Contextualizing Podschool Learning With Personal and Family Histories

• In Event: Expanding Participatory Video Analysis for Ecological and Ethical Validity

Abstract

Objectives.
We describe a partnership with young children (3-5yrs) and caregivers who were/are COVID-cautious. We developed co-observation: a methodology shifting away traditional fly-on-the-wall observation modes (video-as-surveillance) towards virtual-video playdate/storying (video-as-relationship; Vossoughi & Escudé, 2014). We explore how co-observation supported contextualized understandings of learning.

Theoretical framework.
There is a need to link micro-analytic traditions to contextual understandings of sociopolitical and idiocultures (Fine, 1979; Author, 2021; Author & Colleagues, accepted). We partner with families supporting ethically valid research—attending to the distribution of research materials, resources, and activities—to produce ecologically valid representations of learning embedded in participants’ own understanding/practice.

Data and methods.
Data come from the [project] study. Daddy Poppins (DP) was the contact caregiver for the Neurons family. He had also been a podschool teacher. His podschool included his daughter, Cheetah Owl Unicorn (COU), and two neighbor children. All three families agreed upon COVID-contious rules for their pod. Data in this paper include an artifact co-created by (DP) and Author1 that analyzes a video (“Knee Surgery”) with Cheetah Own Unicorn (COU), two neighbor children, and Dr.S (COU’s Mom) (Clip A). We also analyze a session as DP and Author1 engage in IA+family storying practices to make sense of the same video (Clip B).

Results.
We present two clips analyzing Knee Surgery—a podschool video in which Dr.S (COU’s Mom) supports COU and neighbor-children to conduct an operation on DP.
Clip A: Daddy Poppins’ Narration. DP and Author1 collaborated to co-construct a layering of annotations on Knee Surgery in which a video of Knee Surgery plays first, followed by audio of DP’s reflections on Knee Surgery with overlaid images selected by DP and Author1. His narration described, “We as parents or guardians to these children did not hide or hinder the reality of the times, that people DO get sick, DO get surgery, and do, on occasion, need to have an anesthesiologist. He also overlaid images in Figure 1 while describing the pod’s idioculture that supported the children to want “ALL to be safe.”
Clip B: Co-IA. DP and Author1 engaged in IA+family practice for viewing Knee Surgery. Because of a surgical procedure the prior day, COU did not participate. The result of analyzing Knee Surgery just after COU’s own procedure was a complex intermixing of histories (Figure 2).
[Insert Presentation 4 Figure 2]
Figure 2A highlights DP and Author 1 sharing surgical experiences as context to collaborative analysis of the podschool Knee Surgery video. That experience also provides context for understanding DP’s support for COU as she was getting ready for her own procedure in Figure 2B. These shared histories provided deeper contextual understanding of what initially could appear as a simple instance of play-acting surgery.

Significance.
DP’s selection and co-analysis of a podschool video provided contextualization and ecological-validity, grounded in global and local sociocultural histories, in representing Knee Surgery. The resulting representation of podschool learning pushes back against learning-loss narratives (e.g., Goldstein, 2020), and supported a podteacher to affirm his contributions to children’s lives.

Authors

• Andria Gentry, University of North Texas

• D. Teo Keifert, University of North Texas

• Daddy Poppins