The Undergrad as the "More Skillful Partner"

Abstract

The following paper builds on the ideas brought about in the group paper on "The Undergraduate’s Role as Learner, Teacher, and Playmate" written by Ayal Goury, Jakob Schulze, and Joy Koster. This paper will further develop the idea of the important role of the undergraduate as a "more skillful individual" and how playing that role can lead to widening the kids Zone of Proximal Development, particularly for those children whose first language is not English, but Spanish, a primary target of the UC Links program. The purpose of this paper is to suggest to future undergraduate participants in the Santa Cruz UC Links program what their possible roles at the Latino Youth Center may be and how, in playing out these roles they might be able to assist the children participants’ cognitive, and particularly language and literacy development which are some of the primary goals of both of the programs that inspired UC Links. These programs are the "Fifth Dimension" and "La Clase Mágica", which is a bilingual/bicultural variation of the former, a computer-mediated literacy project, both of which were developed by the Laboratory of Comparative Human Cognition at UC San Diego.

I would like to thank my fellow classmates Ayal and Jakob for their immeasurable help in putting together the group paper, Jess Thyne for his contribution to the methods section of that paper. Also I thank my fiancé and other friends for helping extrapolate ideas for writing this paper as well as for editing it.

Paper

METHODS

For ten weeks, 18 undergraduate students at UC Santa Cruz and about 30 children grades 2-6 (mostly lower income and native Spanish speakers), enrolled by their own choosing in an afternoon project at a local Latino youth center. The goal of the project was to teach the kids computer skills (PC computers using Windows software and various CDs) through informal interaction with different basic programs (word processing, scanning, and paint programs, etc.) and games, both specifically educational in purpose, and games intended for just having fun.

The undergraduate students participated as collaborators with the children in solving any problems that may have arisen with the games (Vásquez, et al. 1994). Additionally the undergrads informally observed the kids (sometimes individually, and sometimes in groups) for two hours a day, two times a week, for ten weeks. The undergrads also wrote field notes on their observations and held discussions about their experiences. Many kids did not show up each week for various reasons, so the usual number of kids each day was between 5 and 15, which made flexibility in the undergrads a necessity.

For both the group and final paper, we cited fieldnotes and other web discussions from various students from the class web page which can be found at: http://www.ematusov.com/psych100K (or http://www.ematusov.com/psych100K.demo for those not enrolled in the class).

RESULTS

For our group paper on the roles of the undergraduate at the local community youth center, we chose to examine some of the many field notes and various other postings from the web discussions to draw together some of the undergraduates own beliefs about what they felt their roles are at the center are. As expected, we found that the undergraduates had many different ways of expressing their roles, and in fact that they often felt they had more than one role there. An obvious role was as a teacher, a friend, but also many undergrads reported that they often played the role of learner.

"There were times, though, when I was the one asking the children for assistance with the computers and they were the ones teaching me how to play the games. It is during those times when the roles of teacher and student become interchanged between myself and the children....I also learned that the person who assumes the role of the 'teacher' is not always the 'teacher'. Similarly, the 'student' is not always the 'student' Through interaction and play, there is little or no distinction between who is the 'teacher' and who is the 'student'".(M.S 12/13/96)

We deduced that the role each undergrad played depended on the activity and child that s/he was involved with, but that it typically was somewhere on a continuum of teacher and playmate. By the nature of the UC Santa Cruz Psychology class, "Development of Thought and Language", the undergrad is expected to be an observer, so that is one clear role; but obviously being a human there at the center, personally involved with the many kids, the undergrad is compelled to interact with them, and not to simply observe, therein lies the quest for finding oneself on this continuum of teacher or friend.

"I have learned much as to how kids learn, and how to help them whether with motivation, tips on how to play a game, or hust being there when they need a friend to play with them...Learning how to motivate these kids to enjoy, or even notice the games that were well suited for them was another experience for me." (J.T. 12/11/96)

Many undergrads expressed concerns for the children very different than those of what game was being played, and which level they were playing at. They were concerned with the kids social and language development, both in the first and second languages, therefore simply engaging them in conversation whenever possible, about their personal lives, like where they were from, how they were doing in school, who their friends or relatives were, etcetera.

"I really enjoyed playing with the girls. It gave the chance to interact with them. It was funny how they acted as if they did not want to be drawn, but then stood there patiently, while I scribbled away. María started to open up. She is not really that serious as she is causious, maybe next time I'll succeed in making her smile.

Although I do not think I mentioned too much evidence of cognitive and language development, (excluding my work with Antonio) I feel it is important to at least interact with children socially. To teach them social skills. Social skills are extremely important, they are skills we need to use in our everyday lives. Even in a causual situation a lot of learning can take place. Even though Marta and Ana usually like to draw on Tuesdays I feel we are learning a lot from each other. We are both learning extremely valuable social skills." (J.A. 1/28/97)

Many undergraduates also expressed concern with trying to promote positive self-esteem in the kids. This was generally felt by many members in the class as crucial to the children during these middle childhood years, as the following adolescent years will soon follow where self esteem, self-consciousness and self image are constantly being challenged.

