Inquiry Project

Classroom Community
How can the local community change how I interact with my students?
Caroline Browning, Meghann Bugg, Julie Iacovetto, and Anthony Tito
James Madison University
Classroom Community 1
Abstract:
In this paper, we investigate the possible impact of local community on our teaching
practices. As teachers, we are expected to teach to our students’ needs. Their needs come from
their personality, how they were raised, and the community that influences them. Through
observation and analysis of student work, we are able to see all the different aspects of
community that impact our students. These aspects told us that in order to better our own
teaching practices, we should focus on three key themes. 1) Having a strong influence on
students so that they respond and react well to our teachings. Also making sure connections with
other influencers, such as parents, are healthy so the student is learning wherever they can. 2)
Having a diverse curriculum and experiences so the students can have as many opportunities to
connect with as possible. This creates an atmosphere where students are: comfortable expressing
their thoughts and differences, more excited to learn because they’re learning about content that
relates to them, and creating a healthy classroom community where the idea of sharing ideas and
thoughts is common. And 3) Establishing connections to any and all content so that students
care about learning and enjoy coming to school. Understanding these three aspects of
community helps our practice as teachers because bringing and integrating community into the
classroom creates a more positive, understanding, relatable, and enjoyable classroom for students
to learn and teachers to teach.
Introduction
Purpose:
Through our experiences in different cultures we noticed there is no such thing as a
universal classroom. Every classroom comes with new experiences and students from all
backgrounds. Classrooms are greatly affected by the community that surrounds them. A
classroom in one place will be completely different from a classroom somewhere else. This
phenomenon is affected by the geographic location but also the cultural heritage of the place.
This idea made us think differently about the traditional classrooms that we have
experienced during our schooling in the United States. We began to think about what the effects
are of non-traditional classrooms on the students and the teachers. As teachers we need to be
aware of the community that surrounds us and how that can be brought into the classroom. By
being aware of who makes up our classroom we are able to recognize the individual identities
that are present. The purpose of this study was to better understand how the interactions with our
students will differ based on the community that our school resides in.
Question:
For the purpose of this study we will define these terms as used in the proposal:
Community: The area that surrounds a point of focus, encompassing cultural norms and
interactions among people. For this proposal the point of focus will include the area in and
around a learning environment.
Interaction: The verbal and non-verbal communication among students, teachers, and others
involved within the community.
Dialogic Narrative Discussing the Importance of our Topic:
Caroline:
When I reflect on my personal schooling experiences community comes to mind. Even at
a young age, our school had a strong school spirit. To this day, I can still recite portions of our
school pledge. Our mascot was the Lions, and are motto was “Lisbon lions roaring with pride”.
Furthermore, this collective sense of pride continued on to my middle school and high school
experiences. In middle school we had a system called “Cobra Kudos”. This was a reward given
to a student showing exemplary citizenship both in and out of the classroom. Members of the
and teachers could nominate a student. Then in high school, I was on the cheerleading team and
attended every school event. Our school events also extended into the community. We had a
Thanksgiving Day parade, hosted pep-rallies, and in the summer and fall we had food stands. In
the fall we sold apple fritters at a local fruit farm and in the Summer we had a french fry booth at
the county fair. All of these experiences shaped my education. They made me feel apart of
something greater than my school setting. I was an active member of my community.
This reflection made me curious of what other peoples schools experiences are like.
Unfortunately, I found very different experiences. This made me wonder how the community I
was in affected my schooling experience. Was it because I am from a small town with a smaller
population to interact with? Or was the wealth of my community impacting my school? All these
factors of community and the area I was in had an impact. Therefore, this study intrigued me to
focus on other communities and how they impacted the school within.
Meghann:
I had a similar experience with community growing up, Caroline. My elementary,
middle, and high schools all seemed like part of my community rather than a separate entity. In
high school, especially, everyone was encouraged to go out and volunteer or do something
involved with the community. In addition to the school encouraging students to involve
themselves in the community, the community was encouraged to be involved with the schools. It
is interesting that you say you are from a small town because I am as well, so this could play a
role in shaping our experiences. I remember coming to JMU and learning about other schools
where some students had never even heard of other students, yet they attended the same high
school. This would never happen in my town, so I was shocked to hear this. Maybe the sizes of
our towns do affect our schooling experiences. This study made me interested on how
community can change our experiences and interactions with our students.
Caroline:
Meghann, I do find it very interesting that we both shared a strong sense of community in
smaller towns! I was also shocked to hear other students at James Madison say they did not
know everyone in their high school class! I went to high school with a lot of the same classmates
I went to Elementary and Middle school with. This made me wonder what other experiences
shape our groups interest in the effect of community in the classroom.
Tito:
Although I did not have a similar experience, my interest in community occurred during
an opportunity I had in Costa Rica. A group of students went on a study abroad trip to Costa Rica
with me to fulfill requirements for our graduate degrees. In meetings, our professor in Costa
Rica told us about the work we would be doing in Costa Rica. One of them was starting an
inquiry study that we would later conduct after the trip abroad was over. I did not know almost
anyone going on the trip with me, so I definitely did not know who I would be working on the
project with. After our first week in Costa Rica, which involved going to an elementary school,
we were discussing interests and questions we had after observing Costa Rican schools that made
us think about schools in the United States. One of the first things I noticed was inclusion and
how it differed from what it is like in an American classroom. This difference made me wonder
why some schools handle inclusion differently. Perhaps it had something to do with what
inclusion looks like in the community, or perhaps what resources the school has available. As we
had this discussion in class I noticed Caroline, Julie, and Meghann, also had similar ideas of how
the setting and local community impacts learning. Therefore, we came together and formed our
inquiry group.
Julie:
While my interest in community was sparked before going to Costa Rica, experiencing
the differences at the school and in the culture definitely made me want to research this topic
more intensively. I have an interest in teaching in another country, so I am very interested in the
ways that students learn in different cultures and contexts. The more relaxed classroom
environment and focus on social interactions between the students in Costa Rica really made me
think about how culture and the community that surrounds a school affects the way that teachers
lead their classrooms. Tito, I agree that seeing the differences made me think about why schools
handle inclusion differently and I think that it would be really interesting to also look at the
resources that are available to different school systems and to see what that is influenced by.
Meghann:
Similar to Tito and Julie, Costa Rica also made me think differently about community in
the classroom. However, I did not have a huge interest in the topic prior to our study abroad
experience. While in Costa Rica, I noticed a lot of differences between the American school
system and the Costa Rican school we were placed in; I also noticed many differences in the
community surrounding the school. For example, a huge part of Costa Rican culture is “Pura
Vida”which means pure life, and their country truly lives by this. Everything is always very
laid-back and they try to keep their lives stress-free. This way of life is reflected in their schools;
teachers are free to create their own schedules, students have many recesses in one day, and the
overall atmosphere of the school is very relaxed. It made me think about the impacts that a
community can have on a school (what is taught, how it is taught, relationships with students,
etc.). Therefore, I wanted to examine this further and research about the impacts that
communities can have on different schools within the United States and beyond; specifically,
how, as a teacher, my interactions with my students can change based on the community my
school is in.
Caroline:
Meghann I also noticed the vast differences between the Costa Rican school setting and
the school settings I have experienced in the United States. I also noticed the Costa Rican saying,
“Pura Vida” life is pure and we should enjoy the present. This saying can be seen in the
classrooms as the students flow in and out as they please and resist the normal structured
schedule found in the states. This vast difference between the two school communities made me
also think critically about the different United States school settings I have been in. This spring I
had a practicum placement in Augusta County, my students had the opportunity to attend a
religious special once a week. I found this very interesting because where I grew up it was
extremely frowned upon to intertwine religion and school. However, the area of my practicum
placement is very involved in religion and it is a crucial part of their community. Therefore the
religious special is a reflection of the community seen in the school. The physical placement of
the school affected the curriculum. These vast differences in school community and how the
local culture affected them intrigued me to further explore this phenomenon.
Tito:
I also noticed these vast differences, Caroline, in my specific school placement, because
my experience seemed different from everyone else's. I unfortunately got diagnosed with a
disability in 2016, and since then I have had a huge interest in the disability community. When
we got placed into our classrooms, I got put in a special ed classroom. From there I had
questions about how the disability community in Costa Rica was different than the disability
community I have observed in the United States. One of the main differences I noticed was that
there was not really a specific special ed classroom for students with learning disabilities.
Although there was a separate classroom for students with more extreme disabilities,students
with learning disabilities were included in the general education classroom. I mostly saw
classrooms with elements of inclusion with a fair mix of students with disabilities and students
without disabilities. It made me think of how the disability community in the United States is so
one sided. This observation made me bring up the question what is the best disability community
to have to improve the students’ academic and social education. This interest was slightly altered
after thinking of a question with my group. Now, we are focusing on how community alters
behaviors in the classroom. Since, Costa Rica does not have a separate classroom for students
with disabilities, I began to wonder if this was a reflection of the community around me. Perhaps
there is a more cultural norm of intertwining all abilities. Therefore, the local culture around the
school has affected the learning environment. The community aspect of acceptance is seen both
in and out of the classroom.
Julie:
I think that it is really great that you saw acceptance from the community both in and out
of the classroom. I feel like this might be linked to the Pura Vida influence that Meghann
mentioned. I really loved that aspect of Costa Rican culture because it gives the entire country a
more relaxed and peaceful attitude about life that I feel like we could learn a lot from. Feeling
the difference in environment here in comparison to the United States made me think about how
exposure to different communities and life experiences is so important to education. Knowledge

