La Red Mágica:
Research project on students' engagement 

Three observed patterns of preservice teacher’s engagement with minority children in an after school program

Eugene Matusov, University of Delaware
John St. Julien, University of Delaware
Leda Echevers, University of Delaware
Mark Smith, University of Delaware

 The paper was presented at the American Educational Research Association (AERA), April, 27, 2000, New Orleans, Louisiana 

Problem: As we observed, it was difficult for many of the undergraduate students to engage in children-initiated activities with children in afterschool program based on an informal learning environment. Often the undergraduate students either tried to impose their ideas about how the activity should develop (“teacher role”), or they sat aside waiting when children came to them for help (“glorified babysitter”). The students often frustrated with children (e.g., “low attention span,” “mindlessly pressing keys”), with the activities (e.g., “those stupid computer activities, “ “I hate Barbie games”, “it’s boring”), situations they were in (e.g., “the instructor didn’t tell us what to do”), and, probably, with their own inadequacy (“I’m not good on helping kids with computers”) (cf. Rogoff, Matusov, & White, 1996) . 

La Red Mágica Program: As a part of teaching practicum for a course on cultural diversity in teaching, undergraduate students (mainly freshmen, middle-class white young women) went twice a week to a Latin American Community Center of Wilmington, DE (LACC) to help elementary school children (of mainly Puerto Rican and African-American descent) learn educational computer and non-computer games and activities (e.g., art and crafts, dance, reading books, sport games).

Importance of the case study: One of the more powerful contrasts in education lies between

·       the ease and fluid competence gained by participants in their practice in informal learning environments, and

·       the difficulty of using school knowledge in the practice outside of school.

An implication of the study can be to explore ways of bringing the positive qualities of informal settings into schooling.

Adult merging to the activity owned by the child

Description of the model: At La Red Mágica, when children are fully in charge of an activity that is new for them, they often change the goal of the activity and even the activity itself to fit their skills – to make the activity challenging, approachable, and fun enough. When their skills improve as a result of their activity, they may develop a new, more challenging goal.

We observed children redefining the goals of activities to make them fit their level of skill and interests. For example, from the game designers’ point of view the computer game “Oregon Trail” involved planning, problem solving, and decision making about how to survive as nineteenth century American pioneers moving across the continent. However, for some children, learning how to play the game, the goal of the game became to move through the stages until hunting animals was allowed and then to shoot as many animals as possible. For some other children, killing all the travelers as soon as possible was the initial goal of the game. Our undergraduate students working with the children often were really frustrated that children were “off-task” or “cheating” the games. However, according to the students’ later observations, children changed their goals as their skills and familiarity with the games progressed.

Caveat: Adults often perceive this process as chaotic – mindless, purposeless, and unproductive messing with the activity. As a result of this perception, the adults may prepare a coup d’état (i.e., a takeover by ending child’s ownership for the activity and imposing adults’ own goals).

For example, here is how a professor visiting the La Red Mágica site perceived children’s learning the games, “Some of the boys were just pushing buttons: All figure out the game by discovery. But like science concepts, they can never be found out by a two-hour discovery session (some took 100's of years of systematic efforts). I know it is play-time and some of that should take place, but when do you actually get the children to think about what they are doing and to develop the patience to follow instructions? These are all questions I asked myself. What looked like mindless, useless images--was transformed into very educational games when I read the brochure. So it all boils down to the following: What is our (or our students') mission there? Cultural? Social? Cognitive? In my view, it’s all of these and it is that of teaching students things that will help them immensely with school tasks: patience, reasoning, use of language etc.”

Recommendations for providing sensitive guidance by the adult:

Eventually this process may lead to transformation of the model to become collaborative.

Including the child in an activity initiated and defined by the adult

Description of the model: The adult provides space for the participation of the child, treating him/her as a “full participant” in the activity (as opposed to a “student” in a lesson). In order to do that, the adult “fills in the gaps” in the flow of the activity caused by the child’s incompetence. This process also involves providing the child with the opportunities to experiment and to try to bridge the gaps by him/herself. Guidance is imbedded in the activity defined by the undergraduate student and/or by the designers of the game.

For example, Tina, an undergraduate student, was playing Monopoly (a computer game) with Pablo (an LACC child). Hector, another LACC child, was observing the game. Tina asked him if he would also like to play with them. It was clear that Hector didn’t understand the game and didn’t know how to play it. When it was his turn, both Tina and Pablo provided direct instructions of what Hector should do to make his move. Sometimes Tina placed her hand on the mouse and her and Hector moved it together.

