The children have collected materials for group work on building a tower. Alin approaches her teacher at the front of the class.
Introduction â What is the Student Asking for?
This report on research emerges from ongoing studies of the ways children take actions of their own to learn by seeking help when needed school settings. During interviews with teachers about individual childrenâs learning there is sometimes irritation expressed regarding studentsâ ways of asking for help and the need to take time to answer their questions. In one interview a teacher described a child who appeared to ask questions at inappropriate times and constantly. Work with students has led me to consider if perhaps educators might usefully ask the question, âWhat is it that the student is really asking for?â and âCan we help students learn to ask for help in the most effective ways?â Deborah Britzman (2004) has said, âWe need to create spaces where learners are able to put into words what their worries are.â
Over many years I have conducted longitudinal studies to understand personal engagement factors and features of learning environments that give insight into why some students seem to readily grasp science concepts that others struggle to understand (Shapiro, 1994). One striking observation during this time was that while some students seem regularly ask for help when needed in learning, many avoid requesting assistance. In some classrooms there are rules about how to ask for help, but in most, there is uncertainty about when to ask and how. Students cannot predict what will happen when they muster the courage needed to ask for help, and their requests are met with a wide range of responses from teachers and fellow students.
This chapter describes the use of a research approach designed to include young childrenâs own language and thinking to understand the ideas and concerns that
Research on Help-Seeking in Learning Environments
Educators, researchers and psychologists of learning have agreed that one of the most important skills children develop to facilitate their own learning is the ability to seek appropriate help when needed from others (Alevin, Stahl, Schworm, Fischer, & Wallace, 2003; Gardner, 2007; Karabenick, 1998; Meichenbaum & Biemiller, 1998; Shapiro, 2008). Although taking action to secure help when needed may seem to involve simply making a simple request for assistance, the act of seeking help engages students in the use of a complex repertoire of linguistic skills, social abilities and capacities that must be developed. For many students, seeking help is an act fraught with worry about the difficulty and risks associated with it, and it is an act to be avoided (Ryan, Pintrich, & Midgley, 2001). The childâs first ideas about seeking help when needed are provided by their most significant role models very early in life. The child observes the ways adults or others in their lives decide if and how to ask for help. They observe their ways of determining when to ask, use of language, body language and gestures, comfort level, timing of the request, who is approached and who is avoided. And they also observe the frustrations and successes in the effort to access assistance when needed. The childâs observations of their modelsâ attitudes and orientations to seeking help suggest to them how to know when one needs help, how and when safe it is ask for help, who to seek help from, how to most effectively frame a request for help, whether or not to persist in seeking help when needed and how to follow up once help is given or not given. These observations are used to build powerful frameworks and a model for acting when experiencing difficulty throughout the childâs life. But children also construct meaning about seeking help using resources available through social interactions and understandings acquired through engagement in learning environments that have been constructed for them. From a semiotic interpretive perspective, they read the actions of others and learn to use this knowledge as a resource that is based on observations of those close to them interwoven with traditions and practices with the family, the community and learning settings (Shapiro, 1998; Shapiro & Kirby, 1998).
Personal Construct Theory as a Foundation to Research Constructions of Seeking Help When Learning
George Kellyâs Personal Construct Theory (PCT), (1963, 2003) provides a particularly useful theoretical foundation and data gathering tools to engage in research on childrenâs meaning making. PCT stresses the importance of
Three key research strategies were used in the study based on the theoretical foundations of Personal Construct Theory: (1) Classroom observations and records of classroom conversations as students worked in groups of three and four on the Technology design task, âBuilding a Towerâ; (2) Interviews with children using the online collaborative data-gathering tool, WEBGRID III to organize and represent Repertory Grid interview data; and (3) Additional personal conversations with participants and their teachers to learn about classroom experiences, ideas about learning and views about seeking help in learning. The Repertory Grid interview is a powerful technique emerging from Personal Construct Theory that allows the representation and exploration of an individualâs idea constructions, language and views about a study topic. Details of the steps and procedures involved in the grid interview are described in the section below.
