Ethnographic Inquiry on the Interaction of Incarcerated Youth During a New Musical Learning Experience

Ethnographic Inquiry on the Interaction of Incarcerated Youth During a New Musical Learning Experience:

Reflections on how a new experience based on music impacted the learners

Theoretical & Conceptual Frameworks

Description of physical space:

- This is a common large room called the Chapel that is around 35 feet wide and 90 feet long. There are brick walls, two offices are on opposite sides of the room and also two bathrooms are attached to the periphery. There is sparse artwork on the walls and the rest is blank space

Description of participants:

- The There are 13 students who are considered Juveniles from the ages of 15-17. All are minority, 11 students are African American, 6 have dreads and 5 have other hairstyles. The other two participants are Mexican American, one is short, compact and strong and has a short hairstyle that is closely shaved, the other has a version of a mullet hairstyle with the back long and the sides short.

I used three protocols to organize my field notes taken during the observation for this ethnographic study.

• The first protocol included a self-created one from class and included a physical description of the chapel where the observations took place and (see appendix 1).

• The second observation I used Toshalis & Nakkula’s (2012) “The Social and Individual Aspects of Engagement” framework to discuss the interactions observed (refer to Appendix 2).

• I adopted a simple framework called POSTA for the third observation, which is credited to Gitte Jordan from the Institute on Research for Learning (Hey, 2007). It stands for P – Person(s); O – Objects; S – Situations; T – Time; A – Activity (view appendix 3).

• My best notes came from Toshalis & Nakkula’s work, but it also was the most time-consuming. Despite this, my favorite protocol was the POSTA although it was shorter and led to less details in the notes and reflection. Below are the reflections from those observations.

Intelligence

Ethnography, Sociocultural Theory, & Social Constructivism

Click below for the WBEZ story highlighting a 2013 JTDC CSO Citizen Musicians Program done last year.

http://www.wbez.org/news/culture/chicago-symphony-orchestra-makes-music-teens-behind-bars-106766

Ethnography as a Form of Inquiry

Discussion: Connecting it to the Psychology of Teaching & Learning

Ethnography and Sociocultural Theory

Image 3 from another CSO Citizen's Musician Program last year from the Associated Press

Although the students I observed were not in a formal learning situation since it was a special CSO program designed for the JTDC’s setting, Panofsky’s ideas on sociocultural theory still yields potential connections with students who are marginalized. Many of which may have been treated that way by previous teachers. The opposite of this reality took place during my observations because the adult facilitators seemed to be thoughtful and aware during their interactions with students which lead to a positive, productive learning environment and culminated in a successful program.

Image 1 from another CSO Citizen's Musician Program last year from the Associated Press

Social Constructivism

Intelligence, Motivation, Student Voice & Engagement

In reviewing the guiding questions (How do students in an incarcerated setting react to learning musical instruments and songs in a program when all have no formal experience learning music? What types of interactions take place between students and adults working within the program? How do you create a program that gets buy-in from students who have historically felt marginalized by traditional forms of learning?) and frameworks (critical theory, sociocultural theory, Vygotskyan social constructivism). First the conversation will shift to connecting the observations with the course readings then the research questions will be reviewed to explore implications. So we will be going into more detail on ethnography as a form of inquiry, explore more fully social constructivism and its relationship to low income minority students, and then highlighting motivation, intelligence and learning. Finally we will discuss why this program seemed to get buy-in and be successful and how it can be related back to educators creating more meaningful learning experiences.

The reflexivity in teaching and learning, accommodation and assimilation, and the social interactions that take place in both formal and informal settings reinforce constructivism. The role that the learner plays as s/he interacts and constructs meaning out of experiences seem to demonstrate the dialectical relationship that takes place in learning. I definitely felt that my observations reinforced these constructs in the interactions and growth of the students musical ability on the social level for an informal but fun new experience with a sense of motivation and buy-in that surprised me.

Motivation, Student Voice & Engagement

Image 2 from another CSO Citizen's Musician Program last year from the Associated Press

Implications and Conclusions Part 2

Implications and Conclusions Part 3

Revisiting Guiding Question #2 of the Study

What types of interactions take place between students and adults working within the program? Based on the accumulated evidence in the field notes the students had positive interactions with adults during the course of the week-long program. It seemed to indicate that one student who I had in my classroom previously that had more aggressive and negative interactions with adults and some peers seemed to be particularly impacted during the process of learning the musical tracks. He smiled more, was less aggressive, and had more positive interactions with peers during the actual rehearsal time. Other students also seemed to be quicker to laugh, more cooperative, and less negative in overall outlook during the week. These reflections demonstrate how the course of the program as it was implemented had a positive impact on students and adults interactions.

