Prue Miles

MEDIA EDUCATION, COLLABORATION, IDENTITY AND INDUSTRY: DEVELOPING A COMMUNITY OF

PRACTICE TO SUPPORT YOUNG PEOPLE’S LEARNING

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• film teacher, researcher, media education specialist, curriculum writer with a long term interest in young peoples perceptions of learning through creative practice

Teacher Researcher

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Aim of this presentation

• communicate what my research has shown about how young people learn  effectively to become media producers in a 'community of practice'

• by engaging young people in learning by doing and

• how collaborative experience  motivates young people to learn.

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1. this approach emphasises the importance of establishing and sustaining the specified community of practice,

2. it has the capacity to develop innovative and relevant learning experiences for young people,

3. it has the capacity to create strong and viable educational-community partnerships in the long term.

Significance of the study

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my research project

a partnership between

a senior secondary school; The Senior Art School (SAS) and

a creative industries production company; Pitch Productions

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SAS (Senior Arts School)

• Final 3 years of secondary schooling

• selective

• Well resourced, urban

• with defined links to Tertiary & Arts sectors

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Australian education landscape

• 2010 federal government Education Revolution

• national testing reforms

• publishing the results of National testing in years 3, 7 and 9

• The development & implementation of the first national curriculum framework including The Arts learning area.

• Such initiatives not only have an effect on Australian teachers daily work but also impact on the way that the general public view education, hence, reconceptualising the importance of this research project. New pressures associated with quantifiable student results dominate the current schooling agendas.

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• From 2010 Film students at SAS have the opportunity to work directly with Pitch Productions in formal and informal ways

• A small group of SAS students have begun working together with Pitch Productions and are known as Pitch Kids

• This collaboration is predominately extra curricula

• THE AIM is a real, meaningful, challenging, connection to industry that could enhance student learning

a creative partnership

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the research focus

• is on the significant connection between

media education and

identity as observed through a

Community of Practice

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Communities of Practice: a social theory of learning

• explicit teaching of information is only a small part knowing / learning

• knowing involves primarily active participation in social communities

• these ideas of active rather than passive viewers are strongly connected to media education best practice

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Aims of the studyLave and Wenger’s (1991) key concepts will be identified and analysed

• shared mutual engagement,

• shared repertoire,

• a sense of belonging and

• negotiated meanings (Wenger, 1998, p.5).

• Wenger refers to identity as “learning as becoming” (Wenger 1998) this

study analyses the nature of the student and production company collaboration, to determine if the concept of identity is central to learning within this specified Community of Practice.

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(Miles, 2010)

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• shared mutual engagement = being engaged in learning / working together refers to the actions and interactions that community members share / a set of common tasks (Kisiel, 2009, p.4)

• shared repertoire = refers to the resources that facilitate practice; tools, artifacts, definitions, and common experiences, for example. (Kisiel, 2009, p.4)

• a sense of belonging = all feel a connection to the group and identify as a defined group

• and negotiated meanings = all develop meanings and languages together that those in the group understand / not just a mentor down to mentee relationship

Conceptual framework explained

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Research Questions

• What is a media education Community of Practice?

• How are learning and identity linked within a media education Community of Practice?

• How do students define and demonstrate their learning in a specified Community of Practice?

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Communities of Practice background

• apprentice related professions such as nursing, tailoring and butchering.

• pre service education, organisational management and online communities.

• Ewing’s (2005) research cements the link between participation and identity in mathematics classrooms. She clarifies that Communities of Practice can be negative, as her research focusses on non participation.

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Media Education background

• David Buckingham’s (2008) media education theories are central to this study he regularly sites the importance of studying the links between digital media and learning he discusses the centrality of the students’ experience to their own learning.

• crit ical understanding and active participation.

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Media Education… Media education is essentially active and participatory, fostering

the development of more open and democratic pedagogues. It

encourages students to;

• take more responsibility for and control over their own

learning,

• to engage in joint planning of the syllabus, and

• to take longer-term perspectives on their own learning.

• In short, media education is as much about new ways of working as

it is about the introduction of a new subject area. (Masterman1985, p. 2)

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• Bruns (2006) and Ito (2008) analyse young people’s learning in online communities.

• They argue that online and digital media is particularly important in relation to establishing identity.

• Media education academic Mizuko Ito’s work focuses on what she refers to as “kid-driven learning that accompanies engagement with Japanese popular

culture that is social, challenging and entertaining”, (Ito, 2008). Her research on online communities to links to that of the actual or physical Communities of Practice referred to in my research.

Contemporary media education

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http://www.macfound.org/

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Participatory culture

• In a Community of Practice students are learning by participating in actual social contexts rather than an online social contexts

• My research findings are suggesting similar ideas to what Ito argues particularly in relation to students learning and identity.