The Research Approach
Over a four-week period, classroom observations of six students, ongoing conversations and the Repertory Grid Interviews were recorded and analysed to allow representation of the thoughts, feelings and strategies of student engagement in the tower building activity. Three of the student case reports and display grids are presented in this chapter using Webgrid III. Webgrid III is an online data collection and analysis tool used with the individual children in the study to generate personal constructs and as a resource to engage in conversation. Webgrid III can be used to organize data into Grid Displays. It also generates representations of participant knowledge using cluster analysis. In the present research, Repertory Grid interviews reveal the linguistic categories that each individual uses as a resource to understand and engage in the task of seeking help.
Repertory Grid technique, developed by George Kelly (1963) has been used extensively in a wide range of social science research settings. The procedure first involves creating a list of Elements or topics. In this study the list of topics features the kinds of help-seeking activities children typically engage in, in the school setting. Participants assist with the generation of Elements with the researcher to assure that
Six children were followed and interviewed in the research and case reports were constructed for each child. Case reports for three students are presented in this chapter. Marie, Shenai, and Alan. During 10 class sessions devoted to the tower design and building activity, observational data, conversations, and Repertory Grid conversations were recorded and analysed. The group of six students included three boys and three girls and was based on teacher and student self reports. It represented a range of students experiencing high, average and low academic achievement levels. The students demonstrated a range of high, average and low help-seeking skills, and a range of confidence levels as reported by their teacher. A range of levels of interest in science learning was also expressed by students themselves. The reports presented in this chapter summarize and discuss the constructs of Marie, Shenai, and Alan. Information in each individual is presented along with self-reports and teacher reports of student achievement and views on their help-seeking abilities. Marie is considered to be achieving at a high academic level with
The science curriculum program structure used in this setting is based on provincial government guidelines and includes within each grade level, five topics of study. Topics are balanced to include physical science, chemical science, and biology. Within There is also an instructional focus each set of five topics per grade level, one focuses on problem solving through technology. The classroom was a large split grade 3/4 class taught by Ms. Bea, Ms. Chin and a teaching assistant. During the set of lessons and activities observed, all students were engaged with the grade three technology topic, Building with a variety of materials. The teachers also integrated a building activity into the lessons using second topic from the grade three program titled, Testing materials and designs. These topics were combined because of the potential for planning activities to lead to student engagement in inquiry as students tested materials and made decisions about which kinds of materials might be best suited to construct a tower structure. In the âbuilding activity,â students used and tested a range of materials, shapes and thicknesses to find out what makes a structure strong and stable and to find out how much material is needed to build to design specifications. In the testing materials portion of the activity, students engaged in an inquiry to learn which shapes and structures are particularly strong. The teachers indicated that they had noted so many parallels between the two topics in the curriculum that they began to see them as one unit of study. During the first session, students worked in groups with a variety of different materials to learn about their relative strength of the materials and ease of use in building the tower. Students shared their experiences and discussed their structures at the end of the session. In the second session, students were given the task of working in groups to build a tall, at least 30 cm, stable tower structure that would hold a hard-boiled egg placed at the top for 30 seconds or longer. Students worked with a variety of materials and were asked to make decisions about which materials worked best. During the sessions 4â6, all student groups worked with only one type of material decided by the entire class. They chose plastic straws. An interesting feature of Ms. Beaâs instructions to the students during the fourth session involved guidance and foreshadowing to develop one of the learning objectives of the âtesting materialsâ unit. She suggested that students could employ more methods for making a structure stronger and more stable, by, for example, but adding or joining parts to form triangles. As the teacher explained the task to students, she showed students two rectangles and three triangles made from straws. âWe are going to use different shapes in our tower designs,â she says. âLook at these shapes. These might be some shapes that we use. You can make any kinds of shapes you wish. Sometimes it may make the tower stronger if you put together shapes, like this⦠[She demonstrates using two triangles, then three, to show how strong several shapes
Case Reports and Repertory Grid Analyses
In the pages that follow, display grids are shown to demonstrate some of the features and insights of grid representations of constructs. The three individuals selected for discussion and comparison below demonstrated different ideas about seeking help that are shown in their individual grid display. Each grid display is accompanied by observational and interview data including teacher observations, studentsâ own self reports and researcher observations.