leads to empathy and acceptance of other people, and that is something that I want to be at the
center of my classroom. By listening to others and learning about the things that make them who
they are, you are expanding your own understanding of the world. I think that this is so
important for teachers because we are passing this understanding on to our students whether we
mean to or not. Knowing the communities that affect our students is key to being able to reach
them, and I think that it is a very important thing to research.
Literature Review:
For this literature review, we have examined 16 different studies relating to our research
question. Through our research we found very diverse studies that ultimately focused on the
inclusion of community in the classroom and how place affects a community. We have
determined the importance of understanding both the community our school is set in and the
different identities present in our classroom. By understanding the idea of place in a classroom,
as teachers we are able to interact with our students more effectively and reach academic and
social success.
Caroline:
A study conducted by Don Martin and Magy Martin, made me aware of the greater
impact a local community has on a learning environment. The Martins conducted a study at an
elementary school in Youngstown Ohio. The elementary school is situated in an urban setting in
a neighbor with the highest poverty rate in the city. The Martins called their study the
“Williamson Project”. The goal of the study was to create a sense of family and community
within the school with hope to increase academic success and lower disciplinary acts. Each week
students were introduced to new character traits that would be beneficial for their success. Their
curriculum was morphed around these character traits. Furthermore, the most influential method
of this study was parental and local community interaction, one of the main focuses was
“monthly meetings with school personnel and community members to discuss issues and further
educate themselves in the development of character education in their daily classroom and
curriculum activities as well as their lives” (Martin & Martin, 2007). Most parents involved did
not have successful education experiences and lacked higher education, however their
participation was vital for the success of their children. In addition, the local community became
involved. A local newspaper shared the project which encouraged local businesses to
participate. A city church provided adult tutors, the local automobile dealership funded school
assemblies and purchased new books, and the town movie theater created a free movie reward
program to honor school success. The whole community took a new interest in their students’
performance and success. The outcome of the study was incredible, both academic scores
increased and behavioral referrals decreased dramatically. I find it amazing what a local
community can do for a school. Without the involvement of the community the “Williamson
Project” would not have been successful. The power of the community was directly linked to the
classroom environment. This study makes me think if community had such a great impact for
this learning environment, I wonder what effect it would have on other schools.
Tito:
Your article made me think of what other positive impacts a sense of community in a
school can have. In Ruth Wallaces’ article, she focuses on the importance of having a sense of
community in schools. She studies this specifically in this study to see if a sense of community
has an impact on health and nutrition in the school. Even though sense of community was
positively correlated with health and nutrition in school, I choose to focus on what a sense of
community brings to the school. Sense of community, “is widely accepted as a means of
measuring the success of community”, a strong sense of community reflects much success for
the community, whether it be health and nutrition, academics, etc (Wallace, 2018). If we view
the communities as schools, we should see positive effects in the school, no? I see this
specifically when schools or classrooms come together to create or change something. With a
strong community, we can, for example, come together to raise money for new school supplies,
or new desk, or something to improve our school. There is power in numbers and I believe that a
strong sense of community within a classroom or school will naturally promote a better academic
and social environment for the teacher and students.
Caroline:
I agree Tito, in both studies community was a great impact on the results. In my article
the surrounding community was used to increase school academics. While on the other hand a
sense of community created within the classroom in your article led to better health and nutrition
within the school. If classroom were viewmed more from a community sense, I think we would
see positive results.
Meghann:
Similar to Caroline and Tito’s articles, I found an article discussing the importance of a
school-community partnership. A study done by Hope G. Casto (2016) examines one school’s
unique partnership with their community. This particular school is described as being a rural
school in a non-rural place (Casto, 2016), meaning the school district encompasses a city, but the
school in the study is outside of the city limits. Casto wanted to research the school-community
partnerships that exist, types that are desired by the community, and feelings associated with the
school-community partnerships. Overall, the study found that while not many partnerships exist,
each respondent was able to speak about at least one connection the school has with the
community (Casto, 2017). While this school does have a unique connection with its community,
the research found that these connections are sometimes seen more as obligations rather than a
genuine relationship. Personally, I think this is a really good start to a healthy school-community
relationship, however, like Casto, I do believe that there is still work to be done to make these
relationships feel less like an obligation.
Julie:
That’s an interesting article, Meghann. What do you think can be done to improve these
relationships?
Meghann:
I actually found an article that might provide some answers to that question, Julie! In a
study I found, Somerville and Rennie (2012) research ways in which new teachers use their
community and places to inform their teaching. For this study, the researchers interviewed
various new teachers to discover what the word “community” means to them and how this is
present in their classrooms. I thought it was interesting because some teachers viewed
community as a geographic space, some as a moral space, some viewed it as a curriculum space,
but all of the teachers viewed their community as a social space. The authors define this as
maintaining, sustaining, and building relationships with others (Somerville, M., Rennie, J.,
2012). All teachers interviewed in this study thought this particular idea of community was very
important both inside and outside of the school. In response to the Casto article, maybe teachers
could take on more of a role in the community (viewing it as a social space) outside of the school
building in order to make the school-community partnerships more genuine.
Caroline:
Meghann the findings in your article really correlate with a study I found on five first
year teachers in the Appalachian. Eric D. Moffa and Erin McHenry- Sorber conducted a study
called, “Learning to Be Rural: Lessons about Being Rural in Teacher Education Programs”. The
study wanted to study the effectiveness of rural teacher preparation programs. Each of the five
participants grew up in a rural community and went to a large public teacher preparation college
program. Similar to your study, the teachers in this study benefited from the connections they
made with the students in their community. In the preparation college program, the teachers
explained, “We were constantly put in that mindset of, ‘You’re going to teach this group of kids.
What are they bringing to the table that may affect you? Then, in turn, what are you bringing that
can affect them and how can we make all of that work together so that everyone gets the best out
of the situation?” (Moffa & McHenry-Sorber, 2018). The teachers were encouraged to use their
prior experiences in a rural community to understand the current place their classroom was
situated in. The participants with communitarian-learning rural conceptions made “’immediate”
connections with colleagues, familiarity with community strengths and problems, and mutual
respect for students. In many ways, these communitarian-leaning teachers put into action a
“critical sense of place”’ (Moffa & McHenry-Sorber, 2018). The teachers understanding of the
community they were in promoted connections with the students. However, one gap I found in
this article was the sole focus on rurality. The teachers in this study were all from rural
backgrounds therefore giving them a familiarity in a rural setting. I would have liked to see how
their education of place-based learning would differ in an urban setting. Furthermore, another
gap I found was the generalization of a rural setting. The preparation program is assuming all
rural communities will be the same. Although they may share similar qualities, it is important to
note one rural community could be entirely different from a rural community in a different place.
Julie:
I think that this brings up some interesting questions about teacher training and how best
to prepare teachers for their classrooms. In one study I found, researchers designed a teacher
training program where participants were taken to the headwaters of a 310 mile long river and
traveled down to its confluence over a 6 day adventure in order to study the watershed and place
based learning. They were to take readings on water quality as they made their way down the
river. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the impact of this program on the teacher’s
confidence with the topic and also their classroom practices. They distributed a pretest, post test,
and long term post test which was 9 months later, that spanned many different areas of the study.
They found through these tests that there was greater confidence levels in all 5 areas of
confidence-level measures. “The program had a particularly strong impact on teachers’
confidence to use community resources in teaching, conduct field investigations with students,
and the ability to teach watershed topics and connect that teaching to society and real life.”
(Meichtry & Smith, 2007) I really liked that this study took the teachers out of a typical training
environment and had them study science in a place based learning setting. This helped the
teachers to be able to use these kinds of strategies in their own classrooms and made them more
aware of the kinds of things that they could do with their students (Meichtry & Smith, 2007).
Caroline:
I think your article brings up a really important point Julie. I have noticed through my
own practicum experiences and personal school settings, teachers do not always take advantage
of the learning opportunities found in their community and places surrounding them. There
seems to be a stigma among some teachers that real effective learning only takes place in the
classroom. However, within our study I would like to see how other places affect the learning
environment.
Meghann:
I agree with you Caroline. Additionally, sometimes teachers can feel pressured by the
curriculum that is put in place for their particular school district. In an article I found, authors
Waller and Barrentine (2015) wanted to find out if curriculum can sometimes steer teachers
away from effectively using the community and places around them for a unique learning
experience. The research was done in a rural area and, according to the authors, standardizing the
approach to education can be problematic for all schools, but especially for rural schools (Waller,
R., Barrentine, S.J., 2015). From my understanding, they suggest that this is due to the lack of
diversity in many rural schools, so sticking to a curriculum and not exposing these students to
anything else can be harmful. While I do see where the authors are coming from, I think the
standardization of education can be harmful in both rural and urban schools. Overall, the
research found that many teachers used a lot of scripted programs that were given to them rather
than making the experiences authentic and unique to the students. Therefore, as teachers we need
to remember that students are not scripts and we can use the community around us to make the
curriculum more meaningful for our students.
Julie:
I think that talking about the differences between rural and urban settings is really
important. It’s good to recognize that the cultural makeup of specific types of areas can change
how curriculum is taught, and still make sure that all students are getting the exposure that they
need to different life experiences. There was a study conducted on three schools on Southwest
England, with varying types of communities, to discuss how cultural density played a role in the
classroom. One school, the Place-Based Community School (PBCS), is a very small middle
school with only around 160 students. A lot of the students have to travel a long distance in
order to get to school. This has created a high level of cultural density, which is the intensity of
the cultural norms and habitus in a place. A lot of the students have said that there is a strong
sense of community in the school and that they have a lot of pride for their schools
accomplishments. One of the other schools that is being studied is a middle school with 600
students that the researchers named the Comparison Middle School (CMS). This student
population is larger than average, which results in some of the students coming from more rural
areas as well. Since the students are coming from a combination of rural and urban backgrounds
there is a lower level of cultural density at this school. As for how this affects the curriculum,
the researchers noticed that the outdoor based lessons in CMS seemed to be for the purpose of
adhering to the National Curriculum learning objectives. “On the other hand, place for PBCS
