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Towards 21st century learning: culture, process, and skills

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TOWARDS 21
ST
CENTURY LEARNING:
CULTURE, PROCESS, AND SKILLS

by

Laurel Jeanne Felt

A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(COMMUNICATION)

December 2014

Copyright 2014 Laurel J. Felt
ii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The question isn’t who to thank, it’s who NOT to thank. If you’re reading this,
consider yourself thanked. After all, you’re part of the reason why I wrote this.
I am incredibly lucky and inexpressibly grateful to the dozens of people who have
supported me personally and professionally, who facilitated the projects that this
dissertation examines, and who enabled this manuscript to evolve from concept to reality.
First, to my chair, Henry Jenkins, thank you for your indefatigable support over these
past five years. I will always appreciate your intellectual generosity, innumerable
literacies, and stalwart faith. Thanks also to my committee members, Patti Riley and
Virginia Kuhn, whose expertise and objectivity immeasurably improved this work –
thank you, thank you, thank you. I would also like to recognize Lynn Miller, Susan
Harris, and Brendesha Tynes for helping to advance this project through its many
iterations. I am grateful to Stacy Smith, Sheila Murphy, Doe Mayer, and Michael Cody
for their guidance during key parts of my academic journey.
To my Project NML colleagues, Vanessa Vartabedian, Erin Reilly, Kirsten
Carthew, Akifa Khan, and Ritesh Mehta, thank you for your vision, tenacity, and
playfulness. I thank Project NML’s “friends” as well, including Ioana Literat, Marina
Micheli, Mary Hendra, and MC Lars. To the participatory professional development
working group, thank you for your insightful writings and warm collegiality. To RFK-
Legacy in Action, especially Jane Kagon and Erickson Raif, thank you for your
partnership. Thanks to the administrators and teachers at the RFK Community Schools,
especially Jackie Olvera, Rich Wu, Annie Simons, and Sam Toffler. To the folks at
Laughter for a Change, especially Ed Greenberg, Kat Primeau, Ruth Silveira, and Maggie
iii

Marion, thank you for your partnership, service, and delicious wit. I also thank my “JEP
family,” especially Susan Harris, Jake Peters, Yujung Nam, Sable Manson, Tammy
Anderson, and Tina Koneazny, for providing me with a home, a community, and an
opportunity to do meaningful work as I juggled school and life.
To my ladies of the PhD – Allie Noyes, Beth Boser, Lori Kido Lopez, Ioana
Literat, Meryl Alper, Erin Kamler, LeeAnn Sangalang, Emma Bloomfield, and Rhea
Vichot – thank you for being my academic sounding boards and personal confidantes.
Ritesh Mehta, from last-minute Swiffing to impeccably timed run-ins, you are the very
definition of “true blue.” Anna Christopher, your friendship is a cornerstone in my life.
Jim Rowley, this town would’ve been awfully lonely without you. To my Boston gal pals,
especially Geetha Pai and Jenn Guptill, you make me wicked glad I spent three and half
years battling Nor’Easters and round-abouts. And to my GBS bef fends poteva, Lindsay
Wagner, Liz Griffiths DeChant, and Meg Griffiths Anderson, you’ve kept me rolling in
laughter and surrounded by love for nearly 20 years. How did we get so old? And by that
I mean young. And gorgeous.
My parents, Barbara Marcus Felt and Rick Felt, are my champions and role
models. Thank you times infinity. Thanks to my siblings, Benjy Felt and Sarah Felt, for
believing in me. To Aunt Sue, Uncle Dick, Leanne, Joe, Mayta, Gary, and the rest of the
family, thank you for your love. To my beloved Gramma Ruth, Grampa Ray, Grandma
Elly, and Grandpa Justin, you are so important to me. Words fail.
To Anndee Colby, Larry Colby, Lindsey Colby Konash, Jack Konash, Luke
Konash, Scott Colby, Gina Gerardi Colby, and Melissa Colby, thank you for welcoming
me into your family and for supporting Mike and me as we’ve navigated this journey.
iv

Mike, my love. How can I even begin to say? I don’t know if I could have done
this without you; I certainly would have enjoyed it less, and sat alone more. But you
stayed up with me all night. I love you so much and I am so, so lucky.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, thank you to the students of all ages who
took a chance on these programs that I write about. You taught us so much. You, and the
millions of educators and young people who are out there now, and all who will come of
age later, you who brim with potential and deserve only the best, you are my reason why.

v

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

LIST OF TABLES xiii

LIST OF FIGURES xiv

ABSTRACT xviii

I. INTRODUCTION: SUNUKADDU AT A CROSSROADS 1
New Media Literacies 2
What Are NMLs? 2
Why Are NMLs Useful? 3
NMLs for Sunukaddu 4
Social and Emotional Learning 5
What Are SELs? 6
Why Are SELs Useful? 6
SELs for Sunukaddu 8
From Senegal to Southern California 10
Present Investigation 13
Preview of the Following Chapters 14

II. CULTURE, PROCESS, AND SKILLS 16
Why Context is Critical 16
Out-of-School Learning 16
After-school programs 19
Summer programs 21
In-school electives 21
Organizational Learning and the Learning Organization 21
Organizational Culture vs. Organizational Climate 24
Positive learning culture 25
Safety 27
Physical safety 27
Social and emotional safety 29
Relational trust 31
Connection 34
Connecting to a group 35
Connecting to a supportive individual 36
Connecting to self 39
Self-compassion 40
Shame Resilience Theory & 41
the Wholehearteds’ Gifts of Imperfection
Engagement 42
Relevance 43
Empowerment 45
vi

Why Process is Important 47
Participatory Governance 47
Why share power? 48
Participatory Learning 50
Step One 52
Step Two 52
Step Three 52
Step Four 52
Step Five 52
Playfulness 52
Multiple approaches to play 53
Project NML’s relationship with play 54
Iteration 55
Joy 56
Skill Development 57
Twenty-first Century Learning 57
Critical thinking 58
Connected Learning 60
Digital Citizenship 61
NMLs and SELs for Digital Citizenship 61
Dynamic Appreciation 63
Resource Engagement 64
Respectful Negotiation 64
Master Skills for 21
st
Century Learning and 65
Digital Citizenship
Summary 66

III. METHODOLOGY 68
Relevant Research Traditions and Practices 68
Engaged Scholarship 68
Experimental Ethnography 69
Storytelling 72
Improvisational Theater 73
Study Partners 77
Project New Media Literacies 77
PLAY! 77
Laughter for a Change 79
Over-arching Research Question 80

IV. EXPLORE LOCALLY, EXCEL DIGITALLY 82
Project New Media Literacies 84
New Hampshire Professional Development 85
Reading in a Participatory Culture 86
Explore Locally, Excel Digitally 87
Participants 88
Instructors 89
vii

Site 89
Data Collection and Analysis 91
Study-Specific Research Question 94
Culture 94
Safety 95
Norms, Take 1 95
Norms, Take 2 98
Working, Not Working 99
Norms, Take 3 102
“Flipping the bird” 103
Doodling a swastika 104
Lessons learned 105
Synthesis 106
Connection, Engagement and Empowerment 107
Connection 108
Connecting to a group 108
Connecting to a supportive individual 108
Connecting to self 108
Engagement 109
Empowerment 110
Process 112
Participatory Governance 113
Participatory Learning 113
Step One 113
Step Two 114
Step Three 114
Abandoning vs. controlling 116
vs. scaffolding
More participatory 117
Step Four 118
Step Five 119
Playfulness 121
Iteration 122
Joy 122
Skills 124
Dynamic Appreciation 124
Resource Engagement 125
Respectful Negotiation 127
Study-Specific Research Question 127
Summary 129

V. THE SUMMER SANDBOX 131
The Summer Sandbox 133
Approval and Remuneration 133
Recruitment 134
Curriculum 135
viii

Play 135
The Case against hand-outs 137
Participants and Site 140
Educators 140
High school students 141
Site 142
Data Collection and Analysis 142
Open notes 143
Closed notes 143
End-of-day reflections 143
End-of-week reflections 144
Summer Sandbox application 145
Surveys 145
Baseline 145
Endline 146
Artifacts 147
Study-Specific Research Question 147
Culture 148
Two Weeks, Two Discrete Experiences 148
Classroom Redesign 148
Week 1 148
Week 2 149
Cultural considerations 150
Safety 151
Week 1 151
Week 2 152
Relational trust 153
Establishing respect, personal regard, 154
competence, and
personal integrity
Connection 155
Relatedness 155
Self-compassion, shame resilience, and 157
the Gifts of Imperfection
Engagement and Empowerment 159
Comfort with digital media and calls for 159
educational technology
Open Space Technology 162
Process 164
Participatory Governance 164
Week 1 166
Week 2 166
Shared control 167
Participatory Learning 168
Step One 169
Step Two 169
ix

Step Three 169
Step Four 169
Step Five 170
Playfulness 171
Iteration 172
Joy 173
Skills 174
Baseline NML Proficiency 175
Performance and Play 175
Distributed Cognition, Transmedia Navigation, 176
Visualization
Self-efficacy 176
Dynamic Appreciation 177
Resource Engagement 178
Respectful Negotiation 181
Study-Specific Research Question 182
21
st
Century Learning 183
Safety 183
Connection 183
Engagement 184
Empowerment 184
Participatory governance 185
Playfulness 185
Ambitious Projects 186
Summary 187
Praise for the PD 188

VI. PLAYING OUTSIDE THE BOX 190
PLAYing Outside the Box 194
Recruitment and Remuneration 196
Curriculum 197
Participants 198
Educators 198
Staff 198
Data Collection and Analysis 199
Participatory Action Research 199
Fieldnotes 199
Mid-point survey 199
Most Significant Change 199
Discussion 200
Artifacts 200
Study-Specific Research Question 200
Culture 201
Safety 201
Relational trust 202
Connection 203
x

Engagement 204
Natalie’s public service announcement project 206
Empowerment 209
Isabel’s community-engaged curricula 209
Process 211
Participatory Governance 211
Participatory Learning 212
Step One 213
Step Two 213
Step Three 213
Step Four 214
Step Five 214
Playfulness 215
Iteration 216
Joy 216
Skills 217
Dynamic Appreciation 217
Resource Engagement 218
Respectful Negotiation 218
Study-Specific Research Question 219
Summary 221
Praise for the PD 222

VII. LAUGHTER FOR A CHANGE 223
PLAY On! Workshops 225
L4C at RFK 226
Participants and Site 227
Data Collection 228
Audio fieldnotes 230
Photographs and end-of-semester interviews 230
Spring survey 231
IRB approval 232
Data Analysis 232
Study-Specific Research Question 233
Culture 233
Safety 233
Discipline 235
Connection 236
Engagement 239
Empowerment 240
Risk-taking 241
Confidence and competence 242
Process 243
Participatory Governance 243
Participatory Learning 245
Step One 245
xi

Step Two 245
Step Three 245
Step Four 245
Step Five 247
Playfulness 247
Skills 249
Dynamic Appreciation 249
Resource Engagement 249
Respectful Negotiation 250
Study-Specific Research Question 250
Summary 254

VIII. DISCUSSION 256
Trends and Relationships 256
Safety 256
Review 256
Implications 259
Connection 261
Review 261
Implications 263
Engagement 265
Review 265
Implications 266
Empowerment 269
Review 269
Implications 270
Participatory Governance 271
Review 271
Implications 273
Participatory Learning 274
Review 274
Implications 274
Playfulness 275
Review 275
Implications 276
Limitations 277
Directions for Future Research 278
Towards the Development of Models, Constructs 278
and Measures
Modeling ideal learning culture 278
Constructs and measures for cultural 283
characteristics and processes
PLAY! and/or participatory learning PD’s 283
Out-of-school contexts 284
Summary 284

xii

REFERENCES 285
APPENDICES 294

Appendix A Table 9.1. NML Skills Aligned with Complementary 294
SEL Competencies and Their Hybrid Definitions
Appendix B Dissertation Research Questions 296
Appendix C Cast of Characters 297
Appendix D ELED Parental Consent 299
Appendix E ELED Youth Assent 302
Appendix F Summer Sandbox Recruitment Flyer 305
Appendix G Summer Sandbox Information Sheet 306
Appendix H Summer Sandbox Application Questions 308
Appendix I Summer Sandbox Baseline Survey 309
Appendix J POTB Information Sheet 315
Appendix K Kirsten Carthew’s POTB Report 319
Appendix L L4C End-of-semester Interview Questions 320
Appendix M Scale Development for Measuring Variables of Interest 321
xiii

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1.1. Sunukaddu Learning Objectives Aligned with 8
Complementary NML Skills, SEL Competencies and
Hands-on Activities.

Table 2.1. Typology of Youth Participation and Empowerment 48
(TYPE) pyramid (Wong, Zimmerman, & Parker, 2010).

Table 2.2. Contextual and Active Components of Participatory 51
Learning – Summary (Felt, 2011).

Table 2.3. Master Skills Aligned with Related Skills. 66

Table 5.1. Excerpts from Transcriptions of Summer Sandbox 156
Participants’ End-of-Week Testimonies.

Table 5.2. Participants’ Self-reported Relationships with 175
New Media Literacies.

Table 5.3. Excerpts from Field Notes Documenting 186
Summer Sandbox Participants’ End-of-Week Goal Reflections.

Table 8.1. Reconceptualization of Key Indicators of a 280
Positive Learning Culture.
xiv

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1.1. (from left) Tidiane Thiang, Idrissa Mbaye, 10
Amadou Diao, Cheikh Sow, and I meet about Sunukaddu.

Figure 1.2. Idrissa’s skills clothesline for Sunukaddu, 12
Summer 2010 (from left: Apprpriation, Social Awareness,
Play, Multitasking).

Figure 1.3. Skills Clothesline for PLAY!, Spring 2011-Spring 2012. 12

Figure 2.1. West African educators discuss the Sunukaddu program. 62

Figure 2.2. West African educators work together during 62
a Sunukaddu training session.

Figure 3.1. Spolin with members of her Young Actors Company. 74

Figure 4.1. Communal library of the Robert F. Kennedy Community 90
Schools, named in honor of Kennedy advisor Paul Schrade.

Figure 4.2. Façade of the Robert F. Kennedy Community Schools. 91

Figure 4.3. Norms, Take 1. 96

Figure 4.4. Norms, Take 2. 98

Figure 4.5. Documentation by male ELED participant of 99
what was working.

Figure 4.6. Documentation by female ELED student (and myself) of 100
what wasn’t working.

Figure 4.7. Final list of norms. 102

Figure 4.8. ELED participants’ Tweets. 109

Figure 4.9. Graphic notation created by an ELED participant. 110

Figure 4.10. A musician explains how graphic notation might be 111
interpreted musically.

Figure 4.11. Kalvin introduces ELED’s norms to attendees of the 112
end-of-semester showcase.

xv

Figure 4.12. An invisible border or boundary photographed by 115
an ELED participant.

Figure 4.13. A second border or boundary photographed by 115
an ELED participant.

Figure 4.14. Danny’s partner takes a picture of Danny, as Danny 116
takes a picture of him.

Figure 4.15. ELED’s Word Wall. 119

Figure 4.16. Participants’ own definitions of NMLs. 120

Figure 4.17. Brian playfully reacts to the boundary of a locked door. 122

Figure 4.18. ELED participants form a “human knot.” 126

Figure 5.1. Week 1’s group brainstorm about norms. 131

Figure 5.2. The PLAY! clothesline in the corner of the 142
Summer Sandbox space.

Figure 5.3. End-of-day reflection identifies what the participants 170
liked (plus sign) and areas for improvement or innovation (delta).

Figure 5.4. The Summer Sandbox participants’ sticky notes. 180

Figure 6.1. An American Revolution-era Tweet from one of 192
Natalie’s students.

Figure 6.2. An American Revolution-era Tweet from one of 193
Natalie’s students.

Figure 6.3. An American Revolution-era Tweet from one of 193
Natalie’s students.

Figure 6.4. An American Revolution-era Tweet from one of 194
Natalie’s students.

Figure 6.5. POTB participants mark and annotate their respective 205
Los Angeles neighborhoods during a session of
Departures Youth Voices.

Figure 6.6. POTB participants work during a session of AnimAction. 205

xvi

Figure 6.7. A screen capture of POTB participants’ animation, 206
which examined online participation.

Figure 6.8. “#Occupy: Social Media, Art and Protest” Challenge 210
created by Isabel, a high school government
and economics teacher.

Figure 6.9. Vartabedian hands a certificate of completion to 211
a POTB participant at the PLAY! retreat.

Figure 6.10. A PLAYground Challenge created by one of Helen’s students. 213

Figure 7.1. Fellow Titanic Players and I improvise on-stage together, 228
Spring 1999.

Figure 7.2. Greenberg explains a game to L4C participants. 234

Figure 7.3. (from left), Me, Kim, Primeau, Kristina, Grant, and Stacia 236
participate in Conducted Story.

Figure 7.4. Participants Bart and Karlos model eye contact and 237
share a grin during a scene.

Figure 7.5. Leon and Greenberg improvise together in an imaginary car. 238

Figure 7.6. RFK students, along with theater arts teacher Sam Toffler, 239
energetically play improv game “Bunny Bunny” in L4C’s
improv workshop.

Figure 7.7. Helena, Grant, and Bennett engage with their whole bodies. 239

Figure 7.8. Participants raptly concentrate on their peers’ scenework. 240

Figure 7.9. Stacia grins from the car’s passenger side as Kristina, 242
playing the role of a macho male driver, blatantly “checks out”
Helena’s character.

Figure 7.10. Karlos performing a solo scene. 243

Figure 7.11. Three participants reenact a peer’s ghost story. 244
Katie looks on from the wings as Tina, upstage, laughs
at Helena’s exaggeratedly dramatic death.

Figure 7.12. The scene continues with a funeral. Katie and Tina 244
maintain eye contact, working together to figure out
what happens next.
xvii

Figure 7.13. Screen capture from Sara’s end-of-semester interview. 246

Figure 7.14. L4C Comedy Mentor Primeau and participants 248
Grant and Katie crack up.

Figure 7.15. In the foreground, I clap for Katie, Tina, Helena, and Leon, 249
caught giggling at their own antics.

xviii

ABSTRACT
This dissertation examines four out-of-school learning contexts, using the same
10 research questions pertaining to culture, process, and skills in order to guide inquiry
across these case studies. In terms of culture, this dissertation argues that safety,
connection, engagement and empowerment are the four most important characteristics to
scrutinize. In terms of process, this dissertation looks at participatory governance,
participatory learning, and playfulness. And in terms of skills, this dissertation analyzes
according to the original, multi-faceted constructs of Dynamic Appreciation, Resource
Engagement, and Respectful Negotiation. This investigation also poses an additional
research question for each case study, reviewing a unique feature of each experience.
Collectively, this dissertation seeks to discover trends and/or relationships
between/among culture, process, and skill development. I submit that looking through a
communication lens at the works of educators and students, across school-based and out-
of-school learning environments, offers valuable perspectives on the complex and
essential endeavor of learning.
1

I. INTRODUCTION: SUNUKADDU AT A CROSSROADS
This story begins in Africa.
During the summer of 2008, Senegalese non-profit The African Network for
Health Education (in French, le Reséau Africain d’Education pour la Santé (RAES))
piloted a 10-week program for youths. Dubbed Sunukaddu (“our word” or “our voice” in
Wolof, Senegal’s lingua franca), this program sought to enhance participants’
communication and technical skills in order to positively impact their health behaviors
and attitudes in the domains of HIV/AIDS stigmatization and discrimination (Massey,
Morawski, Rideau, & Glik, 2009). Sunukaddu’s 45 high school-aged participants learned
about HIV/AIDS, and both demonstrated and extended that knowledge by creating
factually accurate media products (e.g., songs, videos, reports).
Independent evaluators claimed Sunukaddu a qualified success but RAES
Executive Director Alexandre Rideau wanted to modify the program. If Sunukaddu
participants could design media messages that reflected high-production values, superior
storytelling, and understanding of intended audiences, then they could successfully
educate and engage community members on any number of issues, including but not
limited to HIV/AIDS. Moreover, if participants mastered versatile, accessible technology
(e.g., smartphones) instead of single-purpose, inaccessible technology (e.g., camcorders,
audio decks), then they would be able to produce media outside of the program, both
after-hours and beyond the program’s conclusion.
All Rideau needed was assistance in negotiating these curricular shifts. That’s
where I eventually came in, bringing two learning frameworks with me: new media
literacies and social and emotional learning.
2

New Media Literacies
During the fall of 2009, when Rideau and I made each other’s acquaintance, I was
studying with the newly arrived Dr. Henry Jenkins in his first USC course, COMM 620:
New Media Literacies. Jenkins and colleagues had introduced new media literacies
(NMLs) in their landmark white paper entitled Confronting the Challenges of
Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21
st
Century (Jenkins, Clinton,
Purushotma, Robison, & Weigel, 2006). They described NMLs as “a set of cultural
competencies and social skills young people need” in a culture that “shifts the focus of
literacy from one of individual expression to community involvement” (p. 4). I embraced
NMLs enthusiastically because I recognized them as solutions. During my conversation
with Rideau, I recognized how NMLs might function as solutions for Sunukaddu,
informing both how instructors taught and what instructors taught.
What Are NMLs?
I discovered that, despite their name, NMLs are neither “new” nor exclusively
about “media;” rather, they are time-honored skills that support students’ critical thinking,
problem-solving, and collective efficacy. Proficiency in these skills represents literacy in
new media, or the ability to “read and write” – that is, comprehend and create – texts that
were created and/or disseminated via new media tools, within a participatory culture
(Jenkins et al., 2006, p. 7).
While the 2006 white paper identified 11 NMLs, the research group that Jenkins
subsequently founded – dubbed Project New Media Literacies – identified a twelfth (see
(Reilly, 2013). Thus, the current list of NMLs is just that – current. Jenkins maintains that
3

this list is not meant to exhaustive, especially as the emergence of new social and cultural
norms often requires fluency in more/different skills. Moreover, these skills should be
regarded as a complement to, rather than a substitute for, traditional literacy, research,
and critical thinking skills. As of today, the NMLs are: Play; Performance; Simulation;
Appropriation; Multitasking; Distributed Cognition; Collective Intelligence; Judgment;
Transmedia Navigation; Networking; Negotiation; and Visualization.
Why Are NMLs Useful?
The 21
st
century demands that we constantly engage with novelty, in the form of
new gadgets, new colleagues, new information, new neighborhoods. Communication
technologies expert Douglas Thomas and organizational studies researcher John Seely
Brown characterize our contemporary context as “a world of constant change” (Thomas
& Seely Brown, 2011). The 21
st
century is also characterized by rapidity – we conduct
correspondence and execute processes at increasingly faster rates, often while we monitor
other concerns and communicate across multiple media platforms. And the information to
which we have access in this 21
st
century is both unprecedented and infinite, which
necessitates our use of filtering mechanisms and our vigilance against information
overload
1
.
NMLs function as solutions, offering tools for managing novelty, rapidity, and
information, among other things. For example, to learn about a new gadget, it is often
best to simply Play with it. Jenkins and his co-authors (2006) define Play as “the ability

1
“The burden of a heavy information load will confuse the individual, affect his or her ability to set
priorities, and make prior information harder to recall (Schick et al., 1990)” (Eppler & Mengis, 2004, p.
326).
4

to experiment with your surroundings as a form of problem-solving” (p. 4).
2
To manage
multiple responsibilities at once, one might Multitask, or apply “the ability to scan one’s
environment and shift focus as needed to salient details (Jenkins et al., 2006, p. 4). To
sort and interpret reams of data, it’s often useful to employ Visualization, “the ability to
translate information into visual models and understand the information communicated
by visual models” (Reilly, 2013).
Again, it’s important to emphasize that these skills are not new. The historical
record is rife with anecdotes and artifacts related to gaming, and a visit to a local
playground or sports arena will confirm that play is still a vital part of our lives today.
Similarly, multi-tasking is not new – observe practically any parent trying to cook dinner
while a child is underfoot, or shadow a small business owner throughout the course of a
day, and you’re sure to witness several instances of multi-tasking. Visualization isn’t new
either – ancient peoples drew pictures to describe natural phenomena and depict human
processes (e.g., praying to gods, slaying buffalo), and I’ll bet that, back in elementary
school, you learned how to construct graphs and read maps. Play, Multi-tasking and
Visualization (like the rest of the NMLs) are age-old skills. Project New Media Literacies
does not purport that NMLs have never before been seen in human history. The nuance
that Jenkins and team articulate is that proficiency in these skills is vitally important
today, perhaps more important than ever before.
NMLs For Sunukaddu
I envisioned two ways in which NMLs could serve Sunukaddu’s purposes: first,
instructors could use NMLs as means by which to teach certain concepts (e.g., “Learn

2
Language, literacy, and culture expert Wohlwend 11/3/14 11:20 AM similarly understands play as a
literacy and also recognizes its ability to shape identity and relationships.

5

about this smartphone through practicing the NML of Play”); second, Sunukaddu staff
and participants could conceptualize their skill development in terms of the NMLs (e.g.,
“To what extent have you mastered the NML of Negotiation?”).

Social and Emotional Learning
But this wasn’t all—my proposal also paid respect to the pedagogy of emotional
intelligence (Goleman, 1995), which is social and emotional learning (Elias et al., 1997;
Goleman, 2006; Payton et al., 2008). I argued that NMLs are intertwined with social and
emotional learning skills (SELs). Afterall, how can one practice the NML of Negotiation,
“the ability to travel across diverse communities, discerning and respecting multiple
perspectives, and grasping and following alternative norms” (Jenkins et al., 2006, p. 4),
without first possessing the SEL of social awareness? Jenkins questioned such linearity of
skill acquisition—after all, perhaps social awareness can be cultivated by Negotiation,
with immersion in an unfamiliar context compelling the development of social
awareness’s suite of capacities. Quite so. Rather than “add water and stir,” e.g., first
comes SELs, then comes NMLs, the relationship between these two frameworks is
complex; sometimes their skills overlap entirely, sometimes they share certain
fundamental qualities, and sometimes their practice relies upon proficiency in other
domains. Jenkins agreed that these two sets of skills are worth considering together, and
the ways in which they interact would be interesting to study.

6

What are SELs? But before I get too far ahead of myself, let me explain exactly
what SELs are. The Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning
(CASEL; 2009) identifies five core groups of competencies as key SELs:
• Self-awareness — accurately assessing one’s feelings, interests, values, and
strengths; maintaining a well-grounded sense of self-confidence
• Self-management — regulating one’s emotions to handle stress, control impulses,
and persevere in overcoming obstacles; setting and monitoring progress toward
personal and academic goals; expressing emotions appropriately
• Social awareness — being able to take the perspective of and empathize with
others; recognizing and appreciating individual and group similarities and
differences; recognizing and using family, school, and community resources
• Relationship skills — establishing and maintaining healthy and rewarding
relationships based on cooperation; resisting inappropriate social pressure;
preventing, managing, and resolving interpersonal conflict; seeking help when
needed
• Responsible decision-making — making decisions based on consideration of
ethical standards, safety concerns, appropriate social norms, respect for others,
and likely consequences of various actions; applying decision-making skills to
academic and social situations; contributing to the well-being of one’s school and
community
Why Are SELs Useful?
Numerous studies have documented the impact of evidence-based SEL programs;
a meta-analysis of 207 such programs found their applicability from kindergarten to
eighth grade, for schools in urban, suburban, and rural areas, and for racially and
ethnically diverse student bodies (Payton et al., 2008, p. 6). According to neuroscientist
Richard Davidson, these beneficial outcomes might occur because social-emotional
training develops the prefrontal cortex, the same part of the brain where academically
important skills like impulse control, abstract reasoning, long-term planning, and working
memory perform (cited in Kahn, 2013). Integrated, coordinated instruction in both social
and emotional competence and academic areas maximizes students’ potential to succeed
7

in school and throughout their lives (Zins & Elias, 2003). This means that, for every type
of student, SEL mastery facilitates and amplifies both book smarts and street smarts.
Participation in SEL programs is correlated with behavior changes. In terms of
social behaviors, SEL program participants tend to evidence more daily behaviors related
to getting along with and cooperating with others than peers in a control group (Payton et
al., 2008, p. 7). Emotionally, SEL program participants reported “more positive attitudes
toward self and others (e.g., self-concept, self-esteem, prosocial attitudes toward
aggression, and liking and feeling connected to school)” than peers in a control group
(Payton et al., 2008, p. 7). These competencies are not only valuable in and of themselves,
but also facilitate academic excellence. In test situations, SEL program participants
demonstrated greater proficiency in social-emotional skills (e.g., self-control, decision-
making, communication, and problem-solving skills) such that SEL programming yielded
an average gain on achievement test scores of 11 to 17 percentile points (Payton et al.,
2008, pp. 6-7).
Additionally, SEL programs provide an impressive return on investment in terms
of dollars and cents and longevity of impacts; in fact, the value of SEL programs exceed
their costs (Aos, Lieb, Mayfield, Miller, & Pennucci, 2004). This finding was replicated
in several independent investigations, with returns ranging from $3.14 to $28.42 per each
dollar spent (Botvin, 2002; Hawkins, Smith, & Catalano, 2004; Schaps, Battistich, &
Solomon, 2004). Over time, SEL programs also return value in terms of improved life
outcomes. Fifteen years after implementing a universal intervention for urban elementary
school students, researchers recontacted 93% of the program’s participants and learned
about their lives (Hawkins, Kosterman, Catalano, Hill, & Abbott, 2008). Results from
8

this sex-balanced, multiracial/multiethnic sample of 598 individuals aged 24 to 27 years
revealed that participants boasted significantly better educational and economic
attainment, mental health, and sexual health than peers in a control group (Hawkins et al.,
2008). In fact, the so-called “non-cognitive skills” that comprise SEL (e.g., self-
management, perseverance), might actually be better predictors of a person’s life
trajectory than standard academic measures (Kahn, 2013). Internal data-crunching at
Google has revealed this very outcome: success there has nothing to do with school
(“G.P.A.’s are worthless as a criteria for hiring, and test scores are worthless – no
correlation at all,” said executive Laszlo Bock (cited in Bryant, 2013) and everything to
do with curiosity, creativity, and persistence (“You want people who like figuring out
stuff where there is no obvious answer”).
SELs for Sunukaddu
In light of SELs’ relationships with NMLs, and SELs’ capacity to enhance quality
of life, I decided to put NMLs and SELs in dialogue. For Rideau back in Senegal, I
proposed that Sunukaddu’s message production curriculum should incorporate, and even
depend upon, practicing NMLs and SELs in concert. Table X explicates what this
approach might look like in the Sunukaddu context.
Table 1.1
Sunukaddu Learning Objectives Aligned with Complementary NML Skills, SEL
Competencies and Hands-on Activities.
Sunukaddu NML Skill SEL
Competency
Hands-on Activities
Play Social
awareness, Self-
management
Experiment with various genres
(comedy, action-adventure,
thriller, fairy tale, etc.) for telling
a story.
Communication
—message
construction,
storytelling
(fiction, non-
fiction,
autobiography)
Performance Social
awareness
Have multiple small groups
roleplay a day in the life of a
teenaged HIV/AIDS patient who
9

attends this school and the
various people in his/her life.
How do peers treat him/her
during lunchtime and after
school? What is his/her home life
like?
Appropriation Social
awareness,
Responsible
decision-
making
Sample and remix popular media
in order to show the mixed
messages regarding safe sexual
practices targeted at youth.
Collective
intelligence
Social
awareness,
Relationship
skills
In a small group, share story
ideas, discuss
strengths/weaknesses/opportunitie
s, and select one or two.
Simulation Diagram the process by which
HIV/AIDS-related stigma affects
the community.
Visualization Create storyboards for your media
piece.
Networking Self-
management,
Social
awareness,
Relationship
skills,
Responsible
decision-
making
As a whole group, devise a plan
for dissemination of Sunukaddu
content to all of the people in
each participant’s life. Think
about the vastness of each
person’s network and analog
methods of sharing media, e.g.,
printing out still photographs,
hosting a community screening,
etc.
Negotiation Social
awareness;
Responsible
decision-
making
Go into the community and
interview a stranger on a non-
sensitive topic (not HIV/AIDS).
Focus on his/her nonverbal cues
and ask follow-up questions to
draw out his/her story. If this
individual is from a different
culture, remember to be aware of
dissimilar social norms vis-à-vis
acceptable topics of conversation
and modes of behavior.

Judgment Responsible
decision-
making
Go online and find reliable,
credible information on the status
of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in
order to give your story context
and emotional weight.
10

Rideau enthusiastically accepted my proposal and, several months later, I was
working in Dakar with Sunukaddu’s brilliant staff (for a review of Sunukaddu 2.0’s
curriculum and impacts, see Felt & Rideau, 2012).

Figure 1.1. (from left) Tidiane Thiang, Idrissa Mbaye, Amadou Diao, Cheikh Sow, and I
meet about Sunukaddu.

From Senegal to Southern California
Sunukaddu is the present investigation’s point of departure. When I returned from
Dakar, I threw myself whole-heartedly into Project New Media Literacies (Project
NML)’s multi-faceted research project, Participatory Learning And You! (PLAY!); for
the two years of PLAY!’s tenure, I hardly came up for air. To realize PLAY!, we
members of Project NML designed, facilitated, and assessed three original programs in
the informal learning space: Explore Locally, Excel Digitally (see Chapter IV), the
Summer Sandbox (see Chapter V), and PLAYing Outside the Box (see Chapter VI).
11

Project NML also established the PLAY On! Community Workshops and welcomed
three inaugural partners, including non-profit Laughter for a Change (see Chapter VII).
My experiences with Sunukaddu significantly informed PLAY!’s design. For
example, Sunukaddu instructors collectively designed the program’s curriculum during
the month leading up to the program’s kickoff (atelier), then regularly reflected together
on what did and did not work (bilan). Members of Project NML did the same,
conceptualizing and designing Explore Locally, Excel Digitally (ELED) for a few months
prior to its introduction, then processing together at weekly research meetings and via
GoogleDocs. As we had done in Senegal, PLAY! programming respected NMLs and
SELs as pedagogical tools and means to conceptualize skill development. We scrutinized
if and how lesson plans incorporated practice of NMLs and SELs into the learning
process, and evaluated participants’ mastery of these skills. I had appropriated the Global
Kids Media Masters Digital Transcript (Global Kids Online Leadership Program, 2009;
Joseph, 2009) as a self-assessment tool for Sunukaddu participants; for ELED, I applied
this framework as a post-hoc analytical tool. In our Sunukaddu classroom, we hung a
skill clothesline (invented by instructor Idrissa Mbaye) from which posters of skills
dangled via clothespins, just as laundry would hang in the streets of Dakar.
12

Figure 1.2. Idrissa’s skills clothesline for Sunukaddu, Summer 2010 (from left:
Apprpriation, Social Awareness, Play, Multitasking).

In our PLAY! classroom, we also hung a skills clothesline, but used our culture’s
ubiquitous fastener—binder clips—to attach the skills posters.

Figure 1.3. Skills Clothesline for PLAY!, Spring 2011-Spring 2012.
Sunukaddu’s needs, expressed by Rideau in 2009, inspired me to integrate, teach
through, and assess mastery of NMLs and SELs. Similarly, a 2013 email sent by Rideau
requesting abbreviation of the NMLs and SELs inspired me to conceptualize three
13

“master skills,” each consisting of two NMLs and SELs. In our Sunukaddu classroom
and office space, we would affirm to one another, “Nio far,” a culturally significant
Wolof statement that basically means “we are together.” In our PLAY! contexts, we
likewise pursued harmony and meaningful participation, using laughter and modeling
respect to facilitate and maintain togetherness.
So you see how this story did indeed begin in Africa -- but it didn’t end there. I
discovered that the culture we establish in our learning context considerably impacts
processes and takeaways; I wasn’t sure how to characterize an ideal culture, however. I
recognized that co-constructed, hands-on, fun lessons are more enjoyable experientially
and more effective educationally; I didn’t have a formula for designing such curricula.
Finally, I appreciated the importance of developing proficiency in both NMLs and SELs;
I didn’t know how to remix these skills, though, in order to create a framework that
aligned with 21
st
century learning tenets.

Present Investigation
This dissertation attempts to answer those challenges. In the following chapters, I
scrutinize PLAY!’s four educational programs in terms of their respective learning
culture, pedagogical process, and skill development. In order to examine learning culture,
I interrogate the extent to which participants expressed their sense of safety, connection,
engagement, and empowerment. To conceptually assess pedagogical process, I
characterize each program’s modeling of participatory governance, participatory learning,
and playfulness. Three “master skills” – NML/SEL hybrids that I refer to as Dynamic
14

Appreciation, Resource Engagement, and Respectful Negotiation – are my means for
interpreting participants’ skill development.
This dissertation conducts a meta-level analysis. Although I have assessed each of
the PLAY! programs individually (Felt & Greenberg, 2014; Felt, Vartabedian, Literat, &
Mehta, 2012; Reilly, Jenkins, Felt, & Vartabedian, 2012; Reilly, Vartabedian, Felt, &
Jenkins, 2012; Vartabedian & Felt, 2012), I have never put all four of them in dialogue.
Because the ways in which I collected data varies from program to program, in this
dissertation I apply a common set of conceptual assessments in order to analyze across
these diverse research contexts (see Chapter III).
Preview of the Following Chapters
In the next chapter, I will discuss relevant literature on mechanisms that facilitate
meaningful learning. First, I’ll examine why context is critical, distinguishing climate
from culture, and reviewing why safety, connection, engagement, and empowerment are
key characteristics of a positive learning culture. Second, I’ll investigate process,
engaging with theories and empirical data on the impacts of participatory governance,
participatory learning, and playfulness. Finally, I’ll explore objectives and outcomes,
reflecting on the definition of twenty-first century learning, the principles of Connected
Learning, and various articulations of digital citizenship.
In Chapter III, I present the various research traditions from which I draw and
ways in which I collected and analyzed data.
In Chapter IV, I’ll introduce and analyze Project NML’s Explore Locally, Excel
Digitally (ELED) after-school program. I will investigate the extent to which ELED’s
learning culture supported participants’ sense of safety, connection, engagement, and
15

empowerment. I’ll also examine if and how ELED’s learning process modeled
participatory governance, participatory learning, and playfulness. Finally, I’ll interpret
participants’ skill development in terms of the master skills, which also indicate digital
citizenship.
Across Chapters V, VI, and VII, I conduct similar analyses, examining learning
culture, process, and achievements. In Chapter V specifically, I look at Project NML’s
Summer Sandbox program, an intensive one-week professional development workshop
for Los Angeles Unified School District educators. In Chapter VI, I examine Project
NML’s PLAYing Outside the Box, an in-school elective that aimed to support Summer
Sandbox graduates in their implementation of participatory learning principles and
practices. In Chapter VII, I assess an after-school program offered by PLAY On! partner
Laughter for a Change, a non-profit organization that facilitates improvisational theater
workshops in underserved communities.
Finally, in Chapter VIII, I put the respective case studies in conversation,
exploring trends and divergences across these investigations. I conclude with a review of
this study’s limitations and suggest directions for further research on 21
st
century learning
and applied communication scholarship more generally.
16

II. CULTURE, PROCESS, AND SKILLS
Why Context is Critical
In 2013, a team of distinguished educational researchers conducted a meta-
analysis of primarily peer-reviewed journal articles that examined school climate. From
their review of more than 200 artifacts (consisting of correlational studies, descriptive
studies, literature reviews, and experimental studies), a team of researchers surmised,
“There is a growing body of empirical research that supports the notion that context
matters: Group trends, for example, norms, expectations, and belief systems shape
individual experience and learning as well as influence all levels of relationships” (Thapa,
Cohen, Guffey, & Higgins-D’Alessandro, 2013, p. 370). This evidence-based conclusion
supports what most of us have anecdotally experienced, perhaps as we’ve transitioned
from urban to rural, from the U.S. to abroad, from elementary school to middle school, or
from home to the office. “…Learning should be viewed in terms of an environment”
(Thomas & Seely Brown, 2011, p. 35). Context matters.

Out-of-School Learning
Educational research has traditionally focused on in-school learning, evaluating,
for example, the effectiveness of classroom teachers and/or the curricula that they
implement during the main school day (e.g., from 8 am to 3 pm). But over the past 15-20
years, an increasing amount of attention has been paid to “the other 17 hours” (Teitle,
2013). Jennifer Vadeboncoeur and Julian Sefton-Green are leading scholars in this area
of educational inquiry, which is variously referred to as out-of-school time, not-school,
after-school, informal learning contexts, the informal learning space, and the non-formal
17

learning sector. Both cite various social conditions as contributing to the increasing
amounts of attention and greater number of dollars being paid to not-school programs in
recent years.
Concern about youth safety for the economic “have not’s” has propelled some of
this activity. Proponents argue that if young people are off the street, or if “latchkey kids”
are supervised while their parents are at work, then they will be safer. In our increasingly
volatile economic climate, drive to secure a competitive edge for economic “have’s” also
has motivated some support for out-of-school enrichment. Knowing how to tap dance,
write code, promote events, engineer robots, organize volunteers, sing opera, design
games, etc, just might be the factor that inspires a college admissions officer to grant
acceptance or convinces a hiring committee to extend a job offer. As the middle class
shrinks, American workers lose ground on wages (Schmid, 2013), and industries
variously wither and emerge, it seems rational (or feels psychologically comforting) to
provide and participate in lots of extra anything – whatever might help. Finally, respect
for young people’s individual interests and/or shared appreciation for specific interests
(e.g., drama, sports) also has catalyzed funding and evaluation of out-of-school endeavors.
But much of the action around youths’ out-of-school lives actually can be traced
to in-school purposes. Desire to boost academic achievement has powered after-school
programming’s rise across the economic landscape. On the student level, structured
homework time, dedicated homework helpers, and/or subject-specific enrichment
programs may particularly benefit students who are struggling. Skills gained in informal
spaces also may complement students’ learning goals during the school day. On the
institutional level, out-of-school resources can redress schools’ shortfalls in various
18

arenas – “remediate their weakness and buttress against other forms of social fracture,” as
Sefton-Green puts it (2013, p. 12)
Some scholars in the digital media and learning field examine the tensions
between out-of-school and in-school, and seek to connect the identities and learning
associated with all of the spaces in a young person’s ecology (Ito et al., 2013). Other
scholars in this field document the educational implications of various out-of-school
activities (e.g., cosplay, hacking, machinima) and advocate for formal institutions to
recognize their legitimacy by conferring digital badges -- online representations of
mastery of particular skills or possession of certain bodies of knowledge. Such cutting-
edge organizations as the Digital Media and Learning Hub, HASTAC, and Mozilla
recognize badges’ potential to provide alternative credentialing for individuals who are
outside of and/or who have been “unsuccessful” in formal school systems.
For the benefit of such formal entities as universities or employers, badges also
might articulate how participation in digital and/or nascent pastimes relates to mastery of
desirable skills. This is important because most college admissions officers and hiring
committees understand this relationship vis-à-vis more traditional extra-curricular
activities. In fact, a political campaign relied upon this tacit understanding. To introduce
2008 Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin to a national audience,
communication professionals touted her extra-curricular high school achievements,
offering footage and talking points that lauded her acquisition of the nickname “Sarah
Barracuda” on the basketball court and her captaincy of a state championship-winning
basketball team. The public understood what these out-of-school distinctions implied:
19

toughness and leadership, respectively.
3
Digital badges express for those more familiar
with basketball than they are, for example, with Dungeons and Dragons or World of
Warcraft, what achievement in these spaces imply: namely, perseverance, commitment to
excellence, and/or leadership within a community practice. By translating the
implications of engagement with less traditional activities, digital badges ensure that its
participants are not at a competitive disadvantage against basketball stars and other
adherents of mainstream extra-curricular programming.
Other scholars in the digital media and learning field attempt to study not-schools’
forms of meaningful, pleasurable learning in order to offer models and recommendations
for formal institutions and educators to apply. This is the “camp” into which I fall. I
particularly value the freedom to explore and the freedom from censure that out-of-school
contexts offer both participants and facilitators. For example, curriculum need not be
dictated by external standards, scheduling need not be determined by standardized testing
dates, and retention need not be decided by teacher accountability rubrics or the letters A,
B, C, D, or F. While this allows for more variability in terms of quality and more
difficulty in terms of comparison, it also permits members of learning communities to
pursue relevant goals via satisfying means. “[U]ntil formal classrooms shift to
accommodate more open-ended tinkering and less closed-ended drilling, informal
learning spaces will likely remain key sites for the skill- and literacy-building that is
central to participatory culture” (Felt et al., 2012, p. 214).
After-school programs. After-school programs occur, as their name suggests,
after the school day has ended. While many of these programs embrace educational

3
Whether the public found these achievements compelling is another matter entirely.
20

objectives (e.g., to teach participants how to play musical instruments, perform Mexican
cultural dances, or code websites), their focus is usually non-academic (e.g., not directly
related to core disciplinary classes and/or their system of grading and standardized
testing).
The ways in which after-school programs are funded and facilitated varies widely.
Some after-school programs are funded and facilitated by the school itself; examples of
these programs would include sports teams, the winter play, and the marching band.
Across the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), many after-school programs
are funded by the state of California (via its 21
st
Century Learning grant) and overseen by
LAUSD entity Beyond the Bell. Beyond the Bell hires non-profit organizations (e.g.,
EduCare
4
, the Boys and Girls Club, and the Youth Policy Institute) to facilitate after-
school programming and/or sub-contract to smaller community providers (e.g., SLAM!
Program Los Angeles) (R. Matalon, personal communication, April 23, 2013). Out in the
community, for-profit companies also facilitate after-school programming (e.g., a local
dance studio’s ballet classes); their funding structure depends upon registration fees paid
by participants. Branches of local government, such as the library or the neighborhood
community center, sometimes provide free after-school programming as well.
This dissertation examines two after-school programs, one from academic
research group Project New Media Literacies (Project NML) and one from non-profit
Laughter for a Change (L4C). Both of these entities used grant monies to support their
programs and fund their staff members who facilitated their respective programs.

4
EduCare serves the Robert F. Kennedy Community Schools (site of three of the four case studies).
21

Summer programs. As their name suggests, summer programs occur over the
summer, when most public and private schools have locked their doors for summer
vacation – typically from June to August. After-school programs and summer programs
are funded and facilitated identically. This dissertation examines one summer program
from research group Project New Media Literacies (Project NML).
In-school electives. In-school electives are optional programs that occur during
the school day. Usually these opportunities are funded and facilitated by the school itself
(e.g., a ceramics class); however, this dissertation examines one in-school elective funded
and facilitated by outside provider Project NML.
As previously stated, context matters. This dissertation examines four out-of-
school contexts; because out-of-school learning appears less frequently in the educational
corpus, however, much of the literature in this chapter describes school-related theories
and reviews data from in-school investigations. I recognize this contextual mismatch. As
such, I rely upon in-school research for specific purposes: to reflect upon psychosocial
functioning, to review young people’s experiences with various learning cultures and
processes, and to think through objectives and outcomes commonly associated with 21
st

century learning and digital citizenship.