Marie
Marie was 9 years old and in Grade 3 at the time of the research. Classroom observations and conversations with Marie and her teacher reveal a remarkable social presence and confidence in the classroom. She regularly engages in conversation with her peers, both getting and giving help, yet she rarely asks her teacher for assistance. She is identified by her teacher as an average to high achiever (Table 7.1) with an average interest in science, the subject matter in this case, and with average to high help-seeking skills. Her teacher rates her as average to high in self-confidence in learning and with high acceptance among her peers and high in social skills. Marie identifies herself as an average achiever academically with average interest in science. Marieâs mother is an elementary school teacher. Marie comments that she spends time in her motherâs classroom and plans to become a teacher. She says that she likes the way her mother works with the children in her class. The opportunity to consider learning through the lens of her motherâs role appeared to have given Marie an unusual depth of insight into the teacherâs role in learning and her view of herself as learner.
Marie, female, grade 3, age: 9 years, 1 month
| Â | Teacher observations | Student self report |
|---|---|---|
| Academic achievement: | Average-High | Average |
| Interest in science: | Average | Average |
| Help-seeking skills: | Average-High | Â |
| Self-confidence: | Average-High | Â |
| Peer acceptance/social skills: | High | Â |
Researcher/Observations/Themes
Marieâs Display Grid (Figure 7.1)
Marie shows a very extensive range of thinking and constructs about help-seeking. The elaboration of constructs shows that she draws on many different ideas associated with ideas about how to seek help. She showed in her work with the grid how she thinks about taking responsibility to give help as a member of a learning community. Marieâs language and constructs show an intensive and primary interest in considering how she is perceived in the classroom when seeking assistance.
The number and range of distinctions in Marieâs constructs demonstrates her concern about being humiliated, Risk of being laughed at when asking for help. She shows that although she ranks as ânone to minimalâ (ranked 1), her construct, Risk of being laughed at when assessing âElement 2. Ask the teacher for help,â she indicates that there is great potential risk when asking a friend for help (ranked 5). As Marie was observed to rarely ask the teacher for assistance, all of the rankings for âElement 2. Ask the teacher for helpâ were of interest. Marie demonstrated a well-developed idea about her responsibility as a member of her study group as seen in her construct, Doing your share/Not doing your share. It is revealing that she ranks âElement 2. Asking the teacher for helpâ strongly as an aspect of Not doing your share and the âElement 3. Figure out on my own what to doâ as strongly representing Doing your share. She ranks âElement (1) Watching the other kids to find out what to doâ and âElement (5) Ask a student who usually knows what to doâ as strongly representative of her construct, Not really trying to answer on your own, as well as Not doing your
Shenai
Shenai was nearly 9 years old at the time of the research and a Grade 3 student. Classroom observations and conversations with Shenai and her teacher reveals her struggle in the classroom with academic achievement. They also showed her intense interests in both achieving understanding in science being accepted and involved socially (Table 7.2). Shenai often does not appear to understand the requirements of learning tasks or what it is that she should do next. She seeks help from peers regularly and is always ready to give help to fellow students when asked, but is often ignored by peers when she asks for help. Rarely does she ask her teacher for assistance. She is identified by her teacher as a low achiever, with low interest in studying science and very low help-seeking skills. Her teacher rates her low in self-confidence in learning and with average acceptance among her peers and in social skills. Shenai identifies herself as a low achiever academically with low interest in science. Her repertory grid ratings and constructs show that she has a limited repertoire of strategies for seeking help when needed.