staff was more akin to generis loci, a spirit of place enduring beyond the immediate and laid
down generation after generation.” (Waite, 2013) At PBCS there seems to be a more genuine
desire to have the children experience the outdoors. I think that this has to do with the cultural
density and close connection to their environment (Waite, 2013).
Caroline:
Julie, your article relates to an article I found on student aspirations. Amy Reid and Julie
McCallum wanted to explore how students perspectives about the community affects the
students aspirations in school. The study took place in an impoverished urban setting in Australia
with secondary aged students. The focus group had students document what community meant to
them through a series of photographs. The students were then interviewed to discuss how the
concept of community and place structured their social and emotional understanding in school. A
common stereotype of impoverished areas is students either cannot or do not want to be
successful. They are caught in a vicious cycle of poverty. Some teachers stray away from these
school settings do to low achievement scores and lack of “care”. However, after Reid and
McCallum took an interest in these students aspirations they found and overwhelmingly drive for
success. Contrary to common stereotypes, “the students of this study positively expressed a
desire to be engaged in their learning and to succeed in their schooling” (Reid & McCallum,
2014 ). Furthermore, the study found the greater interest teachers took into knowing their
students and their community, the greater success the students had.
Unfortunately at times we either have teachers take jobs in impoverished areas to receive
a form of college re-debt payment or we have programs such as “Teach for America” that
constantly cycle teachers into impoverished areas for brief periods of times. Although I believe
the intent is good, the teachers are only temporary and do not have time to fully immerse in the
community and enact long-term change. Therefore, it makes sense why the students expressed
the desire for relationships within the classroom. The students in the study correlated positive
success in the classroom to the support they received by the teachers. Their teachers did not view
them as impoverished students, but as full human identities that have goals and aspirations. An
authentic classroom community, “enriches and expands classroom learning, making it more
relevant and meaningful to students as they engage with local and familiar issues, contexts and
challenges” (Reid & McCallum, 2014 ).
Tito:
Would you say that your article only focused on impoverished urban settings, or did it
talk about other economic statuses at all?
Caroline:
It does not really talk about other economic statuses, but that is a great point! I wonder
how teachers would bring up other economic statuses.
Tito:
Well I only asked you because in this article by Elizabeth White, a study was done in a
school where only two ends of the economic spectrum exist. So it goes with your article with
how students learn about their economic situation, except my article is from the perspective of
teachers. For example, in my article, “Eleven teachers discussed the growing income disparity
among students at South Bay Elementary and their perception of a shrinking middle-class
student population” (White, 2013). So not only are these teachers faced with the problem of
talking about economic status to their students, but in order to make it applicable to their
students, they don’t “need” to talk about the status that holds a majority of the world’s
population. This is such a hard topic because I don’t really know how to have the community or
inclusion help with teaching this subject. We still need to figure this out, because apparently,
“Overall, many teachers expressed hesitation and uncertainty about how to effectively address
SES differences in the classroom and foster meaningful relationships among students, and many
were uncomfortable broaching the topic with children” (White 383). Maybe seeing the
differences between the two statuses will help, but obviously there needs to be a change in how
the information is presented.
Julie:
Do you think field trips to places that are impactful to both statuses would help?
Tito:
I think field trips would be beneficial, it just depends on how they are done.
Julie:
I read an article where field trips were used to help students understand the different
religious communities that reside within Brooklyn. This was done through a college class on
religion. Something that the professor was adamant about was that learning about religions
should not become centered on generalizations. One way that the composition of religions in
Brooklyn helped with this, is the two forms of Islam on one street. The students visited one of
the mosques and the sermon was done in English instead of Urdu so that the students could
understand. The leader of the mosque sat down with them and explained a lot about Islam and
answered any questions that they had. One student that is a Muslim American, noted how she
had no idea the depth and diversity that existed between the different Muslim denominations.
“Place- based learning suggests the value of directing students into environments where they can
imagine diversity across a given religion, conceptually and spatially, not only among its major
divisions but also within its own tradition.“(Estey, 2014) They also visited a synagogue and
learned about the different sects of Judaism in Brooklyn. One of the students was surprised to
find that the more conservative Jewish sects were adapting to the times and modernizing a little.
It gave this student more respect for the religion and the people. This is why place based
learning is so powerful. It creates a space where you can ask questions and be immersed in an
experience. In Brooklyn there are so many religious communities with so many traditions and
the opportunity that these college students have to experience these different communities is
truly unique (Estey, 2014).
Caroline:
Julie I find it very interesting that you also found an article on community traditions and
how they impact the community. One article I found focused on a local festival that influenced
play in the classroom. Melissa Sherfinski and Audra Slocum explored the effects of the
Mountain State Forest Festival in Topton County West Virginia. The festival has been a tradition
since 1930 and is geared toward younger women. Ultimately the goal for younger women in the
community is to become the festival “Queen”. The festival queen is “Silvia”, the perfect
embodiment of a “Good” college-oriented woman. The study I found wanted to correlate the
gendered roles created by the festival and the community of play in the classroom between
young girls. The study focuses on two rural 3-4 year old classrooms in Topton County. The main
method used for this study was participant observation in the classroom through video
documentation.
As a woman I can understand the desire to create an “ideal woman” to encourage young
girls to go to college and be “good”. However, I have to argue the idea of what it means to be
“good” and also the single story of all successful women go to college. Although I understand
the intent of this festival was pure, the findings in the study resulted otherwise. The approach of
cultivating “good” girls in the community did not have the effect of equalizing gender roles.
Unfortunately, the inequality of gender roles could be seen in the classroom during teacher and
student led play. In one of the findings, during socio-dramatic play the dynamic switched to
teacher-led reenactment were the teacher reinforced stereotypical gender roles in the classroom.
During a re-enactment of a classic nursery rhyme, the teacher discouraged a female student from
having the role as the hero, with the explanation that the hero must me male. Furthermore, the
inequality extended further in the classroom on an economic stance. Not only were females still
inferior to males, students of a low socio-economic background were discouraged from success.
Due to the societal idea of a “Good” woman being college oriented, students of low
socio-economic background were discouraged due to the lack of potential funding to go towards
their college education. Therefore, instead of being encouraged to pursue other successful routes,
they felt inferior and doomed for failure.
In this study, it was very interesting to see how a community event had a much larger
impact on the school environment and future success of the students. Since this event took place
in an area with a greater poverty level, I wonder if it would have had the same effect in a much
more wealthy area. Perhaps an area were it would not be as common for families to be unable to
afford to send their child to college.
Tito:
It is interesting to see the effects of cultural traditions on a community and our reactions,
given that the community is very different from our own. I think there is a lot to learn from
communities vastly different from our own. In this article by Sunday Olawale Olaniran, he
describes traditional African education is intertwined community education. It is very important
for their culture to learn the traditions in their communities in order to display an appropriate
image of their community to the world. “Community education, as noted by Akande (2007), is
the type of education needed to ensure the self-confidence, self-respect and personal
independence as well as to safeguard human rights and achieve social equality in Africa”
(Olaniran, 2018). I see community education as an interesting aspect we don’t commonly see in
the United States. Taken from the article, if community education does all these great things for
the community, why can’t the same be applied to communities in the United States? My
question is if we incorporate community education in our classrooms, will there be a change of
more self-confidence, more self-respect, and more social equality among our students?
Julie:
The idea of community teaching like that is really interesting. I think that we might see a
difference in the way that the students interact with each other and with the teacher if strategies
like that were more of a focus. Being able to study different cultures and thinking about ways to
incorporate the things that they are doing is really important. In Bahrain, there was a study that
was done in a teacher preparatory college that focused on active learning and role playing in the
classroom as a teaching strategy. All of the participants seemed very excited about role-playing
as a teaching strategy and most said that they would use it in their classroom. The study was also
analyzing whether or not there was any gender divide in how the college students interacted with
each other. The students were not made aware of this and were assessed using journal entries
and questionnaires. Since Bahrain is a mostly Muslim country, there was definitely a religious
influence on some of the interactions between the members of the groups. This caused some of
the men especially to feel uncomfortable when the roles that women would play would cause
them to act outside of their traditional roles. In Muslim countries there is an expectation for
women to be more reserved and role playing by nature requires the participants to be expressive.
There was also a double standard when it came to the women playing male roles and the men
playing female roles. The men in the groups seemed to have more of an issue with the women
playing male roles, even saying that it was immoral. When it came to how the students
approached the roles that they were playing, “Women emphasized empathy, perspective-taking,
open-mindedness, and risk-taking; men emphasized interaction with others and knowledge
application outside of the classroom.” (Razzak, 2011) I think that this study is extremely
interesting because it subtly analyzed gender roles, active learning and role playing as a strategy,
teacher training, and interactions between people all in one study. The concept of community
and the expectations that it places on its members can have a huge impact on the way that people
interact within that community (Razzak, 2011).
Tito:
Julie this relates to an article I found, “Classroom Teachers’ Behaviors and Peers’
Acceptance of Students in Inclusive Classrooms”. In this article, behaviors is the main focus,
whether it be teachers’ behaviors towards students with disabilities or students’ behaviors
towards other students with disabilities. I think no matter the situation, one difference can change
the environment of a classroom. For example, from the article, “[...]teachers exhibited different
behaviors towards students within the classroom, namely their interactive behaviors towards the
students with normal development and students with intellectual disabilities” (Avcıoğlu 2016).
Regardless of whether the change in behavior positive or negative, one student has the power to
change the classroom environment. Imagine the impact a teacher can have among the students
with the change of environment or interaction with the community. Something big like that must
have a big impact, and hopefully it is positive for the students’ growth.
Meghann:
I think we have all found some really interesting articles that helps us better understand
our research. In conclusion, I found an article that turns the conversation back on us as
pre-service teachers. In “Reframing primary curriculum through concepts of place” Kerith power
and Monica Green study the effects of pre-service teachers being taught with a place-based
curriculum and given a place-based framework to use in their own classrooms. They began by
asking the pre-service teachers about their own experiences with place/community and how they
were impacted by these experiences. Then, they discussed how these experiences can be
implemented in their own classrooms. The study found that these students could successfully
plan “creative and embodied place-making experiences across an integrated curriculum in the
formal school setting.” (Power, K., Green, M., 2014). These pre-service teachers had a strong
foundation of place-based education and were able to implement this in the classroom. I thought
this article was very interesting for us to think about as a correlation to our research.
Methodology
Description of Data Generation:

