Part One: Selected Case Studies

This section includes two of the eight case studies, Case One (Abbeytrasna National School) and Case Two (Cashelbeag National School), carried out in multigrade schools. These two particular studies were chosen because they exemplified two varying approaches to pedagogy found across all eight case study schools.

Case One: Abbeytrasna National School. Table 5.1: Abbeytrasna National School Summary

Case setting Multigrade classroom

4 grades: Junior infants, Senior infants, First and Second classes.

Total no. of children in classroom: 11

Junior Infants Rachel: Age 5 Only child

Jim: Age 4 Has two siblings in the classroom

Practitioners Orla: Class Teacher

Nora: Learning Support Teacher Patsy: Resource Teacher

Fiona: Special Needs Assistant

Parents Margaret (mother of Rachel)

Sandy (mother of Jim)

Other children in the class * Senior Infants: Toby, Nadine

First: Ryan, Shane

Second: Maeve, Cian, Thomas.

Data Field notes

Observations

Interview Transcript: Teacher (Orla) Interview Transcript: Rachel’s mother (Margaret), Jim’s mother (Sandy) Interview Transcript: Junior Infants- Rachel and Jim

* Please note only the children and adults in the vignettes below are named here. Hence the discrepancy between the actual number of children and adults in the classroom and those named in Table 5.1.

Overview

This school is set in a rural location in Munster. The outside of the school is brightly painted with murals on some walls. Inside the building is a traditional two room school layout and every inch of space is put to some use. The classroom itself is small and the windows are high making the space dark so the electric lighting is used even on bright summer days. Along one wall is an interactive whiteboard and a stand with IT equipment. On the opposite side of the room is a snug book corner with cushioned seats and two large shelves-one laden with picture books and another with smaller books. The teacher’s table is placed next to the book corner and along the remaining wall there are open shelves which store many resources including board games, maths equipment, jigsaws and a variety of construction toys. The walls are

decorated with art work of all kinds including several posters which the children collaborated on.

There are eleven children in this classroom with one boy and one girl in Junior Infants. The children are grouped with their class and face the interactive whiteboard at the front of the classroom. Within this small classroom, there are two sets of siblings which add further to the family like atmosphere here. Because there are so few children the noise levels are low and the atmosphere seems very quiet and peaceful.

Orla the class teacher is in her early 40’s and had taught at a number of schools before eventually settling here. She prefers to teach in a multigrade setting and considers the Junior Infants ‘lucky to have access to older children who help them in all sorts of ways’. She did state that her teaching has changed radically over the years and that now the children do a lot of work together as a class ‘allowing children to progress according to ability rather than conforming to expected outcomes for the individual class groups.’ The other adults who work in this classroom include two support teachers and a special needs assistant.

Of the two Junior Infants in this class, Jim is the younger of the two at 4 years of age. The class teacher Orla often notes that he started school at a very young age and she is concerned that maybe he does not have sufficient maturity to cope with the demands of a multigrade class. I observe that Orla spends a lot of time engaging with Jim in particular when the class are working on individual tasks. However, Orla does admit that Jim has settled down more as the year progressed and attributes this change to the fact that he has older children to look up to. Jim has two older sisters in the classroom. Rachel, the other Junior Infant is 5 years of age and she is an only child. Through observing in the classroom and speaking to the teacher, it would appear that Rachel is a very capable child. She works diligently at her individual tasks and also participates very well in whole class activities. Her mother says she is very happy at school and loves the company that the mixed age group brings.

Pedagogical Interactions

In sociocultural theory, learning is seen as a social process and children are active participants in the construction of knowledge (Vygotsky, 1978; Wertsch, 1998). The role of the teacher is to promote learning through active engagement with the learner and the interactions that happen between the teacher and the child are seen as

critically important. The pedagogy required is both pro-active and interactive. Pedagogical approaches adopted by the teacher include ensuring a balance between learning that is led by the child and learning that is led by the teacher, and ensuring opportunities for children to interact with each other in appropriate ways.

In this case study, the quality of the teacher’s interactions with the Junior Infants is particularly striking. She clearly enjoys being with the children and engages with them in a respectful, caring way. She encourages children to share their work and their thoughts together and is very enthusiastic about their efforts. She appears to be constantly aware of opportunities to facilitate mixed-age working groups. She often allows the children to work in pairs exploring the task in hand in order to assess their levels of knowledge and understanding. She intervenes sensitively to model if appropriate.

The teacher shows a previous recording on the interactive whiteboard of the children telling their news. It serves as a reminder of what the ‘news telling’ will require. The teacher also has a large poster of a dragon with the questions who, what, where, when and how on it. The children are then asked to close their eyes and think of their news story. They will tell their news using the poster as a framework. When that has been done, the teacher organises the children into pairs of different ages. The children face each other and begin telling their news to one another. Thomas, the older child with Jim begins to complain that Jim won’t pay attention. He is yawning and seems tired. The teacher calls Thomas and Jim over to herself. She speaks about a walk she had with her family the previous day.

