways of learning and knowing (pp. 253-281). Hertfordshire, England: Harvester-Wheatsheaf.

Cooperative Learning http://www.cet.fsu.edu/tree/GOOR.html

Donaldson, M. (1978). Children’s Minds. New York: W.W. Norton & Company.

I is for Interaction - Not Isolation: Words on Cooperative Learning and Technology http://137.48.46.72/htmldocs/techcoop.htm

Sroufe, L.A., Cooper, R. G. & Dettart, G. B. (1996). Child Development: It’s Nature and Course (3rd ED,) NY: McGraw-Hill.

Vasquez, O. A., Pease-Alvarez, L., & Shannon, S. M. (1994). Pushing Boundaries: Language and Cultures in a Mexican Community. New York: Cambridge University Press. Ch. 6.