Consequential Learning at Scale

• In Event: 25.059 - Desettling Evidences of Learning in This "Post-Truth" Era Through Informal Learning Environment Research

Abstract

Objectives and Theoretical Grounding
What counts as "meaningful" disciplinary learning extends beyond that which is useful in school settings; consequential learning pushes past artificial boundaries, informing and shaping individuals’ cultures and identities, which is critical for those from historically marginalized groups (Basu, et al., 2009; Nasir, Hand & Taylor, 2008). Turner, et al. (2009) argue that in addition to disciplinary forms of knowledge, consequential learning requires the inclusion of community and critical knowledge, or the ability to investigate, challenge and act on the world. Though we can gain some insight about the consequentiality of learning at the time it happens, a retrospective lens can afford valuable insights about how particular learning was consequential at scale (Vosoughi & Gutierrez, 2015). This case study affords a retrospective perspective of consequential learning by engaging a group of young women from low-income, historically underrepresented groups as participant researchers of their own experiences in a secondary-level afterschool science club that prioritized disciplinary, community, and critical learning.

Methods
Informed by participatory design research (Bang & Vossoughi, 2016) to understand the long-scale consequences of an informal science learning, we engaged seven young women as our co-researchers. Using science documentary films created by our co-researchers during their science club experiences, we engaged in reflective analyses of what learning occurred inside and outside the school, and within and beyond their time in the club.

Results and Significance
Analyses revealed three themes of consequential learning: activism, escaping entrapment and reconceptualizing science.
Activism. Committed to righting wrongs where they see them in their current lives, the young women traced these commitments and practices back to their movie-making projects in the afterschool club. Grounded in their confidence of access to the multi-year adult support system of the club, they described their unique opportunities, as youth, to pursue change they cared about.
Escaping entrapment. Lakeside is a city with high poverty and crime, a home where the young women felt and continue to feel trapped in a place that “never changes”. Surrounded by peers that used to and continue to engage in violence and a school “that only cares about tests,” the women described the afterschool club as breaking barriers for them by giving them opportunities to be mentored by successful women, explore and participate on college campuses, socialize in “nice houses” and imagine different futures for themselves.
Re-conceptualizing science. Having finished high school and taken college courses, the young women described a perspective of science that felt significantly different from their college peers. “We now understand there is always so much more to it than you think.” This complexity and nuance of science invited teen perspective-making and -taking that allowed them to pursue investigations using their own interests and curiosities, shaping how the young women engage in science learning now.

Far exceeding the club’s ability to support youth in their following academic pursuits, this study spotlighted evidence of consequential learning that provided participants a sense of calling, long-lasting relationships, and empowered identities, revealing the importance of scholarly considerations of consequentiality and scale for equity work.

Authors

• April L. Luehmann, University of Rochester

• Rachel Chaffee, American Museum of Natural History