Organizational Learning and the Learning Organization
In 1978, organizational researchers Argyris and Schon broke new theoretical
ground by proposing organizational learning models, specifically single-loop learning
and double-loop learning. The former occurs when individuals, groups, or organizations
modify their actions in order to align obtained outcomes with expected outcomes. For
22

example, a soccer team may expect that their star player can safely dribble the ball from
one end of the field to the other without opponents stealing possession. In reality,
however, opponents steal the ball from her every time. When teammates decide to pass
the soccer ball down the field instead, this is single-loop learning.
Double-loop learning occurs when the parties of interest question the values,
assumptions, and policies that led to their actions in the first place. When the talented
forward critiques the team’s tendency to over-rely on the star player, when the star player
acknowledges that she never thought she’d get smoked, when benchwarmers bemoan
strategies that prioritize winning over skill-building, this is double-loop learning. Double-
loop learning also can be described as learning about single-loop learning. Because
double-loop learning pairs sensible reaction with meaningful reflection, it better serves
the organization by enabling proactive positioning. To return to the soccer example, the
team’s single-loop learning only affects their short-term decision-making (e.g., shifting
from single-player dribbling to multi-player passing) for that particular set of
circumstances within the discrete match. The team’s double-loop learning, however, has
implications for how the team operates across multiple contexts in the short- and long-
term. This potentially sets up the team for richer rewards in terms of both process and
impacts (Argyris & Schon, 1978).
Organizations that value double-loop learning and normatively use that model to
guide their functioning might be referred to as learning organizations. In The Fifth
Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization, organizational scholar
and practitioner Peter M. Senge (1990) coined the term “learning organization” and
specifically applied it to companies that facilitate the learning of their members and
23

continuously transform themselves. He also argued that an organization’s
competitiveness is a function of its members’ learning speed; the faster the employees
learn, the greater the company’s competitive advantage.
Education is a competitive affair. Both domestically and internationally, students,
teachers, and schools are evaluated frequently. Their scores on standardized measures
allow for ranking, comparison, and “failure,” all of which may deliver dramatic
consequences, e.g., a student’s retention or scholarship award, a teacher’s reassignment
or promotion, a school’s closure, its entrustment to charter school operators, or its receipt
of Blue Ribbon status. While debating the merits of standardized tests is beyond the
purview of this dissertation, the fact is that educational contexts must achieve “excellence”
in order to survive; the way we commonly recognize excellence is by how swiftly and
how significantly learning occurs. In 2013, when student test scores on an internationally
administered exam neither reflected swiftness nor significance in terms of learning gains,
United States Secretary of Education Arne Duncan characterized this as “educational
stagnation,” a “brutal truth,” an “urgent reality,” and a “wakeup call” (cited in Bidwell,
2013, para. 2).
Our schools and, I argue, our out-of-school programs, must function as learning
organizations. This not only protects their viability from an institutional perspective, but
also predicts participants’ meaningful growth via observation, adaptation, and reflection.

24

Organizational Culture vs. Organizational Climate
How does one facilitate the emergence of a learning organization, not just in
terms of practice but in terms of orientation? In other words, how do you get people to
care about learning?
In their seminal book Quality Middle Schools: Open and Healthy, educational
researchers Hoy and Sabo (1998) articulate the differences between organizational
culture and organizational climate. “We define organizational culture as a system of
shared orientations (norms, core values, and tacit assumptions) held by members, which
holds the unit together and gives it a distinctive identity (Hoy & Miskel, 1996)” (p. 5).
Studies of culture typically use ethnographic techniques to focus on assumptions, values,
and norms. Key objectives of such studies include determining the underlying forces that
motivate behavior in organizations and examining an organization’s language and
symbolism (Hoy & Sabo, 1998, pp. 6–7). Renowned educational expert Linda Darling-
Hammond, in a book chapter she co-authored with classroom teachers Austin, Lit, and
Nasir (2003), affirms that each school has its own culture. These educators describe
school culture as “a set of norms and ways of working, thinking, talking, valuing, and
behaving” (p. 106). As such, school culture “can create unequal opportunities for
education” between students whose ways of thinking, knowing, and valuing do and do
not differ from those normatively employed at school (p. 106).
Organizational communication scholar Patricia Riley describes climate as “more
evanescent and based in recent communication and circumstances” (personal
communication, June 18, 2014). Studies of climate usually examine perceptions of
behavior with the purpose of managing and/or changing it, and its researchers tend to
25

employ such tools as survey research techniques and multivariate analysis (Hoy & Sabo,
1998, pp. 6–7).
Because of the conceptual similarity of culture and climate in everyday parlance,
some educational research blurs the lines between these two units of analysis. The
National School Climate Center even invokes the hallmarks of culture in order to define
school climate: “School climate refers to the quality and character of school life. School
climate is based on patterns of students’, parents’ and school personnel’s experience of
school life and reflects norms, goals, values, interpersonal relationships, teaching and
learning practices, and organizational structures” (National School Climate Center, n.d.).
This investigation follows Hoy & Sabo (1998) in terms of conceptualizing
organizational culture, and analyzes the cultures of four out-of-school programs. I utilize
an ethnographic approach in order to investigate each program’s norms, values, and ways
of working, thinking, talking, valuing, and behaving.
Positive learning culture. According to Thapa and colleagues’ (2013) review of
literature from different parts of the world, a positive learning culture has been
documented as:
“(a) having a powerful influence on the motivation to learn (Eccles et al., 1993);
(b) mitigating the negative impact of the socioeconomic context on academic
success (Astor, Benbenisty, & Estrada, 2009); (c) contributing to less aggression
and violence (Gregory et al., 2010; Karcher, 2002a), less harassment (Blaya,
2006; Kosciw & Elizabeth, 2006), and less sexual harassment (Attar-Schwartz,
2009); and (d) acting as a protective factor for the learning and positive life
development of young people (Ortega, Sanchez, & Viejo, 2011). In addition to
these areas, studies around the world also indicate that quality of the school
climate contributes to academic outcomes as well as the personal development
and well-being of pupils (e.g., Haahr, Nielsen, Hansen, & Jakobsen, 2005; OECD,
2009)” (Thapa et al., 2013, p. 360).

26

Educational psychologists Meyer and Turner (2006) found that positive affective
climates — that is, learning spaces in which participants feel and demonstrate upbeat
energy — boost student learning in two ways: first, these spaces encourage students to
take academic risks; second, these spaces incentivize students to work toward mastery (as
opposed to sufficiency). Distilling various educational research studies, Paul (2013)
explains,
“When we’re in a positive mood, for example, we tend to think more expansively
and creatively. When we feel anxious—for instance, when we’re about to take a
dreaded math test—that anxiety uses up some of the working memory capacity
we need to solve problems, leaving us, literally, with less intelligence to apply to
the exam” (paras. 16-17).

Communication scholar Joseph P. Mazer (2013a) and senior research scientist in
psychology Marc Brackett corroborate Paul’s two examples, respectively. Citing Nielson
and Lorber (2009), Mazer (2013) explains, “When students are exposed to positive
emotional stimuli, they are better able to recall newly learned information” (p. 254). Said
Brackett, “They [emotions] affect our attention and our memory. If you’re very anxious
about something, or agitated, how well can you focus on what’s being taught?” (cited in
Kahn, 2013, para. 12).
According to affective neuroscientists Immordino-Yang and Damasio (2007),
emotion is a basic part of life, indivisible from learning spaces
5
; moreover, if such a thing
as divorcing emotion from learning could be achieved, then the resulting knowledge
might be difficult to apply in the emotional real-world. This is because emotional
experiences potentially modify how students encode and retrieve information from long-

5
Paraphrasing Brackett, journalist Jennifer Kahn describes school as “…an emotional caldron: a constant
stream of academic and social challenges that can generate feelings ranging from loneliness to euphoria”
11/3/14 11:20 AM.
27

term memory (Grossberg, 2009; Packard & Cahill, 2001). Scholars from various fields
now argue that emotions are critical resources for learning and making sense of
information (Csikszentmihayli, 1997; Gardner, 2006, 2011; Mazer, 2012, 2013a;
Titsworth, Quinlan, & Mazer, 2010). As the title of Immordino-Yang and Damasio’s
article proclaims, “we feel, therefore we learn.”
The meta-analytic work of Thapa and colleagues (2013), and a significant body of
literature (e.g., Taylor, Cooren, Giroux, & Robichaud, 1996), supports this study’s use of
“safety,” “connection,” “engagement,” and “empowerment” as the principal items of
interest vis-à-vis positive learning cultures.

Safety
Physical safety. Physical safety is critical for learning; protecting students from
physical danger, however, can present a considerable challenge. Take, for example, the
case of Harper High School, located in Chicago’s Englewood neighborhood. During the
2012-2013 school year, 29 current and former Harper High School students were shot;
eight of them died (Carr, 2013). Contributing journalists to radio program This American
Life approached the institution seeking to better understand the residual effects of these
tragedies and to assess the current level of danger. From their embedded observations and
interviews during the Fall 2013 semester, these reporters found that the situation within
the school was relatively safe, thanks in no small part to the efforts of the dedicated
principal and talented (albeit burned out) school counselors.
It was getting to and from Harper that was perilous. Gang membership is
automatically assigned according to one’s address and opting out is impossible.
28

Territories are positioned in such a way that, in order to get to school, crossing into a
rival’s area is unavoidable. Walking to or from school alone is an invitation to get jumped,
while walking with a group might draw suspicion and provoke a pre-emptive strike.
Students commonly choose to walk 10 paces apart down the center of trafficked streets;
in so doing, they are neither isolated nor perceived as a threat, can maintain a wide scope
of vision, and avoid the hedge-cloaked sneak attacks commonly perpetrated on sidewalks.
Thus traumatized students arrive at school, but they are not ready to learn. Anxiety,
depression, suicidal ideation and other mental health issues embattle academic success.
The situation is similar in Los Angeles’s MacArthur Park neighborhood.
Although the murder rate in MacArthur Park is (thankfully) inferior to that of Englewood,
youth there still may witness or be the targets of shootings – in 2011, the Los Angeles
Police Department arrested more than 400 MacArthur Park juveniles on suspicion of
homicide (Gilbertson, 2014, para. 11). Additionally, in this neighborhood in which the
child poverty rate is double the California average, young people commonly experience
at least one of the following challenges: parental neglect, abuse, deportation, food or
housing insecurity, overcrowding, and overworked or underemployed (read: stressed out)
parents (Gilbertson, 2014). These chronic stressors not only distress and distract students,
but they also compromise students’ cognitive development, changing their brains’
chemical and physical structures in such a way as to stunt problem-solving, attention,
concentration memory, and creativity (Gilbertson, 2014, paras.7-8).
In these deplorably unjust situations, interventions must address a whole
neighborhood’s “ecosystem of poverty, crime and hopelessness” (Carr, 2013, para. 4).
Indeed, a successful school in MacArthur Park, Camino Nuevo Charter Academy, sees its
29

job as improving the lives of students’ entire families (Gilbertson, 2014, para. 19).
6
I do
not pretend any expertise in terms of taking on such entrenched and complex social
conditions, and examining neighborhood threats to safety is beyond the purview of this
dissertation. It is important to note, nonetheless, that threats to physical safety can impede
students’ performance in school, even when the space inside the school is danger-free.
Often, however, American schools are not danger-free; bullying-related violence,
gang violence, and school shootings plague the psyches and, too often, the bodies of
teachers and students. Several other elements can threaten students’ sense of safety at
school, including: corporal punishment; sexual predation; inadequate provisions (e.g.,
non-existent or polluted drinking water, exorbitantly priced or nutritionally deficient food,
broken or germ-ridden bathrooms); unsafe built environment (e.g., uneven pavement,
faulty wiring); extreme temperatures (e.g., stifling heat, bitter cold); and natural disasters
(e.g., tornadoes, earthquakes). From speaking with more than 500 high school drop-outs
across America, researchers learned that more than half (57 percent) felt their schools did
not do enough to help students feel safe from violence (Bridgeland, Dilulio, Jr., &
Morison, 2006, p. 5).
7
Who wants to come to school, let alone learn at school, if the space
is literally unsafe?
Social and emotional safety. But for better or for worse, threats of physical harm
are less prevalent in American schools than threats of social or emotional harm; bullying

6
Said principal Ana Ponce, “…[We] can not teach kids that are not ready to learn because they were
preoccupied with all of the barriers they encountered on their way to school or all of their fears they had
leaving school” (cited in Gilbertson, 2014, para. 14).
7
Public policy and strategy firm Civic Enterprises LLC, in partnership with the Gates Foundation,
commissioned a national, cross-sectional study on “the silent epidemic” of dropping out of high school. By
speaking with more than 500 ethnically and racially diverse Americans, aged 16 to 25, who had dropped
out of public high schools in 25 different locations—including large cities, suburbs, and small towns—with
high drop out rates, researchers developed a richer understanding of why students drop out and how to
reverse this tide.
30

is one of the most pernicious forms. In their 2014 review of bullying in schools,
psychologists Juvonen and Graham cite survey data that indicate that approximately 20-
25% of youths are directly involved in bullying as perpetrators, victims, or both (2014, p.
161). As previously mentioned and commonly known, some bullies choose to enact
physically aggressive behaviors (e.g., hitting). But bullying entails more than aggression
and does not qualify as pure “conflict.” Rather, bullying “captures a dynamic interaction
between the perpetrator and the victim” in which a physically stronger or more socially
prominent person exacerbates a power-imbalance in order to intimidate or humiliate a
diminutive party (Juvonen & Graham, 2014, p. 161). Bullying is an intensely relational
act, related to psychosocial factors, and wreaking substantive social and emotional
consequences.
Compared to youth who do not bully, bullies tend to demonstrate higher levels of
conduct problems (e.g., drinking alcohol and smoking) and poorer school adjustment
(Nansel et al., 2008); at the same time, “bullies score high when asked how important it is
to be visible, influential, and admired (Salmivalli et al. 2005, Sijtsema et al. 2009)”
(Juvonen & Graham, 2014). Youths who are frequently victimized “…generally show
higher levels of insecurity, anxiety, depression, loneliness, unhappiness, physical and
mental symptoms, and low self-esteem” than uninvolved peers (Nansel et al., 2008).
Even temporary victimization can impact functioning after bullying has stopped,
manifesting in such symptoms as increased sensitivity to maltreatment (Rudolph, Troop-
Gordon, Hessel, & Schmidt, 2011).
In addition to bullying, other phenomena may destabilize social and/or emotional
security, such as unhealthy levels of competitiveness between and among community
31

members, self-destructive involvement with social comparison, disloyalty and lack of
integrity, inconsistent delivery of rewards and punishments, and the application of
excessively punitive measures.
Relational trust.
One of the things I was taught early on is that you are not the most important
person in the scene. Everybody else is. And if they are the most important people
in the scene, you will naturally pay attention to them and serve them. But the
good news is you’re in the scene too. So hopefully to them you’re the most
important person, and they will serve you. No one is leading, you’re all following
the follower, serving the servant. You cannot win improv (Colbert, 2011).

Famous late-night television personality Stephen Colbert is a trained improviser
who exercises his skills each time he interviews a guest on cable television show The
Colbert Report. The guest’s willingness to play along with Colbert – that is, to interpret
his character’s gibes as comedic ribbing and to respond in kind – reflects relational trust,
a key component of a positive learning culture. Relational trust depends upon four
supports: interpersonal respect; willingness to go “above and beyond”; confidence in the
other’s capacity to perform his/her role competently; and faith in the other’s personal
integrity. Relational trust is essential to improvisation (improv) because improv can be a
risky business. Improvisers must trust in themselves (e.g., that their skills are strong
enough, their ideas are sound enough) and, like Colbert explained in the previous quote,
must trust in their peers (e.g., that they have your back, they’re there to make you look
good). In the absence of relational trust on The Colbert Report – that is, if/when guests do
not respect Colbert, are not willing to extend themselves beyond their comfort zone, do
not believe Colbert can perform his role competently, or lack faith in his integrity –
guests either shut down or become hostile. Not only does the interview lose its luster, but
the conversationalists make fewer discoveries (e.g., identifying similarities and
32

differences, setting up and delivering punchlines, etc).
Like Colbert, I have studied improvisational theater (improv) and trace some of
my views on safety to its tenets. I similarly regard relational trust as an imperative of
meaningful learning and production. In my experiences I have observed that most
students only will pursue out-of-the-box innovation if they feel that the environment is a
safe space for spectacular failures – that is, if they believe that, regardless of outcome,
their community will respect their unique perspectives and essential humanity.
Effective teaching depends upon trust between and among adults and students
(Linda Darling-Hammond et al., 2003, p. 114). But such trust isn’t necessarily easy to
come by. Brad Ovenell-Carter, director of educational technologies at Mulgrave School
in Vancouver, Canada, describes his collaborative approach to learning as “…a radical
shift in this way of doing things — it's built on trust, and I think our existing school
structures are built more on dependency and control than trust” (Rheingold, 2014, para.
5).
To establish these trusting relationships that enable improv’s “risky business” and
learning’s rich returns, rules and norms must prohibit — even make unthinkable —
any/all attacks on participants’ identities or ideas. Members of a learning community
must support diversity in multiple forms, including diversity of experience, ability,
interest, and method. To achieve that, the ways in which power, status, and cultural
norms may shape classroom work need to be identified and challenged (Lewis, 2001),
and “perspective-taking, empathy, and acceptance of one’s own and others’
responsibilities within the group’ need to be honored” (Reilly, Vartabedian, et al., 2012,
pp. 20–21).
33

This is the sort of safety that “…empowers participants to imagine and enact their
ideas boldly and supports them in accepting their peers’ ideas appreciatively” (Felt &
Greenberg, 2014, p. 9). For the individuals who participated in the 2006 high school
dropout study, rules and norms such as these might have helped them to stay in school.
Seven in ten favored increasing supervision in school, and more than three in five (62
percent) felt more classroom discipline was necessary (Bridgeland et al., 2006, p. 5).
Trust between and among educators, administrators, and parents also is essential.
Corroborating the results of Comer’s School Development Project (Comer, Haynes,
Joyner, & Ben-Avie, 1996) and rhetoric from Meier (1995) and Malloy (1998), Chicago-
based educational researchers Bryk and Schneider (2003) found that relational trust plays
a central role in building effective education communities. When relational trust rises, so
do student academic outcomes and the odds of achieving meaningful school reform.
“A school with a low score on relational trust at the end of our study had only a
one in seven chance of demonstrating improved academic productivity. In
contrast, half of the schools that scored high on relational trust were in the
improved group. On average, these improving schools recorded increases in
student learning of 8 percent in reading and 20 percent in mathematics in a five-
year period. The schools in the non-improving group lost ground in reading and
stayed about the same in mathematics. Most significant was the finding that
schools with chronically weak trust reports throughout the period of the study had
virtually no chance of improving in either reading or mathematics” (Bryk &
Schneider, 2003, p. 43).

Imagine what would happen if all stakeholders, like improvisers, entered into a
mutual safety contract – that is, I’ll keep this space safe for you and you keep it safe for
me. Just imagine the authenticity, creativity, and reform that the community could
cultivate. This leads us to the first research question, which examines if and how safety
relates to each out-of-school learning context.
34

RQ1. To what extent does each learning culture support participants’ sense of
safety?

Connection
My colleagues at both the Digital Media and Learning Hub and the Connected
Learning Alliance advocate for “connected learning,” conceptualizing this type of
pedagogy as bridging youths’ interests, academics, and peer culture in order to honor
youths’ holistic identities and lived experiences. The type of connected learning that I
propose here differs from (but does not disrespect) their vision (for more on Connected
Learning, see page X). I argue for connecting to a group (e.g., establishing a “belonging”
community), connecting to a supportive individual (e.g., attaching to a trustworthy and/or
maintaining healthy, one-on-one relationships), and connecting to self (e.g., supporting
our sense of self-worth).
According to shame researcher (and TED talk sensation) Brené Brown,
connection is “…the energy that exists between people when they feel seen, heard, and
valued; when they can give and receive without judgment; and when they derive
sustenance and strength from the relationship” (Brene Brown, 2010, p. 19). She cites the
work of researchers and activists Lorraine Gutierrez and Edith Anne Lewis in order to
explain connection’s function:
Connection serves two purposes: the development of social support networks and
the creation of power through interaction. Involvement with others in similar
situations provides individuals with a means for acquiring and providing mutual
aid, with the opportunity to learn new skills through role modeling, with strategies
for dealing with likely institutional reprisals, and with a potential power base for
future action’” (cited in Brené Brown, 2008, p. 49).

35

Brown heightens the stakes by declaring, “Connection is why we’re here… It’s what
gives purpose and meaning to our lives, and without it there is suffering” (Brene Brown,
2012, p. 8).
I submit, humanistic connections to a group, to a supportive individual, and to self
facilitate learning and development across interpersonal and intrapersonal domains,
which are two of the three “action areas” for of 21
st
century learning.
Connecting to a group. Neuroscience suggests that humans are “hardwired” to
connect (Goleman, 2006) and numerous well-known theories recognize this, including
the Hierarchy of Needs (Maslow, 1954) and Self-Determination Theory (SDT; (Deci &
Flaste, 1995; Deci & Ryan, 2000; Vansteenkiste, Ryan, & Deci, 2008). Along with
autonomy and competency, SDT identifies the primacy of relatedness. “…[T]he need for
relatedness is defined as individuals’ inherent propensity to feel connected to others, that
is, to be a member of a group, to love and care and be loved and cared for (Baumeister &
Leary, 1995). The need for relatedness is satisfied when people experience a sense of
communion and develop close and intimate relationships with others (Deci & Ryan,
2000)” (Van den Broeck, Vansteenkiste, De Witte, Soenens, & Lens, 2010, pp. 982–983).
This definition of relatedness centrally positions group membership, which might
also be referred to as belonging. Researchers Connell & Wellborn (1991) frame
“belonging” as a psychological need, and systematic review by Baumeister & Leary
(1995) found support for “the belongingness hypothesis”: “This hypothesis is theorized to
have two core aspects: …people seem to need frequent, affectively pleasant or positive
interactions with the same individuals, and they need these interactions to occur in a
framework of long-term, stable caring, and concern” (p. 520). According to
36

communication scholars affiliated with the civically oriented Metamorphosis Project,
sharing neighborhood stories – that is, discussing neighborhood issues, problems, and
opportunities – helps to create a belonging community. They describe a belonging
community as one where people feel positive about and attached to their residential area,
and act on those feelings by engaging in neighborly behaviors (2008, p. 1). In
communities of high belonging, young children tend to fare better.
Sense of belonging also affects academic performance and learning outcomes.
Goodenow (1993) defines school belonging as “the extent to which students feel
personally accepted, respected, included, and supported by others in the school
environment” (p. 80). From his study of 301 junior high school students attending two
low-income, urban schools, Goodenow (1992) found a robust relationship between sense
of belonging and school motivation and effort/persistence (Appleton, Christenson, &
Furlong, 2008, p. 376). During the previous year, Goodenow (1991) published findings in
which sense of belonging mediated outcomes during transitional school years;
specifically, not belonging implied greater vulnerability to experiences during grade 7.
This dovetails with our previously reviewed notions of safety and trust, suggesting that a
space in which learners feel safe to be themselves facilitates their sense of belonging
therein.
Connecting to a supportive individual. While a generalized sense of belonging
is crucial, so too are nourishing, one-on-one connections. Attachment Theory (Bowlby,
1969) both argues that our species primally needs to connect to specific individuals, and
shows how safety and learning are served by connection. A series of famous experiments
conducted by Ainsworth & Bell (1970) and replicated over time (Main, Kaplan, &
37

Cassidy, 1985) illuminates how trusted caregivers operate as secure bases from which
babies can explore. Here’s what I mean: Their “strange situation” studies demonstrated
that, if children are securely attached (i.e., trust that their caregiver will consistently and
compassionately meet their needs), then they are more likely than non-securely attached
peers to concentrate on their environment and to explore freely while the caregiver is
present. So, a rich relationship establishes a sense of safety, which facilitates observation,
exploration — in short, learning.
Laszlo Bock, senior vice president of people operations at Google, has observed
first-hand the impacts of a consistent “caregiver” (i.e., leader, manager, teacher) in the
workplace:
“We found that, for leaders, it’s important that people know you are consistent
and fair in how you think about making decisions and that there’s an element of
predictability. If a leader is consistent, people on their teams experience
tremendous freedom, because then they know that within certain parameters, they
can do whatever they want. If your manager is all over the place, you’re never
going to know what you can do, and you’re going to experience it as very
restrictive” (Bryant, 2013, para. 14).

Educational researcher Denise Pope (2010), co-founder of Stanford University’s
Stressed-Out Students project and non-profit organization Challenge Success, has found
evidence to support the impacts of a compassionate school-based “caregiver.” According
to Pope’s student surveys of students from 100+ high-achieving schools, “The students
who believe more of their teachers support them in this way [care about them, value and
listen to the students’ ideas, are willing to help with homework, and get to know the
students personally] are often more engaged with learning, less likely to cheat, and show
fewer signs of stress and physical health problems” (p. 7).
38

The importance of at least one caring staff member or teacher was keenly felt by a
racially and ethnically diverse group of American high school dropouts, aged 16 to 25.
Among them, “only 56 percent said they could go to a staff person for school problems
and just two-fifths (41 percent) had someone in school to talk to about personal problems.
More than three out of five (62 percent) said their school needed to do more to help
students with problems outside of class” (Bridgeland et al., 2006, p. 5). While the youth
cited other reasons for dropping out, e.g., perception of school as “boring,” inability to
meet academic demands, and other family responsibilities, it’s worth pondering whether
and how a meaningful relationship with a caring adult might have influenced their
decision-making — and their experiences along the way.
To understand the anatomy of connection, Brown studied its flip side – shame.
Described by her research participants as “an intensely painful feeling or experience of
believing we are flawed and therefore unworthy of acceptance and belonging,” shame is a
multifaceted construct that disempowers, traps, and isolates (Brené Brown, 2006, p. 45).
Stated Brown, “We cannot share ourselves with others when we see ourselves as flawed
and unworthy of connection. It’s impossible to be ‘real’ when we are ashamed of who we
are or what we believe” (Brené Brown, 2008, p. 242). As such, shame embattles
connection to a supportive individual and prevents connecting as a supportive individual.
From conducting hundreds of interviews and analyzing transcripts via grounded
theory (B. G. Glaser & Strauss, 1999), Brown constructed a theory of shame resilience
(2006) and a typology of shame resilient individuals (2010), who Brown refers to as the
Wholehearted. Those who are Wholehearted are both givers and receivers of empathy
(2008, p. 32), which research participants associated with connection, power, and
39

freedom, and Brown frames as the antidote to shame (Brown, 2006, p. 47). According to
Brown, “One reason empathy and compassion are so powerful is the fact that they say to
someone, ‘I can hear this. This is hard but I can be in this space with you,’” (Brown, 2008,
p. 56). Joining someone on equal terms, sharing that space — connecting — counters the
fear, blame, and shame that block our happiness, stymie our creativity, and make the
world a less comfortable place.
Among American students, peer connection does seem to be “broken”; according
to a 2001 study with 11-, 13-, and 15-year-olds, only 53.4 percent identified their peers as
“kind and helpful.” To put this number in context, it is the fourth lowest score among 29
participating countries – only students in the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom,
and Lithuania found their peers less friendly (UNICEF, 2007, p. 44). Therefore, it is well
worth our while to honor interpersonal connection, as there’s room for improvement and
its presence sets us up for success, both individually and collectively.
Connecting to self. Researchers Kristin Neff and Brené Brown provide useful
instruments for both monitoring and enriching the relationships that people form with
themselves. While such self-focus might seem frivolous or egotistical, this only applies in
the extreme; in fact, a certain amount of self-orientation is necessary in order to thrive.
Alienation from self is related to co-dependency, external locus of control, and limited
perceptions of self-worth. Meanwhile, negative self-attitudes and negative self-judgments
are linked to suicidal ideation and attempted suicide (Harter, 1999), particularly among
adolescents (Harter & Margold, 1994; Laufer, 1995). Being kind and understanding
toward yourself, realizing that most people go through similar problems, and trying to
40

maintain a more balanced awareness of your emotional experiences could powerfully
intervene against such self-destructive behaviors (K. Neff, 2003, p. 95).
Self-compassion. According to Neff (2003),
“…self-compassion entails three basic components: (a) self-kindness—extending
kindness and understanding to oneself rather than harsh judgment and self-
criticism, (b) common humanity—seeing one’s experiences as part of the larger
human experience rather than seeing them as separating and isolating, and (c)
mindfulness—holding one’s painful thoughts and feelings in balanced awareness
rather than over-identifying with them” (p. 89).

Self-compassion is not synonymous with self-esteem because “…it is not based on the
performance evaluations of self and others, or on congruence with ideal standards” (Neff,
2003, p. 92); in fact, her empirical work established self-compassion and self-esteem as
independent constructs (K. D. Neff, 2003, p. 243). Because self-compassion celebrates
one’s common humanity, and is not contingent upon meeting certain expectations or out-
performing peers, the burden and toxicity of self-criticism and social comparison are
eliminated from the equation. This has the potential to boost quality of life by improving
self-talk, enriching relationships, and avoiding self-centeredness or patterns of
unproductive, unhealthy, or harmful behavior (Damon, 1995). Practicing self-compassion,
“…which involves the ability to monitor one’s own emotions and to skillfully use this
information to guide one’s thinking and actions (Salovey & Mayer, 1990),” also may
increase emotional intelligence (K. Neff, 2003, p. 92).
To validate her scale, Neff not only scrutinized construct validity – that is,
examined the extent to which her questions about a certain concept, such as isolation,
actually measured that concept — but she also tested hypotheses about relationships
between self-compassion, mental health, and other traits. “It was found that self-
compassion had a significant negative correlation with anxiety and depression, and a
41

significant positive correlation with life satisfaction. This suggests that self-compassion
may be an adaptive process that increases psychological resiliency and well-being. Self-
compassion also had a significant negative correlation with neurotic perfectionism” (K. D.
Neff, 2003, p. 235).
Shame Resilience Theory and the Wholehearteds’ Gifts of Imperfection.
Immersing in shame denies self-compassion; a simple rule of thumb for
distinguishing guilt from shame instructs, “Guilt says I what I did was bad; shame says I
am bad.” Brown (2006)’s Shame Resilience Theory offers both five major categories
relating to shame resilience and various properties that inform each category (pp. 47-48).
SRT elucidates how combating shame is enacted by: acknowledging personal
vulnerabilities; raising critical awareness of how social/cultural expectations shape and
narrowly define experiences; reaching out to others to both find and offer empathy; and
developing fluency in the language of shame (pp. 48-49). Improving connections with
self, therefore, facilitates better connections with others.
Brown (2010)’s investigation of the shame resilient, whom she dubbed “the
Wholehearted,” explains how to risk being vulnerable and live a life defined by courage,
compassion, and connection. In addition to self-compassion, Brown found that one must
cultivate nine other resources: authenticity; a resilient spirit; gratitude and joy; intuition
and faith; creativity; play and rest; calm and stillness; meaningful work; and laughter,
song, and dance (see Appendix X). Brown refers to these as “the gifts of imperfection”
(2010). While these resources can be explored socially, the will to pursue them must
come from within. Additionally, most of these concepts relate to our internal processes,
e.g., how we understand things (which is also called framing, account-making, or
42

reappraisal), how we talk to ourselves, and how we prioritize; so, becoming
Wholehearted requires significant self-study. Cultivating the gifts of imperfection is how
we take care of both ourselves and others.
Overall, the research suggests that if a culture values and supports human
connection, then learning and holistic functioning are likely to flourish. This leads to the
second research question.
RQ2. To what extent does each learning culture support participants’ types of
connection?

Engagement
A culture that values and supports engagement also optimizes learning potentials.
Scholars understand engagement as a multi-dimensional construct consisting of either
two or three of the following components: behavioral, emotional, cognitive (Fredricks,
Blumenfeld, & Paris, 2004; Jimerson, Campos, & Greif, 2003; Newmann, Wehlage, &
Lamborn, 1992; O’Farrell, Morison, & Furlong, 2006; Willms, 2003). Indiana
University’s Center for Evaluation & Education Policy, which administers the High
School Survey of Student Engagement, conceptualizes engagement as tripartite:
cognitive/intellectual/academic (i.e., engagement of the mind), emotional (i.e.,
engagement of the heart), and social/behavioral/participatory (i.e., engagement in the life
of the school) (Yazzie-Mintz, 2007). Perhaps not coincidentally, this arrangement
perfectly aligns with the National Academies’ designation of 21
st
century learning as
concerning cognitive, intrapersonal, and interpersonal domains.
43

Magnitude of engagement has been correlated with and, in some cases, even
predictive of, academic achievement (Osterman, 2000; Voelkl, 1995) and school
completion (Bridgeland et al., 2006; Christenson et al., 2008). Conversations across
America with more than 500 ethnically and racially diverse high school dropouts
revealed disengagement as “the smoking gun”:
“Nearly half (47 percent) said a major reason for dropping out was that classes
were not interesting. These young people reported being bored and disengaged
from high school. …Nearly 7 in 10 respondents (69 percent) said they were not
motivated or inspired to work hard” (Bridgeland et al., 2006, p. 3)

The authors of this report maintain, “for almost all young people, dropping out of high
school is not a sudden act, but a gradual process of disengagement” (Bridgeland et al.,
2006, p. 4). This means that our nation’s dropouts, who represent nearly one-third of all
American high school students and nearly one-half of the entire African-American,
Latino, and Native American high school student population, let us know -- for extended
periods of time before they left -- that they were dissatisfied!
8
Can you imagine such a
widespread message falling on deaf ears?
Relevance. Both research literature and practical experience illuminate the how
boosting lessons’ and learning experiences’ relevance tend to increase students’
engagement. Project NML identified “relevance” as one of the five core principles for
participatory learning. In a participatory learning environment, “activities feel relevant to
learners’ identities and interests” (Reilly, Vartabedian, Felt & Jenkins, 2012, p. 4).
Curricula often ignore students’ cultural and geographical worlds, and tend to prefer
research, production, and communication that occurs within the classroom’s physical

8
Some summary studies isolate other factors related to our high rate of drop-outs, such as systemically
failing schools, falling behind in math and reading, poverty, health, and parenting. Certain researchers tie
the recent rise in graduation rates across the United States to some of these issues becoming the focus of
reforms.
44

walls. Opportunities for both substantive collaboration and participatory engagement are
often minimized in favor of more traditional, top-down approaches. While educators
might appreciate the importance of social and emotional competence and community
connectedness, institutions rarely prioritize these values in resource allocation. As a result,
students suffer from de-motivation and disengagement (Reilly, Vartabedian, Felt, &
Jenkins, 2012, p. 22).
The aforementioned study that welcomed high school drop-outs to share their
perspectives (Bridgeland et al., 2006) provided illuminating information on relevance:
basically, it is essential.
While most dropouts blame themselves for failing to graduate, there are things
they say schools can do to help them finish:

Improve teaching and curricula to make school more relevant and engaging and
enhance the connection between school and work: Four out of five (81 percent)
said there should be more opportunities for real-world learning and some in the
focus groups called for more experiential learning. They said students need to see
the connection between school and getting a good job (p. iii).

This call for relevance was the former students’ number one suggestion for improving
retention. High-quality teachers “in the field” also recognize the importance of relevance
and link it to engagement:

Elementary teacher Frank declared, “I truly believe that my instruction has to
have a connection to my students’ future... I learned that my students need
modern interpretations of curriculum to engage them in life-long learning.” High
school social studies teacher Nancy testified, “... If you provide students with
relevant experiences and ways of learning, they will be engaged active
students, ...rise to the occasion, and participate fully” (Reilly, Vartabedian, Felt, &
Jenkins, 2012, p. 26).

Interestingly, “the corporate world” also is demanding relevance from their
incoming workforce and the educational institutions that have shaped them. Based on the
45

data it collected from its survey with 1000 hiring managers across the United States,
Chegg.com (2013) issued the following recommendations:
• Commercial and educational institutions need to continue to work to drive
meaningful internship and co-operative programs that mix book smarts and on the
job experiences for students. The combination will not only drive experiential
learning, but will also allow students to benchmark their assumptions against the
realities of the workplace.

• Students should listen to what employers are telling them about their workforce
readiness and proactively seek out ways to augment their skills through self-paced
learning, coursework, co-ops and self-study (p. 7).

The third research question examines engagement’s role across the four programs.
RQ3. To what extent does each learning culture support participants’ sense of
engagement?

Empowerment
According to Howard Rheingold, noted scholar of modern communication media
and frequent contributor to the Digital Media and Learning Hub’s blog, empowerment is
the “thru line” connecting innovative educators’ success stories.
Student empowerment is the strongest connective theme through the 55 posts and
interviews I’ve conducted for this blog. The educators I’ve interviewed all have
one characteristic in common: they all enable students to take more control over
and responsibility for their own learning. …[T]he best educational outcomes grow
from a well thought out program of student empowerment — made both possible
and attractive by adopting, adapting and mashing-up digital media” (Rheingold,
2014, para. 1).

As a student of entertainment-education (EE), Rheingold’s finding makes perfect sense to
me; it echoes those of Albert Bandura, “father” of self-efficacy and collective efficacy
theorization and research. Bandura’s social cognitive theory (SCT) (Bandura, 1977, 1986,
2002, 2004) envisions the relationship between self and society as transactional. Its
46

triadic recriprocal causation contends that personal factors, behavioral patterns, and
environmental events “operate as interacting determinants that influence each other
bidirectionally” (Bandura, 2002, p. 121). Rather than masters of their domain or puppets
on a string, as more simplistic theories might imply, SCT positions humans as agentic,
self-regulating actors, motivated by efficacy, sensitive to modeling, embedded in
networks.
“Efficacious modeling not only cultivates competencies but also enhances the
sense of personal efficacy needed to perform knowledge and skills into successful
courses of action” (Bandura, 2002, p. 140). Efficacy is understood as a key motivator of
behavior and plays an important role in several prominent behavior change models
(Azjen & Fishbein, 1980; Fishbein & Yzer, 2003). Bandura distinguishes among types of
efficacy. Self-efficacy refers to a belief in one’s capacity to produce effects. While
researchers may long for a single self-efficacy scale (and I am one of them!), Bandura
recommends construction of separate self-efficacy scales for discrete activities.
9

When collective and/or complex tasks are concerned, even issue-specific self-
efficacy may fail to predict behavior; this is where collective efficacy comes into play.
Following Bandura (1997), a team of EE researchers define collective efficacy as “the
degree to which individuals in a system believe that they can organize and execute
courses of action required to achieve collective goals” (Papa et al., 2000, p. 36). EE
interventions have analyzed both self-efficacy and collective efficacy, although not in
equal measure across time or place. Whereas self-efficacy was the object of interest in the
past, collective efficacy is growing in prominence; additionally, self-efficacy seems to be

9
As such, I’ve designed surveys that aim to elucidate youths’ self-efficacy vis-a-vis improvisational acting
(see Chapter VII), using photography as a mode of self-expression, etc.
47

examined more in the West while collective efficacy is investigated more in the
developing world.
Simply, in order for our students to think/make/do, they themselves must believe
that they can. And when they believe that they can, it is considerably more likely that
they will (Fishbein & Cappella, 2006). This leads to the fourth research question.
RQ4. To what extent does each learning culture support participants’ sense of
empowerment?
Why Process is Important
Child rights advocate Gerison Lansdown (2005) stated, “Respectful environments
require the introduction of a culture rooted in a presumption that children are entitled to
be involved, are competent to make a valid and valuable contribution, can provide a
unique contribution based on their own experience and operate as active agents
influencing the world around them” (p. 19). While children’s participation can be
examined per Lansdown, as a cultural value, in this dissertation, I examine it processually.
That is, how do the learning contexts of interest facilitate participation?

Participatory Governance
Public health researchers Wong, Zimmerman, and Parker (2010) review several
typologies of youth participation, or forms of adult–youth power-sharing, to develop their
Typology of Youth Empowerment (TYPE). This schematization, which they lay out in
the shape of a pyramid, suggests five types of participation situated along a continuum
consisting of three categories: “adult control,” “shared control,” and “youth control” (p.
105) (see Table 2.1).
48

Table 2.1
Typology of Youth Participation and Empowerment (TYPE) pyramid (Wong, Zimmerman,
& Parker, 2010).
Adult Control Shared Control Youth Control
Vessel Symbolic Pluralistic Independent Autonomous
Lack of youth
voice and
participation;
adults have total
control.
Youth have
voice; adults
have most
control.
Youth have voice
and an active
participant role;
youth and adults
share control.
Youth have voice
and an active
participant role;
adults give youth
most control.
Youth have voice
and an active
participant role;
youth have total
control.

Wong and colleagues do not prize the poles of their pyramid-shaped typology,
where either adults or youth alone reign supreme; rather, they praise the middle position
of shared control, an arrangement that allows for co-learning. Project NML has long
identified “co-learning” as a principle of a participatory learning and lauded its capacity
to serve collective intelligence, relationship-building, and individual enrichment.
“Educators can foster co-learning by organizing their classroom as a participatory
apprenticeship, where the content to be learned is vitally connected to learning to think,
react, debate, deliberate, problem-solve, innovate, and collaborate in a networked society.
Successful collaboration requires negotiating the time commitment, the level of
participation and the responsibility participants share with each other” (Reilly,
Vartabedian, Felt, & Jenkins, 2012, p. 16).
Why share power?. Members of the positive youth development field tend to
articulate how meaningful participation can enrich youths’ individual skill sets. For
example, Langhout and Thomas (2010) argue that children who engage in participatory
action research can “build cognitive and emotional competencies, interpersonal skills,
and so forth” (p. 64). Public health researchers Wong, Zimmerman, and Parker (2010)
contend that participatory contexts enrich youths’ “developmental assets such as
49

competence, self-efficacy and sense of control by developing an awareness of and
engaging with their environment” (p. 105).
Other scholars and practitioners argue that the value of participation is not in the
act itself, but in the opportunity such participation presents to connect to community
members. Benson (2003) explains that there are “…three types of support and connection
that are known to be predictive of significant adolescent health outcomes: sustained
relationships with nonrelated adults (i.e., embeddedness in intergenerational community),
embeddedness in neighborhoods in which adults know and interacted with children and
adolescents, and engagement in schools that students perceive as caring and supportive”
(p. 22).
Still others from the community development sector make the case for power-
sharing by articulating how the community might benefit from engaging youths’ talents.
Kretzmann & McKnight (1997), for example, outlined eight positive assets that the
young uniquely can contribute: time; ideas and creativity; connection to place; dreams
and desires; peer group relationships; family relationships; credibility as teachers; and
enthusiasm and energy (pp. 30-31). No matter the identity of the beneficiary, it seems
that supporting children’s participation is a worthwhile endeavor. If both camps are
correct, then youth participation is actually a win-win scenario.
The sixth research question interrogates learning process in terms of how it allows
for power-sharing between participants and facilitators.
RQ5. How does each program’s learning process negotiate participatory
governance?

50

Participatory Learning
“Participatory learning, as a pedagogical model, underscores the urgency of
facilitating educational experiences that help build the skills and knowledge necessary to
contribute in today’s evolving socio-cultural environments, digital and non-digital alike”
(Literat & Itow, 2012, p. 6). My Project NML colleagues and I developed this
pedagogical model over a period of time (see Chapters IV, V, and VI) and concluded
from our research that participatory learning upholds five core principles:
ჼ1ჼ$ჼჼ=ჼEჼჼჼჼ ჼჼჼჼჼჼჼჼჼჼჼჼჼ4ჼჼჼ
ჼჼჼჼჼჼჼჼჼ
ჼჼჼჼჼ ჼჼჼჼჼჼჼჼჼჼჼ
ჼჼჼჼჼჼჼჼჼჼჼჼჼჼჼჼ
1. Participants have many chances to exercise creativity through diverse media,
tools, and practices;
2. Participants adopt an ethos of co-learning, respecting each person’s skills and
knowledge;
3. Participants experience heightened motivation and engagement through
meaningful play;
4. Activities feel relevant to learners’ identities and interests;
5. An integrated learning system - or learning ecosystem - honors rich
connections between home, school, community and world (Reilly,
Vartabedian, Felt, & Jenkins, 2012, p. 4).

Project NML’s intensive, five-day professional development program (which we refer to
as the Summer Sandbox – see Chapter IV) introduced Los Angeles public school
educators to these five principles and also investigated the extent to which they resonated.
The “goodness of fit” between our model and our educators’ needs supported the
principles’ external validity.
To articulate an ideal learning process – that is, how meaningful learning can be
enacted across a series of steps, both by learners and facilitators/members of a learning
context – I consulted with various innovative learning frameworks proposed by
researchers and practitioners across the field of digital media and learning. The authors of
these frameworks include game designer McGonigal (2011), communication researchers
Thomas and Seely Brown (2011), linguist and games aficionado Gee (2008), games
51

experts Squire and Durga (2009) and anthropologist Ito and colleagues (2013). The
participatory learning research framework was also considered in this inquiry project
since I wanted to discover if and how it compared and contrasted with peers’
understandings and findings. Of course, I also was interested in personally enacting a
participatory learning process.
I applied the grounded theory methodology articulated by (Glaser & Strauss,
1967/1999). First, I wrote out and examined the tenets that each learning framework
espoused. Then I grouped similar recommendations or ideas using the process of constant
comparison. Constant comparison implies looking for similarities and differences, and is
a process where concepts are identified, compared and formulated into a logical,
systematic and explanatory scheme. As the process dictates, I also engaged in constant
questioning, “Does this piece of information really fit? Where else could I put it? How
else could I label or understand these data?” Categories are saturated when the concepts
are understood and there are no gaps remaining.
So I described how meaningful learning might be pursued by learners and
facilitated by other members of a learning context (e.g., instructors, peers, more expert
participants, individuals engaged in legitimate peripheral participation).
Table 2.2
Contextual and Active Components of Participatory Learning – Summary (Felt, 2011).
Contextual Active
Context/community is welcoming Learner avidly enters
[Context is authentic] Learner appreciates contextual constraints
and opportunities
Context provides access to materials for
creative participation
Learner pursues learning in a self-directed
and/or novel fashion
Contextual mechanism provides feedback [Learner participates/plays]
Context provides access to diverse
community members’ reflections and roles
[Learner seeks reflective discourse and
takes on roles within the community]

52

Step One. The first step in the participatory learning model features the learning
community avidly welcoming all entrants.
Step Two. The second step in the participatory learning model features learners
exploring a learning context’s constraints, opportunities, boundaries, and affordances.
Asking questions and facing challenges are means by which learners might collect this
information; the context can assist by providing transparent rules and norms.
Step Three. Step three features the learning context providing access to materials
for creative participation, and learners pursuing their own learning in a self-directed
and/or novel fashion by constructing products and exchanging feedback.
Step Four. The fourth step in the participatory learning model features the
community providing feedback, the learner steadily incorporating this feedback into
his/her work, and developing passion(s) as a result of this meaningful experience.
Step Five. Finally, the fifth step in the model features the context providing
access to diverse community members’ reflections and roles. The learner has the option,
should s/he choose to exercise it and distinguish him/herself as worthy, to assume a
position of more power/responsibility.
The sixth research question interrogates learning process in terms of how it
supports participatory learning.
RQ6. How does each program’s learning process negotiate participatory learning?