Shenai, female, grade 3, age: 8 years, 10 months
| Â | Teacher observations | Student self report |
|---|---|---|
| Academic achievement: | Low | Low |
| Interest in science: | Low | Low |
| Help-seeking skills: | Very Low | Â |
| Self-confidence: | Low | Â |
| Peer acceptance/social skills: | Average | Â |
Researcher Observations/Themes
Shenai shows intense interest in being involved socially and in being involved with others in science study. She often does not know what to do or how to proceed but appears to keep working even when she has the wrong ideas about how to proceed;
Shenai does not appear to know how to frame her concerns in order to ask for help effectively. Peers often ignore her questions and regular requests for help. She does not ask the teacher for help but waits for the teacher to come to her. Despite this she shows great interest in persisting in learning even when she is clearly working ineffectively.
Shenaiâs Display Grid (Figure 7.2)
Observations of Shenai during lessons and conversations with her teachers show that she is working with a very limited set of ideas and ideas about actions to take that might serve as a resource to guide her thoughts and actions when she needs help. In conversation Shenai is not able to express her specific personal goals or the strategies she uses in her approaches to seeking help. She is not able to express ideas about what she believes is important as she is working to complete tasks. Shenaiâs grid shows that she makes very few distinctions as she ranks the elements using her constructs indicating a very limited range of ideas about seeking help. When working with her construct, Easy/Difficult, she strongly ranks as Easy, âElement 1. Watching the other kids to find out what to do,â âElement 2. Ask the teacher for helpâ and âElement 4. Ask a friend for help,â and âElement 9. Do nothing.â She ranks as Difficult âElement 6. Look in a book for help,â and âElement 8. Re-read the directions on the worksheet or board to figure out what to do.â Her construct, âYou have to do reading/You donât have to do reading,â shows that reading, as an action to take when she needs help is one of the greatest challenges she experiences in school. Her teacher indicates that reading is clearly at the heart of her difficulties in school learning. Conversations with Shenai show that although she is always ready to try, limited reading skills and a limited ability to identify and express her needs
Alan
Alan was also an 8-year-old Grade 3 student in the same classroom. Classroom observations and conversations with Alan and his teacher show that he is a thoughtful, careful, quiet student who always waits for others to respond before speaking up in class. He appears reluctant to ask for help even when it is clearly needed. During the research period we observed that when he does ask, he asks only his teacher for assistance. Alanâs repertory grid and comments show that his major goal in his academic work is to âget the right answer,â yet he also shows an interest in gaining deep understanding of content. He is very concerned with putting the correct responses in his notebook or on worksheets, yet shows a deep interest in understanding science concepts. Alan is described by his teacher as an average to high achiever with high interest in science and possessing high help-seeking skills. She believes that he has average self-confidence and average peer acceptance and social skills. Alan believes that he is a high academic achiever in science and states that he has high interest in science.
Alan, male, grade 3, age: 8 years, 7 months
| Â | Teacher observations | Student self report |
|---|---|---|
| Academic achievement: | Average-High | High |
| Interest in science: | High | High |
| Help-seeking skills: | High | Â |
| Self-confidence: | Average | Â |
| Peer acceptance/social skills: | Average | Â |
Researcher Observations/Themes
Alan demonstrates a preference for working alone, even when in a group setting. He pauses and gives careful thought before responding to questions or when sharing ideas. Alan often seems reluctant to ask for help and when he does, he only from the teacher. He is a high achiever. In class work and in conversation with the researcher he expresses a strong desire to get the right answers and appears to seek deep and authentic understanding.
Alanâs Display Grid (Figure 7.3)
Research Insights for 21St Century Learning
Teachers will benefit from considering the ways they construct the social and cultural environments to support not only help-seeking, but help-giving in learning settings.
The research shows another highly significant finding: that many students both native English speakers and those new to English speaking culture do not know how to begin the conversation to ask for assistance.