We would like to state that the use of “we” and “us” refers to Tito, Caroline, Meghann,
and Julie, as well as other teachers participating in the study. Tito and Julie were in the same
school for their placements. Tito was in kindergarten and Julie was in 3rd grade. We will refer
to the area they collected data from as Twinkle Town. Caroline was in 2nd grade at Stardust
Elementary, and Meghann was in 1st grade at Sunnyside Elementary. We investigated the use of
involvement of community and non-traditional classrooms, as well as the practices used by the
teachers. Each group member conducted the same study, but in four different elementary school
classrooms. The four of us went to schools twice a week through the education program at our
university. In addition to the work we did for this inquiry, we also assisted our cooperating
teachers, creating and leading lessons, and observing the classes. We gathered our own data
through three methods, and then corresponded and analyzed the data as a whole. The three
methods we chose to use for our study were: Observation, bracketing interviews, and artifact
analysis.
Observation:
Our group used observations as a form of data collection. Specifically, naturalistic

observations. We examined the physical space and the objects, actors, and actions within the
physical space. Each group member spent 30 minutes each day taking notes on these four aspects
of the environment and how they interact with one another. As observers, we took the role of
observer as participant, “the researcher’s observer activities are known to the group;
participation in the group is definitely secondary to the role of information gatherer” (Merriam,
2009). The remainder of our time in the school was focused on participation in the classroom,
these 30 minutes were focused on observing the physical spaces, objects, actors, and actions.
Our observations were formally documented using the observation template we created in
appendix C.
Interviews:
Our second method of data generation was bracketing interviews. Bracketing interviews
take place in multiple settings. Each member of the group responded to three predetermined
questions in a pre and post study session. From this method we gained a better understanding of
our own personal perspective on classroom community. Having a pre and post interview session
allowed us to examine our own personal growth throughout the study. We decided to use a
semi-structured interview process. This form of interviewing allows a more open-ended
response. In semi-structured interviews, “the interview is guided by a list of questions or issues
to be explored, and neither the exact wording or order of the questions is determined ahead of
time. This format allows the researcher to respond to the situation at hand, to the emerging
worldview of the respondent, and to new ideas on the topic” (Merriam, 91). The structured
portion of our interviewing process consists of the three predetermined questions an outside
facilitator asked. The facilitator was instructed to ask the questions in any order and to respond
with follow up questions. Follow up questions from an outside facilitator gave us a more holistic
outcome. The same facilitator was used in both the pre and post session to keep a consistent
dialogue. The three questions we opted to use were; 1)“What has been the most successful
community you have ever been apart of?”, 2) “What does a learning environment need in order
for learning to take place?”, 3) “What role does community have in education?”.
Artifact Analysis:
Our last method of data analysis was having the students prepare and make a small
project about their community. We presented the question, “What is your community?” with an
example of how the classrooms that we are in are communities. We then asked them to make
something to present that answers the question. It could of been a drawing, a poem, a song, a
painting, anything they chose to present the information. We chose this question specifically
because it is very open ended, “original knowledge occurs when ideas are placed in new
relationships to one another, a process that typically requires crossing the boundaries of
previously separated domains, such as those constructed between art and science” (Knowles and
Cole, 2008). By allowing students to show artistic expression, we opened up several avenues for
them to explore. We did not want to shape the student’s responses towards any specific train of
thought. We wanted it to be open for interpretation. We then analyzed the students’ work and
from this, we gained an insight of not only the students interests and their communities, but we
also learned more about the student and strengthened our relationship with them.
Subjectivity Statements:
Tito:
This study, for me, was for the purpose of bringing fun and interesting learning back into
schools. I am excited and curious of ways to bring excitement into my classroom in the age we
live in. I wanted to know the possibilities I can do in my classroom to teach my students not just
standard academics, but rather how to live and interact with the world we live in.
I am from a small town in New Jersey. Surrounding my towns were big cities such as
Trenton, Philadelphia, and New York. The community in my towns were not strong, because
since there were better cities close to us, everyone just cared about those communities. By this I
mean no one in my town really cared about the town. In school, we didn’t take local field trips
anywhere, we didn’t learn about our town, and we never interacted with the people in our town.
There was no attempt by my school to incorporate our town, or the people in our town, in any
way. Even outside of school, people only interacted with the cities around my town. I heard
things like, “I’m going to New York with my family.” or “I’m apart of a club in Trenton.” all the
time No one did anything in my town. They just cared about the surrounding cities.
I was in public school through both trowns and they were both pretty dull experiences. I
only remember two times where learning was not the standard, “sit in a classroom and learn”
environment and that was in 2nd grade to a field trip to the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, and
in 11th grade to a field trip to the Natural History Museum in New York. Other than those
experiences, I don’t remember a specific event where I learned anything about the community I
was in or about life itself. My public school experience was very bland by coming to school and
not doing anything interesting until school ended.
Much like my school experience, my family is very standard. I have my mom and dad,
and one older sister. Me and my sister got along, but in no way were we at the level, or age
group, where our friend groups overlapped. We are a white, middle-class family that were raised
Catholic. Nothing out of the ordinary with few ties to our small communities. I found my own
communities among my friend group. In my family and this friend group, I was, for lack of
better terms, the “weird” one. When I say “weird”, I mostly mean I like to have fun, be goofy,
make people laugh, and do it without judgement from my peers. Because of my personality, I
constantly strived to make my environment at school as upbeat as I wanted my life. Instead of
my teachers changing up the classroom to make it more fun and interesting, I was unfortunately
labeled as a troublemaker and constantly got in trouble for talking too much, being out of my
seat, etc. I believe using humor in a classroom to a teachers’ advantage can be more rewarding
than disciplining it. “Despite the positive results that can be obtained when humor and fun are
used in teaching, many educators still regard humor as inappropriate in the classroom”
(Minchew, S. & Hopper, P 2008 p.232). Now becoming a teacher, I crave to make the
classroom I was deprived of as a student. I want to know the best and most effective strategies to
make my classroom as fun, relaxing, and different as it can be.
Julie:
The identities that make up who I am and the experiences that I have had have definitely
shaped how I view teaching and also the specific research that we did for this study. My interest
in this topic came from my desire to create a classroom environment that is open, loving, and
accepting of all the identities of the people in my classroom and in the community. I grew up as
an only child in a pretty stable suburban household with my Mom and Dad. My Dad was in the
Navy for the majority of my childhood so I have a lot of experience with how the military affects
families and the community that surrounds those families. While I have conflicting feelings
about the military now, for a big part of my life, it was a very positive and supportive community
for my family, especially during the times that my Dad would be deployed.
I also have found support in the LGBTQ+ community once coming to college. They
have truly given me the courage and space to be the person that I have wanted to be for a long
time. This experience has influenced my perception of spaces and communities. Before college
I would said that community is the people or places in a specific area. However, the LGBT
community consists of people that I have never and probably will never meet, all over the world.
I have learned that community can also mean a large group of people that find each other
because of a common identity, belief, situation, or discrimination. Because of my involvement
in LGBTQ+ spaces, I am very passionate about the acceptance of different gender identities and
sexualities. I was particularly interested in how to bring some of that into the classrooms in an
appropriate way. I think that communities and the people that you surround yourself with are
highly influential to the things that you are passionate about.
Caroline:
A sense of home and place of belonging have shaped the person I am today. I am from a
rural town in Howard County Maryland. I have lived in the same house since I was born and
have gone to the same schools, my dad and grandmother went to. I have a strong connection with
my home and the community around me. I am very fortunate to live in a wealthy area of
Maryland with a nurturing family and support system. However, I am aware that not everyone is
as fortunate as I am, which has influenced my teaching style. I hope to create a nurturing and
warm classroom community so all students can find a sense of belonging in the classroom.
The county I am from is very diverse and covers a large area. Although my particular
high school was predominantly white in a rural area, other high schools in the district are based
in a more urban setting with a very diverse population. Although we are under the same school
district, their learning environment was much different than my own. I have gained a passion for
our study due to my own personal experiences of how place affects the classroom. My own
personal experience with moving to college has changed my view point of the role of community
in the classroom. Coming to James Madison University was a big change for me. Harrisonburg is
much more urban than my hometown. I faced new challenges in Harrisonburg that I never faced
at home. Furthermore, attending a liberal college has given me a broad education foundation.
Having an interdisciplinary education allowed me to study a diverse group of subjects. My
general education courses extended from political science to communications and psychology. I
was given insight into a broad spectrum of learning, and interacted with professors from all
backgrounds. Each professor's teaching style gave insight to what they believe in and think is
important in education. I believe by being introduced to differing viewpoints and backgrounds, I
have become more empathetic and more understanding of what others think and believe in.
Furthermore, throughout college I have gone on three study abroad trips. I spent one
month in Italy, three months in England, and one month in Costa Rica. Each of these experiences
introduced me to cultures much different than my own. I was able to see how different people
live their everyday life. Since I was in each of these places for an extended amount of time, I was
able to immerse myself in the community and become aware of how the new place affected me
and the people around me. Understanding the community you are in helps you relate more to the
people involved. Place-based education gives you the opportunity to use the local community
and environment as a starting point for learning. Place-based education emphasizes “hands-on,
real-world learning experiences, this approach to education increases academic achievement,
helps students develop stronger ties to their community, enhances students’ appreciation for the
natural world, and creates a heightened commitment to serving as active, contributing citizens”
(Smith and Sobel, 2010). From my own experiences of place- based education in other countries,
I wanted to further study the effect of place and community in elementary school settings in the
Harrisonburg area.
Meghann:
The communities surrounding me have had a huge role in shaping the person I am today.
I am from a small town in southside Virginia and this community has been a huge part of my life
thus far. My dad has lived around the same area since he was born and my mom is a teacher, so
they both have strong connections to our community. Because of this, I have always had
relationships with the people and places in my community. I also grew up as a middle child of 3,
so both my older and younger siblings have added to my connections with the community. In
addition to my family connections, I did have some school experiences that helped establish my
sense of place and community.
I remember few direct experiences with place and community through school, but the
small town atmosphere made school seem like a part of the community; everyone knows
everyone so it didn’t feel like school was separate from the community. This atmosphere
changed drastically when I started school at JMU.
With the huge increase in the amount of people and diversity I was being exposed to, I
had to make a lot of adjustments to my lifestyle. Eventually, JMU began to feel smaller as I
found my groups of friends and became involved with the community through various
clubs/groups. After graduating with my bachelors degree, I am now working on my Masters,
where I began in Costa Rica.
While in Costa Rica, I noticed many differences between American Schools and Costa
Rican schools. Specifically, I noticed differences in the ways students interact with one another
and in the ways teachers interact with their students. I started to reflect on my personal
experiences relating to this topic, and if community and place can have a role in shaping these
interactions. Personally, I think community and place can change interactions with students; for
example, my mom teaches in a very rural area and knows most of her students’ parents even
before “Meet Your Teacher Day”, and I think her interactions with her students are different than
others because of this. I don’t hear of these same connections happening as frequently in larger