Playfulness
Play cannot be denied. You can deny, if you like, nearly all abstractions: justice,
beauty, truth, goodness, mind, God. You can deny seriousness, but not play.
(Huizinga, 1950, p. 3)

53

Multiple approaches to play. In 1955, Dutch scholar Johan Huizinga published
his landmark treatise Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play-Element in Culture. He defines
play as a voluntary activity and, as such, declares that play “…is free, is in fact freedom”
(p. 8). Huizinga secondly highlights its stance quite outside “ordinary” life and its
necessity to both the individual as a “life function” and to society as a “culture function”
(p. 9). Play’s third main characteristic is its seclusion to a specific time and space; while
play can occur anywhere and at anytime, and can be repeated and alternated, play periods
begin and end, and occur within a play ground whose boundaries players acknowledge.
Fourth, play “…creates order, is order. Into an imperfect world and into the confusion of
life it brings a temporary, a limited perfection” (p. 10). Simultaneously, play introduces
an uncertainty, a striving --“all want to achieve something difficult, to succeed, to end a
tension” (p. 11). Huizinga points out, “All play has its rules. They determine what ‘holds’
in the temporary world circumscribed by play” (p. 11). Those who disregard its rules
besmirch the magic circle, the sacred play-world, and rob play of its illusion. Play
conjures community and “loves to surround itself with an air of secrecy” (p. 12).
Huizinga’s scholarship informed communication scholar William Stephenson
(1988)’s play theory of mass communication. This framework studies subjective play,
which Sutton-Smith (1988) explains as a “will-of-the-wisp” activity that might be
described in terms of streams of consciousness, fantasies, and uncontrolled slippage
between states that Csikszentmihalyi (1975) would term as flow (p. xviii). Stephenson
argues that engagement with communication and media texts facilitates this subjective
play, and also serves goals of self-enhancement and personal pleasure.
54

Anthropologist Helen Schwartzmann (1978) deliberately resists Huizinga’s
structural, games-driven conceptualization of play. Instead, she regards play as tenuous,
oral, humorous, and less rule-bound, characterizing it as fundamentally predicated upon
“transformations.” Folklorist Bruno Bettelheim (1976) conceptualizes play similarly.
Rodriguez (2006) simultaneously cherishes and challenges Huizinga’s work, specifically
focusing on the scholar’s tenuous and sometimes contradictory distinctions between the
playful and the serious. Although Huizinga declares that play is essentially not a serious
activity, Rodriguez argues that games that serve “serious” ends (such as social change)
still respect Huizinga’s framework and honor play’s special cultural functions.
Project NML’s relationship with play. Within this context of multiple
understandings and approaches to play, Project NML declared its own stance. It centrally
positioned play at the heart of its applied research by invoking play as the acronym for its
investigation Participatory Learning And You!, seeking to facilitate the practice of NML
Play (“the ability to experiment with one’s surroundings as a form of problem-solving”
(Jenkins et al., 2006, p. 4)) in educational spaces, and championing play as an outlook on
life and learning.
It [play] is a way of seeing oneself and the world through a new, creative lens.
Play is not a solitary occupation but a collective ethos, a shared set of experiences
that encourage us to think beyond our disciplines and “see with new eyes.” Play
supports constant learning and innovative responses to our surroundings. Through
an iterative, playful process, we support each other to try new things and en-
courage a process of innovation and creativity (Reilly, Jenkins, Felt, &
Vartabedian, 2012, p. 6).

But what is a playful process? How does it respect and diverge from these
multiple understandings of play (e.g., beyond the purview of “ordinary” life, subjective
and elusive, transformative, serious)? What does a playful process look like in practice,
particularly vis-à-vis learning?
55

Forbes.com contributor Townsend (2014), reflecting trends in the literature,
alternately refers to playful learning as learning through play (e.g., via “hands-on, minds-
on” inquiry and production) and learning that includes play in its schematization (e.g.,
school days that include recess). Researcher Hyvonen (2011) conducted semi-structured
interviews in northern Finland with 14 teachers of grades kindergarten through six,
inquiring as to their practices and expectations with regard to playing. Following Strauss
& Corbin (1998), Hyvonen used the grounded theory approach to identify four features
that explain playful teaching: teacher’s role as leader, allower, or afforder; “playful
learning processes of orientation, play, and elaboration where various learning
environments are used and school subjects are integrated” (p. 77); reliance on children’s
creativity and capabilities; and fun and enjoyment, which she explains as feeling
affirmative and perceiving an activity as “real, true, and as genuine as possible” (p. 77).
Due to this scant theorization of playful learning processes, and the nature of
Hyvonen’s context
10
and process,
11
I submit my own articulation of a playful learning
process, and argue that its components are iteration and joy.
Iteration. When iteration (e.g., experimentation, observation, revision) is an
essential part of the learning process, then it both signals and compels other practices.
These practices include, first, lowering the stakes around “failure.” If learning

10
Finland has been hailed as an educational trailblazer: “teacher education in Finland is carefully
standardized. All teachers must earn a master’s degree at one of the country’s research universities.
Competition to get into these teacher education programs is tough; only “the best and the brightest” are
accepted. As a consequence, teaching is regarded as an esteemed profession, on par with medicine, law or
engineering. There is another “teacher quality” checkpoint at graduation from School of Education in
Finland. Students are not allowed to earn degrees to teach unless they demonstrate that they possess
knowledge, skills and morals necessary to be a successful teacher. But education policies in Finland
concentrate more on school effectiveness than on teacher effectiveness. This indicates that what schools are
expected to do is an effort of everyone in a school, working together, rather than teachers working
individually” 11/3/14 11:20 AM
11
Whereas she relied upon Corbin and Strauss (1998), the work of Glaser and Strauss (1967) and Glaser
(1978) are more commonly utilized.
56

experiences are meant to merely set up the next attempt, then there is no such thing as
failure. The second practice is restoring the balance between protection and freedom (Gill,
2007). If the implications of “failure” are less significant, than adults can “afford” to let
youth negotiate novel pathways that might lead to disappointment, frustration, or
innovation. Tim Gill, author of No Fear: Growing Up in a Risk Averse Society (2007),
describes this as a “resilient approach to risk” (p. 82). Third, iteration relates to
supporting learners’ agency. If many attempts are to be expected, then learners can
decide how they construct each attempt in order to approach their goal. It is worth noting
that, since gaming and inventing both fundamentally rely upon iteration, they are
effective strategies for propelling a playful learning process.
Joy. When joy is an essential part of the learning process (e.g., a key purpose and
frequently manifested emotion), then it both signals and compels other practices. These
practices include identifying “fun” among one’s top objectives vis-à-vis a learning
experience. If you’re not having fun, then the process isn’t playful. This isn’t to say that
the learning/work is easy, merely that it’s enjoyable. There’s a certain sort of joy that’s
associated with flow, “the state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing
else seems to matter; the experience itself is so enjoyable that people will do it even at
great cost, for the sheer sake of doing it” (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990, p. 4). The optimal
experience or flow experience consists of “...situations in which attention can be freely
invested to achieve a personʼs goals, because there is no disorder to straighten out, no
threat for the self to defend against” (Csikszentmihalyi, 1975, p. 40). According
McGonigal (2011):
When we choose our hard work, we enjoy the stimulation and activation that
makes us want to dive in, join together, and get things done. And this optimistic
57

invigoration is way more mood-boosting than relaxing. As long as we feel
capable of meeting the challenge, we report being highly motivated, extremely
interested, and positively engaged by stressful situations. And these are the key
emotional states that correspond with overall well-being and life satisfaction” (p.
32).

A second practice is sharing laughter. When processes are joyful, participants
tend to smile, joke, and use laughter to express their satisfaction and flatten social
hierarchies. A third practice is embracing spontaneity. If joy is a key purpose, then
shifting directions and/or acting on impulse, be it a silly whim or divine inspiration, is
both permitted and supported.
Accordingly, the seventh research question interrogates learning process in terms
of how it relates to iteration and joy.
RQ7. How does each program’s learning process negotiate playfulness?
Skill Development
As an existentialist or an emo teen might say, What’s it all for? While we
reviewed various means by which to support learning, which knowledge or skills are
worth the effort? In this section, I review twenty-first century learning and digital
citizenship. Then I illustrate how these two both relate to each other and can be expressed
in terms of NMLs and SELs.

Twenty-first Century Learning
The call for educational institutions to embrace “21st century learning” has been
issued far and wide, both domestically and internationally (see Partnership for 21st
Century Skills, The 21
st
Century Learning Initiative, 21
st
Century Learning International,
Assessment and Teaching of Twenty-first Century Skills, The MacArthur Foundation,
58

United Nations Education, Scientific, and Cultural Organization, etc.). Particularly over
the past five years, professionals from across the educational landscape have constructed
many resources to support 21
st
century learning. For example, architects have planned
new classroom configurations and designers have introduced modular furniture and
wireless tools in order to facilitate various activities (Rook, 2013; Warger & Dobbin,
2009). Socially networked educators have shared curricula via such sites as
WorkingExamples.org, WorkedExamples.org, Curriki.org, TeacherTube.com, and
Digital Is. Teaching in the Connected Learning Classroom (Garcia et al., 2014) an edited
volume of 19 classroom teachers’ writings about their experiences with Connected
Learning, similarly offers case studies to facilitate educators’ embrace of new ways of
thinking and doing.
But what is 21
st
century learning? The National Academies Committee on
Defining Deeper Learning and 21
st
Century Skills produced an extensively researched,
multi-authored report entitled Education for Life and Work: Developing Transferable
Knowledge and Skills in the 21
st
Century (Pellegrino & Hilton, 2012). This publication
identifies the competencies required for 21
st
century thinking, working, and living, and
locates the domains in which these competencies reside.
The Cognitive Domain includes three clusters of competencies: cognitive
processes and strategies, knowledge, and creativity…

The Intrapersonal Domain includes three clusters of competencies: intellectual
openness, work ethic and conscientiousness, and positive core self-evaluation…

The Interpersonal Domain includes two clusters of competencies: teamwork and
collaboration and leadership (Pellegrino & Hilton, 2012, p. 4).

Critical thinking. The Intrapersonal Domain taps concepts related to ethics (see
Digital Citizenship, this chapter) and what I term “connecting to self” (see Connection,
59

this chapter); the Interpersonal Domain, meanwhile, relates to relational trust (see Safety,
this chapter), “connecting to a group” (see Connection, this chapter), participatory
governance and participatory learning (see Process, this chapter), and empowerment (see
Culture, this chapter). The key concepts of the Cognitive Domain, however, have barely
appeared in the literature I’ve reviewed thus far. I purposefully omitted “knowledge”
from my schema because of the widespread accessibility of information and my belief
that, across time and context, skills prove more valuable than facts. In my review of
playfulness (see Process, this chapter), I made passing reference to creativity, and
recognize the role of creativity in the participatory learning process, specifically Step
Three.
However, my failure to engage with cognitive processes and strategies – critical
thinking, in other words – is glaring; perhaps I might be partially excused, for the NML
Judgment (“the ability to evaluate the reliability and credibility of different information
sources” (Jenkins et al., 2006, p. 4)) is critical thinking. The NML Appropriation (“the
ability to meaningfully sample and remix media content” (Jenkins et al., 2006, p. 4)) also
bears strong relations to critical thinking. Finally, my understanding of digital citizenship
centrally positions three ethical thinking skills whose enactment, obviously, require the
marshaling of cognitive processes and strategies.
Regardless, in terms of the critical thinking literature, it is important to consider
Edward M. Glaser (1941)’s articulation of critical thinking as comprised of three
elements: “(1) an attitude of being disposed to consider in a thoughtful way the problems
and subjects that come within the range of one's experiences; (2) knowledge of the
methods of logical inquiry and reasoning; and (3) some skill in applying those methods.”
60

Critical thinking, some argue, is the point of education and a pathway to freedom,
facilitating the critical literacy work that recognizes and combats oppression (Freire,
1975). The skill of critical thinking is also demonstrated in the aforementioned single-
loop learning and double-loop learning especially (Argyris & Schon, 1978).
Connected Learning. Connected Learning (CL) is both an educational model
and a quickly growing movement (Alliance, 2013) oriented towards 21
st
century learning.
The report Connected Learning: An Agenda for Research and Design (Ito et al.,
2013) cites the 2012 publication by the National Academies Committee on Defining
Deeper Learning and 21
st
Century Skills and identifies its enumerated competencies as
desirable (if longitudinal) individual outcomes. To bridge the temporal divide between a
CL intervention now and 21
st
century skill proficiency later, the Connected Learning
framers offer two solutions: first, they identify three proximal outcomes that link its
model with “the more distal outcomes of 21
st
Century skills” (Ito et al., 2013, p. 37);
second, they pledge to “… investigate the degree to which connected learning
experiences result in these [21
st
century] forms of deeper learning, which include systems
thinking, information literacy, information literacy, creativity, adaptability,
conscientiousness, persistence, and self-regulation” (Ito et al., 2013, p. 35).
The model’s name reflects its focus. CL seeks to connect in-school and out-of-
school learning, redress intergenerational disconnects, and bridge new equity gaps arising
from the privatization of learning; digital media is CL’s preferred means for making these
connections (Ito et al., 2013, p. 3). CL also seeks to connect schools to both today’s
world outside its walls and tomorrow’s world of work, and students’ identities (e.g.,
interests, culture, learning and work styles) out-of-school to their identities in-school.
61

Overall, CL is about enhancing schools’ relevance, as seen in the Connected Learning
Alliance’s decision to simultaneously launch its website and kick off a 30-day “make
learning relevant” campaign. The CL model is comprised of three learning principles
(interest-powered, peer-supported, and academically oriented) and three design principles
(open networked, production-centered, and shared purpose).
12

Digital Citizenship
A publication jointly authored by Harvard’s GoodPlay Project and the then-MIT-
based Project NML (2011) identifies three skills – perspective-taking, reflecting on one’s
roles and responsibilities, and considering potential benefit and harm to communities –
as the ingredients of digital citizenship: “If youth engage these skills, we believe they will
be more likely to behave as, and conceive of themselves as, responsible citizens—as
opposed to simply bystanders or (at worst) abusers—of online communities” (p. 2). This
publication and its follow-up, Young People, Ethics and the New Digital Media (James et
al., 2008) both articulate the five key issues at stake in the new media: identity, privacy,
ownership and authorship, credibility, and participation.
NMLs and SELs for Digital Citizenship. Ever since the summer we spent
together piloting Sunukaddu 2.0, Rideau and his colleagues at the African Network for
Health Education (RAES) had been utilizing the “Sunukaddu method” for training youth
outreach professionals. In educational workshops across such countries as Mali, Guinea,
Burkina-Faso, Niger, and Benin, RAES facilitators introduced the NMLs and SELs as
means by which to teach and to conceptualize learning.

12
The Connected Learning Alliance’s website offers a user-friendly infographic that both depicts and
explains these principles -- http://clalliance.org/why-connected-learning/
62

Figure 2.1. West African educators discuss the Sunukaddu program.

Figure 2.2. West African educators work together during a Sunukaddu training session.

But as the RAES team considered an even grander scale-up of the “Sunukaddu
method,” they sought to reduce and/or group some of the NMLs and SELs (which
collectively numbered 17). Alex asked via email in January of 2013 if I could help them
with this reformulation of the skills. I presented the 12 NMLs as six pairs (an approach
we had adopted for the sole purpose of expediency during the Summer Sandbox). I gave
63

each pair a title that reflected, in my view, the new skill suggested by the simultaneous
practice of its NMLs. Later, I did the same vis-à-vis the SELs.
• Dynamic Discovery (Play, Performance)

• Idea Translation (Simulation, Visualization)

• Efficient Operation (Judgment, Multitasking)

• Network Negotiation (Networking, Negotiation)

• Idea Engagement (Appropriation, Collective Intelligence)

• Resource Navigation (Transmedia Navigation, Distributed Cognition)

• Deliberate Appreciation (self-management, social awareness)

• Resource Recognition (self-awareness, social awareness)

• Respectful (Re)Action (relationship skills, responsible decision-making)

By combining a NML pair with a SEL pair in a theoretically determined way (see
Chapter IV), I developed three “master skills.” They are Dynamic Appreciation,
Resource Engagement, and Respectful Negotiation.
Dynamic Appreciation. I refer to the first “master skill” as Dynamic Appreciation
because, when its constituent NMLs and SELs are considered together, they articulate a
hands-on, other-oriented way of knowing. To simultaneously (and exclusively) apply
Play, Performance, social awareness, and self-management to a particular situation
enables a learner to exercise creativity, rise above his/her own views or emotions,
appreciate another person’s perspective, and “go with the flow.” As an actor and
aficionado of improvisational comedy, I have had the opportunity to hone these specific
practices and consciously choose them as problem-solving strategies; I believe both my
community and I have benefited as a result. Further, my studies of empathy (Felt, 2011)
64

have taught me that perspective-taking is integral to this process of “feeling with another,”
and the importance of empathy cannot be overstated: it is glue that binds us together, and
the check on our ability to tear each other apart. In terms of 21
st
century learning domains,
Dynamic Appreciation relates to the intrapersonal.
My eighth research question follows:
RQ8. To what extent does participants’ skill development demonstrate
proficiency in Dynamic Appreciation?
Resource Engagement. I refer to the second “master skill” as Resource
Engagement. To simultaneously (and exclusively) apply Collective Intelligence,
Appropriation, self-awareness, and social awareness to a particular situation enables a
learner to efficiently engage with environmental resources (e.g., ideas, talents,
infrastructure, agriculture, etc) and use them in meaningful, ethical ways. As we
increasingly encounter cultural diversity, infinite information, and scarce natural
resources, being skilled in thoughtfully identifying, optimizing, and leveraging assets
becomes invaluable. In terms of 21
st
century learning domains, Resource Engagement
relates to the cognitive.
This leads to my ninth research question:
RQ9. To what extent does participants’ skill development demonstrate
proficiency in Resource Engagement?
Respectful Negotiation. I refer to the third “master skill” as Respectful
Negotiation. To simultaneously (and exclusively) apply Negotiation, Networking,
responsible decision-making, and relationship skills to a particular situation enables a
learner to collaborate productively. Respect, caring, and conscientiousness undergird this
65

practice. Whereas Dynamic Appreciation has a learner “step into another person’s shoes”
in order to better appreciate his/her humanity, this skill begins from that place of
appreciation and deals with how to cooperate. Whereas Resource Engagement could be
enacted in solo contexts (with a learner collecting data or considering information
independently), Respectful Negotiation must be practiced with another.
According to a recent poll conducted by Harris Interactive on behalf of Chegg
Inc.,
13
hiring managers take a dim view of recent college graduates’ capacity to
“complete a project as part of a team” and “collaborate with people from diverse
backgrounds” (Chegg, 2013, p. 6). This implies that these interpersonal practices are
important and somewhat rare among young people; proficiency in Respectful Negotiation,
therefore, not only prepares an individual to work harmoniously and productively, but
also to be regarded as a unique value-add. In terms of 21
st
century learning domains,
Respectful Negotiation relates to the interpersonal.
Respectful Negotiation is the focus of my tenth research question:
RQ10. To what extent does participants’ skill development demonstrate
proficiency in Respectful Negotiation?
Master Skills for 21
st
Century Learning and Digital Citizenship. To better
wrap my head around my final formula, I utilized my favorite heuristic and visualization
technique, a table. I positioned a master skill at the top of each column and created a row
for the frameworks of interest: NMLs, SELs, and ethical thinking skills related to digital
citizenship. As I contemplated this information, I added a fourth row, suggesting each
master skill is aligned with a broad domain of 21
st
century skills.

13
an academic company that aims to help high school and college students by offering such services as
textbook rentals and internship matching (http://www.chegg.com/)
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Table 2.3
Master Skills Aligned with Related Skills.
Dynamic
Appreciation
Resource
Engagement
Respectful
Negotiation
New media
literacies (Jenkins,
Purushotma, Clinton, Weigel
& Robison, 2006, p. 4)
Play, Performance Collective
Intelligence,
Appropriation
Negotiation,
Networking
Social and
emotional learning
competencies
(Collaborative for Academic,
Social and Emotional
Learning, 2009)
Social awareness,
self-management
Self-awareness,
social awareness
Relationship skills,
responsible
decision-making
Digital citizenship
skills (The GoodPlay
Project and Project New
Media Literacies, 2011, p. 2)
Perspective-taking Reflection upon
roles and
responsibilities
Consideration of
potential benefit and
harm to
communities
21
st
century skill
domains (The National
Academies Committee on
Defining Deeper Learning and
21
st
Century Skills, 2012, p. 4)
Intrapersonal Cognitive Interpersonal

Collectively, all of this work suggests that gaining proficiency in NMLs and
SELs facilitates the development of digital citizenship and 21
st
century competencies,
especially when specific combinations of NMLs and SELs are enacted in concert.
Summary
This chapter reviewed a wide swath of literature, traversing several areas of
inquiry and diverse research traditions. Collectively, this chapter aimed to present a
compelling case for looking at out-of-school contexts in terms of their learning culture’s
characteristics, its processes, and its participants’ skill development.
Culture-wise, I am interested in examining each case study in terms of the extent
to which it supported participants’ sense of safety, connection, engagement, and
empowerment. I reviewed safety along two dimensions, physical and social-emotional. In
terms of this second dimension, I paid particular attention to the concept of relational
67

trust. I reviewed connection in terms of three dimensions: connecting to a group,
connecting to a supportive individual, and connecting to self. I shared data from multiple
investigations that have supported the necessity of engagement in order for learning to
occur, and argued how relevance predicts engagement. Finally, I reviewed empowerment,
looking at how self-efficacy impacts learning achievements.
In terms of learning process, I first discussed participatory governance and paid
particular attention to Wong, Zimmerman, and Parker (2010)’s Typology of Youth
Participation and Empowerment. Next, I introduced participatory learning as five-step
process. Then I touched upon key scholars’ theories of play, advancing my own paradigm
for a playful process that is iterative and joyful.
Because I am chiefly interested with participants’ growth across 21
st
century
learning’s three domains as well as their development of digital citizenship, I introduce
the three master skills (e.g., Dynamic Appreciation, Resource Engagement, Respectful
Negotiation) as tools for conceptual assessment. These skills, each of which is comprised
of two NMLs and two SELs, tap pertain to the intrapersonal, interpersonal, and cognitive
domains, and also exemplify the ethical thinking skills of digital citizenship (e.g.,
perspective-taking, reflection upon roles and responsibilities, and consideration of
potential benefit and harm to communities).
Collectively, these concepts describe the most important considerations vis-à-vis
meaningful learning in out-of-school contexts.
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III. METHODOLOGY
While I articulate the specific means by which I collected and analyzed data
within each case study chapter, in this chapter I will articulate the research traditions and
practices that informed my approach to the present investigation. I also will introduce my
study partners, Project New Media Literacies and Laughter for a Change. Finally, I will
offer an over-arching research question for this four-part investigation.
Relevant Research Traditions and Practices
Engaged Scholarship
Dr. Ernest L. Boyer (1996) articulated a “scholarship of engagement” as
consisting of two levels. Its first level pertains to connecting university resources to social,
civic, and ethical problems. The second, “deeper” level pertains to serving the public
good by forging rich, discursive relationships that bridge “town” and “gown” (p. 21).
Today, engaged scholarship is a widely studied methodological approach, the subject of
literature reviews, reports, critiques and case studies (Broad et al., 2013; Simpson &
Seibold, 2008; Stoecker, 1999; Votruba et al., 2002). This approach also is referred to by
a number of terms, including public scholarship, scholarship of engagement, engaged
scholarship, and community-engaged scholarship (New England Resource Center for
Higher Education, n.d.).
While scholars continue to dynamically explore the limitations, implications, and
best practices of this approach, there is some consensus regarding its broad definition.
Broad and colleagues (2013) explain it accordingly: “[T]his work refers to academic
research efforts that actively engage with residents and practitioners through community-
based and participatory methods to produce research that can help advance, facilitate, and
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reflect upon social change efforts… In short, community-based and participatory research
offers a means to democratize the knowledge production process and advance values-
oriented and structural social change goals that are shared by academics and practitioners
alike” (p. 329).
Engaged scholarship frames both the objectives and the strategies associated with
each project examined by this dissertation. Across every case study, facilitators and
participants worked together in order to realize larger goals for their communities, e.g.,
dismantling the “participation gap”
14
, supporting creativity and individuality, and
standing up to bullying. Profound respect for the voices and lived realities of community
members pervaded these applied experiences, and the perspectives of all parties involved
were encouraged and, to the best of our efforts, faithfully and comprehensively recorded.
Engaged scholarship is my point of departure. This dissertation particularly responds to
Boyer’s exhortation to “become more actively engaged with the nation’s schools” (p. 19).

Experimental Ethnography
In 1988, anthropologist Lynn Wilson published a book chapter inspired by her
graduate research experience at a women’s peace camp outside the air force base at
Greenham Common in England. Rather than a strictly ethnographic account, Wilson
(1988) problematized the methodology of anthropology, particularly challenging various
embedded assumptions associated with epistemology (i.e., ways of knowing) and power.
“…[I]t has been become increasingly clear that the commonly accepted ethnographic

14
“the unequal access to the opportunities, experiences, skills, and knowledge that will prepare youth for
full participation in the world of tomorrow” (Jenkins et al, 2006, p. 3)
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posture of an independent, objective ‘participant observer’ is an impossible one,” Wilson
concluded (p. 42).
She articulates why participant observation is untenable, alluding to the
“Hawthorne Effect” (Landsberger, 1958) or the phenomenon whereby the knowledge that
someone is watching prompts behavioral change on the part of the watched, and
criticizing the artificial or otherwise intrusive ways in which researchers collect data (p.
45). Wilson also took aim at the process of recording and publishing, pointing out the
bias and selectivity that influence ethnographer’s decisions of what makes it into their
field notes in the first place, which segments they decide to excerpt and transform into
publishable written pieces, “…and how they choose to represent the communities they
have studied” (p. 48).
To address these shortcomings, Wilson (1988) suggests the method of
“experimental ethnography,” which includes the following components:
1. Explanation of “…the process of identifying the research ‘problem’ and of
choosing the community involved into the ethnographic document, thereby exposing the
social and cultural interests that both the researcher and the informant bring to the
confrontation” (p. 54);
2. Revelation of “… the actual process of field research by including the specific
sequence of events and the interruptions, accommodations, and oppositions that occur
within negotiated field encounters” (p. 54);
3. Acknowledgment of the text as partial, “…expos[ing] the ethnographer’s
decision making in the actual editing process by addressing questions concerning the
manner in which the words of informants were chosen from conversations and
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concerning the extent to which the informants were involved in creating the final written
texts” (p. 54).
It is essential to note that I did not conduct an ethnography and so my
methodology is not “ethnography,” experimental or otherwise. Rather, I took an
ethnographic stance and appropriated the experimental and iterative elements of this
perspective. Additionally, due to my facilitation of the PLAY! workshops and my active
participation in L4C at RFK, the “impossibility” of participant-observation does not
apply in my case. The dynamic to which Wilson points, that of anonymous lurker
scribbling notes on the periphery and unilaterally constructing meaning, does not explain
my research position or practice.
However, I do recognize some similarities between Wilson’s research and my
own. For example, Wilson and I both gathered data from the field (as opposed to static
texts or laboratory settings), were regarded as “insiders” by our research participants (as
opposed to “outsiders”), and struggled to rationalize the differences and, in some cases,
contradictions between field identity (activist in her case, educator in mine) and academic
identity. As an engaged scholar, I also appreciate Wilson’s keen critiques of ethnographic
practices and respectful methodological interventions. This dissertation embraces the
transparency and self-consciousness of experimental ethnography in order to pay respect
to the dozens of people who participated in my extensive field research
15
and to
illuminate my multiple and consciously selected ways of knowing. I encourage readers to
join me in my pursuits of truth (which is necessarily partial, as ethnographer James
Clifford (1986) points out) and rich understanding by actively processing, critically
questioning, and offering alternative readings and/or considerations.

15
and to whom I refer by codename in order to protect their anonymity
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Storytelling
“Storytelling is not a luxury to humanity. It’s almost as necessary as bread. We
cannot imagine ourselves without it because each self is a story’’ (Stone, 1988, p. 75). In
his narrative paradigm, rhetorician Walt Fisher (1987) conceptualized people as
“storytelling animals,” suggesting that human communication is largely a storytelling
process that should be plumbed for its “narrative rationality.”
Various other scholars have hailed stories as a universal attribute of humankind
(Campbell, 2008), the most natural mode of thought (Schank & Abelson, 1995), a tool for
establishing identity (Siegel & Hartzell, 2003), a frame for constructing reality (Berger &
Luckmann, 1966), a means to gratify needs (Katz, Blumler, & Gurevitch, 1974;
Moskalenko & Heine, 2003), a commodity of enormous value (see Hollywood), and a
good ol’ way to pass the time. Over the past 20 years, scores of health communication
researchers investigating entertainment-education have documented what Aesop’s and de
la Fontaine’s fables long ago established: stories can teach (Bae, 2008; Chatterjee,
Bhanot, Frank, Murphy, & Power, 2009; Frank et al., 2012; Lozano & Singhal, 1993;
Moyer-Gusé, 2008; Murphy, Hether, Felt, & Buffington, 2012; Papa et al., 2000).
This dissertation, therefore, leverages my own personal power as a storyteller in
order to serve readers’ informational and educational interests. As previewed in Chapter I,
I write from a first person perspective and attempt to retell events in accordance with
narrative best practices (e.g., articulating setup, conflict, and resolution, exploring
character traits and motivations, etc).

73

Improvisational Theater
In the early part of the 20th century, global children’s game curator Neva Boyd
pioneered the use of recreational games as a means to teach language skills, problem
solving, self-confidence, and social skills (Bailey, 2009). Boyd’s protégé, Viola Spolin,
applied Boyd’s learning-through-play technique in her job as drama director and social
worker at Chicago’s Hull House. In order to achieve her goals of both stimulating
creative expression and building community among Chicago’s diverse immigrant
populations, Spolin expanded on Boyd’s work, creating and revising theater games from
1939 to 1941(Moffit, n.d.).
Spolin published her seminal text, Improvisations for the Theater, in 1963 and
continued to explore the power of improvisational games and play for the rest of her life.
She was particularly interested in how group play helps individual participants to get
more deeply in touch with their own intuition and how the culture of learning spaces
impacts education. According to Spolin (Spolin, 1999), “No one teaches anyone anything.
If the environment permits it, anyone can learn whatever he chooses to learn; and if the
individual permits it, the environment will teach him everything it has to teach” (p. 3).
Spolin also recommended certain types of exercises, or theater games, in order to
co-construct a positive learning culture and support participants’ types of connections. As
she explained in “Space Objects Commentary (Making the Invisible Visible),” a section
in the handbook accompanying her Theater Game File (1975, p. 25):
The teacher who has goals to reach and subjects to teach rarely has time or energy
to allow inner feelings or thoughts to emerge. Workshop space object
games/exercises assist in uncovering the hidden self. Objects made of space
substance should be looked upon as thrusts/projects of this (invisible) inner self
into the visible world. In effect, then, the invisible ball thrown to a fellow player
… is an aspect of a player’s sharing and connecting with the fellow player who
74

accepts and catches the invisible ball. When the invisible (not yet emerged, inside,
unknown) becomes visible, seen and perceived—theatre magic! Recognition of
this added dimension of the world brings excitement and refreshment to all.

Figure 3.1. Spolin with members of her Young Actors Company—including Alan Arkin
and Alan Alda
16
—which she ran in Hollywood, California, from 1946 to 1955. (Image
source: http://www.spolin.us/violabio.)

In 1959 Spolin’s son Paul Sills founded Chicago’s famed improvisational theater,
The Second City. Not only did Sills appropriate and further develop his mother’s games
for use with his ensemble, but he also incorporated satire, parody, clowning, commedia
dell’arte, vaudeville, burlesque, and cabaret into his comedic formula. The Second City
also purposefully breaks the fourth wall of conventional theater by acknowledging and

16
“note: Alan Arkin is 3rd from the left and Alan Alda 2nd from the right, looking over her shoulder”
(Intuitive Learning Systems, n.d.).
75

directly addressing the audience. Collectively, these theatrical techniques function as
tools that can illuminate absurdities that we regularly encounter in life.
17

Perhaps improvisational theater’s capacity to speak truth to power reflects the
nature of its early practitioners, many of whom were iconoclasts committed to both
questioning authority and poking fun at rigid, conventional points of view. Del Close,
grandfather of long-form improv and the icon of most of today’s top improvisers
(Halpern, Close, & Johnson, 1994), is a case in point. He is remembered today not only
for his genius but also for his outrageous worldview. As Close once told his protégé,
Laughter for a Change founder Ed Greenberg, “If we’re not offending somebody, we’re
not doing our job.”
This interest in disrupting the status quo, however, did not signal a callous
disregard for others. Close instilled in his thousands of students an ethos of respect and
support that became “more nearly a philosophy or way of life than just a way of getting
laughs” (McGrath, 2012, para. 37). For example, Close’s approach to long-form
improvisational theater depended upon listening deeply, exploring relationships, and
making bold choices. Such practices have significance in the “real world,” and their
enactment might be fruitfully applied to endeavors both personal and professional. For
many improvisers, the codes of improv function like the Ten Commandments or the
teachings of Buddha, providing a set of suggested practices that help to better serve
others and to improve oneself.
Brazilian theater director Augusto Boal might be considered the most overt
practitioner of improvisational theater for social action. Particularly motivated by fellow

17
The Second City has trained many of the actors and writers of the legendary sketch television show
Saturday Night Live (1975–present), and scores of America’s top comedy stars—including John Belushi,
Tina Fey, Steve Carell, and Stephen Colbert—cut their teeth on improvisational theater.
76

countryman Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed, a ground-breaking sociological
examination of class and education, Boal vividly conceptualized the dramatic arts as a
weapon against tyranny. He reframed both the spectator as an actor and the oppressed as
revolutionaries (Sierz, 2009). Boal’s classic text, Theater of the Oppressed (1974),
inspired a movement of the same name that still exists today.
The legacy and practices of improvisational theater are relevant to this
dissertation for several reasons. First, one of the case studies specifically examines an
improvisational theater workshop implemented by a non-profit organization whose
mission is to realize the civic and humanistic potentials of improv. For Laughter for a
Change founder Ed Greenberg, this history is literally “his story” – Greenberg knew
Spolin, worked with Sills, and studied under Close. Greenberg endeavors to reconnect to
improv’s original mission and means, carrying history forward into the present. Second, I
formerly studied and performed improvisational theater, and its philosophies have
meaningfully shaped my pedagogical style and preferences. Since I co-taught three of the
dissertation’s case studies, my improv background influenced each experience. I invited
participants to warm up via theater games, encouraged them to play with the
simultaneous commitment and abandon of improvisers, and tried to model improv’s
central tenet of “Yes And” by supporting and supplementing my peers’ ideas.
Collectively, these case studies were steeped in improv. And like Spolin, Boal, and
everyone in between, my colleagues and I believed that the collective work of
improvisational actors and “spect-actors” (as Boal called the audience) could foster
learning, action, and change.

77

Study Partners
Project New Media Literacies
Project New Media Literacies (Project NML) is a research group that Dr. Henry
Jenkins launched in 2006 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), then
moved in 2009 to the University of Southern California (USC).
The formation of Project NML occurred in the wake of Jenkins and colleagues’
publication of the provocative and widely read white paper Confronting the Challenges of
Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21
st
Century (Jenkins et al., 2006).
Inspired to investigate and support the types of learning that they had documented in their
paper, members of Project NML stepped outside of the “ivory tower” and worked
directly with both students and educators. Project NML’s goal was to “…identify and
create educational practices that will prepare teachers and students to become full and
active participants in the new digital culture” (Project New Media Literacies, n.d., para.
5). Project NML realized that the extent to which its philosophies and tools would shape
classroom life would be determined by the degree to which educators appreciated new
media literacies and themselves felt comfortable with participatory culture.
PLAY!. In 2010, from its new home at the USC Annenberg Innovation Lab,
Project NML designed and launched a multi-faceted, multi-year investigation entitled
Participatory Learning And You! (PLAY!). This investigation maintained Project NML’s
focus on educator outreach, explaining its rationale thusly:
Teachers play a monumental role in facilitating opportunities for students to
become critical thinkers, proactive citizens, and creative contributors to the world.
In our rapidly shifting digital and social landscape, unequal access to experiences
that help build the skills and knowledge necessary to contribute in these evolving
environments can prevent youth from meaningful participation in them. This
“participation gap”, we believe, cannot be wholly addressed when teachers
78

themselves are not afforded these same opportunities to grow and learn (Project
New Media Literacies, n.d., para. 3).

PLAY! sought to discover ways in which Project NML researchers and like-minded peers
could integrate the tools, insights, and skills of a participatory culture into the public
education system in the United States. Rather than a purely clinical, positivist data dive,
Project NML conceptualized PLAY! “as a form of intervention”; this approach
compelled “being on-the-ground and listening to participants’ needs in order to include
them in the process” (Project New Media Literacies, n.d., para. 7).
This dissertation examines the three (intervention-like) components of Project
NML’s PLAY! investigation:
• Explore Locally, Excel Digitally (ELED), an after-school program at the Robert
F. Kennedy Community Schools that Project NML staff facilitated over 15
weeks during the spring of 2011 with a core group of eight high school students,
most of them freshman at the New Open World Academy;
• The Summer Sandbox, a five-day professional development program at the
Robert F. Kennedy Community Schools that Project NML facilitated twice
during the summer of 2011, with nine Los Angeles Unified School District
educators participating in Week 1 and 12 participating in Week 2;
• PLAYing Outside the Box (POTB), an extension of the Summer Sandbox, in
which 10 of its graduates chose to participate during the fall semester of 2011.

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Laughter for a Change
Laughter for a Change, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, uses play to both
follow and extend improvisational theater’s legacy of civic engagement. Its mission is to
employ improvisational theater games and comedy training to foster new forms of
learning, and to contribute to healing and a sense of well-being, particularly among
underserved populations.
Founder Ed Greenberg established L4C in 2007, following his stint as a cultural
envoy to Rwanda. Charged by the U.S. Department of State with the task of helping
genocide survivors to “learn to laugh again,” Greenberg introduced improvisational
theater to Rwandans (McFarren, 2011). He trusted that engaging with improv’s central
tenets—“playing agreement, risk taking, spontaneity, changing perspectives, opening up
to moments of discovery and surprise, [and] making active, not passive, choices”—would
facilitate healing (as cited in McFarren, 2011, p. 166). And it did. Rwandan participants
embraced the workshop enthusiastically and continued to create comedy content even
after the program was over, prompting the head of the U.S. Department of State’s cultural
envoy initiative to conclude, “This is the kind of program that keeps us doing what we do”
(R. Keith, personal communication, November 1, 2007).
Greenberg and his staff of L4C Comedy Mentors use theater games to help
participants build confidence and community. While L4C runs workshops with senior
citizens, military veterans, and residents of homeless shelters, its primary focus is youths.
Over the years, L4C Comedy Mentors have worked with such populations as juvenile
offenders at Pacific Lodge Youth Services and fifth graders at five Los Angeles
elementary schools.
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During the spring of 2011, L4C applied and was accepted as a partner of Project
NML’s PLAY On! program. Along with other PLAY On! partners, Greenberg presented
L4C to Summer Sandbox participants. These partners invited Summer Sandbox
participants to join their workshops for their own enjoyment and/or as members of
PLAYing Outside the Box (POTB), the Summer Sandbox PD extension that required its
participants to attend at least 8 hours of PLAY On! workshop programming.
Greenberg intended for his after-school L4C workshop
18
to provide participating
educators with the opportunity to co-learn with youth and to further develop their
proficiency in various new media literacies (NMLs), particularly Play. Only one educator
chose to attend L4C’s workshop (Week 2 participant Larry – see Chapter V); L4C
nonetheless implemented its program, serving youth during 2011-2012 school year.
This dissertation examines one of L4C’s projects with youth:
• L4C at RFK, a weekly after-school improvisational theater workshop with
a core group of 12 high school students at the Robert F. Kennedy
Community Schools, most of whom were freshman at the Los Angeles
High School for the Arts (LAHSA), that took place during the 2011-2012
school year.
Over-arching Research Question
While all four case study analyses will consider the literature presented in Chapter
II in order to answer the first 10 research questions, I seek to further unify the present
investigation and enrich its value by applying an over-arching research question:

18
which he facilitated at the Robert F. Kennedy Community Schools’ media lab, also the site of ELED and
the Summer Sandbox
81

RQ11. Across these four case studies, which trends and/or relationships
between/among culture, process, and skill development does this study suggest?
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IV. EXPLORE LOCALLY, EXCEL DIGITALLY
No one volunteered their own music.
When Project New Media Literacies (Project NML) Community Manager
Vanessa Vartabedian and I designed the after-school program Explore Locally, Excel
Digitally (ELED), we decided that each day’s first 10 minutes would consist of
unstructured time, dedicated to participants arriving, signing in, and getting settled.
Vartabedian and I told the teenaged participants, who were primarily high school
freshmen: “Bring in your mobile phones/digital music players, and we’ll hook them up to
our portable, digital speakers. That way, everyone can jam out to your music during those
10 minutes.” Vartabedian and I considered this a fun and meaningful way to show that
we were “cool,” we respected our participants’ cultures, we wanted to create a relaxed
atmosphere, and we yearned for the program to become “their space.”
Yet week after week, no one volunteered their own device to our communal
music purposes; I was left searching my own (lame) iPhone for suitable music. “Do kids
this age like Madonna?” I wondered. “How many weeks in a row can we listen to
Michael Jackson?”
As time passed, I began to piece together why our earnest invitation might have
been declined. First, hardly any of our participants owned mobile phones or digital music
players.
19
The socioeconomic profile of the community in which our program was
situated—Los Angeles’s Pico Union neighborhood—was such that 15-year-olds were
highly unlikely to own such expensive equipment as iPhones, not to mention the costly

19
This fact contributed to our decision to offer iPod Touches as compensation for assistance with the
Summer Sandbox (see Chapter V).
83

talk/text/data plans that come with them. I remember the participants’ incredulity when I
revealed both my Apple laptop and my iPhone.
Second, if our participants did happen to own such devices and were neither
embarrassed nor afraid to make this public knowledge (risking judgment, jealousy, or
theft of the item), then they were interested in enjoying them privately. Since teachers
commonly prohibit mobile phones and digital music players, and sometimes confiscate
them if/when they observe students using them during class, these first 10 minutes of
after-school time represented our participants’ first opportunities to use their devices all
day. Third, it can be powerful to reserve access to the device for just oneself and a
cherished friend. Offering an earbud to a friend so that she or he may co-listen, or
huddling over the tiny screen together to exclusively enjoy its diversions, facilitates
bonding and also telegraphs, “We are hip.”
Fourth, as Vartabedian and I recognized but failed to entirely think through, music
taste is both personal and socially volatile. To one youth faction, your interest in hip hop
might make you cool; to another, it might make you a poser; to yet another, it might
mean that you just don’t fit in with them. And “hip hop” is too broad a term—hip hop
from where, from when, from who? Our participants were unwilling to expose
themselves to such scrutiny; even I felt uncomfortable with the participants learning that
my playlist in heaviest rotation was Classical. Finally, considering the participants’
tender years and the probability of younger siblings at home, it was entirely possible that
our participants weren’t even “into” music yet, at least not adolescent/adult music.
About halfway through the program, I remember that one of our participants,
Danielle, agreed to play me one of her favorite songs. She used the YouTube app on my
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phone to search for a music video from Korean pop (K-pop) group Super Junior, of
whom I had never heard, but later learned was fabulously well-known within K-pop
circles and across most of Asia. I knew that there was no such thing as a monolithic
“youth culture,” but I realized that I had failed to account for the various ethnic media
that might constitute youths’ cultures.
This story illuminates some of the concepts with which this dissertation
grapples—such as safety, connection, and participatory governance—and demonstrates
how they influence learning experiences. In this particular case, Vartabedian and I tried
to instantiate a process of participatory governance without first establishing a culture of
safety and connection. As such, an opportunity was lost and, along with it, a chance to
celebrate and affirm each participant’s unique identity. The greater story of ELED goes a
lot like this one—good intentions, imperfect techniques, mixed results.

Project New Media Literacies
But before I get too far ahead of myself, I would like to tell you about this
program’s origins. Before research group Project New Media Literacies (Project NML)
launched its Participatory Learning and You! (PLAY!) investigation, which comprised
ELED (this chapter), the Summer Sandbox (see Chapter V), and PLAYing Outside the
Box (POTB; see Chapter VI), it created and delivered two other educational projects. Its
New Hampshire Professional Development and Reading in a Participatory Culture
projects both functioned as formative research for PLAY!’s design.

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New Hampshire Professional Development
On his well-trafficked blog, Confessions of an Aca-Fan, Jenkins relates the
history of research group Project New Media Literacies accordingly: “Project New Media
Literacies emerged from the MacArthur Foundation’s ground-breaking commitment to
create a field around digital media and learning. . . . The goal was to bring insights drawn
from these sites of informal learning to the institutions—schools, museums, and
libraries—that impact young people’s lives” (Jenkins, 2013b, para. 7).
Let me support Jenkins’s account with even more specificity. In 2009, with a
grant from the state of New Hampshire, Project NML began working with a small group
of K–8 educators, referred to as “the early adopters.” The researchers’ goal with this
project was not only to support teachers, but to better understand teachers’ practices,
passions, and challenges. Equipped with this knowledge, the researchers believed that
they would be in a stronger position to reach out, design curriculum, recommend policy,
and make a difference. Jenkins and the Project NML team developed a year-long,
distance-learning professional development program for these educators, which they
implemented via the now-defunct social networking site ning.com. This year that Project
NML and the early adopters spent together proved to be quite educational. Project NML
concluded that, rather than a distance-learning model, a blended learning model that
paired face-time with online activity would better help all parties involved to develop the
relationships and the trust that meaningful learning requires. Project NML also listened to
the voices of their “students.” As one participating educator reflected,
I have truly embraced the concept of play. I feel it is one of the most important
aspects of my job as a technology teacher. I want students to know that their
exploration and understanding is deepened just by playing with a program or
application or concept.
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This testimony and many others like it convinced Project NML that playing is crucial to
learning. “Return[ing] play to the heart of learning” (Reilly, Jenkins, Felt, & Vartabedian,
2012, p. 6) became a central goal of Project NML when it transitioned to the University
of Southern California; its first major investigation, PLAY! (Participatory Learning And
You!), reflects that orientation.
Analyzing experiences from the New Hampshire early adopters experience helped
Project NML to construct a list of five principles that describe participatory learning
environments:
1. Participants have many chances to exercise creativity through diverse media, tools,
and practices.
2. Participants adopt an ethos of co-learning, respecting each person’s skills and
knowledge.
3. Participants experience heightened motivation and engagement through
meaningful play.
4. Activities feel relevant to the learners’ identities and interests.
5. An integrated learning system—or learning ecosystem—honors rich connections
between home, school, community, and world (Reilly, Vartabedian, Felt, &
Jenkins, 2013, p. 4).

Reading in a Participatory Culture
The MIT-based Project NML team, particularly Jenkins and Project NML
Research Director Erin Reilly, also supported an innovative, interdisciplinary project that
aimed to serve multiple functions: English/language arts curriculum guide, case study in
exploring literary remixing, and theoretical primer on participatory culture and pedagogy.
This project located at its center Herman Melville’s challenging classic, Moby Dick.
Jenkins and co-editor Wyn Kelley entitled their ground-breaking collection of essays
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Reading in a Participatory Culture: Remixing Moby Dick in the English Classroom
(Jenkins & Kelley, 2013). As Jenkins explains,
Reading in a Participatory Culture is targeted primarily at educators (inside and
outside formal schooling structures) who want to share with their students a love
for reading and for the creative process and who recognize the value of adopting a
more participatory model of pedagogy. Our approach starts with a reconsideration
of what it means to read, recognizing that we read in different ways for different
goals and with different outcomes depending on what motivates us to engage with
a given text. (2013, para. 9)

Flows of Reading: Engaging with Texts (Reilly, Mehta, & Jenkins, 2013) is an
online, open access resource launched simultaneously with the print book. Uniquely, it
offers “an expansive concept of transmedial reading and writing while simultaneously
adopting a transmedial form” (The Alliance for Networking Visual Culture, 2013, para.
1).