As shown in Shenaiâs case report, one of the first and most difficult aspects of learning to seek assistance for students is learning to recognize when one is experiencing difficulty, and learning to frame oneâs needs into a request and directing questions about difficult material to those who may be able to provide assistance. Learners will benefit from the time taken to engage them in metacognitive conversations designed to help them consider the best ways to identify when they need help and how to most effectively seek help. The development of new language and interaction skills that enable the identification of social support networks one can access will help learners create features of a repertoire of skills that students
Pedogogical Approaches: Designing Settings to Support Help-Seeking
This research, designed to understand and document individual learnersâ ideas and approaches reveals some of the successful strategies learners are using to get and give help, as well as unsuccessful approaches that may create obstacles to seeking help. The insights from this research will help teachers develop new ways to more effectively guide students to participate in their own learning and address features of learning environments that are disruptive to getting and giving help when needed.
One of the practical purposes of this research is to use insights and understandings shown in learner views and actions to create environments informed by learnersâ ideas and strategies that better support studentsâ own efforts to seek assistance to learn. Carefully considering learner experiences and ideas about seeking help can suggest new ways to transform the design of learning settings to support and positively develop the help-seeking behaviour of children.
In addition to examining the individual strategies and constructs of children, the research program also investigates teachersâ ideas and beliefs about help-seeking approaches and the ways social and cultural features in schools are organized to support help-seeking. Three example case reports are presented here to illustrate some successful teaching and organizational strategies. The examples show educatorsâ efforts to design individual and institutional structures that encourage help-giving and receiving. These examples have been used in teacher preparation programs, and have been presented to professional conferences to inspire reflection, conversation, insights and creative new approaches to help students learn to access help when needed.
Engaging in Conversations with Students about the Hallmarks of an Effective Working Group
The acquisition of academic and technological content and literacy are skills identified as important for 21st century learning that also include communication and collaboration, initiative and self-direction, leadership and responsibility, flexibility and adaptability, social and cross-cultural skills and productivity and accountability. As much of our work in science and in STEM related activities takes place in a group, I have found great value in engaging classroom learners and student teachers in discussions about what it means to be a member of a group who are working on a task together. This metacognitive approach has been of great interest to students who are eager to learn strategies that will help them to become more involved in
A Tool and Strategy to Support Student Participation in Their Own Learning in a Grade One Classroom
Students are deeply engaged in a writing assignment describing the ways they use senses in teacher Linnea Don.âs Grade 2 science class. Aurelia, a student in the class stops writing for a moment, looks at me and says, âUm, once. I want to spell, um, one, one, once. I once tasted, um, I got to taste lemon ice cream.â Wha, wha, she speaks the sound at the beginning of the word and looks to the center of the table. She picks up a set of orange cards. She flips to the column labeled âWâ and scans it carefully with her finger. No success. Marc, who sits at her table comments, âSometime the âwhaâ sound is actually made with an o, like in âone.â She flips over the card and looks up and down the âOâ column. âOh!â she exclaims, and puts her finger on the word. âItâs right here. I found it!â Aurelia writes the word, in the sentence she is working on in her notebook and reads it: âI once got to eat lemon ice cream.â In Ms. Donâs class, copies of the card are available at the centre of every table in the classroom and a larger format version sits in a prominent place for additional reference on the classroom wall. The card is a resource created by primary teachers in the school for students seeking help to spell and use of commonly used words. Ms. Don has encouraged students to use the cards when writing.
Creating Social CapitalâLearning the Language and Skills Needed to Take Action to Ask for Help
Teachers Liz McManus and Lindsey Bourgeois noticed that at some time all students encounter roadblocks in learning, but some students have a particularly difficult time recognizing the fact that they need help. These students benefit from guidance to organize their thinking and ways to ask for assistance when they need it. Some students may have learning challenges or may struggle with learning a new language. They often do not know where to start in the process of seeking assistance, a recognition that sometimes comes more readily to others. The teachers suggested several questions that students might ask to help them identify their
| I feel like⦠| I can say/ask |
|---|---|
| I donât know how to begin. | Could you repeat the instructions, please? |
| Iâm confused. | Iâm confused. Can you help me understand? |
| I donât have everything I need. | What do I need to begin. I need to get a⦠|
| Iâve started, but have gone wrong somewhere. | Can you help me find my mistake? |
| Iâm bored, frustrated. I donât want to do my work. | Is there a different way I can do this? |
| I donât have enough time. | May I have extra time to work? |
By encouraging them to use the language and strategies suggested, students are given powerful tools that build social capital. Using this social capital allows learners to gain new access to practice communication structures and social networks to make their needs known. These strategies are reviewed regularly in the classroom. Students learn to identify what is behind their feelings of confusion and to see their need for help. Using this strategy, students learn to participate more effectively in their own learning.
