CUSP blogging

This blog is connected to blogs of other students, mostly undergrads, who also participate in CUSP program. I was helping Richard Kiely to set up this online communication for the purpose of better communication among students during this summer, especially for learning from each others about their experiences and ideas about community service. However, over time this idea have transformed to having blogs mainly from a communication tool to a reflection/learning tool. It seems that many students appreciate this opportunity to share about their learning and also learn about progress of other students. Below I wanted to list some benefits or outcomes that we expect that blogging would provide for students:

Practice writing
This is a good opportunity for students to practice writing for the public. This makes them think for whom they are posing their messages to and why. I think this is quite a challenging task because most students used to post something like diaries on their own blogs, and they have limited experience of posting thoughts about their learning.

Documenting experience
By typing their blogs students will be able to better remember and learn from their experience.

What information to post?
We are asking CUSP students to post the following types of information: their learning, social/justice issues in communities that they serve, information about their agencies, their contribution to serving NYC people and their organizations, lessons learned, assumptions, questioning, self-evaluation, what things surprised them and why, their “aha!” and “wow” moments, and what triggered their thinking.

Giving feedback
We are also asking students to post feedback on each others blogs whenever possible, and to be encouraging and supportive.

About my research, and how it has changed

Background
I believe that information exchange among peers can make them more professional in their fields. A large body of literature about [learning] communities of practices, social learning, and networking theory also believe that. This is especially true for those who teach about environment (e.g., community educators and school teachers) because this field is interdisciplinary, new approaches for teaching constantly emerge, and environmental/science educators do not often get support from their supervisors.

Research area
I started working on my project in May 2007. When I got to NYC I was looking for educators who teach about environment, and who participate in networking with colleagues. I wanted to learn why they network with each other; this would help to engage other educators in networking, which can facilitate their professional development. Gretchen Ferenz (my supervisor at Cornel University Cooperative Extension-NYC this summer) and some other people suggested a few networks. Soon I found that Environmental Education Advisory Council (EEAC) is the oldest, most representative and developed existing network of environmental educators in NYC, so I decided to interview EEAC’s members to answer my research question.

Getting started
In mid May I went to the EEAC monthly steering committee meeting, which took place on the Science Barge. At that meeting I learned something that I could learn from books. For example, I was amazed that although EEAC is voluntary organization (nobody is paid), it attracts different kinds of educators (e.g., from federal and state organizations, schools and independent consultants, non-profits and nature preserves). These people were very excited to spend some time with each other each month during after-work hours. I become even more willing to see what “networking” means for them. Besides that, we found that this kind of research would be very beneficial for EEAC because they want to attract more members in the future. That’s why members of EEAC were very happy to meet with me for interviews, and gave a really great input in this project.

Changes in interviewing
During the next several weeks I’ve been interviewing about 14 members of EEAC. Interestingly, a set of my interviews was changing after each interview. In the beginning I had a few questions about educators’ experience in networking and benefits from it. My interviewees pointed out that there are some factors, though, that may prevent new members to join EEAC. Some of them were concerned that during the last years there was not good representation of different social groups or neighborhoods in this network. For example, there are very few members from underrepresented communities, community educators, educators from community-based organizations, minority teachers, etc. Some of my interviews not only came up with additional questions I would need to ask about membership, but also suggested some solutions that EEAC might offer to be more attractive for different kinds of educators. Personally, I was very glad to hear this because I also felt like this organization could have a better impact on educational programs in communities with limited-resources. It resulted in adding some new questions into the following interviews. For example, I started asking how EEAC can be more inclusive or interesting for minority educators.

Next step
Initially I was planning to share the results of my research with EEAC via email, like sending them a PDF report. However, a few educators, members of EEAC, have asked me to come to NYC in the fall to do a presentation. They and I think that during this collaborative research process we will get some interesting results that would help EEAC to engage more educators in it, and have a greater impact on quality of environmental/science education programs in different communities in NYC. For example, we might find that some particular types of events (like workshops, social meetings, site visiting, or community events) are especially beneficial for EEAC members, and can be attractive for new members – then EEAC would try to organize more of such events. We decided that during the analysis of collected information I will stay in touch with EEAC via email (during the end of this summer), and in the fall I will try to find an opportunity to come to NYC to do a short presentation of results of this research during one of monthly meetings.

Working in Urban Communities

I wanted to share with other CUSP students a very interesting article about working with urban communities published in the Journal of Extension, which is entitled "Exploring the Challenges for Extension Educators Working in Urban Communities." My advisor, Dr. Marianne Krasny, has send this link to me last week, and I think that this article might also be very useful for CUSP participants because a lot of us are conducting research projects about or providing direct services in different NYC communities with underrepresented audiences. Key points outlined in the article that cut across muptiple dimensions of diversity include:

• establishing initial rapport;
• recognizing differences;
• language/communication;
• building community ownership; and
• avoiding the missionary mentality.

Hi!

Hi! I am Alex, a graduate student at the Department of Natural Resources. This is my second time with the CUSP program. The main thing I enjoyed last time in 2005 was the opportunity to combine research and community service.

Two year ago I helped Cornell Cooperative Extension to promote the Garden Mosaics program (educator training) that teaches youth in communities with limited resources. I was very happy to develop long-term relations with some of communities, and worked with them even after my first CUSP internship was over. For example, last year we organize an online exchange among kids from the Abraham House in the Bronx (with whom I worked in 2005) and Russian kids who also implemented the Garden Mosaics at the same time. Educator from the Abraham House said that was very meaningful because kids in the Bronx often do not have opportunities to learn about other communities.

I hope that this year I will also develop some meaningful and long-term collaboration with environmental educators in NYC. See other messages for more information about my current research project.

Alex