When in the game it was time for decision making for Hector, Tina asked him “do you want to buy that property or not?" At the beginning Hector was confused –it was apparent that he doesn’t understand what, why, and how he needed to buy. Pablo tried to take advantage of Hector, “It’s expensive,” implying that Hector could not or should not buy it. Tina protected Hector’s interest by replying to Pablo “Hector has enough money,” and then turned to Hector, “if you buy the property and somebody steps on it, they will pay you. Do you want to buy it or not? Click ‘yes’ or ‘no’ (she pointed to the option window on the computer screen).” With an “I got it” kind of smile, Hector turned to Tina and replied “yes.” Tina and Hector moved the mouse to the “yes” button and Tina helped Hector to click.

Tina’s efforts were admirable, creating an enriched activity for all to participate, as was increasingly evident: Pablo to Hector, “Want it?” (i.e., to buy property) Tina to Hector [in a convincing manner], “You don't have to buy anything, you know?” Tina to Pablo, “Let him do it... let him do it...” (i.e., to consider by himself whether or not to buy the property).

After about seven minutes of play Hector became emotionally involved in the game, joined Tina and Pablo in their reactions to game events, took over the mouse when it was his turn, and started making more and more decisions on his own. Tina still helped him to foresee the consequences of some of his decisions by thinking aloud and protected him from Pablo’s competitiveness in the game. Without Tina’s help, Pablo would have easily beaten Hector. The children and the graduate student seemed to be enjoying each other: playing, joking, and telling stories.

Caveat: Adults often perceive skills as prerequisite for participation in the activity defined by them and understanding of the activity goals. As a result of this perception, the adults may subvert the activity into an unrelated lesson sequence – meaningless and pointless for the child.

For example, in the ‘Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?’ game, the students tried to force the children to read all text on the screens and give geography mini-lessons. When one day the students tried to play the game by themselves (without children), they discovered that reading the full texts and considering geography, instead of focusing on clues about the thieves, were big distracters in the game.

Recommendations for providing sensitive guidance by the adult:

Eventually this process may lead to transformation of the model to become collaborative.

Collaboratively owned activity

Description of the model: The child and the undergraduate student have shared ownership for the activity where the undergraduate has the special role of being a “seasoned partner” and a “seasoned organizer.” They share emotional moments in the activity, are involved in decision-making, negotiate activity goals, freely chat about out-of-activity matters, and build a mini-community around the activity.  

            Example: “The other day in the gym at the LACC, Amanda, Natasha, and I were playing kickball. It started off as a normal kickball game, but things started to fall apart and get out of hand. The kids were unusually rowdy and they started getting out of control. They were yelling at each other and arguing a lot. Finally, we decided to end the game and play something new. We had planned to continue playing kickball, but we decided that it would not be in anyone's best interest to continue the game. We decided to teach the kids a new game, but some of the older boys protested. They still wanted to play with the ball. We had intended upon everyone playing one game together, but we decided that rather than argue with them, it would be better to split the gym and tell them that they could play with the kickball on one half and we would keep our new game on the other half. We started discussing games with the kids and we almost were about to play one when we suddenly lost a couple of our players. We didn't have enough people to play that game anymore, so the kids and we decided quickly on a new game ‘Wolf, Wolf, What Time is it?’ that we suggested. We set all the kids up to play and we started.

The kids seemed to catch on quick, but at one point, they deviated from the set rules of the game. They started playing it wrong, but they had somehow along the lines invented a new way to play and they were all having a great time. The kids who were tagged by the wolf did not want to be out of the game and wait until a next game would start. Some of the kids started to point out to us that the game was wrong. The kids discussed it amongst themselves and they just agreed on the new rules. No one objected. There were about 2 or 3 kids who seemed to be the ringleaders in explaining how we were going to play to the other children and to us. They explained it well and even those who disagreed to begin with went along with the change peacefully. It was nice to see kids assuming our role of game organizers.

The kids started playing that the FIRST person to be tagged by the wolf was the new wolf. By playing their way, no children were ever "out" of the game and the wolf was constantly changing, so more kids had a chance to be the wolf in the short time we had to play. Rather than trying to tell them their mistake and correct it, we let them keep playing the new way and we all had so much fun. It worked out better for us actually, and I was impressed with their ability to agree on the rules and get along so nicely. They did a great job of being creative. We all had a great time.

I thought this night in the gym was an especially good example of flexible guidance at the LACC. If we had not been so quick to change our plans to fit the changing situations with the children, we would not have had the great time that we ended up having. " (Student fieldnote, 11/7/99)

Caveat: Not observed.

 Recommendations for providing sensitive guidance by the adult:

References