Explore Locally, Excel Digitally
In 2009, Jenkins moved Project NML to the University of Southern California’s
Annenberg Innovation Lab. As previously mentioned, Project NML’s multi-faceted
research project PLAY! is not only an acronym for Participatory Learning and You!; the
name also represents the group’s appreciation for play’s pedagogical value. With PLAY!,
Project NML sought to apply lessons learned from New Hampshire in order to better
support students’ and educators’ negotiations of participatory culture.
As soon as I returned from my satisfying experience in Senegal, I formally joined
Project NML. During the fall of 2010, we interrogated the five principles of participatory
learning, debating whether the labels were apt and the categories were both parsimonious
and exhaustive. Then, we began developing curriculum. In the spring of 2011, we piloted
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an original after-school program, intended as the first building block in our grand PLAY!
design (Felt et al., 2012; Literat, 2013; Micheli, 2013). This 15-week after-school
program, dubbed Explore Locally, Excel Digitally (ELED), offered high school students
the opportunity to hone their digital citizenship via activities and projects that considered
five areas: new media literacies, social and emotional learning competencies, principles
of participatory learning, mapping, and ethics (The GoodPlay Project & Project New
Media Literacies, 2011).
Project NML also had a secondary agenda. Inspired by this hypothetical question
tweeted by New York-based educator, writer, and doctoral student in English Education
Karen LaBonte (@klbz), “I wonder what would happen if we asked students to design
PD for us? What would they want us to learn?”, Project NML researchers intended to
invite ELED participants to co-create PLAY!’s second phase: professional development
(PD). But more on that later (see Chapter V).

Participants
From February to May of 2011, 25 students came through ELED’s doors.
Whenever a new participant visited ELED, I handed him or her an assent form and a
consent form (see Appendix X) for a parent’s review and signature. I reminded
participants to bring their forms back and collected these forms according to study
protocols. As the weeks progressed, a stable group of eight participants attended regularly.
Of these, six were male and two were female; five were Hispanic, and three were Asian;
and their mean age was 15 years old (Felt, Vartabedian, Literat, & Mehta, 2012, p. 217).

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Instructors
Several instructors also spent time with ELED, and their numbers similarly
dwindled as time went on. Six graduate students who were simultaneously studying new
media literacies with Jenkins rotated through ELED: Neta Kligler-Vilenchik, Ioana
Literat, Meryl Alper, Andrew Schrock, Stefani Relles, and Blake Anderson. During the
first week of their visit, they observed and participated in ELED activities; during the
second week, they implemented curriculum which they had personally designed as
students in Jenkins’s class. Four members of Project NML also helped to helm ELED:
Vanessa Vartabedian, myself, Kirsten Carthew, and Erin Reilly. As the 15-week session
progressed, however, these researchers were variously called away by other
commitments
20
until only Vartabedian remained. (For a “cast of characters,” see
Appendix C.)
So, on both the participant and educator levels, there occurred a process of “only
the strongest (or most committed) survive.” Whereas the New Hampshire research was
conducted with “early adopters,” you might say that this research was conducted with
“passionate loyalists.”

Site
ELED’s homebase was the RFKLab, a space maintained by non-profit RFK-
Legacy in Action (RFK-LA), situated at the heart of the Robert F. Kennedy (RFK)
Community Schools’ campus, adjacent to its library.

20
Myself included, departing in April to prepare and sit for my qualifying exams.
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Figure 4.1. Communal library of the Robert F. Kennedy Community Schools, named in
honor of Kennedy advisor Paul Schrade.

The Los Angeles Unified School District identifies the six schools that comprise
the RFK Community Schools (which opened their doors in the fall of 2011) as pilot sites
for innovation.
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Figure 4.2. Façade of the Robert F. Kennedy Community Schools.

Geographically, the campus is located in central Los Angeles’s Wilshire
Center/Koreatown neighborhood; demographically, the school’s surrounding area is one
of the most densely populated in California. It is predominantly home to low-income and
Latino residents.

Data Collection and Analysis
We collected data with various instruments throughout the program’s tenure. First,
we distributed two multi-page, pre-/post-intervention surveys to evaluate NML and SEL
proficiency, respectively. Co-investigator Literat had previously developed the NML
instrument, tested it for reliability, and validated it through factor analysis (Literat, 2014).
To assess SEL, I consulted the Devereux student strengths assessment (DESSA;
(LeBuffe, Shapiro, & Naglieri, 2009), an instrument comprised of eight scales and
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validated by Nickerson and Fishman (2009). For this project, I took questions from five
of the DESSA’s scales—self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship
skills, and decision-making—because those five constructs constitute the core
competencies of social and emotional learning (Zins & Elias, 2003). By compromising
the integrity of the instrument, I invalidated its reliability; I consciously accepted that
consequence because I neither wanted to exhaust the participants with a very long survey,
nor waste their time seeking information on constructs that were peripheral to my
interests. We analyzed participants’ unmatched responses to the NML and SEL
inventories using descriptive statistics and compared baseline data against endline data
using paired t-tests and multivariate regression analyses in SPSS 18. However, the
sample was too small (n=12 at baseline, and n=7 at endline) to ensure satisfactory
reliability. Therefore, we relied upon other sorts of data in order to determine if (and
how) participants developed proficiency vis-à-vis NMLs and SELs.
Vartabedian and I annotated our curricula via GoogleDocs after each session. This
resource helped us to process what had occurred from standpoints both logistical (e.g.,
“next time, allot fewer minutes for Activity A”) and pedagogical (e.g., “participants seem
engaged when they’re working with digital media”). We also discussed our experiences
and reflections in weekly research meetings with Project NML colleagues Jenkins and
Reilly. These reflection processes informed our approach each week and helped us to
preserve a real-time record of actions and reactions.
Project NML research assistant Ritesh Mehta and visiting researcher Marina
Micheli occasionally penned ethnographic field notes. Because they attended ELED less
regularly than Vartabedian and I did, and also occupied a more traditional participant-
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observer position, sitting on the outskirts of the activities and peering in, their records are
less comprehensive and rich than our annotated curricula. It is also possible that
Micheli’s field notes were limited by her English proficiency; while her command of the
language is admirable, she lacks the full fluency that allows for peripheral listeners to
wholly capture adolescents’ slang, murmurings, and overlapping comments. Therefore, I
did not code these field notes from Mehta and Micheli; rather, they function as
supplements to our annotated curricula, verifying the implementation of our plans and
offering alternate perspectives on participants’ engagement levels.
Facilitators and members of ELED snapped photographs of both process (e.g.,
working on the human knot) and product (e.g., norms, lists of what was working and
what wasn’t working). This partial record is uncoded, because our approach to
photography was not systematic. The images, however, help to illustrate the concepts that
I discuss in this dissertation. I also collected artifacts that participants created during
ELED (e.g., photographs, videos, and drawings they constructed for various assignments)
and, like the photographs, I use them to demonstrate what our work looked like.
My memories of ELED also represent a form of data with which this dissertation
consults. Despite the well-documented fallibility of memory (Schacter, 1999), its
contents might be productively considered if they have been verified by triangulation.
When I rely upon memory, I transparently report doing so by inserting such signposts as
“I remember,” “I recall,” and “my memories.” You may, therefore, take my reminiscing
with a grain of salt.
It is important to reiterate that the results of this analysis cannot generalize to a
wider public—even if our participants hadn’t self-selected into this program or
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distinguished themselves as particularly persistent, the sample size is too small to support
broad-based claims. I accept that limitation. What this study can do is describe ELED’s
learning culture, process, and outcomes, and examine if and how the conceptual
assessments that I developed are useful for understanding and even predicting aspects of
the ELED experience. The same is true for my subsequent analyses.

Study-Specific Research Question
As previously mentioned, this investigation considers the first 10 research
questions with respect to all four case studies. However, each case study is unique in its
own way and reflects different priorities and pedagogical strategies. When we designed
and implemented ELED, we were particularly interested in exploring the following
question:
RQ12. How does the practice of NMLs and SELs relate to proficiency in digital
citizenship?

Culture
But before we review this ELED-specific query, let’s take a look at culture. How,
if at all, did ELED’s learning culture respect safety, connection, engagement, and
empowerment?

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Safety
As a member of the pedagogical design and instructional team, I can confirm that
safety was of the utmost importance to us. We endeavored to create a safe learning
culture in several ways.
Norms, Take 1. First, on Day One, we facilitated an activity that invited
participants to suggest norms (a term with less baggage and looser connotations than
“rules”) for the workshop. One student solicited ideas from her peers and wrote these
ideas on a large whiteboard. Then the group discussed each idea and voted on the norms
that they deemed most important.
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Figure 4.3. Norms, Take 1.

The suggestion, “Instead of talking TEXT,” is interesting from the standpoint of
respect. Some people, particularly those who are older than teens, are offended if/when
their conversational partners or fellow group members divert their attention from faces to
phones. However, the Twitter-loving student who suggested this idea intended it as a
means to avoid hurting feelings. Samantha believed that interrupting one another aloud
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would be disrespectful and unproductive; texting these ideas so they could be shared
before they slipped away was Samantha’s solution to rudely butting in or frustratingly
forgetting.
In fact, this silent practice of simultaneous idea dissemination is not Samantha’s
novel innovation; it is known as “backchanneling” (Atkinson, 2009), and it has been
embraced by professional conference-goers and, increasingly, facilitators of large and
lengthy lectures. For example, USC’s Dr. Ken Sereno encourages his undergraduate
students to tweet any/all of their lecture-related questions to a COMM 200 hashtag as
class is in progress, and periodically asks the TA who has been monitoring the Twitter
feed whether he needs to answer a query or clarify a point of confusion. In Ken’s
classroom, backchanneling safeguards comprehension and amplifies student voice
(within a context in which student voice had previously been silenced).
ELED facilitators and students decided against backchanneling, however. First,
the temptation to utilize a laptop or smartphone for purposes other than posting a quick
comment was too vast, and failing to resist that temptation could offend others and limit
one’s own learning. Second, ELED consisted of very little lecture; the amount of time
that anyone had to hold their tongue and wait their turn was modest—and therefore
tolerable. So, “Instead of talking TEXT” was outvoted. But Samantha’s suggestion, the
group’s discussion, and its final decision all demonstrate the importance of safety to the
ELED participants, and also reveal their desire for establishing robust interpersonal
connections.
21

21
I can’t help but muse, however, over the fact that Samantha, who presented as a boisterous, independent-
minded leader on Day One, dropped out of ELED after its second or third session. I wonder if she craved
an experience that was more “techie,” more “texty” and “tweety”—or was it something else? Since we
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Norms, Take 2. Participants revisited this initial norms list a few weeks later, to
revise or add items that their ELED experience had revealed as essential.

Figure 4.4. Norms, Take 2.

Safety emerged as a key theme on this revised list: “Be Respectful!”, “Be…
courteous,” “Confidentiality,” and “Actions speak louder than words” all support the idea
of making the space safe by valuing group members’ ideas, identities, and feelings. The
items “Express yourself” and “Open minded!” suggest the store that ELED participants
set by connection to self and others. Their interest in supporting engagement might be
discerned from the items “Creativity” and “Have fun!” Finally, participants’ exhortation
to “Be productive” implies their interest in empowerment.

didn’t follow up with her, it’s impossible to say. While we believe we chose appropriately by eliminating
“Instead of talking TEXT,” what (if anything) did that do to Samantha?
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Working, Not Working. At the program’s midpoint, Week Eight of 15, we
devoted an entire session to “regrouping,” or processing all that had come before and
pledging to support a revised way forward. Participants discussed their favorite elements
of the program, identified areas for improvement, and both added and recommitted to the
list of norms. As might be surmised from the nature of the handwriting in Figure 4.5, a
female educator did not print the list of what was working; rather, a male ELED
participant led a brainstorming session with his peers and recorded their thoughts on the
white board.

Figure 4.5. Documentation by male ELED participant of what was working.

Some of the items on the list, along with the list’s very existence, suggest that
certain cultural elements were working for ELED participants. For example, they felt safe
enough to share their compliments (and their criticisms, forthcoming), and to participate
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in teambuilding activities, which also fostered interpersonal connection. Harnessing
collective intelligence, defined by Jenkins and his co-authors as “the ability to pool
knowledge and compare notes with others toward a common goal” (Jenkins et al., 2006,
p. 4), also suggests the great extent to which the participants felt connected to one another.
Their identification of topics as “interesting” and their appreciation of the program’s
inherent novelty (“Different activities every week”) suggest participants’ cognitive
engagement. Finally, a “good schedule” might be understood as a weak nod to
empowerment, as this program’s timing was acknowledged by the participants as well-
suited to their needs.
But the list of what wasn’t working far exceeded the prior list.

Figure 4.6. Documentation by female ELED student (and myself) of what wasn’t
working.
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The fifth bullet point, “Drums of Friday!!!”, referred to an external threat to our
program’s peace and productivity. We aurally discovered that percussive musicians (the
entire marching band? Only the drum section?) practiced their craft on Friday afternoons,
precisely during our meeting time. Their din—banging, clanging, thumping, etc.—
compromised our ability to concentrate and even to hear each other speak occasionally.
We’re lucky that other students’ musical zeal was the biggest “safety threat” posed by the
greater school environment; still, this was significant enough for our participants to
mention and annotate with three exclamation points. The item “Following norms”
indicates that adherence to our code of conduct was imperfect. Although this item does
not specify which norms were most often trampled, the odds are best that they related to
safety, as this type of norm appeared most frequently, with three items (or 37.5%) of the
list pertaining to safety.
22

Their dissatisfaction with the amount of gaming, physical activities, and hands-on
technology work suggests a lack of engagement, as well as a processual misstep (which
we will unpack in the next section). “Listmaking” (which first emerged as a proxy for “2
much talking” before it was literally spelled out) and “unfinish projects” could indicate
both/either lack of engagement (specifically, emotional interest) or empowerment
(specifically, impact or autonomy); it’s possible that the two concepts are situated in a
feedback loop, with low levels of engagement leading to low levels of empowerment, and
vice versa. Neal suggested “college readiness and current/social events,” probably
because, as an academically high-achieving undocumented immigrant, he was concerned
about if/how he might access post-secondary education. Engaging directly with these

22
Both Connection and Engagement garnered two items, respectively, or 25%, and one item related to
Empowerment (12.5%).
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topics—e.g., writing application essays, studying standardized test formats, or reviewing
periodicals—was beyond the purview of this program, but we offered to work with Neal
outside of ELED and put him in touch with colleagues working on the Collegeology
project.
23
We also tried to keep in mind what might be underlying this suggestion—that
Neal’s (and perhaps his peers’) cognitive and/or relevance needs were potentially not
being met.
Norms, Take 3. Finally, we re-examined the norms list.

Figure 4.7. Final list of norms.

I recorded the suggestions for this part, playing more of a facilitative role in order to help
participants connect their objectives with their practices—in other words, how could we
amend the norms in order to fix what wasn’t working? We specified how to demonstrate
respect (e.g., “eye contact, sit closer, talk with power”), hoping that this clarification
would help all participants to follow norms. “Way to wrap up and do something to end”
could bring closure and consistency to the workshop, which are entities I routinely seek
to support; they might also offer a context for the gaming and physical activities that the

23
Now known as FutureBound Games (http://www.futureboundgames.com/).
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participants desired. Although “more teamwork” does not address cognitive interest or
empowerment, it might be a mechanism for improving the program’s functioning by
leveraging its asset: interpersonal connection. The final item on the list was a ploy to
surprise me—and it did! Vartabedian had bought a cake in honor of my 31st birthday,
and following the addition of this (puzzling) norm, a few ELED participants emerged
from the back room, carrying the beautiful bakery item and singing “Happy Birthday.”
My sweet tooth certainly enjoyed this gift, and my connection-loving nature appreciated
the implications of this gesture. Celebrating together is an effective way to foster a sense
of unity and humanize authority figures.
“Flipping the bird.” As you might expect, though, given a new program, a bunch
of adolescents, and a revolving door of educators and participants, several situations
challenged our culture’s safety, connection, engagement, and empowerment. We
reviewed one of these situations in our article for the Journal of Media Literacy
Education (Felt et al., 2012, p. 221):
A particularly illustrative moment occurred in the context of an activity called
“borders and boundaries” that required the students to photograph their school;
one of the pictures showed ELED participant Andy giving the middle finger to the
camera. Instead of meting out punishment, the instructor chose to discuss this
transgression in relation to personal boundaries and the community’s self-
generated norms. Initially, students laughed, claiming that the stunt was “funny.”
Pushed further, they admitted feeling nervous and called it “stupid.” It is
important to note that Andy’s verbal communication skills were poor—he rarely
spoke in the group and, when he did, barely audibly. Encouraged to consider
Andy, the assignment, and their context, participants keenly and creatively
suggested that Andy might be rebelling against an “appropriateness” boundary
and queried whether, instead of just “stupid,” his act was an emotional response.
This relevant context for considering complex relationships appeared to empower
the group to critically think and empathically connect. It also allowed Andy to
reflect—without losing status—on his self-management and decision-making.
Although initially uncomfortable, this conversation that Vartabedian facilitated was
vitally important. From a cultural standpoint, it supported Andy’s safety by protecting his
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“face” and avoiding rhetoric that might cause him to withhold self-compassion. It also
preserved the group’s safety by reconfirming the importance of our courtesy norm. Our
talk provided us with an opportunity to reconnect with one another and pursue
introspection. Addressing the here-and-now is always engaging, whereas sweeping
important matters under the rug can cause individuals to feel alienated and disengaged.
Finally, reviewing the incident together and coming up with meanings and responses
supported participants’ empowerment and confirmed the value of their voices.
Doodling a swastika. Several weeks later, we sat down for another group
discussion in the wake of a behavioral incident. This time, Andy and his good friend Jake
had been drawing on the whiteboard, and one of the symbols they’d drawn (in red
marker) resembled a swastika. Vartabedian gathered us all into a circle to discuss the
implications of this image. As you might expect, the tone of this conversation was much
more somber than the previous one had been, as expressing Nazi sympathies and flipping
the bird are of different orders entirely. Vartabedian initiated the dialogue and spoke a bit
about how various symbols can make people feel—and how important it is, therefore, to
thoughtfully consider which symbols one chooses to share publicly or to affiliate with
oneself.
It could have ended there (and perhaps it should have?), but our roles in terms of
“lead teacher” and “assistant teacher,” or “leader for the first half” and “leader for the
second half” had not been settled—Vartabedian and I regarded each other as equals, and I
thought that an extreme situation such as this threw leadership assignments out the
window, anyway. So, I shared a bit about my Jewish heritage and how Nazi symbolism
conjured painful thoughts and feelings, and then our visitor (Dr. John Pascarella, a faculty
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member of the USC Rossier School of Education) also spoke. Was this overkill, or would
any less have been remiss? Participants said little, but from my perspective they appeared
thoughtful, maybe even ashamed? Brené Brown’s research extensively documents the
toxicity of shame—whereas guilt can be productive, shame is debilitating. Vartabedian
later informed me that she had wanted to handle the discussion herself, and we ought not
to have allowed our visitor to chime in. I was the one who had invited John to talk,
maybe because I respected his expertise, maybe because I wanted him to think well of me,
or maybe because my position as a doctoral student predisposed me to kowtow to a
professor.
This encounter still plagues me for yet another and far more troubling reason: We
might have rushed to judgment. After our conversation concluded and the circle broke up,
I noticed that the bracelet Jake was wearing featured a different spiritual symbol on each
of its beads; these symbols included a Christian cross, a Jewish star, and a swastika. In
that religious context, the swastika probably represented Buddhist, Hindu, or Jain
traditions, and had nothing to do with Aryanism. Did Jake know this? Why didn’t he say
anything? Were the two boys just experimenting with figures, innocently depicting the
shapes that they observed? Did they not know or not understand the historical, political,
and social baggage associated with the swastika they described? Ignorance mitigates the
offensiveness of Jake and Andy’s act; would total ignorance render inappropriate the
magnitude and nature of our response? Did we fail to ask the right questions and
miss/muddle the teachable moment?
Lessons learned. In the short-term (for we reviewed this situation extensively
with the Project NML team) and still today, some three years later, I have emerged from
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this situation with two principal takeaways. First, it is crucial for collaborating teachers to
pre-determine who will lead which activities, and then trust each other to do their job. As
long as students aren’t spontaneously combusting, the support teacher does not need to
step up—doing so provokes confusion amongst the students, invites incoherence in terms
of curriculum, and challenges trust between the teachers. Second, when dealing with a
potential behavioral infraction, it is essential to discover the presumed perpetrators’
understandings and intentions, and also to get a sense of the impacts within the classroom.
This helps to ensure both the appropriateness of one’s response and the extension of
reparations/services to anyone who might have felt threatened.
Synthesis. Despite these challenges, ELED ranked high in terms of safety (RQ1).
The program easily shielded participants from (non-existent) physical violence,
24
and its
establishment and enforcement of norms safeguarded participants’ ideas and identities
from social attack. Relational trust was also high within this learning community. The
ways in which participants and instructors approached norms construction and behavior
management demonstrates how ELED embraced civility and respect. Students and
instructors exhibited personal regard, or a willingness to go above and beyond, when they
attended the optional Thursday lab sessions, for example. The successful end-of-semester
showcase demonstrated ELED participants’ competence in core role responsibilities, as
well as their trust in one another’s competence; had any member of the team failed to pull
his or her weight, the entire presentation would have been compromised. Finally, ELED
participants seemed to believe in one another’s (and their instructor, Vartabedian’s)
personal integrity. Over time, they had been tested and found reliable. Whereas others
had defected, these “passionate loyalists” were there for the right reasons.

24
The drummers’ assault upon their ears was the only external threat.
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Connection, Engagement, and Empowerment
Despite these challenges, the core group of participants (of which Andy and Jake
numbered) demonstrated their sense of safety, connection, engagement, and
empowerment with their end-of-semester project.
Participants voluntarily and collaboratively conceptualized, planned, and
presented a hands-on workshop for their community that featured their process,
projects, and understandings of participatory culture. Like all ELED sessions, the
event began with a kinesthetic icebreaker: a knot game. A participant led the
attendees in this activity and asked them to reflect on how this knot game
facilitated and challenged collaboration. Then the attendees split into four groups
and visited, round robin-style, four stations. A pair or trio of ELED participants
led each station, inviting visitors to: select skills and practices from the Word
Wall that described their ELED experience thus far; learn more about the 4 C’s of
participatory culture via a Prezi presentation; explore the program’s norms and
participants’ process for creating them; and, respectively, to make their own “how
to” video (a popular activity from Week 5). Finally, the ELED participants
answered questions from the audience. (Felt et al., 2012, p. 220)

This project clearly illuminated the participants’ empowerment—they owned the
program’s information and methods, and they assumed responsibility for teaching it to
others. In the weeks leading up to their showcase, the participants showed a great deal of
engagement. They had chosen to present the topics about which they felt most strongly,
created relevant curricula, and practiced instructing their lessons. Working with one or
two peers both illuminated and supported interpersonal connection, as did their large
group activities (e.g., modeling the knot game, answering questions from attendees). All
of this work depended upon a bedrock of safety; without the sense that you can be
yourself and your teammates “have got your back,” mounting such an ambitious program
would have been unthinkable—and implementing it nigh impossible.

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Connection
RQ2 asked, “To what extent does each learning culture support participants’ types
of connection?” ELED ranked high across all types of connection.
Connecting to a group. On the student level, ELED participants seemed to click.
You might say this is the glue that held the program together (it certainly wasn’t lots of
bells-and-whistles technology, somewhat to participants’ disappointment).
Connecting to a supportive individual. Vartabedian’s dedication to the core
group of participants and the special bond that she formed with them also leads me to
believe that participants would identify her as a caring teacher (Pope, 2010).
Connecting to self. Connection to self was implicitly encouraged, as reflecting on
one’s own interests, skills, expertise, feelings, and opinions was a key element in many
activities (see Micheli, 2013). Explicitly, the way in which ELED instructors managed
behavioral transgressions variously harmonized and clashed with self-compassion
techniques (Neff, 2003). Throughout the program, however, instructors’ abiding interest
in participants’ lived realities and their encouragement of participants’ unique voices
registered as far more supportive of self-compassion and shame resilience (Brown, 2006)
than not. Finally, ELED’s use of improvisational exercises as warm-ups (my personal
contribution, I’ll admit) addressed the tenth and final “gift of imperfection,” entitled
“Cultivating Laughter, Song, and Dance: Letting Go of Being Cool and ‘Always in
Control’” (Brown, 2010).

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Engagement
During the first half of the program, the curricular focus shifted from week to
week. Initially, the participants enjoyed our programming, or at least postured in their
tweet assignment as though they enjoyed it:

Figure 4.8. ELED participants’ Tweets.

Then the tide shifted. Perhaps the novelty wore off, or the inconsistency got to them—
while Jenkins’s graduate students valiantly strove to address ELED’s five focal areas via
interactive activities (e.g., composing and performing a school anthem, creating “how to”
videos, etc.), the through-line was weak. As we acknowledged in our article (Felt et al,
2012), sometimes trying to address everything (e.g., NMLs, SELs, participatory learning
principles, mapping, and ethics) means that you address practically nothing. Additionally,
the extent to which instructors modeled clarity or immediacy varied from person to
person, and therefore, from week to week. For these informational and interpersonal
reasons, participants’ cognitive and emotional interest, respectively, might have been
limited.
RQ3 asks, “To what extent does each learning culture support participants’ sense
of engagement?” Overall, engagement levels were low, and both the program’s attrition
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rate and participants’ clamor in the eighth week for more technology supports that
conclusion.

Empowerment
As the instructor and his or her curriculum shifted, so too did the extent to which
participants sensed impact, autonomy, meaningfulness, relevance, and competence. In the
case of Stefani Relles’ school anthem activity, for example, which she facilitated over
two ELED sessions, I would identify participants’ impact and autonomy as limited.
Relles had devised an integrated, multi-step procedure, and while participants could
freely express and create within those constraints—indeed, this was the point of the
activity—they were not in charge of its evolution. I wonder about the extent to which
participants found this activity meaningful or relevant. They struggled with expressing
their emotions (as opposed to their knowledge) about their school as lyrics with a chorus,
and also struggled with converting this into graphic notation. I suspect that their school-
related feelings had very little to do with the lyrics that they scrawled, and that their lyrics
had very little to do with the abstract pictures that they drew.

Figure 4.9. Graphic notation created by an ELED participant.

Then, we picked up professional instruments and took turns playing and
conducting each others’ anthems.
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Figure 4.10. A musician explains how graphic notation might be interpreted musically.

The psychedelic cacophony was fun to produce, and I certainly enjoyed making
noise with an electric guitar and a bongo, but I am skeptical that participants would
identify this as meaningful or relevant. Perhaps I am wrong, and I do hope I am; maybe
Kalvin decided to join the school band as a result of his musical engagement; it’s
impossible to know, since we didn’t follow our participants longitudinally. In the short-
term, however, the utility of this experience (and therefore, its relevance) was probably
modest. I believe that participants’ sense of competence was quite low as well, since no
one really knew what they were doing or seemed to translate successfully between media.
Rather than an exercise in competence-building (e.g., “I can express my complex feelings
and ideas about my school with musical instruments”), I understood this experience as an
opportunity to play and practice “just going with it.” Once we started using the
instruments, the engagement level in the room seemed to shoot through the roof. But
empowerment-wise, I remain pessimistic.
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When ELED participants began constructing the end-of-semester showcase, the
collective sense of engagement and empowerment seemed to climb. That project offered
participants the chance to exercise impact and autonomy, court meaningfulness and
relevance, and both sense and demonstrate competence.

Figure 4.11. Kalvin introduces ELED’s norms to attendees of the end-of-semester
showcase.

Overall, ELED’s learning culture was positive, with its levels of safety and
connection exceeding its levels of engagement and empowerment.

Process
How, if at all, do the terms “participatory,” “participatory learning,” and “playful”
characterize ELED’s learning process?

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Participatory Governance
ELED consisted of two phases, with Phase One referring to the period when
various participants interacted with lessons designed/facilitated by Jenkins’ graduate
students, and Phase Two referring to the period when the core participants focused on
their end-of-semester project with Project NML staff member Vartabedian. Therefore,
my assessment is similarly bisected.
RQ5 asks, “How does each program’s learning process negotiate participatory
governance?” During Phase One, the nature of youths’ participation can be characterized
as “symbolic,” described as “youth have voice; adults have most control” (Wong et al.,
2010, p. 105). During Phase Two, their participation qualifies as “pluralistic,” described
as “youth have voice and active participant role; youth and adults share control” (Wong
et al., 2010, p. 105). To avoid redundancy, I will refrain from explicating here how I
came to these conclusions; instead, I direct readers to my analysis of ELED participants’
empowerment, which illuminates how power-sharing occurred.

Participatory Learning
RQ6 asks, “How does each program’s learning process negotiate participatory
learning?” Although Project NML identified “participatory learning” as its objective—we
even called our study Participatory Learning And You!—our process did not, in fact,
perfectly follow the steps of a participatory learning process.
Step One. The first step in the participatory learning model features the learning
community avidly welcoming all entrants.
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Members of ELED modeled this step, as all of the instructors, regardless of their
Project NML affiliation, were positive and enthusiastic. We were excited to work with
the students, learn about their interests, refine our pedagogical methods, and move
forward with our project! Participants, all of whom voluntarily self-selected into this
program, also were eager to get started.
Step Two. The second step features learners exploring the context’s constraints,
opportunities, boundaries, and affordances. Asking questions and facing challenges are
means by which learners might collect this information; the context can assist by
providing transparent rules and norms.
ELED engaged in this step, too, as evidenced by its norms construction process,
as well as by the instructors’ initial guided tour of the space, equipment (e.g., PCs in the
library, iPod Touches in the lab), and software platforms (e.g., Twitter, Tumblr).
Step Three. ELED embraced the next few steps less robustly. Step three features
the learning context providing access to materials for creative participation, and learners
pursuing their own learning in a self-directed or novel fashion by constructing products
and exchanging feedback.
While each ELED session did include a hands-on activity (e.g., overlaying a
school map with images and annotations of social borders and boundaries), the projects
were not open-ended. In the case of this “borders and boundaries” activity, we told the
students to use iPod Touches to take pictures of borders and boundaries across campus,
asked them to return to the lab by a certain time, and then set them up with Vuvox so they
could attach their digital photos to the pdf maps we had previously sourced and write
original text in comment boxes.
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Figure 4.12. An invisible border or boundary photographed by an ELED participant.

Figure 4.13. A second border or boundary photographed by an ELED participant.

ELED participants decided what they photographed and how they made meaning,
but the activity itself was tightly scripted. For example, we did not invite them to mess
around with the iPod Touch in whichever way they wanted and then report back on what
they’d learned or done; we did not allow them to geek out on a topic related (or
unrelated) to this activity. That is why I characterize youths’ power as symbolic—they
had some voice, but lacked most control.
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Abandoning vs. controlling vs. scaffolding. Many artists and educators counsel
against blank pages, non-existent guidelines, and zero constraints. Creativity is often
overwhelmed by infinity and stoked by (reasonable) obstacles; Lars von Trier and Jorgen
Leth’s 2003 short film The Five Obstructions illustrates this perfectly, as a set of design
limitations inspired their ingenious adaptations. Tina Seelig, neuroscientist and Executive
Director of the Stanford Technology Ventures Program, maintains that working with
forced constraints in creative processes leads to better products (cited in Frenkel, 2012).
Many wise people also remind us that we have to learn to walk before we can fly. All of
this is to say, providing ELED participants with some structure and scaffolding wasn’t
“wrong,” but we should ask ourselves: Did we stall out in that paternalistic position and
fail to remove the training wheels? Were ELED participants ever allowed to “pursue their
own learning in a self-directed or novel fashion”? Did they tinker, did they participate in
“shop talk,” did they make meaningful artifacts of which they were proud?
If I were to adopt the vernacular of my students, I would respond to these queries
with the word “ish,” which is teen-speak for “somewhat.”

Figure 4.14. Danny’s partner takes a picture of Danny, as Danny takes a picture of him.

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A case might be made for participants’ satisfaction with their “How to” videos. It seemed
as though they were proud of those, and because participants posted these videos to
YouTube, they could easily share their work within their networks (or outside of their
networks if they chose to adjust their videos’ privacy settings).
But by and large, it was not until the end of the semester that the participants
made what they wanted to make in order to achieve objectives that they themselves had
determined. For example, the brainy Neal created a stellar Prezi for the showcase that
introduced the 4 C’s of participatory culture (Reilly, Jenkins, Felt, & Vartabedian, 2012).
We at Project NML liked it so much that we invited Neal to personally present it to
Summer Sandbox participants a few months later, which he did. This artifact, created
beyond the scope of any formal lesson plans, is the most polished and functional piece of
student work that emerged from ELED. Rather than a product of curriculum, Neal’s Prezi
is a product of a participatory—or a more participatory—learning process.
More participatory. I am reminded of a “jargon shift” that Jenkins recently
negotiated. While he’s known for introducing the term “participatory culture” via his
prescient book Textual Poachers (Jenkins, 2013a), he now prefers to qualify our culture
as “more participatory.” Jenkins explains that calling ours a “participatory culture”
implies that participation levels are high across all sectors of society, and access to
participation is always available. We know, sadly, that this simply is not the case—a
“participation gap” (Jenkins et al., 2006) or a “participation divide” (Hargittai & Walejko,
2008) or “gradations in digital inclusion” (Livingstone & Helsper, 2007) challenge
people’s academic, social, professional, and civic engagements. Therefore, it seems both
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more precise and more politically expedient to utilize the term “more participatory
culture.”
Like my mentor, I want to insert the word “more” before the word “participatory,”
but I seek to do so for different reasons. Learning is messy. As our friends in the
Connected Learning movement remind us, it is context-agnostic and happens anywhere,
any time (everywhere, all the time?). As such, it is impossible to identify a discrete
learning process—its roots might stretch back years, span in-school and out-of-school,
and extend far and wide, across space and time. Therefore, because of the nature of
learning, using the term “more participatory” is not the more accurate choice; it is the
only accurate choice.
Step Four. The fourth step in the participatory learning model features the
community providing feedback, with the learner steadily incorporating this feedback into
his or her work, and developing passion(s) as a result of this meaningful experience.
At the end of each ELED session (provided we hadn’t run out of time), we
utilized a reflection protocol called ORID (Stanfield, 2000), which is based on four lines
of inquiry: objective (e.g., “What happened?”); reflective (e.g., “How did it make you
feel?”); interpretive (e.g., “What is this all about?”); and decisional (e.g., “What is our
response?”). This experiential feedback, however, is not the same as product-specific
feedback. We didn’t dive deep into critiquing participants’ work, probably because their
work was hardly ever “final”; rather, their work was created as a means of learning for
the first time about a concept or piece of technology, and did not reflect strong expertise
or extended cogitation. How can you develop a passion if you only encounter an entity in
passing? I suppose there is “love at first sight,” but the kind of love that lasts tends to
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spring from time and understanding. The sort of “survey” nature of ELED, at least during
Phase One, structurally disallowed deep dives and prolonged inquiry—“geeking out,” as
Digital Youth Project researchers would say. If our participants did develop a passion as
a result of their ELED experience, I would be extremely happy and, I must admit,
thoroughly surprised.
Step Five. Finally, the fifth step in the model features the context providing
access to diverse community members’ reflections and roles. The learner has the option,
should she or he choose to exercise it and distinguish him or herself as worthy, to assume
a position of more power/responsibility.
During this time in particular, the learner focuses on building relationships and
establishing (new) identities related to his or her role, expertise, or preferred persona.
Reflecting back on Phase One, there was little time or opportunity within each session to
negotiate any “caterpillar to butterfly” transitions; participants just followed (or did not
follow) the activities’ instructions. Across these sessions, we tried to provide consistency
and scaffold conceptual understandings by always incorporating a 15-minute review of
our Word Wall.

Figure 4.15. ELED’s Word Wall.
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As a result of this regular review, participants’ familiarity with NMLs definitely
improved over time.

Figure 4.16. Participants’ own definitions of NMLs.

But Phase Two delivered superior access to this democratic, evolutionary
procedure. Neal himself confirmed this. On September 1, 2012—16 months after ELED
had concluded in May 2011, and even longer since I had bade the participants goodbye
and gone “underground” to study for my qualifying exams—I sent all of the participants
an email. I explained that Vartabedian and I (as well as our colleagues Literat and Mehta)
were writing an article about ELED, and I wondered if they could help me to identify
who operated each station at the end-of-semester showcase. Neal replied the next day
with this email message:
Last day of ELED was an experience I still remember clearly! It was an
opportunity to share our expertise with teachers and other elders. The tables
turned, we students had the opportunity to demonstrate how ELED changed our
views on technologies and our interactions with them. We moved on from being a
consumers [sic] to analyst. I was in charged [sic] of a Prezi presentation about the
values of ELED and how it connected with technologies at hand. I was allowed
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the honor of representing a community past the keyboard and mouse. I personally
appreciate the values I learned through the program and would love to hear about
it again. (Neal, personal correspondence, September 2, 2012)

While it is entirely possible that Neal loves flowery language and sought to tell
me what he believed I wanted to hear, I find it more likely that the ELED showcase really
meant something to him. The fact that he volunteered information that I hadn’t even
requested—all I would wanted to know was who did what—supports this conclusion.
“We moved on from being a consumers [sic] to analyst,” Neal wrote. Imagine how that
might have felt to him. While even our enlightened, well-intentioned program erred on
the side of adult control and pushed out our information more than we allowed youths to
pull it, share their own, or autonomously build some from scratch, imagine what it might
have felt like to teach teachers, present to university faculty who are ordinarily guest
speakers, and guide the thinking of parents whose philosophies determine their children’s
liberty. That is the fruit of more participatory learning.

Playfulness
Last, let’s examine the magnitude of playfulness incorporated into ELED’s
learning process. RQ7 asks, “How does each program’s learning process negotiate
playfulness?”
As I explained in Chapter II, I could find neither a validated scale nor a published
definition for a playful learning process; therefore, I cobbled together elements and
associated practices that my explorations of theory and practice suggest are essential. To
summarize, these elements are “iteration” and “joy.”
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Iteration. As previously mentioned, the stand-alone sessions during Phase One
prevented iteration over time—there was nothing to iterate. Within each session,
“addition” was more frequently applied than “iteration”; that is, participants first would
create X (e.g., lyrics for a school anthem), then Y (e.g., graphic notation conveying the
emotional sense of these lyrics), and finally Z (e.g., music that translated this graphic
notation).
Since Vartabedian and the ELED participants wanted to optimally show off and
share their ELED learning, and mini-groups would practice their lessons, iteration was
more robustly applied during Phase Two.
Joy. In terms of joy, levels were middling, I believe. Participants seemed to like
our warm-ups, which were usually theatre games or otherwise silly and physical.
Figure 4.17 shows Brian (who only attended this single session) expressing his
sense of playfulness as he satisfies the “borders and boundaries” assignment—in this
photograph, he is showing how a locked door represents a boundary.

Figure 4.17. Brian playfully reacts to the boundary of a locked door.

I love this picture because it seems like Brian is having fun as he works. But at the
same time, across campus, Jake was photographing Andy flipping the bird, and our
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discussion about appropriateness ensued. I can’t help but wonder if/how this might have
tamped down processual playfulness as modeled by Brian. If Brian had become a core
member of the group, would his energy have boosted ELED’s playfulness quotient?
What if our follow-up conversation had praised the fun that Brian had, instead of
unpacked the obscenity that Andy exhibited? How, if at all, might this have influenced
participants’ subsequent approaches?
At the participants’ request, we often wrapped up with a round of Mafia (or its
lesser-known variation, Werewolf, which is basically the same game with the characters
framed as New England villagers instead of wise guy Mafiosos). We had originally
introduced this game as a means of exploring identity, affect, and decision-making, but
we continued to play it throughout the semester because it allowed players to make
outrageous claims about one another, exercise their wits to dodge accusations and
redirect blame, and exaggeratedly suffer from dramatic, drawn-out, and noisy deaths.
They liked it, and my theatrical self also enjoyed narrating the action (and screaming
during blackouts!). It was also important to me to support participants’ fun and our
program’s delivery of consistency and closure, whatever the “ritual” might be.
But what about the main curriculum (not the warm-up and not the wrap-up)? Did
joy pervade the participants’ principal work, or did the fun I just described merely
bookend the educational “broccoli”? My field notes suggest that, more often than not,
participants’ tolerated (as opposed to relished) the main part of each session. “How to”
videos were successful, and Facebook analysis was interesting both in theory and in
practice (those improvised scenes were hilarious!). Community mapping was more
theoretical, HipstaHistory was front-loaded with excessive information, the school
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anthem activity was mixed, and alternative grading methods tanked. Overall, ELED’s
learning process was only somewhat playful.
Skills
To what extent did ELED participants develop Dynamic Appreciation, Resource
Engagement, and/or Respectful Negotiation skills?

Dynamic Appreciation
Project NML visiting researcher Marina Micheli published an article in 2013 that
concentrated specifically on three ELED activities. Her detailed write-up suggests how
ELED participants practiced dynamic appreciation within the context of COMM 620
student/guest instructor Blake Anderson’s Facebook activity (see p. 345). ELED
participants explored real teens’ public Facebook profiles, identifying whether they
judged each post as positive, negative, or neutral; then ELED participants took turns
embodying these teens and their potential dates, parents, or bosses after they had
stumbled across their public postings. ELED participants’ judgments and improvised
dialogue indicated that they understood how information forms impressions, and these
impressions vary according to the nature of the onlooker. For example, a friend might
“like” your gun-toting selfie, while a date might assume that you’re violent, or an
employer might assume that you’re conservative.
Interestingly, at RFK, probably for cultural reasons, most students would act as
very severe parents. They proposed radical punishment for Kaitlin, a girl that in
her profile shares too personal matters (such as her cell phone number) and
expresses the desire to skip class. Some students said that Kaitlin’s dad would
“probably slap her and delete her Facebook account,” or that since she does not
have self-awareness, “it’s okay to remove her page until she gets it.” However,
another student, a girl, states that it is not really a good idea to erase someone’s
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profile without any warning. The students also tried to understand why the three
characters acted like they did in their profiles. (Micheli, 2013, p. 346)

These threats of slapping and profile deletion are extreme, as Marina allows, and
might indicate any number of things: Viraj’s own experiences with authoritarian
parenting practices (as Marina assumes), his lack of insight into other parents’
psychology, or his desire to get a laugh—we did titter at his declaration, maybe because
there’s something funny about the word “slap,” maybe because our society has become
accustomed to a certain level of misogyny, or maybe because talk of slapping was so
incongruous with our buttoned-up expectations (Wilkins & Eisenbraun, 2009).
Regardless, Viraj and his peers’ practice is significant, with the key word being “practice.”
RQ8 asks, “To what extent does participants’ skill development demonstrate
proficiency in Dynamic Appreciation?” Participants practiced Dynamic Appreciation—
they did not master it; they practiced it. Although unequal to the demands of “Advanced”
status (e.g., teaching it), on this occasion, ELED participants’ improvisations and
attempts to understand the teens’ choices qualified them as Beginners.

Resource Engagement
ELED participants practiced Resource Engagement, or asset appreciation, within
the context of the “human knot,” an activity in which participants blindly grasp other
group members’ hands and then endeavor to “untangle the knot” that their limbs have
created. This requires critical thinking, communication, trust, and experimentation. It also
requires some limberness and willingness to share personal space, as untangling usually
requires stepping over people’s clasp, twisting and turning, shifting grip, wiping sweaty
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hands, and hanging in there. Figure 4.18 was snapped the first time we tackled the
“human knot”; you can see me crouched in the middle, playing a key role. However, the
ELED participants chose to work this exercise into their end-of-semester showcase, and a
prior commitment to present at an academic conference sadly prevented me from
attending this important event. Wholly on their own, therefore, without my input in any
way, the ELED participants facilitated and solved the “human knot.” To answer RQ9,
which asks, “To what extent does participants’ skill development demonstrate
proficiency in resource engagement?”, this experience suggests that ELED participants,
and especially the few who claimed ownership of the human knot exercise for the
purposes of the showcase, can be recognized as Beginners in terms of Resource
Engagement.

Figure 4.18. ELED participants form a “human knot.”

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Respectful Negotiation
Friend of Project NML Ioana Literat published an academic article that explored
the utility of community mapping as a pedagogical strategy with urban youth, and she
used her experiences with ELED participants as a case study (2013). Her write-up
illuminates ELED participants’ practice of Respectful Negotiation.
In the study at RFK Community Schools, the post-mapping discussion touched on
several critical but sensitive subjects—racism, gentrification, gang violence, and
sexual harassment—which would otherwise have been hard to breach with this
group of students; their passionate yet respectful engagement with these topics in
the post-mapping discussion was, in this sense, a welcomed moment of openness
and mature debate. (Literat, 2013, p. 211)
ELED participants’ management of norms construction over weeks 1, 2, and 8, as
well as their participation in the difficult “flipping the bird” conversation, further
demonstrate their capacity to listen, share, and come to a consensus. For these reasons, I
answer RQ10, “To what extent does participants’ skill development demonstrate
proficiency in Respectful Negotiation?”, by describing ELED participants’ skill level as
“Intermediate.” Not only do they understand this skill and can recognize it as a “value-
add,” but they can also apply it in relevant situations. Although not yet masterful enough
to teach it, ELED participants’ skills in Respectful Negotiation are real nonetheless.
Study-Specific Research Question
Lastly, let’s consider RQ11, the research question that exclusively applied to
ELED: “How does the practice of NMLs and SELs relate to proficiency in digital
citizenship?”
I considered this same query as Project NML colleagues and I endeavored to
write about our ELED experiences for the Journal of Media Literacy Education (Felt et
al., 2012). ELED’s recruitment literature focused on digital citizenship and the name of
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the program—Explore Locally, Excel Digitally—also hinted at a digital citizenship
objective. But as this chapter articulated, ELED pursued so many objectives and featured
so many moving parts that we facilitators somewhat relegated “digital citizenship” to the
back burner. Note, we did not ignore digital citizenship. Our pedagogical framework
dictated that at least one of digital ethics’ five key issues would appear in each lesson
plan, and we also featured this skill set on our Word Wall. But we did not specifically
assess participants’ grasp on or stance toward identity, privacy, ownership and authorship,
credibility, and participation as we had with regard to the NMLs and SELs. And at
ELED’s end-of-semester showcase, participants focused on defining and explaining the
NMLs, not the five key issues of digital ethics.
So as I contemplated how, if at all, our participants had demonstrated digital
citizenship, I returned to Our Space (The GoodPlay Project & Project New Media
Literacies, 2011). I realized that NMLs and SELs could be utilized to describe digital
citizenship’s ethical thinking skills. I identified one NML and one SEL that, as a pair,
describe the skills required to enact perspective-taking, reflecting on one’s roles and
responsibilities, and considering potential benefit and harm to communities, respectively.
The ethical thinking skill of perspective-taking is equivalent to the NML skill of
performance plus the SEL skill of social awareness. Reflecting on one’s roles and
responsibilities is equivalent to the NML skill of collective intelligence plus the
SEL skill of self-awareness. Considering potential benefit and harm to
communities is equivalent to the NML skill of negotiation plus the SEL skill of
responsible decision-making. (Felt et al., 2012, p. 219)

Years later, I used this conceptualization of “1 NML + 1 SEL = 1 ethical thinking
skill” to develop my so-called master skills, replacing each discrete NML and SEL with
its pair. For example, I replaced performance with the pair that comprised performance:
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dynamic discovery. I replaced SEL social awareness for the pair that comprised social
awareness: deliberate appreciation. The new sums looked like this:

1. Perspective-taking = dynamic discovery + deliberate appreciation =
dynamic appreciation

2. Reflecting on one’s roles and responsibilities = idea engagement + resource
recognition = resource engagement

3. Considering potential benefit and harm to communities = network negotiation
+ respectful (re)action = respectful negotiation
This is how NMLs and SELs relate to digital citizenship. In my view, they define digital
citizenship (and 21st-century learning).
Summary
Explore Locally, Excel Digitally (ELED) was a 15-week after-school program
designed and implemented by Project New Media Literacies (Project NML) whose
regular attendees were eight high school freshmen. ELED’s learning culture strongly
supported participants’ sense of physical safety. In terms of social/emotional safety,
ELED’s facilitators’ commitment to creating and reviewing norms, and to discussing
behavioral incidents, demonstrated interpersonal respect, one of the four supports upon
which relational trust depends. However, inappropriate conduct and misunderstandings
occasionally challenged community members’ sense of each other’s personal integrity,
which destabilized social/emotional safety.
As the program entered its second half, which I refer to as Phase Two, only its
eight core eight participants and Project NML Community Manager Vanessa Vartabedian
attended its sessions, and focus shifted to a project-based task: the students showcasing
their learning for the benefit of a diverse community. The learning culture flourished.
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Participants demonstrated safety, connection, engagement, and empowerment, especially
via their efforts working toward their end-of-semester showcase.
The learning process negotiated participatory governance differently across its
two halves. During Phase One, the nature of youths’ participation could be characterized
as symbolic; during Phase Two, pluralistic. The learning process partially negotiated the
five steps of participatory learning by modeling steps one and two, and somewhat
modeling step three. It faltered in terms of step four, and it only provided access to step
five during Phase Two. Despite Project NML’s affinity for NML play, playfulness did
not meaningfully shape the learning process. Because participants learned through
production instead of producing polished, final pieces, iteration hardly occurred. Joy was
manifest during participants’ game play, but for the most part, joy did not pervade
participants’ process or frame the program’s goals.
In terms of skill development, participants achieved Beginner status (“know it”)
vis-à-vis dynamic appreciation and resource engagement. They demonstrated
Intermediate status (“do it”) in terms of respectful negotiation.