Conclusion

Revisiting Guiding Question #2 of the Study

How do you create a program that gets buy-in from students who have historically felt marginalized by traditional forms of learning? This question has a great connection to understanding how to design effective learning experiences, especially in an incarcerated or other alternative educational settings.

• The program, or learning sequence, must be relevant to the students as music was when the musical tracks were used in a way to connect rap to the musical process. This also made it engaging and motivated the students to participate since they wrote the raps with adult guidance. Therefore student voice was also used to connect it to the lived experiences of the students with a genre they felt comfortable with, rap.

• It is also important to note that the ZPD created a learning scenario that stretched the students’ comfort zone to include traditional instruments that they learned the songs on; namely the keyboard, guitar, bass guitar, percussion, and drums.

• They also had to coordinate their playing together so it was a social learning environment that required coordination, timing and interaction if the performance was to be successful.

• Furthermore the situation was based on an incremental view of intelligence, so all students could master a task that was coordinated within the musical tracks that led to the overall learning situation.

• This also led to a time-bound program goal of a week, which provided the students with motivation, time on task, and precision for it to work.

• They also made the performance to be in front of parents, families and other adults in the JTDC, which was another motivator to have it done well and served as a reminder to stay focused on the goal when situations and differences arose that were obstructing this goal.

References:

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Hey, J. (2007, July 23). palojono: Recording ethnographic observations: Six useful frameworks. Retrieved May 18, 2014, from http://palojono.blogspot.com/2007/07/recording-ethnographic-observations.html

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Final Takeaways...

The takeaway for this as an educator is that:

• Students must have an engaging topic to interact with and it should be a social setting where the learning takes place.

• In addition it must include clear activities that involve student voice to help with motivation and engagement (Toshalis et al.).

• Also all teachers must approach the learning situation with an incremental idea of intelligence (Dweck, Hinton, Fischer & Glennon).

• It is best to have a final assessment that takes into account both individual and cooperative tasks. Also it is something that if possible should include a social component.

• Finally it must be an endeavor that is a legitimate way to demonstrate learning and something students will be proud of so that students will be engaged and motivated to complete it.

• That encapsulates good teaching, is aligned with a Vygotskyan view of social constructivism, and results in a powerful approach to teaching and learning. An implication of this ethnographic study is that if all these components are in place than learning can occur in any environment.

• This is demonstrated by the fact that this seemed to work even in my restricted setting for incarcerated Juveniles according to my observations.

Location of Observations

Implications & Conclusion Part 1

Revisiting the Guiding Question #1 of the Study

How do students in an incarcerated setting react to learning musical instruments and songs in a program when all have no formal experience learning music? The students definitely reacted positively to the learning experience, had improved interactions with other students and adults during the observations, and learned various roles and performed with different instruments and vocal music. They learned and co-created during the process five different musical tracks. In addition they completed their tasks on the instruments and vocals successfully during the coordinated rehearsal on Friday that I observed. All of these descriptors indicate that the students had buy-in during the program.

Contextual Overview:

The Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO) has an outreach initiative called Citizen Musician Program and one special program they do reaches out to incarcerated Juveniles. In five days the students learn either the keyboard, drums, percussions, bass guitar and guitar, write lyrics, prepare all day for those five days, and present it through a performance to family and staff on the sixth day. In the Juvenile Temporary Detention Center (JTDC) where I teach a pod of approximately 12-16 juveniles is selected about twice a year to learn, create, and perform in this program. The students spent 8am-3pm for five school days excluding lunch and breaks where they learn one or two instruments and play a show. There were five different songs that they learned and then presented them on Saturday to their family, friends, and JTDC staff. The leader of the program was the outreach coordinator for the CSO who is a great drummer and percussionist. Also there was a gentleman from Great Britain and a woman from Australia who does music outreach in jails in London and other similar places. These three adult leaders put the program together. There is also six supporting musicians which play instruments. There is a violinist, guitarist, bassist, bass guitarist, trumpet player and keyboard player. The CSO outreach coordinator plays the drums, the musician from Great Britain directs, and the woman musician from Australia plays the guitar.

As a Chicago Public School teacher who teaches at the CPS school inside this facility, one of my classes was selected to participate in the program. I spent part of those five days, Monday through Friday, going to the chapel to watch them practice and learn the program and observed them learn and interact. Here are some of my reflections based on those observations.

Description of Setting

Observation Protocols & Field notes

Here is a picture of the chapel where the observation took place...