Students Transitioning to High School Learn Take Responsibility for Their Own Learning by Asking for Help in Mathematics
Science area coordinator Jon Hoyt-Hallet described the ways teachers of grade nine students at Calgary Science School have shared ideas about ways they might work to develop studentsâ help-seeking skills in several classes Teachers wanted to create opportunities to help students learn to take responsible action to address difficult topics in the curriculum that would translate into greater success when they leave the school in their transition to high school. They asked the school administration if they might pilot a project that set aside special periods to offer concentrated study of topics in science, mathematics and humanities, identified as being worthy of deeper study in the previous week. Students are guided to recognize their own areas of difficulty and to take action â âvoting with their feetâ â to attend the focused sessions they believe will benefit them most. Students identified and deepened understanding of difficult concepts in science, mathematics and humanities. They learned how they might take actions of their own to take responsibility for seeking help when encountering difficulty. In this way, students learned to frame useful questions to get the help they needed, and they built knowledge about how to take charge of their own learning.
Help-Giving as a âWay of Social Actionâ: the Value of the Research
As they work to help learners acquire science knowledge, one of the most important skills that teachers and others in the âhelping professionsâ develop is the ability to provide effective help and encouragement to others. In order to do this, they must create environments that help students recognize when and how to ask for help and how to help others. When sharing the results of this research, I have found students and educators deeply interested in talking about ideas surrounding help-giving and help-seeking. They often describe valuing Vygotskyâs (1978) discussion about the importance of the role of the caring adult who helps learners develop language and ways of acting that help them move towards achievable goals. A number of other research studies provide helpful ideas about the ways learnersâ help-seeking efforts can more effectively serve as adaptive responses to learning challenges (Gardner, 2007; Karabenick, 1998; Karabenick & Knapp, 1991; Karabenick & Newman, 2011), and the ways learning environments might be explicitly designed to support help-seeking, (Aleven et al., 2003; Shwalb & Sukemune, 1998; Ryan et al., 2001). While the research literature is extensive, missing from it are in depth descriptions of help-seeking in action in the naturalistic environments of classrooms. A goal of the present research is to add new insights through the observation of and discussions with young children in a school learning settings. The study looks at the ways
Educators who were involved with this research study pointed to the new awareness they gained by more deeply considering this aspect of their practice. These discussions show the complexities, assumptions and challenges involved in organizing learning environments and the value of considering the ways learnersâ own concerns and voices inform the design of learning settings. I have used the results to engage in discussions with both students and teachers to help them reflect on the depth and complexity of their help-seeking strategies. Of considerable value in the conversations with student teachers have been discussions surrounding ways to guide students to build better positive mental habits such as self-discipline, development of an intrinsic interest in learning well and showing students how, when engaging in learning activities such as the tower building activity, to best perform at oneâs highest potential when working with others. This means understanding studentsâ natural approaches to their work, particularly when they are deeply engaged, and assisting them to develop new strategies to work cooperatively with others in work and learning communities. The research techniques used in this study reveal the processes involved when seeking help, the ideas and kinds of language learners themselves contribute to understanding help-seeking as an overlooked strategic resource for learners and teachers in the elementary classroom.
There are other very important secondary outcomes for those engaged in the process, such as the development of the learnerâs sense of competence and view of self as successful in learning. Other skills and abilities are also developed, such as mental habits of self-discipline, the development of an intrinsic interest in learning what it means to learn well and to assure that one is learning for the purpose of gaining authentic, deep understanding of the subject of study. Students also recognize that in order to achieve at their highest potential there is value in learning to work cooperatively. Success in these areas can lead to the development
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