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V. THE SUMMER SANDBOX
All the signs seemed to point towards Ziyi, just as they had pointed towards
Diego the week before. But whereas Diego had thrived, Ziyi looked positively panicked.
During Week 1 of the Summer Sandbox, my colleague Vanessa Vartabedian had
chosen the warm and extroverted Diego to lead his fellow educators in devising a set of
group norms. He accomplished the task splendidly.

Figure 5.1. Week 1’s group brainstorm about norms.

I followed Vartabedian’s selection criteria for Week 2 and invited the warm and
extroverted Ziyi to lead her peers in norms construction. But that wound up being a
mistake, or at best a faux pas.
I remember, after I extended the invitation, Ziyi confiding to me quietly that
English was not her first language; as such, she always felt anxious about writing or
typing before an audience, because she worried about publicly misspelling. This was a
particular concern when she used the overhead projector for teaching purposes—she
didn’t want to misinform her students about how to spell various words. Ziyi preferred to
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type, rather than write out longhand, so that she could avail herself of word processing
programs’ automatic spellcheck.
I had no way of knowing that this history and tension were lying beneath the
surface. To my eyes and ears, Ziyi seemed ready to lead and native-born, with nary an
accent to detect. But I remember feeling guilty for causing Ziyi consternation and
indirectly provoking her admission of personal struggle and insecurity. I assured Ziyi that
she did not have to accept my invitation, and that I could easily ask someone else to lead
the group brainstorm. But Ziyi steeled her resolve and facilitated the session anyway. She
did a good job of it, I thought, but I recall that she appeared tense, certainly tenser than
the laid-back Diego had seemed. Frankly, I was tense too, fretting about Ziyi’s comfort
and holding my breath each time she wrote out a word on the whiteboard. I hadn’t
wanted to cause Ziyi any harm—she seemed like an ally, which was why I had chosen
her!
This story illustrates a general pattern of the Summer Sandbox: What went
smoothly during Week 1 tended to bump during Week 2. The reason usually could be
traced to week two participants’ negative prior experiences with certain activities or their
sensitivity with regard to particular issues. As a result, the Summer Sandbox experience
differed considerably across these two weeks, despite the participants’ demographic
similarity and the curriculum’s nearly identical nature. For the members of Project NML,
the Summer Sandbox reinforced the importance of a learning space’s culture. In fact, the
extent to which each group’s participants seemed to sense safety, connection,
engagement, and empowerment influenced both how we collectively negotiated learning
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processes and the extent to which participants demonstrated proficiency in terms of the
master skills.

The Summer Sandbox
Immediately following ELED, Project NML designed and launched the Summer
Sandbox, an intensive five-day professional development (PD) workshop for Los
Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) educators. Week one of this PD ran August 8–
12, 2011, and week two ran August 15–19, 2011. These two weeks represented the last
two weeks of summer vacation for LAUSD educators. They returned to their respective
schools on Monday, August 22, 2011, either for the first day of classes or for a
mandatory teacher institute day.
25

With the Summer Sandbox, Project NML intended to collaboratively explore and
facilitate participatory learning in public school settings. Our field work at the Robert F.
Kennedy Community Schools within the context of the Explore Locally, Excel Digitally
(ELED) after-school program had helped us to learn about the community’s unique
challenges and gather data on what high school students wished their teachers
understood/permitted.

Approval and Remuneration
Throughout the spring of 2011, members of Project NML liaised with LAUSD’s
Salary Points Office and submitted multiple drafts of the application for designation of a

25
In this latter scenario of a Monday “buffer,” students returned to school the next day, on Tuesday, August
23, 2011.
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PD as a Salary Point course. According to the LAUSD/UTLA Joint Salary Point Credit
Committee’s “Salary Points 101” document (n.d.), salary points compel salary raises:
In order to maximize your salary—and your retirement—make sure you have
completed 98 salary points by the end of your tenth year of service.

For every 14 salary points, you move to the next box, or “schedule,” on the T
Salary Table or L Salary Table. In order to start on career increments (the 11-14
“tail” and the CI smaller box at the bottom of the chart), you have to have
completed 98 salary points.
LAUSD’s Salary Points Office granted approval of our application on June 28, 2011,
enabling Summer Sandbox participants to be remunerated with one salary point, and also
to qualify to earn an additional salary point through their participation in the Summer
Sandbox’s extension, PLAYing Outside the Box (POTB).

Recruitment
We had conceptualized this PD as reaching out solely to educators of grades 6–12
associated with the RFK Community Schools. This was part of the reason why we had
run ELED in the first place. Thus, Project NML researchers inserted informational
pamphlets and Summer Sandbox applications into the school mailboxes of educators
employed by four RFK Community Schools: School of Visual Arts and Humanities, Los
Angeles High School of the Arts, New Open World Academy, and Academy of Global
Leadership. We also hung Summer Sandbox posters on bulletin boards across the RFK
Community Schools campus. Finally, we made presentations to the Building Council and
the Board of the School of Visual Arts and Humanities.
However, due to lackluster enrollment, we also invited non-RFK Community
Schools educators to apply. We posted information about the PD to the LAUSD Salary
Point website, a destination for teachers seeking to earn credentials that confer salary
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benefits. We also emailed the Summer Sandbox pamphlet and application to the listserv
of non-profit professional development organization Facing History and Ourselves.
Finally, Jenkins promoted the Summer Sandbox at a speaking engagement at the Los
Angeles Public Library.

Curriculum
One principle of participatory learning (Reilly, Vartabedian, Felt, & Jenkins,
2012) framed each of the five days.
26
The Summer Sandbox’s curriculum included
hands-on activities, individual and small group work, community partners’ resource
presentations, critical dialogues, expert sharing sessions, and curriculum construction.
Participants engaged with wikis, blogs, video-sharing sites, online presentation and
design software, mobile devices, mobile apps, and PLAY!’s online platform, the
PLAYground.
We also emphasized that technologies should be judged in context, according to
their capacities to help learners meet learning goals; just because something is new (or
not) or digital (or not) does not mean that it should be used (or rejected). As such, we
availed ourselves of analog tools, including board games, toys, paper, markers, and face-
to-face conversations. These “technologies,” on their face, are just as valid as iPod
Touches. The question isn’t “Which technology is better?”; it’s “Which technology is
better for Purpose X?”
Play. Because of our commitment to learning through play and dismantling
hierarchies, Vartabedian and I refused to didactically teach participants how to use any

26
Day 1 = Motivation & Engagement; Day 2 = Relevance; Day 3 = Creativity; Day 4 = Learning
Ecosystem; Day 5 = Co-learning.
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given technology. Instead, we challenged participants to select an appropriate technology,
given their student population and discrete lesson’s learning goals; to search for and
locate this tool (or tools); and to learn how to use it themselves. “Play with it!” we
exhorted. Remember, the NML definition of play is “the ability to experiment with one’s
surroundings as a form of problem-solving” (Jenkins et al., 2006, p. 4). So we asked
participants questions like, “What happens when you click it?” or “What do the Help
Topics say?” or “Have you tried Googling it?”
Initially, this approach inspired pushback. Particularly during week two,
participating educators did not want to risk “wasting time” hunting down random
software that might not, in the end, suit their purposes. Such an orientation is
understandable—educators in general are under a lot of pressure to deliver grand results
in short periods of time, so every second counts. And since week two immediately
preceded the start of school, these educators likely judged their own time as more
valuable than ever. They wanted hand-outs, “add water and stir” lists of stellar apps and
quality websites. With those codified resources, educators believed that they could hit the
ground running. They weren’t interested in lengthy search processes—they wanted
shortcuts. So when we expressed the directive, “Pursue your own interests and figure out
how to do what you need,” they grumbled. It seemed as though they would have
preferred the directive, “Follow along as I present everything (I think) you need to know
(as of now) about X (and only X).”
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Years later and for a different purpose entirely,
27
I interviewed Oscar Menjivar,
Founder and CEO of the non-profit UrbanTeens eXploring Technology (UrbanTxT), on
Saturday, April 12, 2014. I mention this because, within the context of a totally separate
discussion, Menjivar revealed that he encounters in his own work—teaching inner city
teen males how to code—this same phenomenon that I just described. Menjivar
contended that his students are so accustomed to receiving precise demands that a lack of
specificity throws them for a loop. I commiserated, briefly relating Summer Sandbox
participants’ requests for a hand-out. Menjivar’s eyes widened and he exclaimed, “That’s
what they want, a hand-out, right? Yeah! That’s what they want. It’s interesting that you
say that.”
The Case against hand-outs. Menjivar and the Project NML team know that the
Internet is a dynamic “place.” Or perhaps it’s more accurate to say that the marketplace is
a dynamic place—and so is the classroom, as a matter of fact. Here are a few hypothetical
(yet plausible) scenarios that help to illustrate what I mean:
• This week, Awesome App Y replaces last year’s “best of breed” app.
Instead of cutting-edge, assignments tied to Awesome App Y seem
obsolete and/or irrelevant.
• Software that had been supported yesterday doesn’t sync up today with
operating system upgrade 62.4 or the latest release of web browser X.
• Time in the school computer lab must be booked weeks in advance and,
on the day your class is due to visit, a massive snowstorm compels the
district to cancel school.

27
See http://www.kcet.org/socal/departures/columns/open-classroom/hacking-for-gold-
south-la-youths-code-towards-a-better-future.html (USC UPIRB #UP-14-00368).
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• A heat wave compromises your students’ abilities to focus for extended
periods of time.
• Bullying pervades your school’s ecosystem, and when you call on social
“have not’s,” their ideas are met with snickers.
• Your classroom this year has six students with individualized education
plans (IEPs) and three English Language Learners (ELLs), so you foresee
that your capstone essay-writing project won’t work in December.
• Your school just switched to Common Core standards, and the way you
previously taught figurative language has to be overhauled.
• Educational Resources, Inc., introduces a new math manipulative that
better serves your students with special needs, or works just as well as
Competitor Z’s product, but at half the price.
I hope that scenarios such as these (and I invite you to reflect on your own
experiences and think of even more) illuminate why a list of software and websites is a
short-term solution, at best. For each of these scenarios, responsible educators must
interrogate the needs of their students, identify the constraints within which they operate,
and seek out tailored solutions. They have to find what works for them.
Consider this final scenario that shows how these previously enumerated
scenarios may render a software-dependent assignment impracticable:
Let’s say that there’s a particular piece of software that invites students to create
multimedia pieces and then comment on each other’s work. There are many reasons why
software such as this deserves merit. Practicing how to create and comment scaffolds
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students’ capacity to think creatively, overcome obstacles, interrogate meaning, critique
sensitively, and appreciate the individuality of peers. However…
• What if no one supports the Awesome App Y assignment; instead, they want to
use its new, highly touted replacement?
• What if the school’s computers can’t run the recommended software, because the
school can’t afford to upgrade these computers’ operating systems?
• What if, due to the snow day, you missed out on crucial time in the computer lab
and students cannot complete the assignment?
• What if, due to the heat, your students can’t focus on this (or any) project,
especially since the computers are hot and the students are sweating into the
keyboards?
• What if the commenting component of the multimedia exercise enables mean-
spirited critiques or the subtle perpetuation of social hierarchies and clique
membership?
• What if a significant percentage of your student population can’t manage such an
open-ended, text-heavy, or long-term assignment?
These all speak to dynamic “unknowns,” issues that may emerge from year-to-
year or moment-to-moment, even to education veterans and teachers who know their
students inside and out, because of issues beyond anyone’s control. Of course, one could
argue that, barring these surprises, a list of software and websites still could be crafted for
a particular school and grade. But the Summer Sandbox catered neither to a particular
school, nor to a particular grade. Project NML welcomed educators who taught upper
elementary, junior high, and high school, across such varied subjects as science and
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physical education, with a language arts specialist and a teacher of students with
profound special needs also in the mix. So what would such a list look like? Would it be
unproductively long? Inadequate for all parties involved? How could we judge the utility
of various technologies for constituencies we did not understand and purposes we did not
know? Impossible.
And even if we could have pulled the construction of such a list off, what would
happen if and when any scenarios similar to those enumerated above came to pass? How
would our list serve Teacher A when her school moved her up to 8th grade, transferred
her to School X, or switched to Macs from PC’s? No, the 21
st
century is a world of
constant change, characterized by novelty, rapidity, and infinite information. Lists might
have worked in the past, but they don’t work anymore. There is no single answer; there
are only techniques and processes to find the best answer at any given time.
So, when Vartabedian and I perceived a Summer Sandbox educator encountering
discontent or major difficulty, we would pull up a chair and sit beside him or her.
Together, we’d try to figure out whatever was going wrong or talk through the source of
frustration. And since the curriculum and technology with which the educator was
grappling was uniquely his or her own, Vartabedian and I had no choice but to model
Play. We simply did not have pre-established expertise to swiftly solve the problem. All
we could do was support, suggest, and see what happened.

Participants and Site
Educators. Forty-one educators indicated interest in the Summer Sandbox
program (inspiring PLAY! to offer week two of Summer Sandbox). Thirty-eight
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educators began filling out the Summer Sandbox baseline survey. The anonymous
survey-takers were 63% female and 37% male, and they averaged 11 years of experience
in the education profession. Ethnically, 40% identified as Caucasian, 40% as
Hispanic/Latino, 10% as African-American, and 10% as Asian. Every respondent (i.e.,
100%) affirmed home access to both a computer and the Internet. Overall, 84% of
respondents’ students are Low Income, 66% of respondents’ students are English
Language Learners, 65% are Culturally Diverse, 50% are Standard English Learners,
46% are Technologically Advanced, 32% engage with Special Education, and 18% were
identified as Gifted and Talented.
28

Forty educators submitted Summer Sandbox applications; ultimately, 21 LAUSD
educators of grades 5–12 completed the program, with nine participating during week
one and 12 during week two (females = 63%; White/Caucasian = 40%, Latino = 40%,
African-American = 10%, Asian-American = 10%; mean age = 39.6 years). Collectively,
these 21 teachers represented 17 schools and a multitude of disciplines, from Social
Studies to Physical Education, Language Arts, Life Sciences, and Special Education.
High school students. Four ELED graduates (males = 75%; mean age = 16)
chose to participate: Neal, Kalvin, Danny, and Danielle.
Vartabedian and I invited via email all of ELED’s graduates to remind them of
their chance to “teach their teachers.” This opportunity to enlighten educators and
influence pedagogy had long been promised to ELED graduates; it was featured in the
ELED recruitment poster. To compensate participants for their time and efforts (i.e.,
attending week one and week two of Summer Sandbox for two half-days, and variously

28
These labels reflect LAUSD vernacular; Vartabedian and I pulled the language directly from our Salary
Points application materials.
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leading and participating in activities in order to share their expertise and insights), we
offered each an iPod Touch, which was the principal technology they had worked with
during the ELED program.
Site. The Summer Sandbox was held at the RFKLab, the same space where
PLAY! had operated ELED. In a nod to my experience in Senegal, we hung a clothesline
of NML skills in one corner of our space.

Figure 5.2. The PLAY! clothesline in the corner of the Summer Sandbox space.

Data Collection and Analysis
According to educational researchers Marilyn Cochran-Smith and Susan L. Lytle
in their seminal book Inquiry as Stance (2009), knowledge is fluid, dynamic, and
constructed; as such, any search for “truth” must include joint construction of local
knowledge, questioning of common assumptions, and identification of whose
perspectives are left out (p. 2). Consequently, my co-facilitator Vartabedian and I utilized
the methodology of participatory action research (PAR). PAR is a dialogic and
collaborative process that invites participants and practitioners to contribute to ongoing
data collection, and values ongoing reflection and iteration.
Open notes. One way in which we instantiated PAR was by welcoming
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participants to view and contribute to the PLAY! wiki’s open notes section.
29

Vartabedian and I modeled this practice by frequently posting our own notes there, and
intern Akifa Khan did, as well. However, this “crowd-sourced” form of notetaking
appeared as though it was not the participants’ preferred means of learning/documenting.
For example, one participant, Uma, chose to write in a Moleskine notebook. Other
participants, like Diego, aurally processed the proceedings and took notes very rarely.
Still others liked to maintain control over their own interfaces and organize information
according to their particular systems (e.g., bullet points, dashes, indents, shorthand, etc.).
Due to the low participation rate, I did not analyze these open notes; rather, I
relied upon them as verification of what happened, and when. I also cite from them when
Vartabedian, Khan, or I directly transcribed, in real time, participants’ comments.
Closed notes. Visiting scholar Marina Micheli took her own notes during the
Summer Sandbox, and she later shared these digital files with me via email. As in the
case of the open notes, I use these both to confirm the Summer Sandbox’s schedule, and
to source dialogue.
End-of-day reflections. At the end of each day, I invited participants to scrutinize
program activities and identify aloud, in a group setting, things that “worked” and things
that might be improved or changed for the sake of variety or curiosity. I recorded
participants’ thoughts on a large whiteboard under the respective headings “+” (the “plus”
sign) and “∆” (the Greek letter delta, which means “change”).
Vartabedian and I attempted to photograph the whiteboard at the end of every day.
On a few days, however, due to fatigue or miscommunication, one of us erased the

29
A shortcoming of wikis, we learned, is their inability to support synchronous editing by multiple users.
Each user has to “steal the lock,” and there is always the potential that User A will overwrite User B’s
contributions. For multi-user note-taking, a GoogleDoc would have been a better solution.
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scrawling before a photograph had been snapped. Participants’ contributions, therefore,
do not represent a complete dataset for post hoc analysis. Rather, in real time, they
inspired conversations, affirmed participants’ co-ownership of the program, and informed
our practice from day to day.
End-of-week reflections. At the end of each week, we invited participants to
share, in a round-robin manner, the following information: initial goals, Summer
Sandbox takeaways, plans to realize outstanding goals (that is, goals that they did not
realize during the Summer Sandbox), and goals for the future. Project NML associates
(e.g., myself, Khan, or Micheli) transcribed participants’ contributions during week one.
During week two, I asked participants to post these thoughts to the PLAY! project
website (http://playnml.wikispaces.com/Participant+Goals+%28Initial%29). I reviewed
all of these data and performed thematic analysis.
Additionally, during the final session of the last day, participants of both weeks
had the opportunity to voluntarily participate in a videotaped, one-on-one interview with
Erickson Raif, the lab assistant of the RFK-LA Media Lab (the site of the Summer
Sandbox). Raif edited the participants’ observations and posted the video to Vimeo
(http://vimeo.com/30071237#at=0). Vartabedian embedded both this video and the raw,
unedited footage on the PLAY! project website (http://playnml.wikispaces.com/Data).
Participants’ self-selection into this video, as well as their consciousness of funder
The Gates Foundation’s interest in ascertaining “return on investment,” both potentially
compromise the integrity of their data. In other words, it is highly likely that a) only
participants who could lavish praises opted in, and b) those participants chose to
exclusively emphasize the positive. As such, I did not analyze participants’ comments.
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However, I do pull quotes from these videos in order to support themes/arguments
derived from other data. When I insert this language from participants’ video testimony, I
always say so, noting the video as the source of the data.
Summer Sandbox application. Forty educators filled out Summer Sandbox
applications. This instrument requested basic contact and demographic information, as
well as “short answers” to questions addressing matters such as what participants would
like to take away from the Summer Sandbox and how they define “community” (see
Appendix H). I analyzed these short answers thematically.
Surveys. We gathered data via online baseline and endline surveys.
Baseline. Thirty-eight LAUSD educators began the lengthy survey, and 28
ultimately completed it. The average number of responses per question was 25.
This instrument asked about participants’ relationships with digital media, NMLs,
and teaching priorities. Specifically, this survey inquired as to participants’ access to
digital media and the amount of time they spent with it; how frequently participants used
each of the 12 NML skills, how much they enjoyed using those skills, and how they
sensed their own self-efficacy vis-à-vis those skills; their familiarity and professional
comfort with such concepts as “participatory culture”; whether and how they enacted,
judged, and prioritized such practices as “teaching with technology”; and the extent to
which their students might be described according to various demographic criteria (e.g.,
gifted and talented, English Language Learners, etc.). I analyzed these data using
descriptive statistics and thematic analysis.
Endline. In December of 2011, every individual who had initially been invited to
complete the pre-survey was emailed a link to the nearly identical post-survey. However,
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participation was extremely low—only 7 individuals began the survey, 5 completed it,
and an average of 3 individuals provided an answer for each question. As such, I did not
analyze these data.
We believe that the participation rate was higher at baseline than endline for
several reasons. First, at baseline, participants did not know the survey’s length (although
an introductory, informational note warned participants that its completion required up to
30 minutes); at endline, they knew first-hand that the survey would take them a
considerable amount of time. Second, at baseline, participants were on summer vacation
and might have had more time (and perhaps more energy) to fill out the survey than
during winter vacation, when we disseminated the endline link. Third, at baseline,
participants might have felt incentivized to complete the survey in order to shape their
own PD experience; at endline, both the program and their capacity to directly derive
benefit from filling out the survey had ended. Fourth, at baseline, participants might have
felt eager to fill out the survey, so that they might immerse themselves in the “world” of
the PD they anticipated. At endline, educators who chose to forgo participation in either
the Summer Sandbox and/or its extension, PLAYing Outside the Box, might have trashed
the survey link because they felt as though the “world” of the PD did not apply to them
(despite an informational note that encouraged their survey participation nonetheless).
Individuals who chose to work with PLAY throughout the fall semester (see Chapter VI)
might have felt, by baseline, as though their “tour of duty” was over, since we
disseminated the endline survey link after we awarded certificates of completion.
Logistically, we also cannot overlook the fact that, for the first 30 minutes of both week
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one and week two of the Summer Sandbox, we provided participants with time to
complete the baseline survey (if they had not already done so at home).
Artifacts. I collected various artifacts created by participants, including sticky
notes from an asset mapping activity, votes for workshops proposed by participations,
contributions to group discussions, and original curricula. I analyzed participants’ sticky
notes and workshop proposals thematically, and then counted the frequencies with which
various themes emerged.

Study-Specific Research Question
During design meetings, I remember, we discussed how difficult it would be for
teachers to run their classrooms in a more participatory manner, considering their own
experiences as both teachers and students in more traditional classrooms. How can we
expect our participants to introduce participatory governance, for example, when they’ve
never seen it in action or felt its impacts themselves, as students? We decided to practice
what we preached during the Summer Sandbox, to be the participatory educators that we
hoped our participants would become. Not only would this increase the likelihood that
participants later would model 21st-century learning practices in their own classrooms,
but this orientation would help our participants to grow as 21st-century learners (e.g.,
proficient in cognitive, intrapersonal, and interpersonal domains).
This brings us to our study-specific research question:
RQ13. How, if at all, does our modeling of 21st-century learning impact participants’
behavioral intentions to model 21st-century learning in their own classrooms?

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Culture
As in the case of ELED, this program functioned in two phases, and we expected
this to a certain extent. Whereas ELED’s bifurcation emerged due to shifts in
participation, instruction, and curricular focus, the Summer Sandbox was designed as two
identical, one-week sessions. However, perhaps naively, none of us on the Project NML
team expected the experiences across these two weeks to differ so widely.

Two Weeks, Two Discrete Experiences
Because of the significant differences between these two weeks of Summer
Sandbox, they must be analyzed separately. If this chapter’s opening anecdote did not
provide sufficient evidence for why these two experiences are unique unto themselves,
here is another example.
Classroom Redesign. Project NML had designed a hands-on, practical activity
for Day 4: going up to participating RFK teachers’ classrooms and helping them to
rearrange their furniture (e.g., teacher and student desks, computer stations, storage
cabinets) in order to facilitate more participatory functioning. Originally, we had
envisioned every participant receiving this hands-on classroom assistance, since this was
an RFK-oriented program. However, because an inadequate number of RFK teachers had
registered for the Summer Sandbox, we opened up the program to non-RFK participants
whose classrooms were impossible to reach.
Week 1. During Week 1, participants adored this particular classroom re-design
activity. The RFK teachers welcomed help in their classrooms, the non-RFK teachers
appreciated visiting and being inspired by other spaces, and everyone seemed to enjoy
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thinking creatively, applying theory to practice, experimenting, problem-solving as a
team, and tangibly accomplishing something meaningful. Our participants thought
through, discussed, and executed design plans that considered sight lines from key parts
of the classroom, opened access to the teacher’s desk, made better use of windows,
placed computers according to work considerations, and clustered desks for cooperative
learning. We were so proud!
Participant Isabel, who attended Week 1 for its first four days and Week 2 for its
last day, later published an article about “pain-free professional development” and
praised this particular activity:
My favorite activity was entirely hands-on, and it required us to reimagine our
classrooms as a participatory learning space. With the help of my group, I was
able to move my classroom furniture around to break away from a traditional
classroom setup and create a more vibrant, inviting, and engaging space. The fact
that this professional development opportunity provided teachers with
activities that were applicable and relevant to our classroom contexts made this an
extremely valuable and unique experience. (Morales, 2012, p. 33)
Week 2. This same activity, however, was inappropriate and offensive to the
sensibilities of some week two teachers, and merely onerous for others. Week 2
participant Helen characterized the activity as trampling union regulations; opening up
Project NML to liability in the case of injury; causing discomfort to participants with
physical limitations; and exposing participants to upsetting, tangible representations of
LAUSD inequalities in terms of equity and access. Dean, who actually did teach at RFK,
was uncomfortable with female participants feeling obligated to lift the massive lab tables
in his science classroom and, in general, didn’t regard furniture-oriented input as
particularly useful. Larry, meanwhile, was disengaged. He helped because, as a practicing
martial artist, he had a superior capacity to lift things and could spare less-muscled peers
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the trouble. But Larry didn’t find the activity valuable. His own classroom was small and
jammed to capacity with 40 student desks, and there was nothing Larry could do about it.
He couldn’t decrease course enrollment, and he couldn’t withhold desks from
participating students; so, “participatory” or not, Larry’s classroom layout was set in
stone. End of story.
Cultural considerations. The fact that I know this information might be
considered a credit to the program’s culture, as these participants evidently felt safe
enough to “speak truth to power” and connected enough to honor us with their
perspectives. I’ll admit, hearing this criticism was difficult, surprising, and dismaying. I
believe that the conversation was ultimately beneficial—Helen had appeared upset prior
to the conversation, and I assume that her disclosure provided some release for her (and
for the rest of us who couldn’t help but sense her energy). Vartabedian wondered,
however, if we provided week two participants with too much space for feedback,
accommodated too extensively, and either lost some authority or enabled our own
punching sessions. Should we have established firmer limits? This is also a safety
consideration—safety for the integrity of the curriculum and safety for the feelings,
perhaps, of the instructors. I am still chewing on this, thinking about how to strike the
appropriate balance.
Maybe “safety” is the wrong lens for viewing this. Instead of interpreting the
week two participants’ rejection of this activity vis-à-vis safety (e.g., Helen felt unsafe as
she did it, but safe to criticize it afterwards), might we understand this in terms of
empowerment and engagement? It seemed as though none of these week two critics
regarded the activity as impactful, meaningful, or relevant, implying that their emotional
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interest and cognitive interest were also slim to none. But none of them were able to
exercise enough autonomy to opt out of or cancel the activity, either because Vartabedian
and I wouldn’t let them until they had tried it, or because they didn’t speak up.
Participants might have demonstrated competence via enthusiastic, creative
brainstorming, as week one participants had. However, either because they
misunderstood or rejected the intent of the activity, week two participants seemed to
frame competence solely in terms of physicality; e.g., Can you lift this desk, or can’t
you? Those science tables were heavy, and bad backs, knees, necks, etc., might hinder or
even shut down performance. No one likes to feel incompetent or bad about his or her
body, and I wonder if this activity conjured shame. Taken in this light, it’s much easier to
understand why week two participants shut down and talked back.
All of this is to say, we need to separately evaluate Week 1 and Week 2.

Safety
RQ1 asks, “To what extent does each learning culture support participants’ sense
of safety?”
Week 1. The degree to which our participants felt safe appeared to be quite high.
As previously mentioned, Diego easily facilitated the brainstorming of norms and
recorded them on the white board on day 2. On day 4, the whole group engaged in a
round of “human knot,” which not only demonstrated a relatively high degree of
relational trust, but also helped to reinforce it.
On the final day of the Summer Sandbox, the majority of week one participants
volunteered to talk on-camera about their PD experience. Remarked Diego, “[T]he
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quality of teachers in the room is also impressive—because you want to be around peers
who are highly motivated to get better elevated. I want to thank everybody involved for
this program: the students, the teachers, and the professors for taking the time and helping
us become better teachers, because that’s the goal, to become better teachers to create
better citizens of the world and lead our country to excellence at the end.” This statement
not only demonstrates his respect, but also his belief in others’ competence and personal
integrity.
Henrietta, who self-describes as a veteran teacher and often identified our
recommendations as consistent with her established practice, admitted, “There were all
these teachers who were doing various teaching you would consider innovative, and I am
glad to see that, because sometimes you don't get to see that very often in classrooms.”
Overall, respect for facilitators and fellow participants permeated this experience.
Week 2. For Week 2, things got off to a much rockier start. Vartabedian, whose
prior experience as a high school teacher enriched her perspective, postulated that timing
might help to explain our dynamic. As previously stated, week two participants were
spending their full days in our Summer Sandbox “classroom” instead of in their own
classrooms; since the first day of school immediately followed week two (i.e., the
Monday after the Summer Sandbox’s Friday conclusion), the state of their classrooms
was probably a source of agitation. This might have compelled them to constantly
compare the value of their Summer Sandbox experience to the projected value of a
personal classroom set-up experience. Several participants also dropped out of week two
after the first day, some after the first morning. Since most of these defectors were faculty
of an about-to-debut charter school, Vartabedian assumed that they simply couldn’t
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“afford” to step away at this critical time, especially for an opaque, process-oriented
(versus lecture- or handout-oriented) PD. I wonder if other participants regarded this
leave-taking as a vote of no confidence, adding further logs to their internal fires of doubt.
Finally, I was physically exhausted from the previous week of Summer Sandbox,
and so was Vartabedian. All of this together—the participants’ pre-school year pressure
and anxiety, some people’s attitude of “prove to me that this deserves my valuable time,”
a contingent’s visible but unexplained walkout, the tacit signal this might have sent, and
facilitators’ emotional and physical strain—set us up for a challenging week indeed.
Relational trust. Establishing relational trust was more challenging during week
two than during week one. The aforementioned factors had established an “uphill battle,”
and a few unique personalities also embattled our fuzzy group feeling.
For example, Helen initially appeared somewhat distrustful and high-strung.
Perhaps this was because, as her school’s union representative, Helen was both aware of
and immersed in the toxic atmosphere of LAUSD. While “toxic” is a strong word, it
seems apt in light of the evidence. At that time, at least, LAUSD was regularly laying off
teachers in the spring and re-hiring them for their positions in the fall (which released the
district from paying the teachers during the summer). I once met a teacher who was laid
off and then hired as a “permanent substitute” for the very job she’d been forced to vacate.
As a permanent substitute instead of a tenured teacher, she took home a significantly
smaller paycheck for the exact same work she’d just been doing. I’ve also chatted with
and heard the stories of educators who were assigned to different, undesirable schools
year after year; subjected to a revolving door of inexperienced or just-arrived principals;
or never re-hired, simply left to twist in the wind.
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Maybe this is why Helen seemed skeptical initially, or why she refused to be
recorded in any way (e.g., audio, video, photography). To my (perhaps naïve)
sensibilities, this struck me as a trifle paranoid. Helen also appropriated a British accent
from time to time, particularly when she was giving feedback; maybe she intended this
style to soften her words, distance her from her emotions, or function as a tongue-in-
cheek way of signaling to peers that she recognized the pretentiousness of her academic
vocabulary. Whatever the reason, I personally recall feeling confused and a bit jarred
when Helen would use this accent, and I remember other participants’ faces appearing
likewise mystified.
Establishing respect, personal regard, competence, and personal integrity. Over
the course of the week, Helen’s “British side” manifested less and less, I think in inverse
proportion to her comfort level with her peers, Vartabedian, and me. Helen was
fascinated with my experiences of online dating, and we bonded over exchanging our
respective stories and philosophies. I believe that Helen seemed to soften and “go with
the flow” more easily after our chat.
Larry, a science educator who describes himself as “right brained,” would
sometimes bring our discussions to a halt by asking us to repeat fundamental information
or explain instructions or concepts more explicitly. I remember feeling surprised and
sometimes frustrated by his appeals, despite his right to receive information in a way that
made sense to him; if I am not mistaken, I was not the only one who felt this way initially.
Maybe we all just got used to him by the end of week, or perhaps his earnestness won us
over; at any rate, over time, we all reacted more lovingly toward Larry.
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I would characterize week two as a journey towards appreciation; relational trust
was earned, instead of immediately given.
30
As we slowly got to know one another, we
modeled respect, proved our willingness to go above-and-beyond, demonstrated
competence, and expressed our commitment to youth and education. In the end, we got
there.
Therefore, to answer RQ1, “To what extent does each learning culture support
participants’ sense of safety?,” I would say that the week one learning culture strongly
and swiftly supported participants’ sense of safety, whereas the week two learning culture
supported participants’ safety to a slightly lesser extent and at a slower rate.

Connection
In terms of connection, the trends for week one and week two persisted. In
response to RQ2, “To what extent does each learning culture support participants’ types
of connection?”, I would rate week one’s levels as high across the boards (both
interpersonal and intrapersonal), and week two’s as intermediate.
Relatedness. If these two groups were to answer the items on the relatedness
scale (Van den Broeck et al., 2010), I believe week one participants’ scores would be
higher over time and overall. Their appreciation for their peers seemed to be heartier and

30
And maybe there’s something to say for that which was hard-won. Both Helen and Larry participated in
PLAYing Outside the Box (POTB) and the 2013 Recontact Study (USC UPIRB #UP-14-00367). While
they certainly were interested in the financial remuneration and salary point, I believe that both also “came
around” to embrace PLAY! in their particular ways. Project NML held up as an exemplar the POTB lesson
that Helen designed for the PLAYground, an online platform supporting participatory learning. As a result,
Helen agreed to accompany Project NML up to San Francisco, functioning as our co-presenter at the 2012
Digital Media & Learning Conference. Larry honored in his classroom some of PLAY!’s most important
principles, including relevance and creativity. He also peppered his one-on-one interview during the
Recontact Study with talk of visualization, transmedia, and interdisciplinarity.
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more universally acknowledged than their Week 2 counterparts’. Wee 22 participants did
attest to their peers’ value-add, however.
As previously mentioned, Raif invited Summer Sandbox participants to join him
in a separate room to discuss, on-camera, their PD experiences. Consistent with their
general trends, 6 of 9 Week 1 participants volunteered (along with ELED graduate Neal),
while only 2 of 12 Week 2 participants volunteered (along with ELED graduate Danielle).
Nonetheless, both groups mentioned several of the same themes. Table 5.1 reflects some
of the similarities between week one and week two testimonials.

Table 5.1
Excerpts from Transcriptions of Summer Sandbox Participants’ End-of-Week
Testimonies.
THEME WEEK 1 WEEK 2
Peer
support
Katie: It was really nice having a small
group to be able to work with during
the week.
Larry: So what I actually got out
of this was networking with
colleagues, which is really
important.
Collective
intelligence
Ken: I learned about collaboration
between students and teachers in way
that I hadn't really considered before.
Because of my colleagues that were
attending and because of the
facilitators of this program, it was
really, really—I would say a really
special experience. I've gone to a lot
of professional development activities.
I love them, and oftentimes you can
learn a lot from the colleagues, but this
was, I think, particularly designed to
learn a lot from colleagues instead of
just the facilitator, the presenters
teaching to each member of the
professional development group. We
all shared and we all learned from each
other and that was something that was
really important, and I definitely take
that away. . . . And I think it’s
important to break up the activities so
Natalie: I’ve also really enjoyed
the interaction with other
colleagues and the resources that
I’ve been able to take with me
after talking to them and doing
various activities. . . . [H]ow even
the adults in the environment
need to feel like they can
contribute and work together and
how everyone has an important
role and even bringing in that idea
of collective intelligence.
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it’s not just me teaching them but them
learning from each other. . . . I think
students can learn a lot from each
other.

Self-compassion, shame resilience, and the Gifts of Imperfection. Upon
reflection, I realize that our exhortation to play integrates two of Brown’s (2010) gifts of
imperfection: #2, Cultivating self-compassion: Letting go of perfectionism; and #5,
Cultivating intuition and trusting faith: Letting go of the need for certainty. As previously
stated, Jenkins and colleagues defined the new media literacy skill of play as “the ability
to experiment with your surroundings as a form of problem-solving” (Jenkins et al, 2006,
p. 4). The terms that make up this definition—problem-solving and experimentation—
imply imperfect situations, uncertainty, and a series of attempts. The definition does not
include assurances that you’ll “get it” in the end; play focuses exclusively on process.
ELED graduates Neal and Danielle both participated in the Summer Sandbox
over its two weeks. For them, the opportunity to see teachers learning was transformative.
As Neal confided on-camera at the end of week one, “I always had respect for teachers,
but now to see how much work they actually put into their job, it's really amazing, and I
am really proud of the teachers here and the people that put all this together.” During a
discussion on week two’s final day, the normally reserved Danielle added her quiet voice
to the group conversation:
DANIELLE: I expect teachers to know everything. But I didn't expect that they
get resources. I see it is pretty difficult. It’s nice to see on the other
side.
LARRY: You still respect us, I hope?
DANIELLE: Even more actually!

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Vartabedian’s and my consistent refusal to solely push out information to our
participants, as well as our suggestion that they work on projects that would serve their
own purposes, eventually resulted in our participants opening up and stepping out.
According to Ken’s (week one) and Natalie’s (week two) end-of-week testimonies, such
a transformation was necessary, as they had not begun their respective PD experiences
“open and out there”; indeed, they entered with some emotional baggage.
Said Ken, “Coming into this program, I really thought it would be mostly about
the technology and how to use it in the classroom. And I thought I sort of had a deficit in
that area. And I was a little bit, I guess, a little bit afraid of actually really getting into the
Internet use in the classroom, because I wasn't that familiar with it myself.” Ken’s frank
disclosure acknowledges his need for perfectionism and certainty, as the lack thereof had
caused him to feel fear. His experience in the Summer Sandbox, however, helped him to
realize, “If they [Ken’s students] are already familiar using the technology and they’re
not familiar with the content that I am expected to teach, it will be a perfect fitting
together of their interests and what they enjoy doing with what we have to learn in class.”
Ken doesn’t need to be perfect at everything or know everything. He can work in tandem
with his students, with each constituency’s knowledge complementing the other’s, and
both parties learning along the way.
At the end of Summer Sandbox, Natalie explained her new goals by stating, “I
just want to continue to break down my own barriers and [be] more comfortable working
online and working in online groups.” As week one participant Nancy summed up here
experience, “[T]his type of experience really will open their [teachers who are unsure of
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how to handle digital media in the classroom] mind further if they already are thinking it;
or, if their mind is closed, it will start opening the door a little bit.”
RQ2 asks, “To what extent does each learning culture support participants’ types
of connection?” I believe that each week’s learning culture supported participants’ types
of connection to a great extent. Inherent in this Summer Sandbox experience were
opportunities to encounter one’s own expectations and fears, explore alternative ways of
doing, and emerge anew, hopefully more willing to let go of perfection and certainty.

Engagement and Empowerment
RQs 3 and 4 look at engagement and empowerment, respectively. RQ3 asks, “To
what extent does each learning culture support participants’ sense of engagement?”,
while RQ4 asks, “To what extent does each learning culture support participants’ sense of
empowerment?” I would like to begin exploring these issues by first examining
participants’ responses to the baseline survey and Summer Sandbox application.
Comfort with digital media and calls for educational technology. The baseline
survey asked about respondents’ comfort with using digital media to pursue various
objectives; respondents indicated great comfort with using digital to do the following:
Encourage engagement: 9.17
Enhance learning: 9.04
Develop curriculum: 8.92
Implement curriculum: 8.83

On average, participants also reported a comfort level of 8.75 out of 10 in terms of
“allowing students to use digital media to address curriculum.”
The lack of variation across respondents’ scores might distinguish these
individuals as members of a particular group, distinct within the wider LAUSD
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population, and support why they self-selected into the Summer Sandbox. It is also
possible that respondents, whether consciously or not, sought to tell Project NML what
they thought we wanted to hear.
Despite the uniformity of their professed comfort, though, the ways in which
respondents integrate digital media into their professional practice varies widely. For
example, one educator cited PowerPoint as a way in which s/he uses digital media in the
classroom. While PowerPoint can be an effective supplement for lectures, it is neither
cutting-edge nor participatory. Contrastingly, another respondent wrote, “I have my
students keep blogs, make podcasts, create videos, use Facebook and Twitter for class-
related assignments.” This educator’s digital media use incorporates a broader range of
tools with greater timeliness, while his/her pedagogy appears more hands-on and
participatory.
In the Summer Sandbox application’s short answer section, some participants
disclosed their interests in engaging with technology and working with fellow educators.
I hope to learn about different types of technology or applications and have it fit
into my curriculum. I also hope to meet people who are already using the
technology so that I can learn from their experiences. I hope to be able to walk
away from the workshop with concrete digital media projects for all my classes.
– Participant #1

I am looking to expand my own knowledge and understanding of using
technology as a critical learning and instructional medium. I would like to learn
new ways to design relevant lessons and projects for my students.
– Participant #2

I hope to learn innovating [sic] strategies that will enhance my lessons, which will
challenge my students to become 21st Century learners. In addition, I hope to
develop relationships with fellow colleagues and form a partnership with
neighboring schools and organizations.
– Participant #3
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It is possible that these statements represent participants’ unadulterated interests,
and help to explain why these particular individuals chose to dedicate a precious week of
summer toward the Summer Sandbox. It is also possible that our recruitment materials
(see Appendix F), which emphasized new media and community, primed participants or
guided them toward expressing interests of which they thought Project NML would
approve.
Very few participants mentioned the effectiveness of utilizing popular culture and
media as vehicles for boosting student engagement or providing points of access to
curricular content. If and when participants mentioned media or technology, they did so
by invoking “educational technology,” or software, apps, programming, and devices that
were explicitly designed to inform or instruct. Here is a statement from an “outlier”:
I enjoy using media in my daily classroom instruction. Images, video clips and
music helps students to open their imaginations. The students learn best when
their imaginations allow them to connect music lyrics, for example, to the History
content I communicate to them.
– Participant #6

Collectively, these desires, expectations, and understandings help to shed light on
participants’ engagement and empowerment trajectories. Because participants entered the
program expecting a predominant (if not exclusive) focus on digital, educational
technology, our approach likely disoriented and, in some cases, dismayed them. This is
perhaps compounded by the fact that survey respondents identified curricula’s relevance
(“addresses students’ identities and interests”) as its most important function. We did not
deliver “panaceas” from companies specializing in textbooks, curricula, or learning
games. Instead, we introduced digital and analog resources (e.g., wikis, toys, iPod
Touches, Avatar, furniture, the PLAYground, white boards, each other), none of which
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were explicitly “educational”; that is, these resources’ design and capacity both
encompassed and transcended solely educational use. Therefore, participants might have
judged our program initially as unexpected or even irrelevant.
To build trust and mitigate participants’ reactions to not receiving what they
expected (e.g., lessons in how to use Recommended Software X), in the manner in which
they expected it (e.g., hand-outs), we kicked off Summer Sandbox with a series of theater
games and interactive info sessions. As had occurred vis-à-vis safety, week one
participants more quickly sensed productive elements of the learning culture (in this case,
engagement and empowerment) than week two participants.
Open Space Technology. Extensive documentation of a particular activity
suggests, though, that by the fifth and final day of the Summer Sandbox, both groups had
achieved similar levels of engagement, yet adopted different foci and means of
empowerment. That particular activity, entitled open space technology (OST, also known
as unconferenced workshops), is a liberating structure (McCandless & Lipmanowicz,
2014), a “novel, practical, and no-nonsense method . . . to unleash a culture of innovation.”
OST invites participants to suggest mini-workshop sessions that they themselves can lead
for the benefit of their peers; everyone votes for their preferred sessions, and then those
that earn the most votes are selected to run at assigned times.
As provocation, we inquired: What would you like to get out of this PD that we’ve
left out? What expertise would you like to share with the group? What questions would
you like to discuss and work through with peers? Participant Isabel specifically praised
this OST activity in the article she later published:
This was a professional development unlike any other: we did not sit passively in
our chairs, while one person presented information to us; instead, we were active
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participants and co-creators of the experience. PLAY! brought together teachers
with similar passions and interests, who were then able to share ideas and
resources with one another. My colleagues taught me, for instance, how to use
Dropbox and music videos on YouTube to find supplemental classroom resources.
I taught them how to find grants and free travel opportunities on the internet. The
workshop facilitators acknowledged that the teacher participants were
professionals with useful knowledge and experiences to offer, and encouraged us
to collaborate and create new learning opportunities. (Morales, 2012, p. 32)

ELED graduate Neal, whose workshop idea was selected to run during week one,
described the activity thusly:
[We] did a workshop where there was really no one in charge. We just gave ideas and we all
contributed to the learning. We were all teachers in a way and that was a good
project. We learned from other people and it really helped us to see different
backgrounds and where people come from and it helped to learn stuff better.
The following change exemplifies this. Week one participant Ken objected at first to the
riskiness of using OST in his classroom. Then he turned to Neal, the one student in the
room, and asked, “What do you think, Neal?” The rising sophomore smiled and said, “I
think it will be fine.”
The mini-workshops that ran during week one examined pedagogical issues, e.g.,
implementing participatory assessment, learning through games, understanding copyright
and fair use, discussing behavior modification, learning core content through art activities,
and respecting students’ cultural/ethical backgrounds. Many of the workshops that ran
during week two also looked at pedagogy, e.g., incorporating music in classroom
management, learning literature through hip hop, and creating a community of tolerance.
The other 50% of the workshops, however, served teachers’ interests in exploring
professional pathways to improve their material circumstances; titles of these sessions
included “How to get board certified,” “How to travel abroad for free,” “How to find
grants for teachers,” and “Your plan to earn salary points.”
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This orientation is not bad, and I do not mean to imply, in any way, shape, or
form, that discussing professional development at a professional development workshop
is inappropriate—far from it. What could be more intuitive? Neither do I suggest that
week two teachers are any less dedicated to their students than their week one
counterparts because they talked about their own development (and not just the students’).
I merely find the discrepancy interesting, and wonder if the wholly conceptual and
student-oriented nature of week one’s workshops versus the pragmatic nature of some of
week two’s workshops helps to further explain these two groups’ dissimilar trajectories.
At any rate, these experiences help to shed light on RQ3 and RQ4. I believe that
each week’s learning culture greatly supported participants’ sense of engagement and
empowerment, respectively.