Teacher: Yesterday, Niamh, Cian and I went for a walk along Pirates’ Cove beach by my home. We took our new Red Setter puppy with us. It was really windy and the sand was blowing in our faces. We felt really cold and decided to go home quickly. Then we had a cup of hot chocolate by the fire.

After this episode, Orla continues to scaffold Jim and helps him formulate a news story to tell Thomas. During the news telling, both pupils are watching Orla intently and it is obvious they are really interested in this story. The children discuss the antics of teacher’s puppy in the walk and compare these to their own personal experience. The children are familiar with the teacher’s life outside of school as she often shares personal stories with them that enhance her interactions. Orla is clearly considered by the children as an important person in their lives and therefore her modelling of skills, attitudes and behaviours is especially significant for them. In this

instance the modelling is combined with scaffolding which provides a significant base for learning for Jim.

The teacher and children are practising their dramas in Irish. The teacher divides the class into pairs where a younger child works with an older child. Each pair of children uses the same sentence structure and substitute different nouns. Interestingly, the teacher does not ask the pair with the Junior Infant until the end. One of the junior infants watches intently. It seems as if she would like to know what to do and say when her turn comes

Cian (2nd class) and Rachel (Junior Infant) take a turn. R: Tá mo chás peann luaidhe caillte agam.

C: Fuair mé é.

R: Tabhair ar ais dom é más é do thoil é. C: Seo duit.

R: Go raibh maith agat. C: Tá fáilte romhat

O: You are brilliant, will we record it now?

Although this interaction took place towards the end of the school year, Rachel shows a very impressive command of Irish given that she did not attend a Naíonra or come from an Irish speaking home. Her knowledge of the Irish language may also point to her learning through ‘intent participation’ (Rogoff, 2003, p. 317). Rachel has access to involvement in community activities and is expected to learn not only from activities designed for her class group but also from intent participation in ongoing shared endeavours of the older children in the classroom.

The children agree to recording a piece and the first two attempts do not go well. At first the children are laughing nervously and need to retake the piece. Rachel cannot remember what to say at this point. Ryan (First Class) reminds the class of an incident the teacher had told them about a few weeks previously when interviewed at school by a local radio service. Ryan remembered the interviewer had written the teacher’s speech down to help her remember it. Ryan suggests this may be a good way for Rachel to remember it. Teacher elaborates on the comment and concurs that she had been quite nervous about the interview. She tells the class she had really had to concentrate and focus. Once again it is striking how she uses a similar personal experience to teach the children about how to remain calm while being recorded. In addition, the older child Ryan is working alongside Orla in facilitating learning for the

Junior Infants. It is a particularly striking example of the strong community ethos in this classroom. At the third take, the older child begins to cough and everyone begins to laugh. The other junior infant, Jim, thinks they are being a “small bit silly” and teacher agrees. She asks the children if it is better to leave it until a later day when they may be able to concentrate better. They agree to this.

The findings in this section illustrate that the teacher’s role in a multigrade is responsive and active, drawing on a range of pedagogical skills such as modelling, observing and interpreting. A key skill as demonstrated by this teacher is the need to establish and maintain a delicate balance between guidance for younger children and the risk of over simplification of the activity for the older pupils.

The Interactive Whiteboard – A ‘Precious’ Thing

The aim of this section is to explore how interactive learning technology, namely the Interactive Whiteboard contributes to teaching and learning in this multigrade class. The Interactive whiteboard is analysed as a teaching tool that enhances the teacher’s pedagogical goals. Orla frequently speaks of the important role of how she uses information technology and how it has transformed her approach to teaching in the multigrade classroom. She says:

The use of ICT has changed the whole teaching in a multigrade setting for me. Previously, the four classes followed four very different programmes. Very difficult! Now we do so much together, with cross age tutoring and peer tutoring. I feel children have the ability to progress according to ability rather than conforming to expected outcomes for individual class groupings.

When talking with the Junior Infant children about their classroom during an interview, they also acknowledge the important place of the interactive whiteboard and it is the first place they photograph during their interview.

R: I know the important thing is so precious. The whiteboard. I: The whiteboard? Why is that a precious thing?

R: Because it does, it copies the computer what it’s doing. I: And what kind of work would you do on the whiteboard? J: Jolly Phonics

I: And what’s Jolly Phonics about?

I: Ok and what other things do you do on the whiteboard?

R: We do you know those funny, we have funny films and we forgot to show them to you.

I: Oh yeah. I must ask your teacher about that.