cities, therefore, making the teachers interact with their students differently. This is definitely
something I wanted to study more and I was excited to have the opportunity to do so through this
project.
Ethics Statement:
When conducting research it is imperative to be consciously aware of how one's actions
may affect another. We had to consider our ethical obligations to all involved. This not only
included those who we studied, but also our fellow group members. We had to hold each other
accountable in order to ensure we were being ethical. In order to do this we set guidelines. In our
study we used code names for all personnel involved. We also changed the school name, and
adjusted school demographics as needed to protect the identities of those involved.
In the learning environment it was crucial that we were being ethical towards the students
and teachers involved. Our study did not interfere with the normal school day. As we observed
the classroom, we probed the students or teachers on the current situation to gain a greater
understanding. Observation was key in our research to learn more about the current applications
of community and non-traditional classrooms, “observation makes it possible to record behavior
as it is happening” (Merriam, S. B., 2009).
Furthermore, with our individual observations, we made sure to meet as a group so we
could pull deeper meanings and share the observations we saw. We made sure to listen to every
answer within our group and keep an open mind, not let personal feelings impact the results we
found.
Data Transformation:
Before beginning our data transformation we coded our literature review. When reading
through the literature review we were looking for similarities and recoccurace of codes. After
coding our literature review we found several codes that started to emerge as themes in our
literature review. We called these our a priori codes. These codes were: parental involvement,
community partnership, place-based learning, diverse curriculum, and pre- service training.
After coding our literature review we observed our new data as a whole. We transferred
our individual data collections into one document. From this, we read through everyone's data
together and highlighted key observations we believed contributed to the question we are
studying, “How can the local community change how I interact with students?”. Next, we read
through our individual data parts and looked for new codes in the data. We kept track of how
often they appeared, and determined the codes that appeared the most as our emergent codes.
Next, we compared our emergent codes to our a priori codes. We began the process of theming
our date and looking for overarching themes in the whole of our data collection. After observing
the data as a whole, we settled on three major themes: influence, diversity, and community
involvement. These themes combined codes we saw in both the literature review and our data
collections.
Findings:
After analyzing our data as a whole, we found three major themes. As a group we coded
our data and classified our findings under the headings, influence, diversity, and community
involvement. Each heading has corresponding codes that encompass the overarching theme. In
the following analysis we will go into more detail of what each theme represents. For the
purpose of confidentiality, towns that Julie and Tito took observations in are rural/urban towns in
Virginia and will be referenced as Twinkle Town. Caroline was in a rural setting of Virginia and
will reference her school as Stardust elementary. Meghann was also in a rural setting of Virginia
and will reference her school as Sunnyside Elementary.
Influence
The first theme we will discuss is influence. The codes of this theme included influence
of parents, teachers, peers, and student culture. All of these observations included outside factors
or people that were brought into the classroom and had an effect on the school day. The teacher
had a major influence on the community of the classroom. The teachers in our practicum
placements greeted students every morning and inquired most mornings about how their day was
before. Furthermore, we noticed the inclusion of parent influence in the classroom through
watchdog dad programs and parent volunteers. The teachers in our practicum placement
attempted to connect with the students through the use of student and their siblings names in
word story problems, and checking in with old students in the hallway. These minute, everyday
occurrence led to an overarching pattern of how people and the environment can influence the
school
One of the biggest examples of how people can influence the school day came from a
lack of people usually present in the classroom community in Tito’s classroom. On this day, the
regular classroom teacher was absent because they were sick. Also on this day, five students who
had been apart of the class since the beginning of school were no longer in the class. The
kindergarten classrooms were overcrowded, so they brought in a new kindergarten teacher to
form a new kindergarten class. Therefore, students from each previously existing kindergarten
class were taken out to form the new class. The absence of the teacher and the five students
changed the atmosphere and mood of the entire class throughout the day. Some students were
more rowdy because the regular teacher was not there. Students who were friends with the five
students that left were sad because they missed their friends. Even ourselves as the observers felt
like something was missing in the classroom. This change in the community affected everyone in
the community on this day negatively.
Furthermore, one morning when Meghann arrived at her school, her cooperating teacher
was emailing the principal about the lunch choice for the next day. She has a student who is
Muslim in their class and the lunch choice was peanut butter and jelly or a ham and cheese
sandwitch. Since the Muslim student could not have pork or gelatin, her CT showed concerned
and voice these concerns to the principal. While Meghann was not at school the next day, she did
hear that the lunch choice was changed. This is an example of how one student’s culture can
influence the rest of the school.
Diversity
The next topic that we saw as a common theme was diversity. This included
observations about curriculum, student culture, and the connections that the students and teachers
were making to their personal lives, things that they knew, and texts. Students and teachers
bring a lot of different experiences and perspectives into the classroom. One way that we
observed teachers supporting this, is to have a diverse curriculum and make sure that people feel
like they can share their thoughts and connections as often as possible. Some ways that we
noticed diversity in our schools was through teachers creating opportunities for students to share,
units that introduce different cultures and ways of life, and teachers bringing up specific topics
that they know are important to their student’s lives. For example, in Meghann's practicum
placement, her CT bought books in Spanish at the book fair to integrate Spanish into the
curriculum for ELLs in the class. Other examples included connections to civil rights, election
day, and “culture quilts” (which is an assignment where students shared what their culture is
through writing and drawings). We also brought diversity into our classroom through our
community assignments we did for the artifact analysis. We found that students had a lot to say
about their communities and the things that surround them.
One major example of how the diversity of the students shaped the learning curriculum
was the participation in a global read-aloud. Two of our practicum placements, Twinkle Town
and Stardust Elementary, participated in the global read-aloud. Teachers chose a book from a
given list and read it to their class. The class could choose to connect to other classrooms around
the world reading the same book. This could have been through an online forum, pen-pals,
skype, etc. Julie and Caroline's practicum placements both chose the book, Stella Diaz has
Something to Say. Both placements chose the book because of the strong ties to spanish cultures.
The main character in the book, Stella, is from Mexico and is bilingual. Both teachers have used
the book to make connections with the english learners in their class. One teacher had her
spanish english learners come up and read the spanish words aloud to the class and translate
when needed. The other teacher had students make a connection chart about how the character in
the book speaks two languages and so do some of the children in their class. The teacher
described the students as being lucky and resilient. They are able to communicate in unique ways
and overcome learning to speak a language at school that may of been different from what they
had been speaking their whole life.
In addition to the connection to student culture, the book led students to make
connections about their own lives. During the story we learned that Stella's parents are divorced.
When this came up, one child in Caroline’s placement raised their hands and asked to make a
connection. Her connection was that she also had parents who are divorced. The teacher
responded by saying “I am sure there a lot of students in our class who have divorced parents,
my parents are divorced and I divorced my husband”. The student and the teachers connection
opened a conversation where more students joined in and shared this connection as well.
Connections were also made during reading by one student in Julie’s placement that
speaks spanish at home. He helped the teacher with pronunciations of words and their meanings
when he could. Through this book, the teacher talked about ELL students and why it is so
important to meet people where they are. When she talked about how it’s important to try to
learn other languages, this student also offered to teach the teacher some spanish. This student
and teacher created a connection around spanish where their roles were flipped and the student
became the teacher.
Another way we saw connections from the class to the diverse curriculum was in Tito’s
practicum placement in Twinkle Town. This observation follows an interesting aspect of
Twinkle Town’s culture. A student named Jolene had a birthday coming up. Jolene’s mom
wanted the regular classroom teacher to put birthday invitations into take-home folders to invite
the other students in the class to Jolene’s birthday party. The teacher said, “Sure, but I will tell
you, most families won’t come, let alone RVSP.” Later, we asked her why the parents would not
want their kids to go to the birthday party. She said, “Traditionally in Twinkle Town, students
don’t go to their classmates’ birthday parties. Families just stick to themselves. That’s the
norm.” And through parents returning the invitations, we know that no students went to Joan’s
birthday party.
Lastly, we saw a great connection to diversity through our artifact analysis project.
Students responded to the prompt: What is your community? Caroline, Tito, and Meghann had
students responded by drawing or writing while Julie had students create heart maps. Students
who responded by drawing mostly drew pictures of their home. Students demonstrated a strong
correlation of their home with community.
Students who participated in the heart map activity began with a survey that they took
home. They answered questions about the things that they like to do, organizations they are in,
things that make them happy, the people that they spend time with, and the traditions they have.
They were able to represent their answers with drawings, sentences, or pictures of their families
and communities. After they shared in class, they created a heart map with all of the things that
make them who they are. Some of the common communities that the students were a part of
were sports teams, church and Boys and Girls Club. A lot of the students mentioned their family
and the things that they like to do with them. Most of the traditions revolve around the holidays
and things that they do every year. Students seemed to enjoy filling in all of the pieces of their
heart and seeing all of the support that they have around them.
Community Involvement
The last theme we observed in our data is community involvement. We observed
community involvement in the form of both community education and community partnerships.
Overall, we had an extensive amount of observations in this category involving fundraiser days
benefiting local charities (hat days, jean days), discussions of events happening within the
community (election day, leaves changing), field trips, and events hosted by the school to bring
the community in (Harvest Fest, Reading Nights, Chick-Fil-A fundraisers). These were the ways
we saw the involvement of the community on a daily basis. In addition, we had some
observations that were more specific and unique to the schools.
In Meghann’s placement at Sunnyside, the first graders all got to participate in a
“Pumpkin Day” on Halloween. One of the first grade teachers has a neighbor who grows
pumpkins, brings them to school, and lets the students pay $1 to pick a pumpkin. The teachers
put the pumpkins outside on a grassy area and the students got to go out and pick pumpkins as if
it were a pumpkin patch.
Also at the Sunnyside placement, a local organization that studies animals visited the
school and put on a display with activities for all grades. The first graders, specifically, got to
participate in a sorting activity where they had to sort the animal skins and skeletons by the
different features they had.
In the kindergarten placement in Twinkle Town, Tito observed multiple lessons about the
past, present, and future, specifically past, present, and future of Twinkle Town. The first lesson
was centered around a video going over vocabulary when talking about the past. After the video,
the teacher expressed enthusiasm and excitement over learning about the past of Twinkle Town,
and that was met with bored faces and yawns from the students. For another lesson, the teacher
showed a slideshow of pictures showing places and buildings in Twinkle Town from the past and
what it looks like now. The students showed great interest and excitement from looking at
buildings in Twinkle Town from the past they recognized. One example came when a building
was shown and a student exclaimed, “That’s where Benny’s, (a pizza place), is!” The last
observed lesson from this unit was when the mayor of Twinkle Town came to talk and read to
the students. One quote from the mayor was, “Being the mayor is not the job that pays the bills.
I work for the Virginia Department of Transportation. Mayor is like a glorified volunteer
position.” Students asked random, curious questions to the mayor like, “What color is your
house?” or “What is your dog’s name?” One student named Jeremiah asked, “What’s your
favorite place in Twinkle Town?” He responded with the schools and a new Mexican restaurant
that just opened.
Discussion:
After we received all of our observations and artifact pieces we analyzed them as a