Process
How, if at all, did our learning process honor participatory governance,
participatory learning, and playfulness?

Participatory Governance
RQ5 asks, “How does each program’s learning process negotiate participatory
governance?” To begin this dialogue on participatory governance, which I understand as
power-sharing, let’s first review data from the baseline survey. This information will help
to frame participants’ points of departure.
Respondents indicated the extent to which they felt they could make a difference
in the following areas: their school community; their teaching team; the wider community
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in which their school is embedded; and the LAUSD. They indicated the least amount of
self-efficacy in terms of impacting LAUSD, with an average score of 7.17 out of 10. This
is unsurprising in light of the size of the district and its massive (and commonly reviled)
bureaucracy. Even policy “insiders” find it difficult to impact LAUSD.
31
Nonetheless, the
result is important, because it both signals some participants’ sense of powerlessness and
might imply their lack of experience with or trust in power-sharing. This could have
implications for the ease (or lack thereof) with which we negotiated participatory
governance.
Survey respondents felt equally capable to impact both their teaching team and
their school’s surrounding neighborhood (8.08). They sensed the greatest self-efficacy
vis-à-vis their schools (8.38). I was intrigued by the fact that respondents indicated
greater belief in their ability to affect their entire schools than their small teaching teams.
This could be due to entrenched naysayers whose perspectives might control or influence
the small teaching team but are drowned out in large, school-wide discussions; it also
might be nothing, as a difference of .3 could be statistically insignificant.
In terms of our Summer Sandbox experience, “Pluralistic” best describes our
participation style across both weeks. Wong et al. (2012) describe this label as “Youth
have voice and active participant role; Youth and adults share control” (p. 105). In our
case, I counsel the replacement of the word “youth” with “learner,” as our students were
all middle-aged professionals.

31
Somewhat famously (or infamously), LAUSD denied celebrity chef Jamie Oliver’s requests to work with
LAUSD students and school cafeteria staff within the context of his ABC reality television show, Jamie
Oliver’s Food Revolution. Although Oliver attended a public LAUSD board meeting and petitioned its
members during open remarks, these gatekeepers rejected Oliver’s entreaty. They also looked unfavorably
upon Oliver’s work-around, teaching a nutrition course at a Los Angeles charter school. Season 2 of Jamie
Oliver’s Food Revolution ended abruptly.
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Vartabedian and I did have lesson plans, complete with learning goals and
estimated time frames—we did not show up as beneficent “guides on the sides,”
presiding over unstructured, open lab time. If we had, then the labels “autonomous” or
“independent” would be better characterize our program’s approach. But within our
established plans, we invited participants to exercise almost total creative control. For
example, one of our activities requested that participants bring in a tool and a toy from
their own homes and, in small, discipline-specific groups, find a way to use these objects
in their teaching. Because every individual brought to his or her group a different object,
perspective, and school context, the curricula they developed varied widely.
Week 1. In the article that Isabel published about pain-free professional
development, she shared her experience with this activity:
Initially, my group [fellow social studies educators Ken, Nancy, Isabel, and
Henrietta] stared at our objects in utter confusion, wondering how we could
integrate seemingly random items such as men’s suspenders, a bell, and a framed
piece of sand art into a classroom lesson. The exercise forced us to think in an
entirely different way, and eventually led to a deep conversation about how each
of these items could be used to discuss the strength, influence, and fragility of
democracy. (Morales, 2012, p. 33)
The rest of us acted as their students would, considering how each toy in their motley set
related to freedom and democracy. Diego, in the role of a student, mused that the sandbox
might relate to the “shifting sands of democracy.” This activity injected some playfulness
into our midst and allowed for creativity and self-disclosure to shape and color our
intellectual discussion.
Week 2. During Week 2, English educators Helen and Natalie designed a three-
pronged writing assignment inspired by each toy in their set. Angry Birds inspired them
to ask students to deconstruct the game’s symbolism and biases, and to examine various
characters’ motivations, strengths, and weaknesses. A pencil sharpener gave Helen and
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Natalie the idea to ask students to write an expository essay. A figurine provoked the
following descriptive writing prompt: “Using semantics, language, color, and sentence
variety, explain who this character is.” At the end of the PD, both week one participant
Nancy and week two participant Natalie mentioned this activity as among their favorites.
Vartabedian and I also reworked our plans according to participants’ interests and
requests; we did this “on-the-fly,” as we realized that various ideas might not work or
following a protest or counter-suggestion from a participant; after week one, in light of
logistical discoveries; and every evening, reconfiguring the next day to respect what had
just occurred. We decided to jettison the “human knot” during week two because the
participants’ energy and body types suggested that the activity would not be well
received or feel comfortable. This exemplifies an on-the-fly revision. Our reworking of
guest speakers’ presentation schedules, shifting from extended time-blocks to a shorter
series of interactive sessions, reflects lessons learned from week one. Our amenability to
week two participants’ requests to build curricula around a digital tool (e.g., a website or
an app, instead of a physical tool from home, as we had instructed) and work individually
(instead of in groups, as we had suggested) shows how Vartabedian and I shared power
with our learners.
Shared control. Wong, Zimmerman, and Parker (2010) do not prize the poles of
their pyramid-shaped typology, where either adults or youth alone reign supreme; rather,
they praise the middle position of shared control, an arrangement that allows for co-
learning. As such, pluralism is situated at the peak of Wong et al.’s pyramid of youth
participation and empowerment; shared control is ideal. This bidirectional exchange
optimizes collective intelligence and guards against novices floundering unsupported or
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arriving at inaccurate conclusions—namely that exploration is scary, that leadership is
solitary, or that achievement is impossible. This reveals the participation style that
Vartabedian and I modeled, therefore, as optimal.
Participants’ comments corroborate this conclusion. Said week one participant
Katie during her end-of-week videotaped testimony, “I thought that the facilitators were
very patient when people wanted to not do exactly what the task was, but to kind of tailor
it to something that would be more useful for them. It was a lot more flexible then a lot of
the PDs that I’ve had before at LAUSD and I appreciated that.” Nanette, a week two
participant and educator of students with profound special needs, testified during our end-
of-week conversation, “If I take a class in [California State University at] Fullerton, it
only applies to me 2%. Here I learned a lot more.”

Participatory Learning
Respondents to the baseline survey indicated understandings of “participatory
learning” that differed from ours at Project NML. They described participatory learning
as either interactivity (“Simulations, mock trials, debates, Socratic seminars”;
“cooperative learning groups”) or experiential learning (“problem/solution scenarios/field
trips, realia”). Our research group, however, understands participatory learning as a
scaffolded process in which learners avidly enter a space, explore resources, construct
products, apply feedback, and evolve personally (e.g., developing passions, taking on
new roles within communities, etc.).
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RQ6 asks, “How does each program’s learning process negotiate participatory
learning?” Let’s look at our “track record” for each of the five steps of participatory
learning across both weeks of the Summer Sandbox.
Step One. Across both weeks, we satisfied this first step by avidly welcoming all
entrants into our learning community.
Step Two. I believe that the participants of both weeks also explored the context
by asking questions and facing challenges—particularly the challenge of not receiving
the hands-outs they had anticipated! As previously stated, we attempted to assist our
participants’ processes by scheduling a norms construction session, offering one-on-one
support, and consistently honoring our play-based pedagogical approach.
Step Three. The Summer Sandbox respected this third step of participatory
learning across both weeks. Our program introduced participants to some concepts,
practices, software, and community educators, and then challenged participants to create
applicable curricula, conduct useful research, and share out their learning and knowledge.
Step Four. We also realized at least part of the fourth step, which features the
community providing feedback, the learner steadily incorporating this feedback into his
or her work, and developing passion(s) as a result of this meaningful experience.
Providing feedback was a large part of our process—not only did the whole community
comment on peers’ freshly developed curricula and discuss the ideas that Jenkins
presented in his lecture, but participants also evaluated each day in its entirety,
identifying things that they liked and areas for improvement. Vartabedian and I did
incorporate this feedback into our work. Doing so certainly made our task more
challenging, but it ultimately enriched the program and the process.
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The extent to which participants could incorporate feedback was limited because,
as in the case of ELED, products were created for discrete purposes and then tabled in
order to make room for the next project. Unlike in ELED, however, some participants did
develop passions—or perhaps it’s more accurate to say they “reconnected” with them.
Katie vowed to change her entire approach to science education, using art as a means by
which to acquire and demonstrate subject area mastery. And in his final thoughts, Jorge
revealed his passion for simulation and his goal to reverse its rejection by the social
studies powers-that-be.
Step Five. Summer Sandbox provided access to diverse community members’
reflections and roles. Our end-of-day reflections, open notes on our wiki, and end-of-
week goal reflection discussion all offered opportunities for everyone to process and
share out their impressions, preferences, and aspirations to the extent that they so chose.

Figure 5.3. End-of-day reflection identified what participants liked (plus sign) and areas
for improvement or innovation (delta).

On Day 5, the OST activity formally recognized our participants’ expertise and
made space for them to share what they know, both with us and with each other. Neal
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commented on how this activity allowed participants to take on new roles: “We were all
teachers in a way.”
Overall, this PD embraced a more participatory learning process.

Playfulness
According to the baseline survey, the ways in which respondents support their
students’ learning through play varies. At one end of the spectrum, one educator reported
“incessently” [sic] offering opportunities to learn through play; at the other end, an
educator stated, “Yes, when behavior allows.” These responses represent the polarized
perspectives on both the utility of using play as a mode for learning and the
appropriateness of incorporating play within academic pursuits. Educators also
understood differently what it means to play; whereas some implied that play is an
experimental process or safe space (“students get to practice new knowledge before being
tested”), others interpreted play as the way in which one engages with games (“Math
skill-based computer games online”).
These data provide an interesting point of departure. RQ7 asks, “How does each
program’s learning process negotiate playfulness?” Playfulness considers the
aforementioned iterative nature of play, as well as the joy commonly associated with not-
work. As such, this process also pushes back at perfectionism and certainty by lowering
the stakes around “failure.” Since iteration is assumed and this is all for fun, playful folks
can experience each foray as educational and enjoyable (as opposed to identity-
threatening or necessarily controllable).
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We also intended for our play approach to release educators from the sense that
they must know everything about a given device, app, topic, etc., in order to broach it in
class. We reminded them that they can recognize certain students as the experts, learn on-
the-fly alongside the students, or stay just one step ahead of their students via their own
exploration. “Your own certainty and perfection,” Vartabedian and I attempted to express,
“are not pre-requisites for adding materials and subjects to your lesson plans. If you make
these the pre-requisites, then you heap pressure and anxiety upon your own shoulders and
hold back your students (and yourselves) from cutting-edge exploration and empowering
instructional opportunities.”
Iteration. Vartabedian and I iterated quite a bit, tinkering with our curriculum
from week to week and, within each week, from day to day. The participants, however,
had less opportunity to engage in such a process. We had intended for the PD extension,
PLAYing Outside the Box (POTB), to encourage participants’ curricular experimentation
and refinement. In terms of the other elements associated with an iterative process (e.g.,
lowered stakes around “failure” and support of learners’ agency), I believe that the
Summer Sandbox achieved high levels. The only way to “fail” was to refuse to try (and
in that regard, some week two participants came close to failure!); but in the end,
everyone did attempt the challenges that we presented (or modified, per their request), so
no one failed. Supporting agency was one of our top priorities—in fact, it was a design
principle for the Summer Sandbox. Participants would have been twiddling their thumbs
for significant portions of the day if they hadn’t acted as agents to produce meaningful
curricula.
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Joy. As participant Isabel wrote in her article about pain-free professional
development:
The Summer Sandbox reminded teachers of the importance of revitalizing our
teaching by infusing elements of play and collaboration into our curriculum. We
learned by playing, and by participating in various activities that promoted
thought-provoking discussion in creative and innovative ways. . . . Summer
Sandbox introduced me to a new way of conceptualizing my job as a teacher.
(Morales, 2012, pp. 32–33)

I appreciate that Isabel recognized the value of play and identified play as a vector by
which she learned. But how joyful was that play? How joyful was our week (or two
weeks)?
I believe that our levels of joy fluctuated. On the one hand, Vartabedian and I
integrated some playful activities, such as improv warm-ups and a toy-focused
curriculum design activity. As friends who share a self-deprecating sense of humor and
affinity for silliness, Vartabedian and I both modeled and welcomed laughter and joking.
However, joy permeated our space only some of the time. As previously
mentioned, many week two participants came in with a bit of a chip on their shoulders
and, by the time week two rolled around, Vartabedian and I were tired. She and I had
spent the week prior to week one setting up the lab space, coordinating logistics, and
finalizing curriculum—so actually, we were tired by the time week one started, too. For
week two, we were even more tired. Each day ran from 8:00 am to 3:30 pm, which meant
that Vartabedian and I had to arrive by 7:30 at the latest (in order to accept the breakfast
delivery and lay it out) and left by 4:00 pm at the earliest (in order to clean the room, take
out the trash, and re-set for the next day). This was a big job. Our participants’ days were
just as long, if not longer. Many had to contend with traffic and long commutes, care for
families back at home, and prepare for the incipient start of the school. We were all tired.
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This, coupled with the mutual strain brought on by participants’ calls for
professional hand-outs and our insistence on self-directed process, contributed to some
tension in the classroom. The ideas we presented were new to many of our participants as
well, and challenging to wrap their heads around. Week two participant Uma remarked
during our final goal reflection, “It was a college course in five days.”
I personally felt quite a bit of pressure vis-à-vis time-keeping and note-taking
during these two weeks. Our days were tightly scheduled, and I wanted to be aware of
how our work related to the clock. This project also was designed for research purposes,
not just for the reward of teaching and learning, so I endeavored to take comprehensive
field notes (or specifically task Khan or Micheli with the job). Since I played a key role in
the Summer Sandbox experience, I am sure my energy affected the rest of the community.
So, how joyful were we? In the end, I would identify the level as intermediate for
week one (week one participant Diego vowed to “retain joy in teaching, despite the
difficulties”) and low for week two. Considered together with the high levels of iteration
across both weeks, the composite “playful” levels are high and intermediate, respectively.

Skills
Outcomes for this study consider participants’ demonstrated proficiency in terms
of three “master skills,” or composite skills, each of which comprises two NMLs and two
SELs. Before we review these, let’s first examine respondents’ self-reported NML
proficiency at baseline.

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Baseline NML Proficiency
The survey interrogated frequency of use, enjoyment therein, and self-efficacy
with regard to each NML skill. Respondents identified their most frequently used skills as
Judgment, Distributed Cognition, Transmedia Navigation, Visualization, and
Multitasking; their least frequently used skills were Simulation and Performance. In
terms of enjoyment, participants preferred Transmedia Navigation, Visualization, and
Distributed Cognition, and least favored Performance, Play, and Multitasking.
Participants sensed greatest self-efficacy vis-à-vis Transmedia Navigation, Judgment, and
Negotiation, and the least self-efficacy vis-à-vis Simulation, Appropriation, and
Performance.

Table 5.2.
Participants’ Self-reported Relationships with New Media Literacies.
FREQUENTLY PRACTICED ENJOYED TIED TO SELF-
EFFICACY
MOST Judgment, Distributed Cognition,
Transmedia Navigation,
Visualization, Multitasking
Distributed
Cognition,
Visualization
Judgment,
Transmedia
Navigation
LEAST Simulation, Performance Performance, Play Performance,
Appropriation

Performance and Play. Performance was consistently the lowest-ranking across
the three categories of frequency, enjoyment, and self-efficacy. This might be
problematic if we believe that perspective-taking is vital to learning and citizenship, and
recognize the links between Performance and perspective-taking. Educators’ lack of
enjoyment with regard to Play is also noteworthy, possibly indicating unwillingness to
risk failure or alienation from unbounded exploration. Perhaps this disclosure should
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have prepared Vartabedian and me for some of the resistance that we encountered.
Because our survey was anonymous, however, it was impossible to identify who had said
what, or to clean from our corpus whichever data were contributed by Summer Sandbox
drop-outs. Therefore, we could not definitively know in advance whether, nor to what
extent, the educators who chose to participate in the program disliked Play.
Distributed Cognition, Transmedia Navigation, Visualization. It is also
interesting to note that some of the skills that people have the most trouble understanding
and/or managing linguistically (e.g., Distributed Cognition, Transmedia Navigation,
Visualization) tended to rank highest across all three categories. Perhaps participating
educators were previously familiar with these skills, or perhaps the ways in which Project
NML explained each skill within the context of the survey was particularly effective (see
Appendix X).
Self-efficacy. Participants reported constantly practicing Multitasking,
Visualization, and Distributed Cognition, and greatly enjoying Visualization and
Distributed Cognition, but did not report similarly high levels of self-efficacy therein. I
am not sure what this might mean. It is unusual to enjoy something in which one does not
sense self-efficacy. Are our participants outliers, therefore, rare adventurers who love to
explore the confusing or engage with tasks in which they doubt their own capacity? Or
might this be a wording issue?
The explanations of each skill varied across the measures. The language in the
self-efficacy scale very closely followed the original NML white paper (Jenkins et al.,
2006), whereas the language in the frequency and enjoyment scales reflect my own
formulations. There might be a disconnect between/among the denotation and
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connotation of these scales’ wording. They require more pilot testing in order to clarify
that issue, as well as implementation with a larger sample in order to establish validity
and reliability.
All of these data are meant to begin a conversation about participants’ journeys
with discrete NML skills and holistic master skills.

Dynamic Appreciation
RQ8 asks, “To what extent does participants’ skill development demonstrate
proficiency in Dynamic Appreciation?” As previously mentioned, simultaneously (and
exclusively) applying play, performance, social awareness, and self-management to a
particular situation enables a learner to exercise creativity, rise above his or her own
views or emotions, appreciate another person’s perspective, and “go with the flow.”
Because survey respondents reported that they did not enjoy Play and did not sense self-
efficacy vis-à-vis Performance, I predicted poor likelihood of demonstrating Dynamic
Appreciation by the end of each PD week.
Dynamic Appreciation doesn’t require role-play, though (which might be how
survey participants interpreted the category of Performance in the survey); its nod to
performance is less literal, requiring instead a healthy dose of perspective-taking.
Participants practiced dynamic appreciation when they considered their students’
perspectives (e.g., their interests and tendencies) in order to enrich their curriculum
design process. I would assume that this “check” required some mid-course adjustments
and decisions to abandon their own ideas, despite any attachment to them or delight with
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their cleverness, in order to better serve their students. I would rate participants’ Dynamic
Appreciation status, therefore, as Beginner.

Resource Engagement
RQ9 asks, “To what extent does participants’ skill development demonstrate
proficiency in Resource Engagement?” As previously mentioned, to simultaneously (and
exclusively) apply collective intelligence, appropriation, self-awareness, and social
awareness to a particular situation enables a learner to efficiently engage with
environmental resources (e.g., ideas, talents, infrastructure, agriculture, etc.), and to use
them in meaningful, ethical ways.
Responses to the baseline survey and the Summer Sandbox application’s short
answer section suggest that LAUSD educators are keenly aware of their lack of resources
and strive to maximize them to the best of their ability. On the application, a few
participants invoked the language of capacity, acknowledging personal and/or contextual
limitations and seeking to maximize their potential within each frame.
I want to be a sponge soaking up all of the relevant skills that I can.
– Larry

I would like to do as much as I can with limited resources that are available to me
at school and what is within my means to afford.
– Eve

Additionally, respondents chose “requires modest resources, both inside and
outside of the classroom” from a pre-determined list as the most important function of
their curriculum. This function outranked other considerations, such as “complements
students’ work in other subjects.” I use this finding in order to better understand the
context in which our teachers operate. Not only is LAUSD challenged bureaucratically
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and financially, but the students who attend its schools, or at least the students with
whom respondents work, are also financially challenged (remember, the average rate of
low-income students on respondents’ rosters was 84%). In fact, teachers frequently called
for money when queried as to the type of support that they would appreciate in order to
incorporate into their classrooms digital media, media literacy, learning through play,
participatory learning, and new media literacies. Interestingly, when they specified the
purpose of this money, it was always for materials and never for training or rewarding
their own additional hours or teaching excellence. If and when one offers suggestions to
or passes judgment on LAUSD teachers, it is imperative that one acknowledges and
honors their financial situation.
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All of that said, let us now return to the issue of participants’ demonstration of
resource negotiation during the Summer Sandbox. Participants’ processes during the toy
activity indicated a certain degree of resourcefulness, as they considered the untapped
curricular possibilities of snow globes, action figures, etc. The classroom redesign
activity, despite its begrudging execution by week two participants, also provided an
opportunity to leverage and optimize environmental resources. Our activity entitled
“Collective Asset Mapping” also commanded resource engagement.
Participants took two blue sticky notes and wrote on each a single asset or
strength that they brought to their teaching. On two yellow sticky notes, they wrote a
single challenge or growth-area for their teaching—that is, something they wanted to
learn and/or improve upon. One-by-one, the participants spoke about their assets and

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Other types of support that respondents requested were curricular (e.g., online support community, lesson
plans, models, examples) and personal (e.g., administrator buy-in, teacher training, peer support, classroom
assistance).

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added them to the map, choosing placement locations according to their sense of each
note’s thematic proximity. Silently, they added their challenges. After inspecting the map,
several rounds of paired, three-minute discussions followed. First, they found a peer with
an identical strength and spoke on that subject. Second, they found an individual with
whom they shared a complementary relationship around a certain subject; i.e., one person
claimed that subject as a strength, while the other claimed it as a challenge. Finally, they
were asked to strike up conversation with any participant, regardless of his or her assets
or challenges, and just see what happened.

Figure 5.4. The Summer Sandbox participants’ sticky notes.

“All Together Now,” an activity that Vartabedian and I designed, also respected
resource engagement. For this activity, we asked participants to self-organize into three
groups. Each group member should first identify what he or she is good at, and then the
group explores the embedded skills that this proficiency implies (for example, someone
who is good at basketball may have solid skills in hand-eye coordination, strategy,
teamwork, communication, perseverance, time-management, math, physics, etc.). After
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the group has explored each member’s expertise, the group can take the next step on its
own. The nature of this step is up to the group members—this is an open-ended invitation
to figure out how to utilize this knowledge and act. For example, groups may create
challenges, design a project that taps each person’s expertise, etc. In practice, the extent
to which participants understood or followed these directions is unclear. However, I do
know that participants at least began to discuss what they were good at and, in so doing,
better grasped the potential in their environment.
Overall, it seems as though the Summer Sandbox’s design provided opportunities
for participants to both demonstrate and enhance their resource engagement proficiency.
Vartabedian and I didn’t realize this at the time, however, and we didn’t specifically
support participants’ capacity to teach Resource Engagement. I would identify their status,
therefore, as extremely qualified Intermediate.

Respectful Negotiation
RQ10 asks, “To what extent does participants’ skill development demonstrate
proficiency in Respectful Negotiation?” To simultaneously (and exclusively) apply to a
particular situation negotiation, networking, responsible decision-making, and
relationship skills enables a learner to collaborate productively. Many of these elements
are rooted in communication skills.
The Summer Sandbox consisted almost entirely of collaboration, as my previous
activity explanations make plain. Our program also demanded almost exclusive
togetherness from 8:00 am to 3:30 pm across five consecutive days. We all were
challenged at times, particularly during week two, but our biggest conflict—week two
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participants’ criticism of the classroom redesign activity—was enacted via open
communication and civil dialogue. Since teachers usually operate independently in their
own classrooms, I wonder when our participants last had a chance to collaborate so much
over such a concentrated period of time. In light of this, their cooperativeness is even
more striking. I would assume that participants endeavor to teach this skill to their own
students; Henrietta and Betty specifically mentioned that they do. Participants’ Resource
Engagement status, therefore, is Advanced.
Study-Specific Research Question
How does all of this relate to our second, “big picture” goal? If you’ll recall,
RQ13 asks, “How, if at all, does our modeling of 21st-century learning impact
participants’ behavioral intentions to model 21st-century learning in their own
classrooms?” This was an important objective of our PD. Project NML not only sought to
support our participants’ comfort, productivity, and development; it also attempted to
inspire participants’ enactment of changes in their own classrooms. If our program only
enriched participants for one week’s time, then we would have been quite disappointed
indeed. The Summer Sandbox was not exclusively an end in and of itself—it was also a
means to an end.
Several well-supported theories informed our research and praxis. In terms of our
rationale for modeling desired behaviors, communication literature has established
modeling’s role in facilitating viewers’ behavior change. According to noted scholar
Albert Bandura, “Efficacious modeling not only cultivates competencies but also
enhances the sense of personal efficacy needed to perform knowledge and skills into
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successful courses of action” (2002, p. 140). This suggests that, the better one’s modeling,
the more likely the viewer’s reproduction of modeled behaviors.
We collected data on participants’ behavioral intentions because, according to the
integrative model of behavioral prediction (which builds on constructs from the theory of
reasoned action (Azjen & Fishbein, 1980)] and the theory of planned behavior (Ajzen,
1991; Fishbein & Cappella, 2006; Fishbein & Yzer, 2003), behavioral intentions are
closely related to behavior. More simply, people tend to do what they say they’re going
to do. “According to the model, any given behavior is most likely to occur if one has a
strong intention to perform the behavior, if a person has the necessary skills and abilities
required to perform the behavior, and if there are no environmental constraints preventing
behavioral performance” (Fishbein & Yzer, 2003, p. 166). Communication scholar
Martin Fishbein has identified behavioral intention as the “best single predictor” of actual
behavior (1980, p. 83, emphasis in original).

21st-Century Learning
In their end-of-week reflections, participants from both week one and week two
pledged to make several pedagogical changes that reflected 21st-century learning values.
Safety. Both Bettina (week one) and Natalie (week two) touched upon the notion
of safety. Bettina vowed to “make space for kids to be safe,” while Natalie declared her
intention to use the “movement game—all those games are valuable because they build
trust.”
Connection. Natalie also spoke about connection, remarking, “Outside of media, I
have been all about class-building and team-building.” This suggests her respect for
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students connecting to a group. Week one participant Nancy pledged to open her mind to
Twitter, which can be a useful tool for connecting to a group if users tweet to a common
hashtag, and also for connecting to a supportive individual if direct messages are
commonly or crucially exchanged.
Engagement. Nancy’s comments also related to student engagement. She declared,
“I’ll ask students to interrogate practice—did we use NMLs today?” This query is
engaging because it honors students’ lived realities (e.g., their class experience),
transforms class from a didactic one-way lecture into a shared site for production and
analysis, and takes seriously the students’ contributions. As such, it is also empowering.
Empowerment. In terms of empowerment, week one participant Henrietta said
that she wanted to “make tasks that are multimedia and involve circulation.” Circulations
are one of four basic forms of participatory culture (Jenkins et al., 2006, p. 3). In this
context, to circulate means to engage in activities that shape the flow of media, or to
share media with various publics across various platforms. In the education space, Project
NML is particularly interested in witnessing the greater circulation of academic work
(e.g., students’ original arguments and expressions) beyond the classrooms in which they
were produced. What if, when appropriate, their academic work was accessible to peers
in their course, students who took the same class at different times or from different
teachers, other members of their school community, parents and neighbors, or even
international kindred spirits? Given the appropriate establishment of privacy and security
provisions, imagine the extent to which students could feel “seen” and “heard,” engaging
with queries, accepting compliments, witnessing the appropriation and application of
their ideas in diverse ways.
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The circulation process itself can be empowering, as previously articulated; in a
worst-case scenario, it also can be disappointing (e.g., enabling others to level harsh
criticism or ignore the work entirely). This is why the way in which it is managed must
be thought through in advance and nimble during its implementation. But having the
desire and the means to circulate one’s work—that indicates empowerment. It does so
because it shows that one is confident about the value of one’s ideas and has access to
powerful communication mechanisms. Henrietta wanted to support her students’
circulation. This reveals Henrietta herself as an empowered teacher who is supportive of
empowering her students.
Participatory governance. Participants also mentioned plans that relate to
participatory governance. Week 2 participant Eve said that she will “start a Wiki about
what they [the students] are currently learning, but hand over the control of the content to
them (within certain criteria).” Fellow Week 2 participant Uma said that she will “give
the students a chance to share. You do not realize what they get to share. This is
informative too.” Both of these intentions reflect motivation to share power in the
classroom, giving students the opportunity to make choices and raise their voices.
Playfulness. Finally, several participants’ comments relate to playfulness. Week 2
participant Uma continued her reflection by saying, “I can be more adventurous on my
own. I can even remix board games in order to achieve curricular ends.” Not only does
her mention of games illuminate her respect for play, but more importantly (in my
opinion), her declaration to explore independently shows Uma’s self-efficacy in play (the
NML skill). By saying that she can take on the unknown, Uma indicates her sense of her
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own “ability to experiment with [her] surroundings as a form of problem-solving”
(Jenkins et al., 2006, p. 4).
Bonnie’s comment also suggests great comfort with play. She said that she would
“see how the changes I am going to make will play out, and adjust according to whatever
emerges.” This is iteration, and its importance cannot be overstated. To observe and
adjust—that sounds like a playful approach to me.
In terms of joy, the other element of playfulness, Week 2 participant Natalie said
simply, “I like the idea of Play.” Appreciation is related to joy and might lead to its full-
fledged manifestation.

Ambitious Projects
Across both weeks, participants also articulated ambitions to take on major
projects (e.g., writing new curricula, reforming pedagogy, spearheading educational
campaigns).

Table 5.3.
Excerpts from Field Notes Documenting Summer Sandbox Participants’ End-of-Week
Goal Reflections.
WEEK 1 WEEK 2
Katie: Want to work on
animation/cartoons, Comic Life; Instead
of adding to existing lessons, completely
rework plan by teaching science through
the lens of art—doesn’t change
EVERYTHING but focuses on animation
and cartoons to get kids engaged; On
days where there isn’t a readily apparent
experiment, still get hands-on and would
Jorge: Simulation is a big controversy in
history. Some people say that it trivializes
history. A teacher did a simulation based
on the Articles of Confederation and
students obtained misinformation. On the
periodic assessment they stipulated: Do not
use simulation. But I got here to prove
them wrong—like using Monopoly. I am
taking this to the school. I want to find a

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While Katie could not overhaul an entire year’s worth of curriculum, she did join PD extension POTB.
Within the context of POTB, Katie participated in AnimAction’s fall workshop. She wants her students to
create animations that demonstrate their learning about topics such as cell division, among others. Katie
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get kids more interested.
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way to use simulation productively.
Helen: Work on a feminist thesis: use bell
hooks, with Madonna.
Bonnie: Use GoogleMaps for mapping
their neighborhood (extension: taking
photos, making comments, recording
video/audio and inserting into a timeline
on Vuvox)
Frank: Considering project-based
learning/projects that take place over
course of months because it can take place
in middle school as it does in H.S. What is
it going to look like in middle school when
and how can we put it in high school? How
do I learn?

Participants’ words suggest that their Summer Sandbox experience inspired them
to develop or reconnect to lofty goals that matter to them. This sort of passionate
innovation and production is at the heart of 21st-century learning, and indeed it represents
what 21st-century learning seeks to facilitate.
Summary
The Summer Sandbox was a week-long professional development (PD) workshop
designed by Project NML and implemented twice during August 2011. Twenty-one
educators of grades 5–12 from the Los Angeles Unified School District completed this
PD, representing 17 schools and various disciplines and roles (e.g., a physical education
teacher, a language arts specialist, several social studies teachers, and a teacher of
students with profound physical needs). The workshop took place in the RFKLab, a
multimedia space maintained by non-profit RFK-Legacy in Action and situated on the
campus of RFK Community Schools, a network of LAUSD pilot schools located in
central Los Angeles.
While the execution of weeks one and two varied substantially, each learning
culture still supported participants’ senses of safety, connection, engagement, and

dreams of asking local galleries to showcase their science and art. (Reilly, Vartabedian, Felt, & Jenkins,
2012, p. 28)
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empowerment. Processually, participants and facilitators shared power/control in a
pluralistic manner, negotiated the five steps of participatory learning, and embraced the
iterative component of playfulness. Participants demonstrated Beginner proficiency in
dynamic appreciation, Intermediate proficiency in resource engagement, and Advanced
proficiency in respectful negotiation.
Project NML’s strategy to model 21st-century learning practices in order to foster
participants’ intentions to model 21st-century learning practices in their own classrooms
appears to have worked. In their end-of-week reflections, comments from both week one
and week two participants revealed their determination to honor safety, connection,
engagement, empowerment, participatory governance, and playfulness. They also
revealed ambitions to take on major projects, which suggests that educators felt inspired
to pursue personally meaningful objectives and make a difference.

Praise for the PD
Finally, it is important to note that participants really liked this PD. This is
important from a cultural standpoint, with implications for the “energy” of the space and
the extent to which participants are motivated to co-construct safety, connection,
engagement, and empowerment. Additionally, as the “playfulness” construct
acknowledges, very little learning can happen if you’re not enjoying yourself.
Comments from Diego and Frank suggest both renewal and appreciation for what
really matters when it comes to teaching kids. As Week 1 participant Diego vowed, “I
will not be afraid of letting administrators see that I am showing a movie. I will use
movies and art. I will highlight to students why they’re here. I will retain joy in teaching
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despite the difficulties.” Week 2 participant Frank said, “I am walking away with new
goals, strategies. It was good to see different grade levels. With testing we neglect issues
that need to be taught, and online resources can make accessible these issues/concepts.”
Week 2 participant Natalie observed at the end of her Summer Sandbox
experience, “I want to be more tech friendly. I was looking forward to the hands-on
experience. I personally have gotten more than that.” Week 1 participants Bonnie and
Isabel and Week 2 participant Ziyi also expressed this notion of getting more than they’d
bargained for. All three of these educators separately attested that this was one of the best
PDs that they’d ever attended. Said Bonnie in her videotaped testimony, “This was a
really different, honestly, probably one of the best PDs that I've attended. And it was
really different. It took me out of my comfort zone for a while. But eye-opening at the
same time.” Said Isabel during her end-of-week reflection, “I thought it was a great
workshop. I want to do it again. It was really cool. It was one of the best PDs I've ever
been to.” Finally, despite the unnerving task that I gave Ziyi on her second day (e.g.,
writing participants’ suggestions on the whiteboard), she praised the program whole-
heartedly. “I find the space to work for me. It’s one of the best professional developments
I have worked with. It forced me to be creative again, I am doing the new thing. My brain
goes into all different directions, and you are helping. Thank you.” This positive energy
and commitment to participatory, 21st-century learning propelled our collective
exploration of the Summer Sandbox’s semester-long extension, PLAYing Outside the
Box.
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VI. PLAYING OUTSIDE THE BOX
Nancy’s high school social studies students started Tweeting. But not in the way
that anyone would expect.
During the Summer Sandbox, Project NML’s five-day professional development
workshop for LAUSD educators that took place twice during August of 2011 (see
Chapter V), Week 1 participant Nancy had pledged to open her mind to Twitter. We
applauded Nancy’s goal even though, philosophically, Project NML is technology-
agnostic. By that we mean, we neither promote nor berate any specific software or
hardware (like Twitter, for example, or iPads). All tools have affordances, or capacities,
and all users have goals—that is, needs, interests. etc. We seek to empower users to
discover and leverage affordances in order to achieve their personal goals. Project NML
encourages users to search confidently, explore freely, and, to borrow a phrase from Dr.
Brené Brown (who lifted it from Teddy Roosevelt), dare greatly, in whatever form that
might take — connect, create, circulate, collaborate, innovate, hang out, mess around,
geek out, etc. So Nancy was interested in Twitter, evidently. “Great!” we enthused. “Go
for it!” Again, we didn’t care about Twitter, per se. We cared about Nancy.
Nancy chose to continue working with Project NML during the fall of 2011 as a
member of PLAYing Outside the Box (POTB), a program we designed to support
Summer Sandbox graduates’ introduction into their classrooms of 21
st
century learning.
Project NML staff member Kirsten Carthew worked one-on-one with POTB participants.
Carthew observed the implications of the district’s firewall, which blocked student access
to most sites with “social” characteristics, e.g., gaming sites, video-hosting sites, email
sites, and social networking sites. In practice, this means that students can’t play Bloons
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(http://www.addictinggames.com/action-games/bloons.jsp), a free game that uses projectiles to
explore physics properties in ways similar to Angry Birds.
34
Teachers can’t task their
students with searching YouTube for examples of propaganda. Students can’t refer to
information they had filed in Gmail or GoogleDrive. And teachers certainly can’t direct
their students to Twitter.
Even if LAUSD’s firewall didn’t block Twitter, though, there still would have
been impediments. For example, concerns about student safety and privacy, as well as
disapprobation for incivility and other adult content on Twitter (and across the internet),
might sap teachers’ capacity and/or desire to get their students online. There’s also the
issue of equipment. Booking time in a computer lab or borrowing the school’s computer
cart might qualify as anything from “difficult” to “impossible”; according to our
participants, and corroborated by Carthew, such an endeavor certainly isn’t easy.
35

LAUSD and other school districts across the country have pledged to address this
disconnect with “one child, one laptop” policies, iPad disbursements, and/or allocations
of one computer per classroom. But for various reasons, none of these responses have
managed to solve the root problem: collectively, students have limited in-school access to

34
During the Recontact Study years later (USC UPIRB #UP-14-00367), Ziyi confirmed that LAUSD
continues to block gaming sites, despite their educational potentials. “We were working on studying the
continent of Africa for geography. By accident, I came across a website where the kids learned about the
refugee camps in Darfur by playing a game [Darfur is Dying, created by Susana Ruiz]… The first day we
played it, I was good, LAUSD did not block it. The next day, it was blocked. Can you believe it? … By the
second day, we were able to get the game to work on about 10 of the laptops. Sometimes, if you keep on
logging on, LAUSD will let you go through. Sometimes, it won't. … That game was so important to me,
because it brought me back to the whole point of this, that technology, even games like that can teach us a
lot.”
35
Frank confirmed during his 2013 Recontact interview that visiting the school’s computer lab is how
students engage with technology, but firewalls can render these visits unproductive. “It just became really
problematic in our computer lab to get into the PLAYground. It just became so hard that it became
frustrating.”
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both digital media and, more importantly in the view of Project NML, participatory
culture.
So Nancy devised a work-around. She couldn’t unilaterally or immediately take
on district-wide policies and budgets, but she could support her students’ engagement
with NMLs and sensitive communication. Nancy’s students Tweeted on paper.
Taking on the personas of Founding Fathers, these students created Twitter
handles (e.g, @TheFirstBHarrison, @MWill, @johnhancock) and pushed out status
updates of 140 characters or less. In so doing, Nancy’s students honed their skills in
terms of Performance, Simulation, and Play. They loved the whimsical, creative activity
and owned the information on the American Revolution in a more profound way because
suddenly, that distant war became relevant.

Figure 6.1. An American Revolution-era Tweet from one of Natalie’s students.
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Figure 6.2. An American Revolution-era Tweet from one of Natalie’s students.

Figure 6.3. An American Revolution-era Tweet from one of Natalie’s students.
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Figure 6.4. An American Revolution-era Tweet from one of Natalie’s students.

Nancy’s leadership and students’ embrace of this assignment suggest that all
parties involved productively learned through Play. We at Project NML consider that a
win-win. This experience illustrates a common impact of POTB participation. As many
of the educators themselves remarked at the POTB Retreat in December of 2011, their
engagement with this program helped them and their students to risk entering unknown
territory, letting their fears and anxieties take a backseat to their curiosity and creativity.
PLAYing Outside the Box
In order to facilitate the Summer Sandbox graduates’ integration of participatory
learning into their classroom practice, PLAY! offered a PD extension called PLAYing
Outside the Box (POTB), implemented during the fall semester of 2011. Its structure was
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even less prescriptive than that of the relatively malleable Summer Sandbox. POTB was
conceptualized more as a service than a seminar, intended to scaffold and support
participants’ self-directed efforts.
This personalizable design reflects PD best practice. In 2012, supported by a grant
from the Digital Media and Learning Hub, the USC Annenberg Innovation Lab hosted a
working group of teachers, administrators, community educators, and educational
researchers in order “…to engage in a much-needed dialogue on culturally relevant
professional development” (Literat & Itow, 2012, p. 9). From this multiple stakeholder
conversation and exchange of case studies and materials, the working group
recommended personalization by calling for “contextualization, not abstraction.”
PD programs should be tailored to the specific questions and particular career
goals of the participants. We acknowledge the tension between the desire to create
scalable and flexible initiatives, and the need to cater most effectively to specific
disciplines and levels of instruction; this challenge is all the more acute when it
comes to sharing strategies for integrating media and digital technologies into the
classroom. However, we believe that there is a way to reconcile this tension. By
addressing the common core standards teachers need to fulfill, while at the same
time accounting for the various disciplines and grade levels, program designers
can craft versatile PD initiatives that represent – and feel like – a genuine
investment in professional growth (Literat & Itow, 2012, p. 12).

According to educational researcher Linda Darling-Hammond (2006), “...[P]rograms
must help teachers develop the disposition to continue to seek answers to difficult
problems of teaching and learning and the skills to learn from practice (and from their
colleagues) as well as to learn for practice” (p. 304).
Learning from and with colleagues is an important part of Project NML’s
pedagogy. Although every POTB participant worked at a different school, our curriculum
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utilized digital means by which educators could glimpse inside of each other’s
classrooms and share feedback, e.g., Vimeo, Wikispaces.
Our long-term, contextualized approach also served the way in which Project
NML intended for new media literacies (NMLs) to be taught:
New media literacies should not be viewed as an added subject but as a paradigm
shift that changes the ways we think about the entire curriculum. The pay-off of
such a dramatic change should not be short term nor transitory; it should be
integral to professional identity. Those who are in the business of reimagining
pedagogy need to work together, as we have in this project, to identify core
principles and best practices that can help guide the process of transition (Jenkins,
2012, p. 102).

In order for educators to meaningfully integrate NMLs into pre-existing curricula, new
curricula, and their very identities, we had to scaffold their approach. Perhaps if we’d
merely said, “Have your students do this one activity, here are the guidelines,” we could
have walked away. But due to the ambitiousness of our objective, we needed to provide a
more supportive structure. As POTB participant Isabel herself acknowledged, this “…
stands in direct contrast to the more short-term ‘drive-by’ PDs” (Morales, 2012, pp. 33-
34).

Recruitment and Remuneration
On the final day of the Summer Sandbox, Vartabedian explained POTB’s
structure and invited participants to join. POTB began almost immediately upon the
Summer Sandbox’s conclusion, running from September to December of 2011. Only
graduates of the Summer Sandbox were eligible to participate. In addition to earning
another LAUSD salary point (they had received one salary point from their Summer
Sandbox participation), POTB participants also received a $1000 stipend. Additionally,
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POTB participants benefited from: tailored, one-on-one mentoring; continued access to
like-minded communities of practice; and outlets for demonstration of and reflection on
experiments in curriculum and pedagogy. Other benefits associated with participation
included having space to explore tools and methods for expanding and deepening
curriculum, and connecting with USC scholars and like-minded peers whose paths they
wouldn’t ordinarily cross.

Curriculum
POTB’s curriculum consisted of the following elements:

Reading: Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education
for the 21st Century (Jenkins et al., 2006) was the only “required” reading. Prior
to the PD, none of the participants had read this conceptual springboard for
PLAY!.

Discussion: In order to share and expand on PLAY!’s concepts and practices in
context, participants were encouraged to utilize the PLAY! wiki, the
PLAYground platform, VoiceThread and Vimeo.

PLAY On! Workshops: Participants could choose to participate in at least one of
three PLAY On! programs held after-school and/or on Saturdays. These diverse
programs offered no, low, and high tech means to experiment with civic
engagement through storytelling.

Coaching: POTB offered ongoing, one-on-one mentorship to all participants.
This support was intended to help educators realize the goals they had set during
The Summer Sandbox, as well as facilitate their efforts’ long-term sustainability.
Participants reported increased self-confidence and self-efficacy, and appreciated
their mentor’s instrumental and emotional support as they experimented with new
tools and pedagogical approaches.

Video Reflection: Watching oneself on video and receiving supportive, critical
feedback from peers and coaches supports teachers’ active knowledge
construction and sense of self-efficacy (Goker, 2005; Pickering, 2003).
Classrooms are complex contextual environments; to make sense of these spaces,
repeated viewings of video logs and reflections are crucial (Kinzer & Risko,
1998). Thus, participants in POTB videotaped themselves leading an activity in
their classroom and uploaded these videos to a private space on Vimeo. They also
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videotaped and uploaded a post-activity reflection. POTB peers and PLAY!
facilitators viewed these videos and offered feedback via comments.

Transmedia Play: The PLAYground is an open-content, open-knowledge online
system that encourages both adults and youth to discover, learn and teach each
other. The PLAYground uses “Challenges,” or non-linear, transmedia lessons and
activities, to encourage learning through play. Teachers in POTB informed the
PLAYground’s current design by using the platform during its alpha phase and
sharing usability feedback in focus groups.

PLAY! Retreat: POTB participants met for one last session to share classroom
experiences, reflect on personal growth, identify challenges, discuss sustainability,
and plan for next steps

Participants
Educators. Approximately half of the Summer Sandbox graduates enrolled in
POTB, representing approximately half of Week 1’s participants and half of Week 2’s
participants. These 10 educators hailed from 10 different schools, located up to 20 miles
apart, that served student populations whose socioeconomic and developmental profiles
varied considerably. Participating educators included: Week 1—Nancy, Katie, Isabel,
Ken; Week 2—Frank, Larry, Natalie, Ziyi, Nanette, Helen.
Staff. Project NML staff member Kirsten Carthew worked one-on-one with
POTB participants, often visiting them on-site in their classrooms for conversations,
practical assistance, and coaching sessions. Vanessa Vartabedian continued to serve as
Community Manager, supervising the implementation of this program. Erin Reilly
facilitated PLAYground focused “alpha-testing” sessions with POTB participants. Intern
Akifa Khan oversaw participants’ postings to Vimeo, ensuring that they could manage
the interface. I attended a weekly PLAY On! workshop (see Chapter VII) and, with
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Vartabedian, designed and facilitated the culminating POTB Retreat. I also designed the
midpoint survey and ensured that data were being collected.