"It was interesting to see how just a little bit of encouragement and excitement kept Antonio motivated enough to try to get through the hard parts of the game when he was showing feelings of frustration. This is obviously a game that he is interested in, but is having a little bit of trouble mastering. He started out very confident about his skills but as the other team was gaining more points he appeared to be doubting himself. Once he got a little bit of encouragement, though, he was able to remember the confidence that he had displayed at the beginning and was able to continue on playing." (A. W. 1/30/97)

Some students also expressed concern for not damaging kids self-esteem by being very careful with what they say to the kids(or in some cases, wishing they had been more so). Here are a couple of examples:

"They continued speaking English whenever I was directly involved in their conversation, when they were addressing me, or the task at hand with me…So they would say "I won you" A direct translation of the phrase in Spanish "te he ganado". I used to tutor a girl in Spain who said the same logical, but "incorrect" thing. It was VERY hard for her to change, and say "I beat you". I think it’s hard cuz it is an entirely different verb than "To win". Anyway, I wasn’t sure if I should "correct" the girls at BU, cuz I am certain that not all I was saying in Spanish was correct either. It seemed that we (Ariana and I) were both trying hard to communicate in our respective second languages, because we felt comfortable taking the risks with each other, so I did not want to put her on guard by correcting her, but at the same time I thought it was an important thing to say "right", one that she might need to say every so often in her life as a kid." (J.K. 3/16/97)

DISCUSSION

As seen in many instances above, the role of the undergraduate very often took on that of a social support provider. A role Jerome Bruner might describe as a "scaffolder". As Olga Vásquez, pioneer of La Clase Mágica said, "By building on what the child already knows, a more skillful individual can help the child today ‘what tomorrow she or he can do alone’" (Vygotsky, 1928, as cited in Vásquez, 1994)

Upon examining the goals of La Clase Mágica of providing educational resources for "language minority" children in after-school, informal-learning environments.In this setting, zones of proximal development are created through collaboration of undergraduates and children in problem-solving interactions around literacy-mediated activities supported by computer and telecommunications technology (Vásquez, 1994). I am satisfied that we, at our Santa Cruz UC Links site are very much on track with the goals of La Clase Mágica. I chose the fieldnotes cited above because they primarily involve interactions with English as a second language children (ESL), and there really were not many of these fieldnotes available, they mostly described interactions with native English speakers. This tendency could mean two things: Either the interactions with these kids were simply not written about in fieldnotes, or much worse, that these kids are harder for the majority of only English speaking undergraduates to communicate with, and the kids are perhaps avoided because of this.

This last possible explanation is a very big concern of many undergrads involved. Some undergrads may not even notice this issue as they were always involved with other kids and not aware that some kids may have been left out at times. However many undergrads are aware that some of these children might often have difficulty expressing themselves either because they have in the past or they may be on guard and unwilling to communicate with adult figures who apparently only speak English. One student expresses concern as follows:

"Martin’s comments really concern me, because I see a lot of talent and potential in all these children. I definitely do not want them to develop negative or defeatist type attitudes or beliefs. I want these children to excel in school and in their lives. A lot of these children are "written off" or given up on by society; this can lead to their low expectations of themselves and their pushed out of school or their decision to drop out… I believe that what I should do is to continue to have high expectations for the children, but not be so hard on myself if I am not yet able to help them as much as I will in the future. I believe that my presence alone might be beneficial for the children (as a role model)." (J.A. 1/14/97)

The three aspects of La Clase Mágica that seem the most likely to benefit the targeted ESL children are: its Maze structure, the Wizard and its Assistants Club and its function for the structure of the program, (both of which can be explored at the following web site: http://communication.ucsd.edu/LCHC/LCM/index.html), and finally the role of the undergraduates as "Amigos".

With regard to La Clase Mágica, I see many possibilities for benefiting these kids at the Santa Cruz UC Links site as well. Although, I realize that presently the site cannot accommodate the Maze idea, I propose that we more strongly encourage the Wizard or at least his Assistant Club idea. At the end of the quarter, we began to do this by making a list of kids that felt they were experts at certain games, which is an excellent idea for promoting the aforementioned goals of promoting a positive self-esteem. Further, with the planned increase in internet and email access, there will be more opportunity for communication between the children, and adults, and possibly in the future with the Wizard, which might help perpetuate the playfulness of the program, as well as help in distancing "hierarchical relationships from the immediate setting" (In Vásquez, O., 1994). A situation that has presented itself many a time at the Santa Cruz site.

There is a clear interest in the children to use the internet at the UC Santa Cruz Links site for exploring, researching, and communicating with others; therefore, I think the idea of the Wizard (or at least something similar, like pen pals, as was suggested in the class web discussion) which might further promote kids literacy development in both first and second languages, as well, as encouraging decisions about code-switching (Vásquez, O., 1994) is a fantastic one. With these suggestions in mind, the future of the program may further develop and continue to serve its purpose of creating an environment that supports and motivates learning in the children and undergraduate students and will give underrepresented minority children resources and impetus for pursuing higher education." (from: UC links statement of Purpose, Matusov, 1996).

REFERENCES

Field Notes and Web Discussion Postings from various students in Psychology 100K. http://www.ematusov.com/psych100K

Matusov, E. (1996). Santa Cruz UC Links project: Tele-Araña Mágica. http://www.ematusov.com/sc.uclinks

Pérez, José. (199?) La Clase Mágica Home Page. http://communication.ucsd.edu/LCHC/LCM/index.html

Vásquez, O. (1994). The magic of La Clase Mágica: Enhancing the learning potential of bilingual children. The Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, 17(2): 120-128.

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