Focus Groups, Ethnography and Contextual Inquiry

This section details my two contracts as an ethnographer with the PAST Foundation.

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1. FACILITATING FOCUS GROUPS OF SCHOOL ADMINISTRATORS

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PROJECT OVERVIEW:

COVID-19 forced most schools to go remote, but many students from lower income brackets were left at a disadvantage due to either lack of stable internet access, personal computers, or other resources. This leads to unequal access to education. The project explored accessibility issues and how students from lower income brackets in different environments (urban vs rural) may be negatively affected in different ways.

 

I facilitated these focus groups to understand the issues students and teachers faced, before submitting final reports to the Ohio Department of Education. 

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METHODS

Focus groups consisted of pre-selected school administrators from different rural and urban school districts in Ohio. Each school district had their own session. I facilitated these roughly 45-minute sessions, with an intern helping to transcribe the meetings. After the session, I worked with the interns to create final reports and offer suggestions to the Ohio Department of Education to promote equal access to education.

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KEY FINDINGS:

• Students in socioeconomically disadvantage rural and urban areas were negatively affected by the switch to remote learning, but in different ways

• Urban districts suffered from lack of access to personal computers and also lost access to free lunches they would have otherwise had at school

• Rural areas suffered more from connectivity issues

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INSIGHTS, LEARNING, AND IMPLEMENTATION

• The Department of Education can create more equitable education by the use of hotspots and funding for electronics

• Home issues (access to food and parental issues) remain a problem for some students and require deeper analysis and assistance

• While both report increased difficulty in learning from remote education, some rural school districts appreciated e-learning to avoid long commutes, but struggle with connectivity. This demonstrates the need for distinct approaches to address the same issue amongst two different communities

 

 

2. CONTEXTUAL INQUIRY AND ETHNOGRAPHY: DIGITAL FABRICATION IN CLASSROOMS

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PROJECT OVERVIEW AND GOAL:

The project aimed to assess how digital fabrication-based technologies are used in STEM classrooms. Stakeholders like Chevron wanted to incorporate these technologies into high school curricula to stimulate interest in STEM fields.

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My job was to observe daily lessons using these technologies, taking note of how students interacted with the technologies themselves and with other students and teachers. Afterwards, I took my transcripts and filed final reports to stakeholders. The pictures below are from observational notes and transcripts.

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METHODS

The PAST Foundation and partners identified high schools taking part in the project. Once identified, I sat in for morning and afternoon sessions for an entire week straight at one school. In total, I observed three schools, some of which I observed for multiple weeks over a 6 month period. I used templates for observations and did not talk to students or teachers during the sessions, but could ask them questions afterwards. 

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KEY FINDINGS

• Gender and age played a big part in students' engagement with certain technologies 

• Even in group projects, students interacted mostly with their own genders and age

• The specific school project plays a significant role in whether the students were enthusiastic about using the technology

• Classroom dynamics were very different from traditional classes; much more mobile and interactive

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INSIGHTS, LEARNINGS, AND IMPLEMENTATION

• Classrooms have to be suited to the mobile nature of using different digital fabrication technologies

• Teachers will need to prepare projects that engages both male and female students

• Digital Fabrication programs can be an innovative way to provide alternative education and increase interest in STEM fields