One major theme in studying the interactive whiteboard is their potential to enhance pedagogy by fostering a more interactive style of teaching. In particular, the next extract shows how the teacher uses the interactive whiteboard as a catalyst for the development of interactive pedagogy. The children are using Microsoft Photostory to retell the story of. They have chosen some pictures to illustrate the story which they have already downloaded. They have also written suitable pieces to go with these illustrations. This extract shows the children recording their voices reading this text. Each child goes to the front of the room to speak into a microphone.

J: She sat on the last chair and it was just right but it broke. The teacher reads along with Jim in a low voice.

O: He deserves a clap for that.

R: Goldilocks got into Baby Bear’s bed and fell fast asleep.

O: If you read it in such a teeny, tiny voice we won’t understand. The teeny vice is just for Baby Bear speaking.

Rachel tries again in a normal voice. When she is finished she marches down to her place smiling broadly.

When the photostory has loaded the children listen to the recording. J: I hear like a baby. I have a small voice

O: That’s because you were speaking gently. Jim nods his head in agreement.

The children interact physically where the focus is on ‘going up to the front and manipulating elements of the board’. They also interact on a conceptual level where the focus is on exploring and constructing curriculum concepts and ideas. The use of the interactive whiteboard technology facilitates a shift to move to child-led interactions. (A full transcript is contained in Appendix 11).

In this classroom Orla’s repertoire of pedagogical actions includes the use of the interactive whiteboard as a technological tool where she can draw on a wide range of resources which she adjusted for various age-groups and grade levels. In addition the interaction seen among children of this classroom group shows learning as a co- constructed outcome of the activity and cultural practices where the pupils and teacher engaged with one another. While there was an interactive whiteboard in each of the case study classrooms it was put to use most effectively in this classroom to support

participation and learning of Junior Infants. This use of interactive whiteboards contrasted sharply with its use in other classrooms and the research suggests that in general, there was a lack of awareness among teachers of the potential of technology as a means of creating and extending learning opportunities across grades in the multigrade classroom.

Participation: Junior Infants ‘picking it up’

A focus on participation as central to learning is the distinctive feature of Lave and Wenger’s (1991) theory. In this case study, the concept of participation is used to consider both the moment to moment engagement of the Junior Infants Jim and Rachel in the social practice of their classroom. These accounts of learning and teaching of the Junior Infant class suggest that learning in this multigrade class can be characterised by engagement, and learning exhibits characteristics of participative identities.

One of the advantages of the multigrade system in the class teacher (Orla’s) view is that because some lessons are repeated often over the period of years that children have the opportunity to hear material revisited often so that eventually they learn it without much effort. However, it is a challenge to provide fresh learning opportunities for the older children while maintaining focus on the Junior Infants. The following two extracts describe how the teacher uses the same material for the whole class but does not expect the Junior Infant children to participate as completely as the children in the other classes.

Children learn the sounds of the letters through song. Each morning the Junior and Senior Infants spend a short time at this activity and the Junior Infants are expected to join in with the song. The teaching strategies seen in the vignettes below encourage children to use the knowledge acquired in earlier learning sessions but also allow the teacher to give varying amounts of support for each child depending on their level of content knowledge in phonics.

Today there is a new sound for the children to learn. The sound is ‘J’. At first teacher tells the Jolly Phonics story of the letter j. Then she teaches the song. As the older children already know this song they join in with gusto and it is the older children who seem to lead the singing.

It seems as if there is an assumption that the children will ‘pick up’ the song with repetition. The children in the Junior and Senior Infant classes have a handwriting lesson.

Now the class are practising making the letter ‘j’. At first the teacher models the handwriting. She repeats instructions ‘come straight down the middle and go slowly’ as she makes the letter on the interactive whiteboard. Teacher asks each child which of the ‘j’s’ they like the best. Each child picks out which he thinks best. Then it is the turn of the children to try writing a letter. The first turn is Jim’s, a Junior Infant. Teacher lowers the interactive whiteboard so that Jim can have good access to it. As he writes teacher says she loves his pencil grip and can see how careful he is being. Next is a child in Senior Infants and before he starts he asks teacher to ‘higher up the interactive board’ for him.

Although the session is largely instructional with the teacher leading the sequences, each child has an opportunity to contribute to it. However, in the next extract the Junior Infants’ opportunity to participate is threatened by an older child. The nature of the Orla’s feedback is supportive and legitimizing rather than condemning. With this feedback the teacher creates a positive atmosphere encouraging the participation of every child. The Junior Infants’ right to their own contribution is protected but also the intentions of the Senior Infants are interpreted by teacher for all as wanting to help. This ensures that at other stages when the help of Senior Infants is required by the Junior Infants it will be given. Each child has several turns to sound out individual words. Now it is Rachel’s turn and her word is ‘duck’

Orla: I know you know the first sound; you are always saying‘d’. Rachel smiles and says the sound of ‘d’.

O: Sound it with me. When ‘c’ and ‘k’ meet they only make one sound. Toby, the senior infant says ‘duck’.

T: Well done Toby. You’re great for helping but I need her to do it alone.