whole. We looked for trends similar and different from the prior research we conducted in our
literature review. We began this process by coding our literature review. The overarching themes
we found were: parental involvement, community partnership, place-based learning, diverse
curriculum, and pre- service training. These overarching themes became our a priori codes. After
analyzing the literature review, we looked at our data as a whole, searching for data that
corresponded with our a priori codes, and other new themes.
What we found was data very similar to the codes from our literature review. We found
data that correlated with our research on parental involvement,community partnership, and a
diverse curriculum. After coding our observations and looking back at the literature review, we
decided to simplify our most common codes into three themes: influence, diversity, community
involvement. What follows is a more in depth look into our findings in the context of each
theme.
Influence
From our findings, we saw a positive impact on students from influence from parents,
teachers, and other students. We saw this through the examples in our observations. Whether it
was lack of a significant figure, like a teacher, or influence from a student’s culture, each had an
effect on the students environment and learning process.
Overall, we attributed this to the relationships that are built between students and the
people around them. This supported the research collected from Martin and Martin with their
study on the influence of parental and community involvement in a struggling school system.
One of the main focuses was “monthly meetings with school personnel and community members
to discuss issues and further educate themselves in the development of character education in
their daily classroom and curriculum activities as well as their lives” (Martin & Martin, 2007).
From these monthly meetings, parents took a greater interest in their students schooling which
overall led to greater student success. In our study we noticed through the push of parent
volunteers, watch dog programs, and the overall presence of parental involvement students were
held accountable for their learning and had similar positive experiences.
These relationships and connections made with students influences how the students
behave and learn in schools. Through general observations we saw that positive influences on
students create a supportive and authentic classroom community. This statement is supported by
Reid & McCallum, in which they state, “An authentic classroom community, ‘enriches and
expands classroom learning, making it more relevant and meaningful to students as they engage
with local and familiar issues, contexts and challenges’” (Reid & McCallum, 2014 ). When our
students have positive influences, they create this authentic classroom community in which
teachers can control their classroom and incorporate relevant content for the students. We, in
turn, affect our own practices by enforcing a positive classroom community by creating and
maintaining healthy relationships. There is a lot of focus on the bonds between teachers and
students, but we also need to foster the relationships between students and parents, the parents
and us, and relationships formed among students.
Diversity
Diversity was a strong theme we noticed through out our observations. Our classrooms
actively approached diversity as a regular occurrence in the classroom. We noticed this through
an integration of student culture into the curriculum and the teachers awareness of family
dynamics in the class. In the study conducted by Meichtry and Smith the teachers used the local
community to guide how they instructed their curriculum and teach students about their real life
around them. The programs at this school had a “particularly strong impact on teachers’
confidence to use community resources in teaching” (Meichtry & Smith, 2007). We noticed a
similar trend in the teaching practices at our school. The teachers actively sought out information
on their students' cultures and lives to guide their lessons.
The surrounding area has a large population of Spanish cultures. Julie and Caroline’s
teachers took advantage of this knowledge and incorporated a read aloud that would relate to
these students in the classroom. The teachers embraced this diversity and used it as an
opportunity to expand their classroom community and make connections with these students. In
both of these classroom settings we noticed the positive impact it had on these groups of
children. One child in Caroline’s class whose is often shy and uninvolved, became a lead
member in discussions. She took ownership in her learning because of the choices her teacher
made to incorporate topics that were relevant to her life.
The cultural norms of the areas that surround a school can also negatively impact the
relationships that students build with each other. We observed this in Tito’s class when a student
was having a birthday party and no one from her class showed up. This was a reflection of the
diversity of family dynamics in the area and a specific norm of students not going to birthday
parties that we had never experienced. The teacher was aware of this and informed Jolene’s
parent, even though it would cause dissatisfaction from the parent. While this is a seemingly
negative norm, this aspect is still part of the culture of Twinkle Town that the teacher had to
accept. This example doesn’t show the influence of this event on teacher practices, but we can
gather that the teacher has to adapt and accept the diversity and culture present in the community
the students are apart of. The diversity in a community is an integral part of student’s morals,
upbringing, and behaviors that teachers must accept in their classroom and practices.
Community involvement
From our findings, we noticed that every school had at least one aspect of community
involvement. We saw this through teachers and schools actively trying to bring local community
into the classroom, after school clubs, etc. Although we saw many events and opportunities from
schools and teachers to involve the community, we had mixed reactions from students about the
community. Some observations include students being excited with a new face from the
community being in the classroom and educating them on what they do. But other observations
included student confusion/boredom when talking about community. A great example of this is
when the mayor of Twinkle Town came to talk to one of our kindergarten classrooms. The
students were more interested in what dog he had rather than the duties of being mayor.
Through our observations, we noticed a trend with the schools having consistent
partnerships with the outside community. This contradicts the study we found from Casto,
“Overall, the study found that while not many partnerships exist, each respondent was able to
speak about at least one connection the school has with the community (Casto, 2017).” In this
study, the respondents were not able to speak about specific partnerships that exist, but still felt a
connection between the school and community. We noticed a similar positive effect that
although the study had few partnerships, the ones they had left a lasting impression on the
students. In our study, schools emphasized the importance of this community relationship and
thus increased partnerships.
We saw many community partnerships within our schools and, as teachers, we
understand how important this involvement is and how beneficial it can be for students. In our
literature review, Estey discussed a study where students from a New York college were learning
about religion and the teacher knew of a place in their community that was an intersection of
different cultures influenced by religion. In the study, the teacher took the students to this place
to provide more context for the content they were learning. Estey indicated that,“Place- based
learning suggests the value of directing students into environments where they can imagine
diversity across a given religion, conceptually and spatially, not only among its major divisions
but also within its own tradition.” Teachers understand, support, and follow this way of thinking
in classrooms, as we’ve observed. But we also see students do not understand the purpose of this
statement. By seeing the positive impact community involvement has on the classroom, teachers
are actively trying to integrate the community in their content as much as possible, even though
students don’t see the reason teachers do.
Conclusion
After reflecting on the whole of our study we realized that an authentic community is
created when intertwined with the entirety of the learning environment. Almost all of our
observations were small things that were intentionally integrated into the daily pace of the
classroom. As future educators we have realized it is pivotal to understand and connect with the
community around you. This involves the members within the community, the place, and the
diversity it brings to the classroom.
Throughout this study, we have seen numerous attempts, events, and collaborations from
schools/teachers with the community. From this we can conclude each school system has the
ability to worth with the many resources available in a given community. As teachers, we have
to be aware of all the different community resources available, wherever we teach. Using these
community resources will not only connect students to the community, but make learning
experiences more powerful for our students.
Connecting with students and understanding the lives they lead outside of the classroom
is crucial to creating a curriculum that reaches all of our students. By making the effort to learn
about our students and their families, we will be able to better engage our students and help them
to take ownership of their learning. Students will bring their life experiences and perspectives
into the classroom and it is our responsibility to make sure that they are being heard and
validated. Bringing up specific topics or structuring a unit around a culture or type of life
experience is one way that we could do this. This will also create a basis of trust and community
that will support the student and help them to know they are in a safe space.
The idea of structuring a unit around a culture or life experience leads us into our
takeaway of being intentional when we plan for learning experiences. Whether it is the culture of
a student within our class, or a general diverse curriculum, we must be intentional when we plan
these experiences so they will be more meaningful for our students. By this, we mean knowing a
learning goal for our students and taking the time to really think about how we can best get them
there. In addition to planning and being intentional, we also learned how important it is to use the
unplanned moments to teach; if a seemingly random topic is brought up and sparks interest
within the students, using these as teachable moments can be really powerful and memorable for
our students. By having a balance of intentionality and unplanned curriculum, we can create a
healthy learning environment for our students in the future.
Over the course of this study, we have observed and experienced many ways the
community affects teaching practices. We can see our overall growth by the way our bracketing
interview answers changed. While our most successful community hasn’t changed, our thoughts
and ideas about community has. We are better able to see and explain how and why
relationships and connections are so important in a community. Whether the relationships are
student-parent, or student-teacher, or even student-student, each relationship has an impact on
how the student behaves, and therefore has an impact on the classroom community, which
affects our teaching practices. Opinions we had that changed over the course of this study
include the importance of classroom management, the role community has on education, and
how education can be brought into the community. Now, we see less of an impact of classroom
management affecting community because we understand classroom management stems from
the connections and relationships a teacher has with their students. Also, we now view education
and community being closely linked and almost the same, rather than two different topics. By
this we mean community isn’t just the surrounding town of a school. There are many layers of
community. There is the town, but also the school community, and the classroom community.
Through that lense, community has everything to do with education and vice versa. The school
community’s role is to educate students to prepare them for the adult world. Once they’re in the
adult world, they take the things teachers taught them to help the community. From this
realization, we finally concluded you can’t have education without community. From the many
factors that make a community to a classroom being a community in of itself, community will
and always impact teaching practices because teachers teach in and to the community.
Appendix:
A) Cooperating Teacher Letter:
September 9th, 2019
Dear Cooperating Teacher,
As a graduate student in your classroom for fall semester, I will be completing a required project
that is part of the elementary teacher education program at James Madison University. The
project entails a study that is intended to reflect on my own teaching practices. The study will not
interfere with the normal activities of a classroom. My question of my study explores the impact
of the surrounding community on my own teaching practices.
During the study I plan to use the following methods to generate data:
• Observation
• Artifact Analysis
Each practicum I will observe as a participant in 30 minute intervals. During this observation, I
will be journaling what I see. My observation will not interfere with the work of the students.For
the artifact analysis, I will be gaining insight on how students produce work and think about
prompts that are given to them within the context of a normal lesson. The purpose of studying
their responses is to understand how their community affects my practice.
To maintain confidentiality in all data collection, only code names will be used in transcripts as
well as the final paper and presentation. Any data collected that already includes names will be
redacted to exclude them. My professor, my research partners, and I are the only people who will
view the data from the study and anything I write in my final paper will be anonymous. Once the
project has been completed any data will be destroyed. My project will be shared with my
professors and other teacher candidates.
I am asking for your cooperation to complete this assignment during the course of the Fall 2019
semester. If you have any questions, you may contact me at [insert Email]. My JMU instructor is
Dr. Aaron Bodle ([email protected]).
Thank you,
Caroline Browning, Anthony Tito, Meghann Bugg, Julie Iacovetto
B) Parent/Guardian Letter
September 11th, 2019
Dear Parent or Guardian,
As a graduate student in your child's classroom this fall (September-December), I will be