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• Drotner (2008) makes the link between how young people define their identity and their creative production work:

• The here and now, hands on character of the work process is rarely prioritised in ordinary school settings,

• where the ultimate proof of knowledge is a high score in a test or an exam, not the immediate appreciation of the learning process itself

• …When the group manipulated visuals, sound and text

through software, their identity work materialized in quite

concrete ways (Drotner 2008, p.170 and 174).

Identity

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Identity• As Wenger (1998) observed how innovative

education models can enhance student learning:

• What does look promising are inventive ways of engaging students in meaningful practices,

• of providing access to resources that enhance their participation, of opening their horizons so they can put themselves on learning trajectories they can identify with,

• and of involving them in actions, discussions, and reflections that make a difference to the communities that they value (p.10).

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• Communities of Practice places learning in the ‘ c o n t e x t o f l i v e d e x p e r i e n c e o f participation in the world’, and states that l e a r n i n g i s a f u n d a m e n t a l “ s o c i a l phenomenon” (Wenger, 1998, p.3).

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identity is; learning as

• The analysis of identity in this work has been significant in considering what young people value in the SAS - Pitch Productions collaboration.

• This creative collaboration intends to give students direct access to social, cultural, historical tools and not just the technology associated with working in a creative industry; in this case a media production company.

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• self nominated and written to selection criteria

• attended regular lunch time meetings

• created a promo for a youth TV show

• contributed to development & production of a Children’s TV show

• participated in technical workshops

• shared their own creative production work

What have the students done?

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•Student perceptions of the collaboration...

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findings

• Early observations are indicating that students particularly enjoy the company of their industry role models and are striving to be like them. This type of learning in turn may also change the participants' understanding of their own and others’ identity.

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a sense of belonging

• peer to peer learning

• identifying as a group

• scheduling their own extra time linked to the project

• becoming known in local industry

• giving feedback on industry projects

• developing industry knowledge & technical skills

• enhancing their work in their curriculum areas

• doing work linked to possible futures in creative industries

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shared mutual engagement

• production company staff are also indicating that they are learning from students

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Reflections

• conflict

• time

• limitations

• new way forward

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Creating your own C.O.P

• time - How can this fit with your current program?

• curricula / extra curricula - How can you make links between these two areas? Can informal learning inspire formal learning?

• cross grade group - How can you enable peer to peer learning?

• who - How and with whom can you make a relevant link to your core business? Who is located close to you? Who would share in the mutual benefits associated with your partnership?

• your students - What type of partnership would most inspire and motivate your students to learn? What industries do they see themselves connecting to in the future?

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• teachers - my research is very much connected to young peoples perceptions but teachers are key players in effective partnerships... teachers are central in facilitating the Community of Practice and will also become members of the C.O.P

• What will teachers role be in your C.O.P?

• What do they see as being valuable learnings for their students?

• What will support teachers in their practice?

• What are the challenges in your environment?

Creating your own C.O.P

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Bibliography

• Bruns, A. (2006) Towards Produsage: Futures for User-Led Content Production. In: Cultural Attitudes towards Communication and Technology 2006, 28 June - 1 July, Tartu, Estonia

• Buckingham, D. (2008). Youth, identity, and digital media. Cambridge, Mass., MIT Press

• Creswell, J.W. (2002). Educational Research: Planning, conducting and evaluating quantitative and qualitative research. Upper Saddle River, Pearson Education

• Drotner, K. (2008). Leisure is Hard Work: Digital Practices and Future Competencies. In Buckingham, D. (ed.), Youth, identity, and digital media. Cambridge, Mass., MIT Press

• Ito, M. (2008). Mobilizing the Imagination in Everyday Play: The Case of Japanese Media Mixes, In Kirsten Drotner and Sonia Livingstone Eds., International Handbook of Children, Media, and Culture. Draft manuscript available at: http://www.itofisher.com/mito/

• http://www.macfound.org/site/c.lkLXJ8MQKrH/b.4773383/k.8CB5/Mizuko_Ito_on_Why_Time_Spent_Online_Is_Important_for_Teen_Development.htm

• Ewing B. (2005). Discourse and the construction of identity in a community of learning and a community of practice. In Stehlik, T. and Carden, P. (Eds.), Beyond Communities of practice: theory as experience. Post Pressed. University of South Australia

• Kisiel, J, F. (2009). Exploring a school aquarium collaboration; an intersection of Communities of Practice, Wiley InterScience, retrieved January 7th 2010, DOI 10.1002/sce.20350.

• Lave, J. and E. Wenger (1991). Situated learning: legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge [England]; New York, Cambridge University Press

• Masterman, L. (1985), Teaching the Media, London,Comedia Publishing Group,

• Stake, R. E. (2000). Case Studies, In Denzin, K. and Lincoln Y.S.(Eds.), Handbook of Qualitative Research Second Edition, (pp. 435-455), California, Sage Publications

• Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice : learning, meaning, and identity. Cambridge, U.K. New York, N.Y., Cambridge University Press

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