Data Collection and Analysis
Participatory Action Research. Like its predecessor, the Summer Sandbox,
PLAYing Outside the Box (POTB) also utilized Participatory Action Research (PAR). To
that end, we continued to invite participants to post to the wiki and also required them to
share feedback on peers’ pilots of PLAY!-inspired lessons (which participants videotaped
and posted to a private Vimeo account).
We collected these data by reviewing the wiki, downloading participants’ videos,
saving peers’ feedback, videotaping the entirety of the Retreat, and hiring company
Verbal Ink to transcribe participants’ MSC interviews and the rest of the Retreat footage.
Fieldnotes. Carthew gathered data via fieldnotes, which she shared with the team.
However, because these fieldnotes were spare, I did not analyze them.
Mid-point survey. We also implemented a mid-point survey. I thematically
analyzed participants’ responses. Six themes emerged: classroom practice; classroom
artifacts; teacher self-efficacy; learning about students; unexpected impacts; and
obstacles.
Most Significant Change. At the culminating POTB Retreat, we invited
participants to reflect on their own learning via the Most Significant Change protocol
(Dart & Davies, 2003; Davies & Dart, 2005). MSC asks participants to describe their
personal experiences of program-produced change and articulate “the significance of the
story from their point of view” (Davies & Dart, 2005, p. 26). Participants paired up and
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took turns either answering the questions in the MSC protocol or videotaping their
partner as s/he replied. For any participant who did not want to appear on camera (Helen
had sensitized us to this issue; see Chapter IV) and/or who wanted to embrace playfulness,
we offered them the option of using hand puppets as “avatars.”
I analyzed these data thematically. Three key themes emerged: surrendering some
classroom control in order to honor students’ self-directed learning and creativity;
embracing technology and digital media even in the absence of personal
expertise/mastery; and valuing process over product – that is, escaping the tyranny of
perfection (Vartabedian & Felt, 2012, p. 62).
Discussion. At the POTB Retreat, we also in a rich discussion about participants’
take-aways from the PLAY! experience and their plans to support its spread and adoption
in their own communities. This discussion was videotaped and transcribed. I pull
dialogue from the conversation in order to support arguments established by other data
sources.
Artifacts. Participants’ artifacts (e.g., original classroom resources, videotaped
lessons, post-lesson reflection videos, classroom photographs, Challenges on the
PLAYground, resources for supporting PLAY!’s sustainability) also represented a type of
data that we collected. Both Project NML staff and participants also photographed
process (e.g., working on animation projects). I considered but did not systematically
analyze these data.
Study-Specific Research Question
Project NML’s Participatory Learning And You! (PLAY!) investigation was
comprised of three parts: Explore Locally, Excel Digitally (ELED; see Chapter IV); the
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Summer Sandbox (see Chapter V); and PLAYing Outside the Box (POTB). As the name
of the investigation suggests, both participatory learning and Play were of paramount
importance. Our Summer Sandbox curriculum depended on Play – this was the method
by which we encouraged participants to pursue their own learning. We hoped that POTB
participants would apply their Play proficiency in order to propose opportunities for and
scaffold efforts by their own students to act as 21
st
century learners. This brings us to
POTB’s study-specific research question:
RQ14. How, if at all, does participation in this program affect participants’
relationships with the NML Play?
Culture
Safety
RQ1 asks, “To what extent does each learning culture support participants’ sense
of safety?” As previously mentioned, Project NML greatly respects the importance of
“safe space,” especially vis-à-vis participatory learning. As we wrote in one of our white
papers about the PLAY! investigation, “By fostering a safe space to play, we encourage a
participatory learning culture – to experiment creatively and fail productively (Reilly,
Vartabedian, Felt, & Jenkins, 2012, p. 7). Deep into that same paper, we again affirmed
that a culture in which people feel safe is the most educationally effective:
The most powerful examples of technology-focused education – for example,
MIT’s Scratch and Computer Clubhouse projects (Rusk, Resnick & Cooke, 2009)
– work not simply to introduce new tools, but to create a particular social ethos
around their use, building a community which supports each other’s learning and
where it feels safe to experiment. (Reilly, Vartabedian, Felt, & Jenkins, 2012, p.
21).

As such, we took very seriously the establishment and maintenance of safety in our
learning community. All of the participants had already spent a week with us during the
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Summer Sandbox, and since half of each week’s participants elected to join POTB,
everyone entered POTB knowing about 50% of its enrollment. This interpersonal
familiarity, I imagine, helped them to feel relatively comfortable from Day One.
Relational trust. We had earned participants’ respect during the Summer
Sandbox by demonstrating our respect for them. Within her end-of-week testimony,
Week 1 participant Nancy (did choose to participate in POTB) characterized the Summer
Sandbox as a “…very professional development that honored my knowledge as a teacher
and respected my voice. I greatly appreciated that.”
Our respect for our participants’ personal regard, competence, and personal
integrity, as well as our interest in modeling what power-sharing and participatory
learning can look like in practice, motivated Vartabedian and me to “let go.” We
contributed provocative assignments and approved of participants’ diverse approaches.
We suggested certain objectives and supported participants’ pursuit of their own,
different objectives. In our second white paper (entitled PLAY! Participatory Learning
And You!), we observed:
The PLAY! teachers noted that encouraging creative play within the classroom
often required shedding traditional forms of authority. They needed to embrace
creative chaos, as students deployed tools they knew and their teachers did not or,
as classroom projects became more open-ended and less results-driven. When
they did let go, teachers found students to be both more motivated and resourceful
than they had anticipated. Students often exceeded their expectations when they
were allowed to meet new challenges head-on (Reilly, Vartabedian, Felt, &
Jenkins, 2012, p. 14).

I understand participants’ success as an indicator of our own success. Participants
felt safe to let go because they knew from their experience with us that letting go
significantly impacts a learning community’s culture, process, and outcomes.
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Nancy, a high school social studies teacher with a special interest in human rights,
named her MSC story “Letting Go” and explained why thusly:
I would say that the number one most significant change was the idea of just
letting go completely. That I can make mistakes and my students can make
mistakes and that that is okay. And that it all is a learning process. And that really
was -- even though I consider my classroom to be open and constructive -- I still
found that I was sort of controlling and that I was looking for perfection not just
in my students but in myself. And this freely allowed me to open up this idea of
letting go.

Connection
RQ2 asks, “To what extent does each learning culture support participants’ types
of connection?” Although participants didn’t work with one another as closely during
POTB as they had during Summer Sandbox, it still made an impression. At the POTB
Retreat, Ziyi commented on how important it was to her that she connected with
innovative, professional peers:
I really need us to somehow continue. Because not many people in the district are
doing this kind of stuff and it’s difficult to get a group together that’s doing just
creative things like everybody else is doing... I just need the opportunity and a
place and time for us to have future gatherings like this. Because I’ve gotten a lot
out of it and just to see what other people are doing is really inspirational and it
gives me ideas about what I could do on my own classroom. So I need more.
Please don’t let it stop.

Prior to this declaration from Ziyi, we had asked Retreat participants to work in
small groups and design artifacts for spreading and sustaining PLAY!. The members of
each group were: Isabel, Nancy, and Natalie; Helen and Katie; and Larry, Ziyi, and Frank.
Only Larry, Ziyi, and Frank named their group, and the title they chose was “The Three
Amigos.” To my eyes, it seemed like Larry took great pleasure in that affiliation,
chuckling over their name and repeating it a couple of times. I remembered that Larry’s
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social situation at work was strained and I couldn’t help but wonder if his connection
with POTB colleagues perhaps mattered more to him than the average participant.
Frank also spoke about the benefit he derived from his connection with POTB
staff:
…[T]he energy like you guys are producing here, how much it gets me pumped
up to go the next day at school. It’s hard being at school where it’s all negative
sometimes, there's no collaboration and then we're here and I have a lot of energy,
two cups of coffee and -- but I am serious -- the juices are flowing and the
creativity is going…

Overall, POTB built upon the strong relationships that we all had forged during our
marathon week of Summer Sandbox. I would character our level of connection as high.

Engagement
RQ3 asks, “To what extent does each learning culture support participants’ sense
of engagement?” As previously mentioned, the program ran for an entire semester while
our participants were teaching. Of course, this was the point, but such a scenario set us all
up for a “feast or famine” dynamic, whereby we periodically packed POTB commitments
into jammed schedules and benignly neglected POTB when other responsibilities could
not be denied. This does not indicate lack of engagement, necessarily, but it did
contribute to fluctuation in engagement levels over time.
It appeared that, when participants physically attended POTB programming (e.g.,
PLAY On! workshops, the PLAY! retreat), they were extremely engaged. Figures X, X
and X, all of them candids, show POTB participants engrossed in their work.

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ჼჼჼჼჼჼჼჼჼჼჼჼჼჼ
ჼჼჼჼჼჼჼჼ
ჼჼჼჼჼMჼჼჼჼჼჼ!ჼჼ&ჼჼჼჼ
ჼჼჼ
ჼჼჼჼჼჼჼჼჼჼჼჼჼჼჼ

Figure 6.5. POTB participants mark and annotate their respective Los Angeles
neighborhoods during a session of Departures Youth Voices.
ჼCჼჼჼჼჼჼჼჼჼჼჼჼჼჼჼჼჼჼჼჼჼ
ჼჼჼჼჼჼჼ
ჼჼჼჼჼჼჼჼ
ჼჼჼ
ჼMჼჼჼჼჼჼ!ჼჼ&ჼჼჼჼ
ჼჼჼ
ჼჼჼჼჼჼჼჼჼჼჼჼჼჼჼ

Figure 6.6. POTB participants work during a session of AnimAction.

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Figure 6.7. A screen capture of POTB participants’ animation, which examined online
participation.

Overall, I suspect that a few POTB participants’ engagement levels would be
better described as middling than as high.
Natalie’s public service announcement project. Middle school language arts
specialist Natalie demonstrated engagement by taking risks and immersing completely in
the curriculum that she designed (and videotaped) for POTB. Natalie introduced a unit to
her 7th and 8th graders that she called Voices for Change; a cornerstone of this unit was
creating public service announcements (PSA’s). Natalie honored participatory learning’s
ethos by not limiting them to a pre-determined topic or curriculum. Explained Natalie at
the PLAY! retreat:
I basically defined what a PSA is to students. I provided them some overarching
questions: What change do you want to see at your school and in the world?
What is an important issue or problem that you want to bring awareness or
attention to? Do you believe your voice can make that change? …

I shared some things that were concerns and issues important to me, education,
cancer, tolerance. And then I provided two examples of different PSA’s…We
looked at a dozen or so other samples of PSA’s.

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And we just talked about how PSA’s have a message. You can use different types
of tone and mood and strategies to appeal to your audience. And then their
challenge was to create your own public service announcement on an important
issue. And then upload it… I gave them some different criteria. They had to -- to
have credits. They had to use statistics.

Students discovered their own topics by researching online or talking with their
families and communities. Natalie explained: “One group tackled the sensitive topic of
depression and shared vulnerable scenarios while working through their process. I know
that the topic they chose resonated with them personally, and it’s been inspiring to see
their motivation.”
Natalie had a solid grasp of the pre-production skills (research, writing) her
students would need to develop their PSAs, but she had a more limited understanding of
the technologies they would be using. Natalie’s fear of “losing control” caused her to
change the assignment to emphasize tools she knew better. But PLAY! mentors
encouraged her to practice “letting go” of specific expectations for just one class period.
Students engaged in peer-to-peer mentoring and self-selected teams based on strengths
and skill.
Once the students had completed researching, writing, shooting, and editing,
Natalie and the class screened the PSA’s in the school library. Explained Natalie, “They
[Natalie’s students] had to get up and introduce them [the PSA’s]. And then they
[Natalie’s students] spoke to two groups of 6th graders.” Natalie went above and beyond
by inviting several members of the school community and several representatives of local
organizations. The following “VIP’s” attended the PSA screening:
• The students’ Language Arts teacher
• Two classes of 6
th
graders
• The principal
• The head of the school’s on-campus Family Center
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• A representative from the Los Angeles Police Department (Officer Cierro,
Olympic Police Station)
• A representative from Healthy Families
• Three representatives from Children’s Institute Incorporated:
o Roy Mena, Adolescent Drug Program;
o Katherine Holguin, LMFT, Adolescent Drug Program;
o Maritza Fenarjian, LCSW, Children’s Therapist.

“They [the guests] gave their feedback to the kids -- what they needed to improve, what
they liked…”
It was evident that Natalie was proud of this experience, and she deserved to be.
As a result of her engagement with her Voices for Change unit, Natalie said that she
personally “acquired the skills to use different digital tools.” She practiced letting go and,
as a result, became an advocate for it. “I would encourage as many teachers to just keep
an open mind, to be willing to make mistakes, to be willing to have fun, know that not
everything’s going to work out perfectly, but that’s okay, it’s going to help you to
become more proficient,” Natalie urged during her MSC interview. Importantly, Natalie
also honored her values by creating “challenges [that] were meant to empower and
motivate students to give back and make a change in them and in the lives of others… It
inspired me to think about what kinds of things do I want to make a change.”
Natalie’s experience is not only a case study in engagement, it also indicates
enhanced intrapersonal connection and empowerment. In fact, Natalie used the word
“empowered” to describe her POTB experience in her MSC interview:
Being able to acquire the skills to use different digital tools... being able to
navigate various issues that came up... It empowered me, made me feel more
confident as an educator in the 21st century because, while I assume that my
students know a lot, on the other hand, they don’t, and yet they are very familiar
with a lot of what social media is and how it’s what engages them, and so now I
feel more equipped to make my instruction relevant to them.

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Empowerment
RQ4 asks, “To what extent does each learning culture support participants’ sense
of empowerment?” Judging from participants’ words and artifacts, POTB was incredibly
empowering for all involved. For example, Ziyi claimed that participating in POTB
helped her to see the role of technology in education in a whole new light; in fact, she
would entitle her experience It's Okay to Use Technology In Your Classroom. It's Good
For The Kids. It's Good For Us. It's Good For Them. It's Good For Me.
I think the change that's occurred for me is really personal. In the beginning I had
really felt like technology was great and I did not quite see how it would fit into
the classroom. In fact a lot of times I felt like I was sort of like cheating the kids,
because we're having fun instead of really learning. And thank goodness I was
involved in PLAY! because this summer I was given vocabulary and I was given
an academic way of explaining what we're doing is amazing.

Isabel’s community-engaged curricula. The various projects that Isabel
facilitated and, importantly, allowed her students to spearhead function as a robust case
study in empowerment for all. Said Isabel at the PLAY! retreat, reflecting on her most
significant change:
I’ve definitely integrated it [technology] into pretty much every project. In the
past I was worried that I didn’t have all the skills necessary to teach them things
or we [her school] didn’t have all the equipment or they [her students] didn’t have
it at home. But I thought, “This year, let’s just go for it.” And I was open to
students participating in whatever way they could.

In her article about pain-free professional development, Isabel wrote:

I learned to incorporate the technology that students love – cell phones, cameras,
video and audio recorders, Twitter, Facebook, and blogs – into the curriculum.
During a unit on civic participation, students visited wearethe99.tumblr.com and
created their own protest statements, taking pictures of them- selves and posting
them to the online Playground platform. As part of this instructional unit, we went
on a field trip to City Hall and the Occupy LA encampment, where students were
encouraged to record interviews with protesters and tweet their experiences.
36

36
After our field trip to Occupy LA and City Hall, a student created this video, conveying the ideas he was
exposed to during that day - http://vimeo.com/33079474
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This proved to be an engaging and memorable learning experiences for the
students, and in projects that they completed six months later, the themes and
course content that they had previously explored continued to emerge (Morales,
2012, pp. 33-34).

Figure 6.8. “#Occupy: Social Media, Art and Protest” Challenge created by Isabel, a high
school government and economics teacher

In her MSC interview, Isabel provided more concrete evidence of the ways in which
POTB impacted her classroom community:

Our kids have made songs. They’ve made videos. They’ve done stuff online. And
I actually think they’ve learned a lot. This is the first year that, after a unit is over,
students come back to it and they’re like, ‘Oh, Miss, did you hear that this
happened with Occupy L.A. or on a Facebook page?’ They’ll just post videos and
news stories about it and talk about it. And I am like, ‘Well, that’s cool.’

Because of the significant autonomy that Isabel granted her students, as well as
the meaningful engagement that they have forged with the world, Isabel would entitle her
POTB experience Giving Voice to the Youth. Certainly, Isabel is an innovative, gifted

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educator and brought her talents, perspectives, and energy with her to our PD. Still, she
credits PLAY!, and the Summer Sandbox specifically, as contributing to her fine work.
I think the professional development that we had in the summer was very, very
inspiring, because I met so many different teachers and I learned so much about
all the things that they were doing in their classroom.

Figure 6.9. Vartabedian hands a certificate of completion to a POTB participant at the
PLAY! retreat.

It was an honor for us to work with such a fine group of educators and to play a role in
their empowerment.
Process
Participatory Governance
RQ5 asks, “How does each program’s learning process negotiate participatory
governance?” The participatory professional development working group to which I
contributed recommended “exploration, not prescription.”
In order to inspire this sense of ownership and co-design in the participants, PD
initiatives must allow ample room for personal and professional exploration.
Attention must also be paid to what teachers want from a professional
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development experience, rather than just what is required of them. By allowing
teachers to explore who they are and what their professional goals are, the PD
program can provide educators with an opportunity to connect to the content and
to display their own individuality in the process (Literat & Itow, 2012, pp. 11-12).

I understand this passage as a statement in support of power-sharing, and I believe that
POTB shared power in a pluralistic manner. Due to the self-directed nature of POTB,
participants were able to choose which curricula they wanted to develop and how they
preferred to receive one-on-one support (e.g., in the form of listening/advising, liaising
with in-school technologists, videotaping a pilot lesson, etc). During our retreat, POTB
participants also could create whatever digital tool they believed would be most useful
for sustaining and spreading PLAY!’s philosophies and practices. While the Project NML
team did introduce certain structures (e.g., make a pilot lesson, meet with a coach, make a
resource), their specifications were so open-ended that participants truly could make each
opportunity their own.
These stipulations of POTB strike me as more indicative of symbolic
participation: Attend at least eight hours of additional PD offered by PLAY!’s three
PLAY On! partners (but you get to choose which PD!); Offer feedback on peers’ pilot
lessons (but you get to choose whose lesson!). Because the pilot lesson was POTB’s main
project, though, I recognize POTB as modeling a pluralistic process.

Participatory Learning
RQ6 asks, “How does each program’s learning process negotiate participatory
learning?”
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Step One. We were ecstatic to continue working with some of our favorite
participants from POTB, and intrigued to see how our design would play out. We
welcomed the participants enthusiastically via a webinar hosted by Elluminate.com.
Step Two. This webinar provided a means by which participants could negotiate
the second step and learn about the requirements (and customizability!) of the program.
Step Three. Helen’s curriculum development with the PLAYground suggests that
this experience and our community’s feedback significantly impacted her work. Students
in her English class investigated nutrition and immigration, issues that resonated since
nutritional guru Jamie Oliver had worked at their school and many of their relatives were
in the country illegally.

Figure 6.10. A PLAYground Challenge created by one of Helen’s students.

The way in which Helen thoughtfully managed this curriculum led to Reilly
extending to Helen an invitation to join us as a co-presenter of PLAY! at the 2012 Digital
Media and Learning Conference in San Francisco, CA. Helen, who had appeared to me
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as stand-offish when the Summer Sandbox began, accepted the invitation. Reilly,
Vartabedian, Carthew, Helen, Isabel and I enjoyed dining out in San Francisco together
as easy friends.
37

During her MSC interview at the PLAY! retreat, Helen commented, “The most
significant change for me during this experience was the PLAYground platform, and
having students actually research essays and text images and media to enhance their
learning of the reading and writing.” It seems like Helen thrived in this context of self-
directed production and so did her students.
Step Four. Participant Isabel’s write-up of POTB suggests that she benefited
from the feedback our community extended, creating richer work and deepening her
passion for teaching:
By participating in this professional development throughout the semester, I
received ongoing support, in the form of one-on-one coaching and monthly
workshops... This long-term professional development allowed me to reflect on
my teaching practice, develop professional relationships with talented colleagues,
and create new learning opportunities for myself and my students (Morales, 2012,
pp. 33-34).

Step Five. A central element of POTB is this idea of “passing the torch,” or
facilitating our participants’ transformation into participatory learning practitioners and
experts (as opposed to more proficient students). We hoped that our program would
prove sustainable and scalable by participants’ own adoption and advocacy.
To a certain extent, POTB participants carried out this vision by introducing
participatory learning practices into their classrooms. For example, POTB participants
encouraged students to bring in meaningful objects and tools; just as the “tool and toy”
experience had functioned over the summer, this invitation allowed POTB participants’

37
Isabel also accepted our invitation and joined us in San Francisco.
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students to showcase their own identity and differently approach their own learning.
Nanette asked her students to bring in cherished items so that she could better tailor
examples that would engage them, and so that she could learn more about them. Frank
invited his middle school students to bring in foods that they commonly eat (which
wound up being chips and candy bars) in order to bring to life a lesson about the
digestive system; he complemented this lesson with a song that the students actually sang
back, under their breath, while they were working through an associated project. Katie’s
science students used iPod Touches to photograph what appeared under the microscope
and to create science videos.
Reflected a participant in his/her midpoint survey, “I have learned to think outside
of the box and challenge my own inhibitions on instructional delivery to the benefit of
my students. I truly believe that my instruction has to have a connection to my student's
future. PLAY has allowed me to focus on my own practice and create opportunities to
share their thinking with others through multi-media. I hope to enhance future lessons to
support my students' learning.” This statement suggests that this participant is positioned
to assume more power/responsibility within his/her own learning process, school, or even
the greater PLAY! “movement.”

Playfulness
RQ7 asks, “How does each program’s learning process negotiate playfulness?”
In our article about participatory professional development (2012), Vartabedian
and I wrote, “As educators are pressured to ruthlessly focus on teaching to the test, play is
too often left by the wayside” (p. 50). Consistent with Project NML philosophies and
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writings, we identified play as important vehicle for bringing about a cultural shift
towards self-directed, connected, anytime, anywhere learning, and new literacies (e.g.,
new media literacy, traditional media literacy, information literacy, digital literacy, etc)
(see Lankshears & Knobel, 2003).
Iteration. The NML definition of Play has always (and exclusively) honored play
as iteration. As such, Vartabedian’s and my piece that framed PLAY!’s Summer Sandbox
and POTB as participatory professional development acknowledged play’s iterative
nature and articulated how this relates to creativity and “failure”:
Play challenges teachers to create a classroom culture where both they and their
students feel safe to experiment creatively and fail productively. In formal
education settings, many teachers have mixed feelings about embracing this risk.
For students, play might invoke fears of personal failure; for teachers, play means
letting go of prescribed outcomes. Play is often perceived as “being off-task,” an
activity whose end is “frivolous fun.” We have learned, however, that with
permission to experiment and discover through playful learning – fears,
resistances, and misunderstandings quickly dissolve. Consequently, students’
levels of engagement, self-confidence, skill proficiency, and knowledge retention
increase, and teachers’ needs for participation in a robust learning community are
met (Vartabedian & Felt, 2012, p. 51).

Due to the technical glitches that beleaguered the PLAYground at that time,
participants certainly iterated in that space. By requiring participants to personally reflect
on their own pilot lesson and also asking them to comment on others, we seeded the field
for iteration. I believe that iteration was also an important aspect of participants’ learning
experiences with AnimAction and Departures Youth Voices.
Joy. It’s difficult to authoritatively assess participants’ joy since POTB primarily
occurred off-site, in participants’ own classrooms (and at their homes or local
coffeeshops, wherever they did their lesson planning).
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Rather than comment on “laugh out loud” joy, I would like to contemplate
another type. There’s a certain sort of joy that’s associated with flow, “the state in which
people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter; the experience
itself is so enjoyable that people will do it even at great cost, for the sheer sake of doing it”
(Csikszentmihalyi, 1990, p. 4). The optimal experience or flow experience consists of
“...situations in which attention can be freely invested to achieve a personʼs goals,
because there is no disorder to straighten out, no threat for the self to defend against”
(Csikszentmihalyi, 1975, p. 40). According McGonigal (2011):
When we choose our hard work, we enjoy the stimulation and activation that
makes us want to dive in, join together, and get things done. And this optimistic
invigoration is way more mood-boosting than relaxing. As long as we feel
capable of meeting the challenge, we report being highly motivated, extremely
interested, and positively engaged by stressful situations. And these are the key
emotional states that correspond with overall well-being and life satisfaction” (p.
32).

So, if I reflect on this “ecstasy through absorption” sort of joy, then participants’
levels of engagement would indicate their levels of joy. As such, I identify the
playfulness of this process as intermediate.
Skills
Dynamic Appreciation
RQ8 asks, “To what extent does participants’ skill development demonstrate
proficiency in Dynamic Appreciation?” In their midpoint surveys, participants reported
that they learned a good deal about their students, and discovered that students learn more
when they’re having fun. “Students are able to be more independent in finding their own
media to enhance their learning,” wrote one participant. According to another, “As I
mentioned above that given a relevant challenge/experience, students will rise to the
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occasion and participate fully.” While this does suggest increased appreciation for
students, it does not necessarily indicate that participants stepped into their students’
shoes and/or spent time seeing the world through their students’ eyes.
I don’t believe that our participants had the opportunity to model Dynamic
Appreciation for us; this isn’t to say that they lacked proficiency in this skill, only that I
did not observe it in action. I identified both Week 1 and Week 2 Summer Sandbox
participants’ status as Beginner, and this seems an appropriate identification to retain for
POTB. I am sure that participants practiced Dynamic Appreciation, but I am not sure that
their proficiency qualifies as Intermediate.

Resource Engagement
RQ9 asks, “To what extent does participants’ skill development demonstrate
proficiency in Resource Engagement?” POTB participants demonstrated mid- to high
levels of Resource Engagement. As they encountered ambiguous or inadequate
technology, considered students’ interests, scrutinized state standards, and worked in
groups, POTB participants demonstrated that they can “walk the walk” as far as Resource
Engagement is concerned. I identify their status as Intermediate.

Respectful Negotiation
RQ10 asks, “To what extent does participants’ skill development demonstrate
proficiency in Respectful Negotiation?” For both weeks of Summer Sandbox, I identified
participants’ proficiency in this master skill as Advanced. The nature of POTB required
less collaboration with peers than Summer Sandbox had. I assume that their work in the
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PLAY On! workshops was collaborative but it’s difficult to say that conclusively since I
did not attend AnimAction’s or Departures Youth Voice’s workshops; I did attend
Laughter for a Change’s after-school program (see Chapter VI) but Larry was the sole
POTB participant to show up for this, and only did so until he completed the minimum
number of hours
38
. Nonetheless, since the Summer Sandbox participants modeled
Advanced performance in this regard, and the continuing POTB participants only
received more time to practice this skill, I will accord POTB participants Advanced status.
Study-Specific Research Question
Finally, let’s review our study-specific research question, which asked “How, if at
all, does participation in this program affect participants’ relationships with the NML
Play?” As previously mentioned, POTB incorporated reflection and iteration into its
curriculum; one might even frame POTB as a “play or practice space” for Summer
Sandbox graduates to try out their new ideas about participatory learning.
In terms of individual participants’ relationships with Play, several told stories or
made observations that suggest greater self-efficacy vis-à-vis Play. For example, Nancy
entitled her MSC narrative “Letting Go,” which is a key aspect of Play. If one is overly
concerned with “perfection,” then one grips the reins of control tightly in order to
increase the likelihood of attaining that (impossible) standard. Play talks back to
“perfection,” reframing processes as unpredictable and iterative. Perfectionists hold on;
Players let go. Nancy let go.

38
For which I do not fault him! Larry’s commute was both long and time-consuming, and he had both
professional and personal responsibilities at home. I believe logistical challenges such as these explain why
every other POTB participant chose PD workshops that met on Saturdays.
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Isabel’s MSC interview also engaged with the ideas of letting go and perfection.
During the fall of 2011 (when POTB was occurring), she screened Chinese documentary
Please Vote for Me for her AP Government students. Here’s what happened next:
They [Isabel’s students] said, “Can we have our own election?” I was like, “Well,
I wasn’t planning on it, but okay, let’s do it...” And in there I integrated things
about campaigning and media, and so we became a Class Congress, and so
they’re learning how bills get passed but by doing it themselves... It has involved
letting go, and just being very, very experimental. And being okay with it if it’s
not perfect. But, I think we’re having a really good experience.

While Isabel has always been an innovative and easygoing teacher, this decision to leap
entirely into the unknown and spontaneously create a Class Congress was unprecedented
even for her. By telling this story during her MSC interview, Isabel drew a connection
between POTB and this curricular experience; she explained her willingness to let go, to
be “very, very experimental,” and to be “okay with it if it’s not perfect” as artifacts of
POTB. The program helped her to Play.
Natalie’s decision to spearhead a project that utilized unfamiliar technology, as
well as some of her doubts and struggles along the way, indicate her growing (and
sometimes recursive) development of Play proficiency. Play can feel scary when one is
used to the control that omniscience confers. I believe that Natalie’s story illustrates,
however, how loss of control doesn’t necessarily mean loss of quality or meaning; in fact,
I believe that her PSA project was more meaningful for all parties involved because they
learned and explored together. Natalie specifically mentioned as a significant change
“being able to navigate various issues that came up.” That is synonymous with the NML
definition of Play (“the ability to experiment with one’s surroundings as a form of
problem-solving”).
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Therefore, I would say that participation in POTB significantly affected
participants’ relationships with the NML Play, specifically enhancing their sense of self-
efficacy vis-à-vis this skill.
Summary
PLAYing Outside the Box (POTB) was a semester-long professional
development (PD) workshop designed by Project NML. This program immediately
followed the Summer Sandbox, Project NML’s week-long PD that it offered twice during
the summer of 2011. POTB offered an additional Salary Point, a stipend, a one-on-one
coach, and a community of practice in exchange for participants’ introduction of PLAY!
philosophies and practices into their respective Los Angeles Unified School District
classrooms. Approximately half of the Summer Sandbox graduates (10 of 21) completed
this PD, representing 10 schools and various disciplines and roles. The PD modeled a
distance learning approach, with participants independently planning and teaching in
their own spaces, meeting individually with POTB’s one-on-one coach (Project NML
staff member Kirsten Carthew) when and where they chose, sharing materials to digital
destinations (e.g., the Wiki, Vimeo, the PLAYground), and only periodically coming
together (for such purposes as PLAYground alpha-testing, PLAY On! partner workshops,
and the POTB retreat).
Perhaps because these participants had established a solid foundation with Project
NML and each other during the Summer Sandbox, and POTB participants self-selected
into the program, the learning culture seemed to support a strong sense of safety.
Participants also demonstrated various types of connection. However, their levels of
engagement seemed to fluctuate, which might be an unavoidable (and arguably
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pragmatic) way of managing a semester-long PD. Empowerment was robustly modeled
by participants. Participants and facilitators shared power/control in a pluralistic manner
and negotiated the five steps of participatory learning. In terms of playfulness,
participants iterated a great deal while their levels of joy were middling. Participants
demonstrated Beginner proficiency in Dynamic Appreciation, Intermediate proficiency in
Resource Engagement, and Advanced proficiency in Respectful Negotiation.
Our process of inviting participants to think critically, encouraging participants to
experiment with new tools and approaches, and supporting them to develop useful
curricula for their individual classrooms appears to work. As our participants noted, this
process was “pain-free” and appreciated; as our data document, it was also educational
and effective. PLAY!’s pedagogy, both in terms of its explicit teachings and its modeled
method, deserves to be taken seriously and piloted in diverse contexts.

Praise for the PD
During our Recontact interview, Helen independently stated her belief that POTB
increased the likelihood of participants implementing takeaways from the summer PD,
and added that she finds long-term programs more effective than short-term programs:
“…that week PD we did in the summer, where that might have fallen by the wayside, but
then once you guys did the pilot program, I really do think that you got a ton more results
by having the pilot program than just the week. Don't you think?”

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VII. LAUGHTER FOR A CHANGE
There were ghosts in Sara’s bedroom last night — at least, that’s what the fifteen-
year-old freshman of the Los Angeles High School for the Arts
39
claimed.
Around the beginning of October, as we were hanging out after school in the
RFKLab and waiting for Laughter for a Change (L4C)’s improvisational theater (improv)
workshop to begin, someone told a ghost story. We oohed and ahhed and exchanged
glances, wondering if the tale could be true. Then someone else remembered a scary story
and retold it, much to our delight/fright. A third person grabbed attention and scared us
with her words too. Then Ed Greenberg, the founder of L4C and facilitator of the improv
workshop, announced that it was time to warm up. We abandoned our storytelling for
improvisational theater exercises.
But apparently no one forgot the spine-tingling fun. The next week, everyone
gathered before L4C to exchange more ghost stories. The same thing happened the third
week – that’s when Sara stepped up. I heard her mention more than a supernatural
sighting, though, and that’s what I recorded in my audio fieldnotes and still remember
years later: Sara shares a bedroom, and a bunkbed, with at least one of her younger
brothers. This was a throw-away detail, certainly not the point of the tale. But I couldn’t
help but reflect on class and privilege…
Sara seemed a little more mischievous than usual that day. PLAY! intern Akifa
Khan chalked up to “sugar rush”; she said that Sara hadn’t eaten at all earlier in the day,
and then gobbled a snack before L4C. Sara’s lack of sleep (caused by mysterious noises
in her bedroom and a possible visitor from beyond the grave) also could have made her

39
The Los Angeles High School for the Arts is one of the pilot schools located on the RFK Community
Schools campus.
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extra slaphappy. Or maybe Sara was just reacting to her company. While peers engaged
with scene work, audience member Bart surreptitiously attempted to pull single strands of
hair out of the back of Helena’s head. Katie was tying Kristina’s shoelaces together (with
Kristina’s full knowledge – she had put her feet on Katie’s chair in the first place).
Several of us observed these antics; Stacia, who happens to be one of two African-
Americans in the group, and the only African-American female, giggled loudly.
Greenberg, who had been focused on the performers, redirected his attention on the
audience and called out Stacia in particular. And then I started reflecting on race and
gender…
Later when we played theater game Freeze Tag, Katie lingered on the sidelines
for longer than usual. She claimed that she couldn’t think of what to do or say or be.
When she finally burst forward and embodied a character, she was a “tamale lady” who
spoke rapid-fire Spanish and aggressively bustled across the stage. Leon, Grant, and Sara
– Katie’s scene partners, all of whom spoke Spanish at home – scurried to steer clear of
her path. Evidently, none of them wanted to buy those tamales. And so I reflected on
culture and ethnicity, but only for a moment. Katie was totally owning this Tamale Lady
character – her physicality was hilarious! I laughed along with the group.
L4C’s year-long workshop at the Robert F. Kennedy Community Schools
provided its high-school aged participants with the opportunity to hone their
improvisational theater chops. And hone them they did – the young actors’ skills
improved greatly from baseline to endline. But as this story illuminates, far more
occurred during these after-school sessions. Participants and instructors negotiated norms
around discipline, individual participants cultivated relationships, improvisers revealed
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details about what made them different, and audience members laughed about what made
us all the same.
PLAY On! Workshops
As previously mentioned, Project New Media Literacies (Project NML) designed
and launched a two-part professional development program (PD) for Los Angeles
Unified School District (LAUSD) educators as part of its multi-faceted Participatory
Learning And You! (PLAY!) investigation (see Chapter III). The first part of the PD was
called the Summer Sandbox (see Chapter V), and the second part was called PLAYing
Outside the Box (POTB; see Chapter VI).
Project NML believed in the power of the “learning ecosystem,” or the
educational potential of the ecology in which learners are embedded. As such, Project
NML played the role of liaison between educators and community-based organizations,
helping these parties to learn about each other’s needs and assets. First, Project NML
issued a call during the spring of 2011 for “PLAY On! partners” (that is, community-
based organizations) to create after-school programming. Project NML specified that this
programming should extend opportunities to practice NMLs, particularly Play, and
facilitate civic engagement through storytelling. Next, Project NML evaluated various
organizations’ applications and selected five partners: KCET Departures-Youth Voices
(lead: Rubi Fregoso); AnimAction (lead: Clifford Cohen); Laughter for a Change (lead:
Ed Greenberg); Operation Street Kidz (lead: “Jojo” Sanchez); and Cover to Cover (lead:
Annette Goldsmith).
Project NML introduced its PLAY On! partners to Summer Sandbox participants
on Day 3 of their PD experience, hoping that the two constituencies might mingle and
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“match make.” Project NML envisioned its participants working with its partners in
various ways: in formal capacities, as students in the partners’ complementary PD
sessions; on an independent project basis, consulting with the partners in order to develop
lesson plans on their own; and/or indirectly, by remixing partners’ educational strategies
(e.g., community mapping, animation, improvisational comedy) for personal or
professional purposes.
Those educators who chose to participate in the POTB program were required to
participate for at least eight hours in one of its PLAY On! partners’ workshops. These
partners were KCET’S Departures-Youth Voices, AnimAction, and Laughter for a
Change (L4C). Nearly all of the participants chose the first two workshops, which met on
Saturdays and were offered solely to teachers. Only Larry (who you might remember as a
Week 2 participant of the Summer Sandbox (see Chapter VI)) chose to participate in
L4C’s after-school program, which met on Mondays and catered to both educators and
students. But due to Larry’s family responsibilities and crushing commute, not to
mention his exhaustion from a full day of teaching and his nightly professional
obligations (e.g., grading, prep), Larry only satisfied the eight-hour requirement. The
L4C workshop at the RFK Community Schools, however, continued to operate. L4C
founder Greenberg worked with high school students at the RFKLab for the entire
semester – and then extended the workshop to run for the whole Spring Semester as well.
L4C at RFK
During 2011-2012, L4C ran a weekly after-school workshop at the Robert F.
Kennedy Community Schools, working primarily with freshmen enrolled in the Los
Angeles High School for the Arts (LAHSA). These students were introduced to the craft
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of improvisational acting and proceeded to develop their knowledge and proficiency vis-
à-vis this art form by playing theater games.

Participants and Site
As in the case of ELED, many participants walked through the program’s doors;
however, over time, a core group of 12 participants returned week after week. Ninety-one
percent of these core participants were freshmen, and the group was balanced in terms of
gender (six females and six males). The group’s ethnic makeup—83% Latino, 17%
African American—reflected that of the wider RFK community. As you’ll recall, RFK’s
students hail from Pico Union and surrounding neighborhoods that, collectively,
comprise the most densely populated area in California. Eighty-nine percent of the
school-age population is from low-income households, and 50% are English Language
Learners. Both conversation with participants and their later scene work revealed that
they were primarily first-generation Americans whose parents spoke Spanish at home.
Greenberg had originally intended for the program to run for single semester, but
the participants avowed in December that if the program continued in the spring, they
would attend it. Over the three-week span of February 21-March 6, 2012, 15 participants
made an appearance. But as the semester continued, only about six of the program’s
previous 12 participants returned regularly. The steep attrition rate is mostly explained by
counterprogramming—five of the six students who departed were cast in the spring play,
and one student joined a music appreciation club. Even after Greenberg switched L4C at
RFK’s meeting day from Monday to Tuesday in order to accommodate the spring play’s
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rehearsal schedule, cast members rarely, if ever, returned; L4C attendees reported that
their actor friends needed to catch up on homework on Tuesday afternoons.
Like ELED and the Summer Sandbox, L4C at RFK took place in the RFKLab.

Data Collection
I have to preface my methodology with a little backstory. Please bear with me—
there’s a point to this yarn. From 1998-2002, and again from 2007-2008, I studied and
performed improv in Chicago, and I absolutely loved it. I quit improvising (at least, in a
theatrical sense) when I entered my PhD program. At that time, I needed to focus on
studying, acclimating to the city of Los Angeles, and leading a balanced lifestyle.
But I missed improvising.

Figure 7.1. Fellow Titanic Players and I improvise on-stage together, Spring 1999

I considered reconnecting with the craft by taking classes at iO West, Second City,
or the Upright Citizens Brigade, but I always decided against it for three reasons. First, I
would have to enroll in Level One, the most basic of courses with the greatest enrollment.
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In practice, this meant that I would spend most of the class observing novices’ learning
processes and waiting for my turn; although this might have proved intellectually
interesting, it didn’t sound creatively satisfying. Second, the classes met at night, when I
preferred to either work or unwind, and certainly to cease the hunt for parking spaces (I
did not have a dedicated parking space at home, and the neighborhoods in which the
theaters were located were always jammed with cars). Third, the classes were expensive,
and my relatively modest student salary didn’t permit many “luxury” expenses. So I
never took an improv class in LA. And then Greenberg came along… Greenberg’s L4C
at RFK workshop boasted fewer students than the classic improv theaters, took place
during the afternoon, and was free of cost. It solved all of my problems! And as I began
my third year of PhD school, I particularly craved a creative, non-academic outlet. So I
joined the workshop, intending to participate in the same manner as POTB participants
might have. I was there to play!
But as it turned out, I was the only adult who consistently came to play. L4C
member Kat Primeau attended the workshop consistently, but her role was to assist
Greenberg. PLAY! intern Akifa Khan frequently showed up, but she sat in the back of
the room and jotted notes for research purposes. On isolated occasions, adults would visit
the program (e.g., L4C ensemble members, PLAY! researchers, and my very own
parents) and play along for the session. However, none of those adults were full-fledged
students of the workshop. As previously mentioned, POTB member Larry participated in
a student capacity, but he did so for just the first few sessions. Therefore, despite its
promise, the workshop was not a space for intergenerational co-learning, at least not
primarily; it was primarily a space for young improv novices to bond, learn, and grow.
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That left me as a big, old oddball out, eagerly taking the stage and playing with my high
school-aged colleagues in my own peculiar way. As time went by, Greenberg asked me
to observe more and participate less in order to let the youth truly own the program
themselves. I felt disappointed but understood his position.
That is how the L4C at RFK experience became research – it did not begin as
research. In fact, it was supposed to be an antidote to research, or an escape from research.
I just wanted to play! Because I entered L4C at RFK as a participant, not as participant-
observer, I did not seek out prior approval from the Institutional Review Board (IRB) to
conduct research. Why would I? I thought I was just taking an improv class.
Audio fieldnotes. But maybe PhD school had warped my brain, or my years as an
improviser and educator had irreversibly shaped my perspective. Even when I was
participating as a full-fledged student, I would record Voice Memos on my phone as I
drove home, musing about Greenberg’s choices as a facilitator and the students’
development as performers and adolescents. This practice was more personal than
professional – recording Voice Memos had become my Los Angeles form of journaling. I
loved hashing out my ideas with myself, and I hit record for reasons both narcissistic (my
ideas are gold!) and, well, narcissistic (I will enjoy listening to me later, and so will
future generations!).
Photographs and end-of-semester interviews. During the workshop’s hours,
Greenberg asked me to assist him with program evaluation. At his request and with
participants’ permission, I occasionally took photographs of the participants’ process
(e.g., their theater gaming and scenework), and offered participants the opportunity to do
the same with my own camera-phone as they observed their peers’ performances.
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On the last day of Fall Semester, I also spontaneously conducted what turned out
to be semi-structured interviews with volunteers. I hadn’t intended to proceed
systematically – I was just inspired to capture participants’ perspectives. We were so
gleeful that day. Winter vacation was looming, Greenberg had brought in popcorn as a
surprise treat, participants were doodling on the white board, and Leon was teaching a
couple of peers how to pull off his signature dance moves. I thought it might be fun to
reflect on our time together and pat ourselves on the back. I also figured that testimonials
might prove useful to L4C’s future marketing and curriculum planning. Greenberg agreed.
So I positioned outward one of the RFKLab’s desktop computers, opened the PhotoBooth
application, switched it from still photography to videography, and invited volunteers to
reflect on L4C at RFK. Since the volunteers could see the screen, they knew that they
were being videotaped and even could observe exactly how they appeared (which
distracted a few of them, and provoked others to make silly faces). I asked them about
what they’d liked and how they thought they’d changed. A creature of habit, I found
myself asking nearly the same four questions of every volunteer (see Appendix L).
Spring survey. I told Greenberg, who had become a friend, that if he wanted to
raise more funds for L4C, foundations might find compelling a set of quantitative data
that showed how participants’ skills had changed over time. So, I voluntarily designed
with Greenberg a short, anonymous survey, paper-and-pencil survey. At the beginning of
the first few workshop sessions of Spring Semester, Greenberg and Primeau invited L4C
at RFK participants to complete this survey; 15 volunteers did so. But due to modest
attendance rates during this semester, Greenberg and I chose not to re-administer the
survey at endline. An n of six, I believed, would not impress prospective funders.
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IRB approval. Greenberg and I continued to work together, evaluating other L4C
workshops (e.g., L4C at KYCC, FistBump!). I sincerely wanted to help my friend and to
support an organization whose mission I believed in. It was only in retrospect, when I
stumbled across a call for papers on out-of-school learning
40
, that I realized Greenberg
and I had amassed quite a corpus from our L4C at RFK experience. Moreover, we had
made some discoveries about improv and pedagogy that others might find useful. So,
during the spring of 2013, I petitioned the USC IRB for exemption from review of this
already completed research. The IRB approved, issuing serial number USC UPIRB # UP-
13-00156.

Data Analysis
Because I had never intended for my Voice Memos to double as fieldnotes, they
represent a partial record. Neither did I document each and every session nor did I
exhaustively comment on any particular session in its entirety. Therefore, I did not
analyze these recordings; rather, I relied upon them as verification of what happened
when. Similarly, the photographic collection is limited. Because our approach to
photography was not systematic — participants and I only took pictures when we
remembered to and/or when we felt like it — I did not code our photographs. The images,
however, help to illustrate some of the cultural characteristics that I discuss in this
chapter, and I include them for that purpose.
I transcribed and thematically analyzed the testimonies that volunteers offered
during their end-of-semester interviews. I also thematically analyzed the data provided by
the 15 spring survey participants. Finally, I relied upon my memories, despite their

40
http://bankstreet.edu/occasional-paper-series/30/
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potential shortcomings, to help make sense of this program. As in the case of ELED, I
transparently indicate when I refer to memory by inserting such signposts as “I
remember,” “I recall,” and “my memories.” Again, feel free to take my reminiscing with
a grain of salt.
Study-Specific Research Question
For this study, I was particularly interested in examining improv’s “DNA.”
During my days as an improv student and performer, I had noticed how my engagement
with the craft had helped me to take risks and to believe in myself. All of my coaches and
teachers had emphasized the imperativeness of safety and the importance of relationships.
In fact, long-form improv heavily depends upon relationships. Practitioners allege that
strong relationships enable improvisers to do their best work together, and the best scenes
emerge when improvisers “play the relationship,” or explore characters’ feelings about
one another. When my teammates and I pulled this off, I remember feeling connected, in
sync, and unstoppable. Thus, RQ15 asks, “How, if at all, do the norms and/or practices of
improv affect the establishment of a learning culture that supports participants’ sense of
safety, connection, engagement, and/or empowerment?”
Culture
Safety
RQ1 asks, “To what extent does each learning culture support participants’ sense
of safety?” In order to create a safe space, Greenberg started the first session of L4C at
RFK the same way he introduces all new students to improv: with a round of “Mirror.” In
this game, students work in pairs and, using simple movements, create mirror images;
one student initially leads while the other follows, and then they switch. As Greenberg
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circulated among the pairs, offering comments (or “side-coaching”), he reminded the
players, “You do your best work by making the other person look good.” This exercise in
focus, teamwork, shared responsibility, caring, and fun imparted an immediate
understanding of what the program was all about.
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Figure 7.2. Greenberg explains a game to L4C participants.