completing a required project that is part of the elementary teacher education program at James
Madison University. The project entails a teacher self-study that is intended to reflect on my own
teaching practices. My self-study will not interfere with the normal activities of the classroom.
The question of my self-study explores the impact of the surrounding community on my own
teaching practices.
While I am in your child's classroom, I will be observing and journaling about the learning
community in the classroom. My observations will not interfere with the work of the students. I
will also be collecting a work sample of your students' work based on a prompt about
community. The sample will allow me to gain insight on how students produce work and think
about the community prompt.
To maintain confidentiality in my self-study, only code names will be used in the completion of
my final project. Any work samples collected that already includes names will be redacted to
exclude them. My professor, my research partners, and I are the only people who will view the
observations from the study and anything I write in my final paper will be anonymous. Once the
project has been completed any observations and work samples will be destroyed. My project
will be shared with my professors and other teacher candidates.
If you have any questions, you may contact me while I am at blank Elementary school or my
JMU instructor Dr. Aaron Bodle ([email protected]).
Thank you,
Caroline Browning, Anthony Tito, Meghann Bugg, Julie Iacovetto
CT Name/Grade Level/School
C) Observation Journal Template:
Date Observation Code

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Casto, H.G. (2016). “Just one more thing I have to do”: School-community partnerships.
School Community Journal, 26( 1), 139-162.
Estey, K. (2014). The “Place” of Place-Based Pedagogy in Teaching Religion:

Brooklyn and Its Religions. Teaching Theology & Religion,17(2), 122-137.
Green, M., Power, K. (2014). Reframing primary curriculum through concepts of

place. Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education, 42(2), 105-118.
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Classroom Community

Dialogic Narrative Discussing the Importance of our Topic:

exposure to different communities and life experiences is so important to education. Knowledge

Description of Data Generation:

Our group used observations as a form of data collection. Specifically, naturalistic

September 9th, 2019

Dear Cooperating Teacher,

​September 11th, 2019

Dear Parent or Guardian,

As a graduate student in your child's classroom this fall (September-December), I will be

C) Observation Journal Template:

Date Observation Code

Avcıoğlu, H. (2016). Classroom Teachers’ Behaviors and Peers’ Acceptance of Students in

Estey, K. (2014). The “Place” of Place-Based Pedagogy in Teaching Religion:

Green, M., Power, K. (2014). Reframing primary curriculum through concepts of

Martin, D., & Martin, M. (2007).

Meichtry, Y., & Smith, J. (2007). The Impact of a Place-Based Professional

Merriam, S. B. (2009) Being a Careful Observer. ​Qualitative research: A guide to design

Razzak, N. A. (2011). Role-Playing in the Classroom.

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September 11th, 2019

Merriam, S. B. (2009) Being a Careful Observer. Qualitative research: A guide to design