Next, Greenberg sat down on the floor alongside his students and modeled a
game that requires focus, observation, and creativity. In this game, each player interacts
with imaginary (or “space”) objects—a common device in theater games. Object work
provides a fun opportunity for players to share their own imaginings, support others’
ideas and, consequently, build connections.
Greenberg asked each student to create a small space object (such as a watch or a
hat), place it in an imaginary box, and then pass the box along to the next player. In order
to minimize fear of failure as well as express the ethos of improv, Greenberg repeated at
that time (and throughout the program—as he had ever since the beginning of his career
in improvisation),“There are no mistakes.”

41
Greenberg and his team of L4C Comedy Mentors model this game and others on the L4C website,
http://www.laughterforachange.org/videos/games-we-play/
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Each member of the group embraced the exercise, introducing such space objects
as ear buds, a necklace, and a used tissue. In rapt silence, the whole group watched
intently as one by one their peers took their turns. After everyone had had a turn,
Greenberg added a challenge: Open the box, remove a fellow player’s object, interact
with it, and then throw the object to its owner. The cumulative efforts of four volunteers
resulted in 100% completion of the exercise—every object was recalled and returned.
Discipline. Greenberg had to confront participants’ perspectives on discipline,
shifting their pejorative views of it so that they saw it as a necessary ingredient for their
growth as actors and citizens. Greenberg also needed to show participants that, rather
than being based on a lone teacher dispensing “knowledge” in a top-down fashion, this
program’s pedagogy involved everyone discovering and sharing lessons together through
participatory engagement. As the participants acclimated to L4C’s method, Greenberg
also asked participants for their help in managing discipline and realizing the program’s
full potential.
Across every game, Greenberg invited participants to try things out, praised them
for their efforts, and encouraged them to support their peers through attentive listening
and appreciative applause. The group developed relational trust quickly, recognizing and
exhibiting respect, personal regard, competence, and personal integrity (Bryk &
Schneider, 2003). As such, we relied upon each other and accepted Greenberg’s direction.
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Figure 7.3. (from left), Me, Kim, Primeau, Kristina, Grant, and Stacia participate in
Conducted Story.

Figure 7.3 demonstrates this in action. The game we were playing, called
Conducted Story, begins with “the conductor” (in this case, Greenberg) pointing at a
group member, which commands him/her to start telling a story. When the conductor has
had his/her fill, s/he points at a different group member, causing the storyteller to stop
abruptly mid-sentence and the new appointee to seamlessly pick up his/her train of
thought, continuing the sentence with grammatically appropriate words. As you might
surmise, this game requires all of its players, including the conductor, to work together by
listening closely, following attentively, and respecting one another’s contributions.
Success with Conducted Story demonstrates a high degree of relational trust.

Connection
RQ2 asks, “To what extent does each learning culture support participants’ types
of connection?” Participants connected with one another. In his end-of-semester
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interview, Bart said that one of the things he enjoyed about the program was meeting new
people.

Figure 7.4. Participants Bart and Karlos model eye contact and share a grin during a
scene.

Returning participant Stacia wrote in her spring semester survey, “I really like the way I
can work with my friends like Helena, Leon, or Kristina because it makes the scene much
MORE COMFORTABLE! :D”
Participants also connected with Greenberg, who would often participate in
activities alongside the participants.
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Figure 7.5. Leon and Greenberg improvise together in an imaginary car.

Once the students had gained confidence and sufficient trust in the group
dynamic—crucial steps in the creation of safe space, Greenberg allowed outsiders to
observe the program’s process. Greenberg encouraged these visitors to learn by doing
rather than sit in judgment from the audience; perhaps motivated by the ethos of the
program or the energy in the room, every visitor accepted his invitation. Their
participation decentered traditional power structures as the youths were the experts and
the adults were the novices. In these contexts, attendees of all ages learned on their feet,
treated scene partners as equals, and played together, embracing permission to be silly
and just have fun. This destruction of traditional hierarchies, particularly where teachers
and students are concerned, can be liberating for both parties. For adults and youths alike,
this experience can also facilitate great understanding of a generation other than one’s
own. Of course, all of this implies connection.
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Figure 7.6. RFK students, along with theater arts teacher Sam Toffler, energetically play
improv game “Bunny Bunny” in L4C’s improv workshop.

Engagement
RQ3 asks, “To what extent does each learning culture support participants’ sense
of engagement?” Participants embraced this work whole-heartedly. They used their
whole bodies and vivid imaginations to embody characters and create dialogue on the fly.

Figure 7.7. Helena, Grant, and Bennett engage with their whole bodies.
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Participants also watched their peers’ scenework attentively, eager to glimpse a funny
expression or gesture, catch a silly line, or perhaps even learn from others’ example.

Figure 7.8. Participants raptly concentrate on their peers’ scenework.

Kim’s exclamation in her mid-point interview appeared to sum up many of her peers’
sentiments: “I want improv class to be more long!”
42

Empowerment
RQ4 asks, “To what extent does each learning culture support participants’ sense
of empowerment?” Greenberg consistently encouraged the students to bring their whole
selves into their play. He invited students to investigate imaginary spaces through
recreating playground games and sports activities that were familiar to them and to set
improvisations in the environments they knew best, such as their homes and
neighborhood stores. He requested that they create characters based on relatives,

42
This is precisely why Greenberg chose to continue the L4C at RFK program for the next semester.
While we might consider the spring play casting of so many L4C improvisers as an indicator of the
program’s effective training, Greenberg and I missed our skilled and beloved participants. The two of us
attended the spring play together and cheered for the L4C graduates’ performances.
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neighbors, and friends. Participants accepted the invitation, playing their as parents rapid-
fire Spanish speakers, much to the delight of the mostly bilingual audience. Neither
Greenberg nor I understand much Spanish but we didn’t mind. We could tell from
participants’ non-verbal cues exactly what they meant to express and we were glad that
participants harnessed the reins and authentically represented their lived experiences.
Risk-taking. Over time, participants began to take more risks with what they
chose to share. For example, during the second month of the program, Greenberg asked
the students to demonstrate what they wanted most by engaging with a space object. Shy,
quiet Kristina hugged a phantom figure in space, disclosing that the thing she yearned for
most was a best friend. This was a brave admission, especially because her peers had
expressed desires for material items such as consumer electronics and plane tickets.
Kristina again displayed her newfound bravery when she chose to play a male
character, and a sexist macho man at that. That was especially remarkable because
improvisers of all ages and experience levels commonly choose to play characters of their
own gender, and the precedent set by other students in the workshop certainly followed
those norms; only when compelled by the structure of a game would participants “gender
bend.” It’s not hard to understand why improvisers tend to make this choice; not only is it
easier to identify with characters more like yourself, but when you play them, you also
avoid appearing “unattractively” and/or “inappropriately” masculine or effeminate. For
adolescents in particular, who have a pronounced need for peer acceptance (Erikson,
1959), jeopardizing image is a serious matter. Yet in her guise of a chauvinist behind the
wheel, Kristina boldly ogled Helena’s character, a girl working at a car wash. Whether
Kristina’s choice solely indicated her self-confidence or also expressed an interest in
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gender hierarchies, sexual power, or identity exploration is impossible to say. It may even
have demonstrated what she had learned about comedy performance—specifically, that
playing the opposite sex virtually always amuses the audience. In any case, Kristina
reaped the rewards that her originality deserved: appreciative laughter.

Figure 7.9. Stacia grins from the car’s passenger side as Kristina, playing the role of a
macho male driver, blatantly “checks out” Helena’s character.

Confidence and competence. At the end of fall semester, Kristina said, “I used to
be a lot more shy and then with this program—this is actually like extra help for me, to
get out my shyness and to help me with my classes. Because of the games, I am like one
step ahead… I feel more confident.”
At the end of the fall semester, Bennett reflected, “When I first began, I was more
reclusive, but doing improv has brought out the natural side of me that’s just fun and out
there, that just likes to have fun.” Said Helena, “I just liked the games we played because
they just take your shyness away, cuz you have to just get up, just be yourself, and just let
it out. And it feels good.”
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In terms of competence, participants became more adept at the use of space
objects, articulating objects’ dimensions with more precision and respecting the integrity
of immovable features, such as counters or doors. Karlos, a faithful participant across fall
and spring semesters, had gained a reputation for regularly dissolving into giggles,
speaking with his hand covering his mouth, and struggling for prolonged periods to find
the “perfect” thing to say. But to the survey question “If you were part of the program last
semester, what have you gained already from participating in this improv class?” Karlos
wrote, “I’ve been able to actually go up and do things in front of an audience.” Although
he still had not wholly conquered his tendencies to laugh or to stall when all eyes were on
him, Karlos revealed his own pride and progress.

Figure 7.10. Karlos performing a solo scene.

Process
Participatory Governance
RQ5 asks, “How does each program’s learning process negotiate participatory
governance?” Over time, participants autonomously created a precedent of beginning
each session by sharing spooky stories, recalling ghosts they had seen or voices they had
heard. The storytelling also may have been a method for working through feelings about
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fear and safety, as the neighborhood where the participants live is a high-crime area.
Rather than wrest back control (and time) from the participants, Greenberg supported
their practice by listening in the audience and bridging their tales to the heart of the
workshop. He encouraged them to build improv scenes based on their spooky stories,
which provided them with an opportunity to transform anxiety into laughter.

Figure 7.11. Three participants reenact a peer’s ghost story. Katie looks on from the
wings as Tina, upstage, laughs at Helena’s exaggeratedly dramatic death.

Figure 7.12. The scene continues with a funeral. Katie and Tina maintain eye contact,
working together to figure out what happens next.

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To generally describe the power-sharing process, however, I believe that the label
“symbolic” is most apt. Greenberg entered each session with a lesson plan (rather than,
for example, the query “What would you like to do today in order to serve your needs?”
or “You design the lesson plan!”). He and the group also struggled a bit to manage some
participants’ excessive chattiness. Greenberg did ask the group for their help in
maintaining respect and achieving the session’s improvisational potential vis-à-vis time
(e.g., we could play more games if we could transition more quickly and chat a little less).
But I wonder how that situation might have unfolded if he had approached the group
from a pluralistic perspective and asked, “What should we do about this?” That is, what if
they were encouraged to appreciate a greater sense of ownership?

Participatory Learning
RQ6 asks, “How does each program’s learning process negotiate participatory
learning?” This program modeled a highly participatory learning process.
Step One. Greenberg and Kat warmly welcomed all of the participants on the first
day.
Step Two. As previously mentioned, Greenberg used the “Mirror” game and an
object work exercise to show, rather than tell, how improv runs on respect.
Step Three. I believe that the participants’ introduction of spooky stories and
transformation of these stories into improv scenes models this step.
Step Four. Sara’s observation reflects this step. During her voluntary midpoint
interview, Sara said,
Well, I’ve enjoyed how everybody is nice in their way and you work together, cuz
pretty much what improv is, you know, is just going along with what comes up.
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And I learned that it’s not only you that makes the improv work but also
teamwork. You’re supposed to work as a team and make your partner look good
as well. And it’s very nice, working with a bunch of people.

Figure 7.13. Screen capture from Sara’s end-of-semester interview.

Since I had seen Sara’s improv work, I found this statement particularly rich. Sara is a
confident leader with a strong personality, quick wit, and keen awareness of presence and
stage performance. She would throw herself whole-heartedly into her scenes and I was
not surprised when I found out that Sara had been cast in the spring play. To my eyes,
Sara’s challenge was with “give and take,” or allowing her scene partner some space to
co-create the scene’s characters, context, and game – she had a tendency to step onstage
with fully baked ideas and drive those ideas forward. Therefore, I took great interest in
her testimony. To me it indicated that she had incorporated feedback into her work and
had discovered a passion – or at least an appreciation – for partnership.
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Step Five. In this step, the learner has the option, should s/he choose to exercise it
and distinguish him/herself as worthy, to assume a position of more power/responsibility.
That opportunity was not extended to these participants – they remained in their position
of creative learners and Greenberg retained his position as facilitator.
It’s possible, however, that outside of this context, participants assumed more
authority because of their association with L4C at RFK. During her midpoint interview,
Helena said, “I think I participate a little more. I used to be like this [tucks her chin and
hides her head behind a curtain of hair]. Now in class I can actually speak up for myself.”
In addition to describing himself as “more confident” and confessing, “I like to
participate more now,” in his midpoint interview Bart identified cognitive gains. “It
[improv] helps me when I am in the middle of something, like when I am stuck, it helps
me to think quicker, think of whatever I have to think of … It’s taught me to think
outside—I use the same strategies outside.” In his interview Bennett said simply, “I feel
like an example.”

Playfulness
RQ7 asks, “How does each program’s learning process negotiate playfulness?”
During their respective mid-point interviews, Bart mentioned “the fun—the games are
fun,” and Kristina said, “Some things I’ve liked about it [improv workshop] is the games,
like Freeze Tag and those games, and how we perform our little skits. And I like how
we’re always together and we have fun.”
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To the survey prompt “Please share any additional comments or feedback on this
improv class!” participants almost universally chose to respond and, in their answers,
mentioned fun:
I love this class, the members, and the whole concept of it. A great experience.
I like improv Class !!! ^.^
It is really fun.
This improv class is very fun and I hope they keep doing it.
I love it, great class and shown me many things.
I think it’s a good class (:
I love improvisation! Keep it going guys. You’re the BEST!
Awesome!
I like improv class!
THIS IS AWESOME! Much more to learn :)

Figure 7.14. L4C Comedy Mentor Primeau and participants Grant and Katie crack up.

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Figure 7.15. In the foreground, I clap for Katie, Tina, Helena, and Leon, caught giggling
at their own antics.

Skills
Dynamic Appreciation
RQ8 asks, “To what extent does participants’ skill development demonstrate
proficiency in Dynamic Appreciation?” To a certain extent, improvisers must practice
this skill in order to embody characters and “play nicely” with their scene partners. While
the participants are not at the level to teach it, they can certainly do it. Therefore, I would
describe their status as Intermediate.

Resource Engagement
RQ9 asks, “To what extent does participants’ skill development demonstrate
proficiency in Resource Engagement?” This skill is also inherent to improvisation but to
a less pronounced degree than Dynamic Appreciation. Tapping a scene partner’s talents,
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repurposing chairs for other purposes, ingeniously creating a three-dimensional
environment via object work, jumping into a scene to provide a peer with the cactus, for
example, that she had just mentioned – all of this represents Resource Engagement in
action. The better skilled the improviser, the better s/he tends to be at leveraging
Resource Engagement (at least in improvisational theater contexts). Our participants were
novice improvisers and the extent to which they accessed this extreme, out-of-the-box
thinking was limited – they were sufficiently challenged by the invaluable basics, such as
playing agreement, making strong decisions, playing specific (as opposed to generic)
characters, committing to the scene, supporting their scene partner, etc. Therefore, I
would characterize their status vis-à-vis Resource Engagement as Beginner.

Respectful Negotiation
RQ10 asks, “To what extent does participants’ skill development demonstrate
proficiency in Respectful Negotiation?” Productive collaboration is the soul of improv,
although it is not so easily achieved. As I just mentioned, playing agreement and
supporting one’s scene partner can be challenging! I believe that participants are
practicing this important skill; I identify them as Beginners in terms of Respectful
Negotiation.
Study-Specific Research Question
As you’ll recall, our study-specific research question asked, “How, if at all, do the
norms and/or practices of improv affect the establishment of a learning culture that
supports participants’ sense of safety, connection, engagement, and/or empowerment?”
Let’s look at each element individually.
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As we explored, improv requires safety. This is because safety enables risk-taking,
and improv is a series of risks. Simply, if people don’t feel safe, they cannot engage in
the risky business of improv. To establish safety, Greenberg didn’t have to add in the
device of norms construction (as we had done in ELED and the Summer Sandbox). He
didn’t independently choose to kick off sessions with an improv warm up (as I did in
ELED and the Summer Sandbox) or to play a game for closure and/or fun (as I did with
Mafia/Werewolf in ELED). Greenberg simply ran an improv workshop. And improv
workshops, by their very nature, support safety. Well known exercises, like the Mirror
Game, help participants to sense and extend support. Improv instructors model respect by
focusing intently, praising participants’ choices, processing aloud what worked and what
didn’t, and soliciting feedback and reflections from fellow players. Participants recognize
that in order to protect their own safety, they must protect everyone else’s. Improv’s
norms and practices facilitate safety.
The evidence suggests that improv’s norms and practices also support various
types of connection. As we saw with Greenberg, an improv coach/instructor helps players
to grow individually and collectively by mining his/her rich improv experience, analyzing
players’ choices, and issuing suggestions, challenges, praises, and critiques. In my
personal experience, I have found that improvisers tend to connect strongly with their
supportive coach. In this case study, members of L4C at RFK seemed to connect with
Greenberg once they appreciated his wisdom and helpfulness, and figured out the norms
of the program.
The members of L4C at RFK also connected as a group. Again, my observations
suggest that improv’s “DNA” facilitates this outcome. For example, Greenberg kicked
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off and concluded each session with whole group participation. Greenberg also
introduced theater games in which group “success” depends upon every member’s
contributions and support. For example, Conducted Story is most impressive when
players immediately stop talking at the conductor’s motion, and seamlessly resume the
grammatical sense of the sentence at the conductor’s command. The group must work as
one. In my field notes, I reflected on a theater game called Hot Spot. This game requires
an individual player to stand in the middle of the circle of players and sing a song. S/he
can only stop singing and join the circle when a fellow player runs in, gently shoves
him/her aside, and starts singing a new song inspired by lyrics that they heard. By the
time we played Hot Spot, certain trends had emerged: Stacia and Kaylie usually chose to
go last in every exercise, and Karlos and Leon usually chose to go first. But for Hot Spot,
the young women jumped into the circle much earlier than Karlos and Leon; in fact, these
two young men were the very last L4C at RFK participants to take a turn. Therefore, this
game not only depended on group members’ support (again, you could not stop singing
until someone rushed in and let you off the hook), but it also affected group dynamics.
Hot Spot provided a means for improvisers to show off special talents (several of those
young women were terrific singers!), practice different types of risk-taking, strengthen
lesser-used skills, and allow for new forms of engagement.
Speaking of engagement, this case study suggests that improv’s norms and
practices help learning cultures to support participants’ sense of engagement. Improv is
inherently engaging – it’s interesting to see people create and react right on the spot. But
improv also leverages engaging mechanisms, like creativity, silliness, courage, and
iteration. The game Hitchhiker exemplifies this. In this game, four improvisers sit in
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chairs and pretend to be riding along in a car. They stop to pick up a hitchhiker with a
distinguishing non-verbal trait (e.g., a particular accent, dialet, posture, facial tic, hand
gesture). As quickly as they can, the folks in the car try to discern the hitchhiker’s trait
and reproduce it themselves. Picture five improvisers roaring in Scottish brogue. When
everyone has mimicked the hitchhiker, then another improviser approaches the “car.”
S/he enters, the longest-riding passenger exits, and the game restarts. When we played
this game in L4C at RFK, the entire group was riveted. Karlos introduced a variation.
Instead of speaking in a crazy accent, he pointed out a cat in the road and asked if the
driver had run it over. Everyone else in the car immediately began chattering about cats,
looking out the side windows, windshield, and back window, spotting big cats and little
cats, and claiming they’d just made kitty roadkill. The ridiculousness and unexpectedness
of this choice captured everyone’s attention.
Finally, improv facilitates empowerment. The craft is practiced by risk-taking
within a safe space; as such, improvisers get lots of opportunities to build up risk-taking
“muscle memory” and to associate risk-taking with satisfying results. This helps
improvisers to recognize, utilize, strengthen and their own voices and decision-making
power both on and offstage (as Helena’s and Bart’s testimonies support). Additionally,
improv’s pioneers shaped this craft for the purposes of empowerment. As you’ll recall,
Spolin leveraged theater games in order to help diverse immigrants to communicate and
work together. Close encouraged his students to speak truth to power. Boal appropriated
improv as a means to resist oppression. And Greenberg himself offered improv to
Rwandan actors as a tool for post-war recovery. Improv’s empowerment potential is part
of its DNA.
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To conclude, RQ15 asked, “How, if at all, do the norms and/or practices of
improv affect the establishment of a learning culture that supports participants’ sense of
safety, connection, engagement, and/or empowerment?” This review suggests that
improv’s norms and practices facilitate the establishment of such a learning culture.
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Summary
Laughter for a Change’s after-school improvisational theater workshop at the
Robert F. Kennedy Community Schools (L4C at RFK) ran from 2011-2012. Project
NML identified L4C as a PLAY On! partner and this specific workshop as a venue for
POTB participants to satisfy a program requirement; however, only POTB participant
Larry exercised this option. Twelve high school students, primarily freshmen, regularly
attended the weekly workshop during the fall, and six of these students attended during
the spring.
Greenberg and participants established a safe space in which work – a prerequisite
of improvisational theater. Participants demonstrated various types of connection,
connecting least robustly with Greenberg, most robustly as a group, and moderately with
self. With the exception of some initial boundary-testing and occasional goofing off,
participants demonstrated a strong sense of engagement. They listened actively and
laughed heartily, both on and offstage. The learning culture also supported participants’
empowerment, as evidenced by participants’ bold risk-taking, heightened self-confidence,
and greater competence. Participants and facilitators shared power/control in a symbolic

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The nature of improv lends itself to connecting with a group – perhaps it even demands it. As you know,
improvisers speak about “the group mind” and value fellow players’ ability to anticipate one another’s
moves and/or quickly get on the same page. The riskiness of improv also facilitates connecting with a
group. I believe that seeing another person’s true self and revealing your own wackiness, which Brown
(2012) might call “witnessing vulnerability” and “being vulnerable,” forges bonds. Since this occurred in a
group setting (as opposed to a one-on-one context), the whole group bonded.

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manner. Although participants could choose their own dialogue and characters, they
never selected the activities or took turns directing — Greenberg was at the helm.
Nonetheless, L4C at RFK negotiated the five steps of participatory learning. The program
also utilized a playful process, encouraging iteration and prioritizing joy. Participants
demonstrated Intermediate proficiency in Dynamic Appreciation, Beginner proficiency in
Resource Engagement, and Beginner proficiency in Respectful Negotiation.

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VIII. DISCUSSION

This story began in Africa, and it continued in southern California. Now let’s take
it “home” by making sense of the journey. Over these past several chapters, I scrutinized
PLAY!’s four educational programs in terms of their respective learning culture,
pedagogical process, and skill development. In order to examine learning culture, I
interrogated the extent to which participants indicated their sense of safety, connection,
engagement, and empowerment. To conceptually assess pedagogical process, I
characterized each program’s modeling of participatory governance, participatory
learning, and playfulness. Three “master skills” — NML/SEL hybrids that I refer to as
Dynamic Appreciation, Resource Engagement, and Respectful Negotiation — were my
means for interpreting participants’ skill development.
Let’s put these four case studies into conversation by answering RQ11, which
asks, “Across these four case studies, which trends and/or relationships between/among
culture, process, and skill development does this study suggest?”
Trends and Relationships
Safety
Review. Across all four case studies, participants’ sense of physical safety was
universally high; this is probably because the environments in which these programs were
situated were danger-free. It is possible that the neighborhood surrounding the RFK
Community Schools might have inspired L4C participants’ spooky stories; it is equally
possible, however, that these 15-year-olds, like many adolescents, enjoy excitatory
stimuli (e.g., horror, melodrama) and adore wielding power over their peers by causing
them to experience suspense and fright.
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There were only two times when participants explicitly expressed any physical
unease. The first occurred when ELED participants complained about high school student
band members’ cacophonous on-campus drumming (see Chapter IV). The second
occurred when Summer Sandbox Week 2 participants, particularly Helen and Dean,
criticized the “Classroom Redesign” activity’s potential to wreak physical harm (e.g.,
throw out a back by heaving a stack of chairs, flatten a toe under a heavy science lab
table).
I examined social-emotional safety through the lens of relational trust. We
discovered that members of the ELED learning community, the Summer Sandbox Week
2 learning community, and L4C at RFK initially struggled to establish this cultural
condition. If you’ll recall, ELED membership was in flux during its first several weeks,
as was the list of norms. Participants Andy and Jake also acted out by photographing
Andy “flipping the bird” when they were supposed to be documenting borders and
boundaries, and by doodling a swastika (whose implications might have been less
nefarious than we had originally assumed). ELED attempted to get back on track by
finalizing its norms during the “regrouping session,” and Phase Two went much more
smoothly when the core eight participants and facilitator Vartabedian focused solely on
the end-of-semester showcase.
Participants of Summer Sandbox Week 2 might have entered the program under
more duress than their Week 1 counterparts due to the calendar – Week 2 immediately
preceded the first day of school. This precondition might have increased participants’
anxiety and/or determination to receive what they expected (e.g., hand-outs and
demonstrations of specific technologies). The aforementioned encounter around the
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“Classroom Redesign” activity showcased relational tensions (see Chapter V). On the one
hand, participants’ lack of enthusiasm for the activity seemed to signal to my fellow
facilitator and me that Week 2 participants did not recognize our competence in core role
responsibilities (in this particular case, the responsibility to construct worthwhile
curriculum). Vartabedian and I also wondered about participants’ personal regard. We
interpreted it as a failure on the participants’ part to extend themselves beyond the basic
minimum. Meanwhile, our insistence that participants at least try the activity that the
Week 1 participants had enjoyed so intensely might have indicated to these Week 2 folks
that we didn’t respect their opinions, and might even have lacked personal integrity since,
in Helen’s view at least, the project was so wildly inappropriate.
The fact that I know how Helen, Dean, and the other Week 2 participants felt
about the activity, however, is because they trusted our culture enough to share this
critical feedback. Specifically, I believe that these participants’ words indicated their
willingness to extend respect and to grant us the benefit of the doubt vis-à-vis personal
integrity. The way in which Vartabedian and I attentively listened to their perspectives,
asked follow-up questions, offered apologies, and clarified purposes collectively
supported relational trust. I believe this helped the session (and that week) to conclude on
good terms.
Participants of Summer Sandbox Week 1 got off to a smoother start. Among them
were several veteran teachers who felt confident about and had been recognized for their
teaching (e.g., Henrietta, Bettina, Nancy). As such, they might have perceived themselves
as seeking out a little something extra (as opposed to desperately trying to obtain
something they lacked). This perspective can make a big difference in terms of energy
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and satisfaction. From our bedrock of trust, we were able to engage in the Human Knot
exercise, which generated even more trust. The Summer Sandbox Week 1 learning
community felt like a very safe space.
Participants of POTB (all of whom had previously participated in a session of
Summer Sandbox) sensed and promoted safety from the very beginning. This was crucial,
I believe, because participants operated independently for most of the time. If they had
not bought into the program or trusted one another, I doubt that they would have invested
as deeply or allowed their colleagues to observe their videotaped lessons.
Ultimately, each learning culture seemed to support participants’ sense of safety.
Due to the Summer Sandbox Week 2’s rocky start, however, the average level of safety
might be framed as “medium” while the other programs’ average level might be framed
as “high.”
Implications. These data suggest that, when the extent to which participants’
perceive a lower level of safety, their levels of connection, engagement, and
empowerment also tend to be low.
How might safety be compromised? We already acknowledged that physically
dangerous contexts might challenge safety, and established that these case studies’
environments were free from physical harm. So what might degrade participants’ sense
of social and emotional safety? Looking at the data and reflecting on each case study,
perhaps erratic attendance compromised participants’ sense of safety. This is reasonable
since various people differently influence a group dynamic and threaten the consistency
of norms. Additionally, participants might limit the extent to which they extend relational
trust, refusing to wholly rely on the competence or personal integrity of a “stranger.”
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Identifying safety as sensitive to attendance might help to explain safety’s shift from low
to high in both ELED and L4C, when “fickle” participants dropped out and only the
committed survived.
As we discussed in Chapter V, pre-existing conditions such as stress, fatigue, or
negative prior experiences also might limit the extent to which members of a learning
community are able to establish relational trust. This might demystify the Summer
Sandbox Week 2 experience. In that case, participants probably felt the pressure of the
impending school year and could less easily take the “leap of faith” that our Play
paradigm required. By the same token, when participants showed up “ready to learn”
(e.g., committed to a program’s principles and procedures, as in the case of Summer
Sandbox Week 1 and POTB), then they more easily and quickly established the relational
trust upon which safety depends.
According to the integrative model of behavioral prediction (Fishbein & Yzer,
2003; Fishbein, 2000; Fishbein et al., 2002), multiple factors influence the probability of
an actor performing a given behavior. Behavioral beliefs and outcome evaluations,
normative beliefs and motivation to comply, and efficacy beliefs are situated at the heart
of the model; however, theoreticians acknowledge that these variables also are influenced
by such factors as personality, moods, and emotions, perceived risk, demographic
variables, and culture. Moreover, they contend that environmental constraints also
contribute to the likelihood of behavioral performance. Thus it seems that this
dissertation’s integrated findings respect established theory. When erratic attendance
heightened participants’ sense of perceived risk, their likelihood of extending relational
trust diminished. Similarly, when participants’ moods, emotions, or environmental
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constraints embattled relational trust, heir likelihood of extending relational trust also
diminished.

Connection
Review. The learning communities in this study supported participants’ various
types of connection. In terms of each type, the extent to which participants connected
with self is the most limited, followed by connecting with a caring individual; connecting
with a group was achieved most frequently.
The ELED learning community connected strongly during its second half. The
core eight participants’ joint focus on the end-of-semester showcase, and Vartabedian’s
dependability and leadership during that time, facilitated connecting as a group and
connecting to a caring individual.
As in the case of safety, Summer Sandbox Week 1 participants connected in all
three ways (e.g., connecting with a group, connecting with a caring individual,
connecting with self) more smoothly and swiftly than their Summer Sandbox Week 2
counterparts. By the final day of Summer Sandbox Week 2, however, I realized that we
had become a group. Summer Sandbox Week 2 participants warmly bade each other
goodbye, and half of them returned to participate in POTB. Thus, across both sessions of
the Summer Sandbox, the learning culture facilitated connection.
It seems as though POTB participants connected with self more and than they
connected with a group. I believe this can be attributed to the independent nature of the
program – there were more and richer opportunities for participants to reflect on their
own practice within the autonomous, semester-long POTB than the group-oriented, one-
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week Summer Sandbox. For example, POTB participants could think and reflect on their
own, talk with one-on-one coach Carthew about any issues they might be encountering,
share their perceptions via the midpoint survey, and tell about their experiences during
the Most Significant Change interviews at the end of the semester. Although POTB
participants rarely collaborated with one another (e.g., PLAY On! workshops,
PLAYground alpha-testing, POTB Retreat), they appeared both comfortable and
respectful at those times. Therefore, connecting with a group did occur, but to a lesser
extent than connecting with self.
L4C participants connected strongly with the group. Certainly Greenberg’s
facilitation of the context’s safe space helped participants to commune; I believe that the
silliness of improv also serves this purpose. When improvisers “get goofy” and reveal
their childlike, unbridled wackiness, they abandon social identities and put their ego’s
safety in their teammates’ hands. If teammates keep these egos safe, and especially if
teammates reciprocate by getting goofy themselves, then their bond is cemented. Cynics
might call this “mutually assured destruction”; I prefer to cite Brown (2012) and term this
“being vulnerable” and “respecting vulnerability.”
The discipline issues that Greenberg encountered might indicate participants’ lack
of connection with a caring individual (e.g., Greenberg). But the frequency, length, and
volume of the interstitial conversations that embattled L4C at RFK diminished over time.
This might be understood in terms of safety – group members embraced certain norms
and valued preserving relational trust. It might also be viewed through the lens of
connection. It is possible that, as participants connected more meaningfully with
Greenberg, they became more and more unwilling to upset him with their chatter.
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Implications. When there is social-emotional safety, then it seems as though it
becomes significantly easier and more desirable to connect with a group, connect with a
caring individual, and connect with self. Trust is the cornerstone upon which connection
depends. As we just discussed, erratic attendance compromises trust; by extension, erratic
attendance also would compromise connection. Picture a set of newcomers entering a
program each week. This imposes a burden on the facilitator: s/he must attempt to clarify
procedures for these newcomers so that their practice doesn’t trample the veterans’, and
s/he must simultaneously attempt to maintain the veterans’ engagement. Under these
conditions, connecting with a group is unlikely. And facilitators might become so
preoccupied by their burden that they cannot connect as caring individuals — it is all they
can do to keep the ship afloat, as it were. Such a context might feel too disjointed for
participants, disincentivizing regular attendance. It also might challenge or prevent
connecting with self; instead of diving deep into themselves, they’ll merely float along on
the surface. This might help to explain ELED Phase One and the early weeks of L4C
(when discipline issues were manifest). If you’ll recall, several participants also defected
from the Summer Sandbox Week 2 over the course of the first two days; their departure
might have compromised the establishment of various forms of connection.
Lave and Wenger (1991)’s theory of situated learning recognizes the importance
of community. According to this theory, learning is socially constructed – that is, learning
is a fundamentally social process (as opposed to a wholly cognitive and independent
process that occurs in each learner’s head). Lave and Wenger coined the term
“communities of practice” to explain the social networks that support and contextualize
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learning.
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Explaining Lave and Wenger’s framework, Youth Radio producers and
authors Soep and Chavez characterize learning as “something that communities create,
rather than something teachers transmit” (2010, p. 54). Consequently, the nature of a
community significantly affects the learning that is created. If members insufficiently
maintain their community of practice, then the product that they create (e.g., learning)
will likewise be insufficient in some way, and vice versa.
Other than attendance, what else might influence connection? It seems reasonable
that facilitators and curricula would play roles. The nature of L4C’s work demanded and
reinforced connecting with a group, whereas POTB’s autonomy facilitated connecting
with self. Perhaps the second week of Summer Sandbox only supported moderate levels
of connection because the program’s design emphasized connecting with a group, yet
unstable attendance prevented this. Participants might have connected with a supportive
individual (e.g., Vartabedian or me), but pre-existing conditions (e.g., burnout, anxiety)
embattled the establishment of relational trust. Within such a context, connecting with
self is less likely, especially since the program modestly emphasized this sort of
connection.
This is not to assume a one-to-one relationship between teaching and learning. As
Wenger (2000) remarked, “Learning and teaching are not inherently linked. Much
learning takes place without teaching, and indeed much teaching takes place without
learning” (p. 266). Rather, I mean to explore the likelihood of various types of connection
taking place under particular circumstances. As the integrative model of behavioral

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Learners join these enclaves of practitioners in order to explore a common interest or enrich expertise; as
they gain knowledge, skills and comfort, they tend to modify their participation style from “legitimate
peripheral participation” (an observational stance) to more direct interaction with the community’s
sociocultural activities.
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prediction articulates, perceived norms influence actors’ intention to perform a behavior.
If connecting with self, for example, is perceived as non-normative, then actors’
intentions to and enactment of connecting with self are less likely than if it were
perceived as normative.

Engagement
Review. Across all four case studies, the learning culture seemed to support
participants’ engagement.
When facilitator Vartabedian and the core group of eight embarked upon project-
based learning (specifically, crafting an end-of-semester showcase), ELED participants’
engagement skyrocketed. They did not want to appear foolish in front of administrators,
teachers, families and friends; indeed, they were excited to let these visitors into their
“ELED world” and to show off their expertise. Vartabedian invited them to design the
event and choose which parts they would prepare and present. The relevance of this
activity was undeniable and, as we know, relevance is an important predictor of
engagement.
Summer Sandbox Week 1 participants appeared engaged from the get-go, and
particularly enjoyed the “Tool and Toy” activity on Day 3. Week 2 participants
demonstrated lower engagement levels initially; by Day 5, however, they seemed to
embrace the “Open Space Technology”
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activity and contributed thoughtfully to our
end-of-week reflection.

45
If you’ll recall, this activity empowered participants to lead and/or attend sessions on subjects of their
choosing.
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POTB participants’ engagement levels fluctuated, I believe, as they interacted
with and (pragmatically) ignored the semester-long program in order to focus on other
responsibilities. When participants attended workshops, however, they seemed to throw
themselves completely into their work. Their mid-point surveys and MSC interviews also
suggest that their engagement levels were high.
L4C participants seemed to tune in and tune out in lockstep with each game’s start
and stop. That is, whenever anyone was playing a game, participants would tune in; when
the game ended, participants would tune out. Over time, participants tuned in more
consistently throughout the session and their levels of engagement increased. This might
be due to their greater sense of safety, their stronger sense of connection, and/or their
increased proficiency as improvisers.
Implications. Engagement appears related to both safety and connection. If you
don’t feel particularly safe and/or connected, where’s the incentive to engage? Engaging
under those tenuous circumstances is risky; your identity or your work might be
disrespected in such a norms-challenged, shallowly connected culture. On the other hand,
when levels of safety and connection are high, then engagement levels also tend to be
high.
Whereas safety still seems like the cornerstone of all (e.g., everything flows from
safety), the relationship between connection and engagement might be bidirectional. I
initially assumed that L4C participants become more engaged because their connection
with Greenberg had grown stronger. However, it is possible that their engagement with
improv preceded this connection; perhaps, because they were “into” improv, participants
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gravitated more towards the supportive individual associated with their newly beloved
craft.
Greenberg’s pedagogical approach is constructivist; that is, he teaches by
introducing contexts (e.g., theater games) in which students can learn by doing.
Constructivists, who include such educational luminaries as John Dewey, Jean Piaget,
Maria Montessori, Lev Vygotsky, Jerome Bruner, and Seymour Papert, contend that
learners generate knowledge by interacting with their environment and making
discoveries. This experiential pedagogy engages most learners since it puts them in the
“driver’s seat.”
So how might this constructivist-facilitated engagement lead to connection?
Perhaps through “shop talk,” or conversing about the craft. Constructivist learning
recognizes that conversing with others is part of the learning process as it contributes to
the social construction of knowledge. Educational researcher Gee (2008) articulates how
engaged learners seek out conversations in which to process learning-related experiences,
and then goes one step further, arguing that learning requires such dialogue. “Good
learning requires participation—however vicarious—in some social group that helps
learners understand and make sense of their experience in certain ways,” Gee contends,
echoing Lave and Wenger’s situated learning theory (p. 23). According to Gee,
conversing about a given interest is a way of engaging with that interest as a social
practice. In other words, say you’re interested in games. Talking about games is one way
in which to participate in gaming; other ways include playing the game, doing research
on the game, and collecting game-related products. All of these activities constitute forms
of gaming. Simply, conversation counts. Engaged learners may use these naturally
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occurring and important conversations to springboard connection with supportive
individuals and/or fellow learners. But this only explains one direction in a potentially
bidirectional relationship...
During the second week of Summer Sandbox, it seemed as though connection
catalyzed engagement. I believe that our discussion in the wake of the infamous
“Classroom Redesign” activity helped participants to connect with Vartabedian and me,
and their collective challenge might even have helped them to connect with the group
(e.g., United we stand!). Subsequent to this “heart-to-heart,” engagement levels for all
participants seemed to rise. And not long after Helen and I commiserated over online
dating, she also seemed to engage more readily.
Educational research helps to explain why. According to Mazer (2012, 2013a,
2013b), student engagement partially depends upon emotional interest. Emotional interest,
in turn, is a function of teacher immediacy (i.e., students’ perception of a teacher’s
psychological closeness). So it makes sense that, once participants sensed greater
immediacy from Vartabedian and me, their levels of engagement increased.
A 2007 meta-analysis supports the bidirectional relationship between connection
and engagement. The principal investigator found that learner-centered teacher variables
(specifically, positive relationships, nondirectivity, empathy, warmth, and encouraging
thinking and learning) have above average associations with positive student outcomes
(Cornelius-White, 2007). More simply, teachers who connect tend to have students who
engage (e.g., exhibit initiation/participation, positive motivation, attendance, satisfaction)
and achieve. Note, Cornelius-White (2007)’s meta-analysis demonstrated correlation, not
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causation – this means that teacher immediacy may produce student engagement, or
student engagement may produce teacher immediacy.

Empowerment
Review. Each learning culture seemed to support participants’ sense of
empowerment.
During Phase One of ELED, the extent to which the learning culture supported
participants’ empowerment was limited. Each session was jammed with programming
and, while participants could negotiate within each activity, they did not have the power
to suggest activities themselves or to interact more intensively with technology (as they
had expected). Participants enjoyed significantly greater empowerment during Phase Two,
when they owned the end-of-semester showcase project.
The varying experiences with the “Classroom Redesign” activity over the two
weeks of Summer Sandbox suggest that Week 1 participants felt more empowered than
Week 2 participants, at least at that time. However, as previously mentioned, Week 2
participants seemed to appreciate Day 5’s “Open Space Technology” activity, which is
inherently empowering. Therefore, I believe that empowerment levels mirrored
engagement levels for both Summer Sandbox weeks.
POTB’s design is empowering as it puts participants in the driver’s seat and
dispatches a supportive individual (in our case, Project NML staff member Kirsten
Carthew) directly to them, to meet with them when and where they choose, and to
support them as they wish. POTB participants also had the power to design and
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implement their curriculum as they saw fit. Participants’ MSC interviews particularly
indicated their high levels of empowerment.
L4C participants’ risk-taking, confidence, and competence suggest their
considerable sense of empowerment. Improvisational theater is an empowering form (if
one isn’t utterly intimidated by it). Whereas an actor interprets another person’s text, an
improviser gets to write his/her own script. Additionally, an improviser can play any
character (as opposed to being limited by typecasting), set a scene in any environment
(e.g., a bowling alley, a distant galaxy, your mom’s basement), during any era (e.g., the
Old West, the 1970’s, the Ice Age), whenever s/he wants. All an improviser has to do in
order to “change the world” is deliver lines of dialogue and/or body language that
conveys his/her idea. Kristina harnessed this power when she “played against type” and
embodied a macho man.
Improv’s benefits also can carry over into other areas. For example, Helena
explained that her experiences in L4C helped her to speak up more in class. Karlos, who
used to dissolve into fits of giggles, muffle his words by covering his mouth, and
compromise momentum by taking long periods of time to decide on what to do or say
onstage, grew over the course of the semester. As a theater student, this improvement in
stage presence matters for his grade (and perhaps for his self-confidence). Bennett took
pride in his solid improv skills and stated that he feels like a role model. All of this
evidence suggests that L4C participants enjoyed empowerment.
Implications. Where engagement leads, empowerment tends to follow; or is it the
opposite? During Phase One of ELED, for example, both engagement and empowerment
were low; during Phase Two, engagement and empowerment were high. The Summer
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Sandbox experience, particularly Week 2, also follows this trend. In Chapter V, I
suggested that participants might have rejected the “Classroom Design” activity because
they found it disempowering, perhaps even shaming; their engagement in this activity
was minimal. In Chapter VII, we witnessed Kristina’s simultaneous engagement and
empowerment. As you’ll recall, Kristina deeply engaged in the car wash scene, playing a
macho character and taking on his posture, voice, and diction; simultaneously, she
commanded the power to generate laughs and make a statement. It is impossible to say
whether her engagement spurred her empowerment, though, or whether her
empowerment facilitated her engagement. Perhaps because Kristina sensed
empowerment, she was able to engage deeply, or perhaps because she engaged deeply,
she was able to access empowerment. Let us conclude that engagement and
empowerment are positively correlated and potentially boast a bidirectional relationship.
Communication scholars Frymier, Shulman, and Houser (1996) conceptualize
learner empowerment as a function of meaningfulness, competence, and impact. In my
opinion, the items in their meaningfulness scale tap relevance, emotional interest, and
cognitive interest (Frymier et al., 1996, p. 192), all of which relate meaningfully to the
construct of engagement. This upholds the dissertation’s conclusion that a correlation
exists between engagement and empowerment.

Participatory Governance
Review. Across these case studies, participants and facilitators tended to share
power in a pluralistic manner. The two exceptions in which the label “symbolic” (see
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Wong, Zimmerman & Parker, 2010) better describes the power-sharing scenario is in the
case of ELED Phase One and L4C at RFK.
If you’ll recall, there was considerable instability during the first phase of ELED.
Participants and facilitators attended erratically. The weekly curriculum, although
consistently sensitive to NML’s, SEL’s, and other frameworks of interest (see Felt et al.,
2012), shifted from video production to abstract music to cartography to Facebook-
inspired improvisation, etc. In practice, this “one-off” programming proved less engaging
to participants than the project-based learning that occurred during Phase Two. To adopt
the jargon of the internet, Phase One’s programming was more “Web 1.0,” as content
was pushed out for consumption; Phase Two’s programming was more “Web 2.0,” with
“produsers” (Bruns, 2006) appropriating texts and creating products to serve their own
purposes.
I characterized L4C at RFK’s governance structure as “symbolic” because of the
participants’ continuous subject position — that is, they were the (grateful) recipients of
Greenberg’s lesson planning and instruction. None of the participants took a turn as guest
director of a scene or designed a particular session’s curriculum. Please understand, this
observation is not meant to rebuke Greenberg. To the best of my knowledge, none of the
L4C at RFK participants ever asked to share power in these ways and, as the saying goes,
“it takes two to tango.” Had any of the young improvisers requested to shoulder such
responsibilities, Greenberg very well might have acquiesced. Saying “yes and,” after all,
is a cornerstone of improv’s ethos. Nonetheless, the fact remains that Greenberg and the
L4C at RFK participants did not share power equally.
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Implications. Empowerment and participatory governance are discrete constructs
that overlap with regards to participants’ decision-making. When participants can make
decisions for themselves, they sense empowerment; when they can make decisions about
how the learning community operates, there is participatory governance. This corpus
shows that when participants are empowered, power-sharing tends to be pluralistic — but
not always. In the case of L4C, participants sensed personal empowerment even in the
absence of equally shared control. When power-sharing is pluralistic, however,
participants always sense empowerment.
It is only reasonable that learning communities in which students and teachers
share power also cultivate learner empowerment; after all, what’s more empowering for a
learner than calling the shots for the learning community? Making classroom
management decisions visibly demonstrates real authority. And usually, if a community
allows its learners to weigh in on philosophical and practical considerations, then this
community also permits its learners to make decisions regarding their own learning
journeys. To summarize these in “retail terms,” pluralistic participatory governance is
like a “two for the price of one” item – “buy one [pluralism] get one [empowerment] free.”
Ensuring empowerment is crucial for learning. As depicted by the integrative
model of behavioral prediction (Fishbein & Cappella, 2006; Fishbein & Yzer, 2003;
Fishbein, 2000), efficacy beliefs play an important role in formulating behavioral
intentions and predicting behavioral performance. Empowered learners boast learning
self-efficacy – they believe they can learn. Therefore, the odds that they will learn are
quite good. Moreover, the integrative model highlights behavioral beliefs and outcome
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evaluations as additional, key contributors to intentions and behavior. Empowered
learners enjoy positive attitudes about learning; they believe that the effort is worthwhile.

Participatory Learning
Review. ELED’s learning process partially negotiated the five steps of
participatory learning by modeling Step One and Step Two and somewhat modeling Step
Three. It faltered in terms of Step Four and only provided access to Step Five during
Phase Two.
During both weeks of the Summer Sandbox, facilitators and participants
negotiated all five steps of participatory learning.
The same is true of POTB.
For L4C, the extent to which participants accessed Step Five (which is about
assuming new roles and responsibilities in the community) is limited.
Implications. Step One and Step Two of the participatory learning model (Felt,
2011) pertain to warmly welcoming participants and introducing participants to a
learning community’s resources. These steps were universally modeled, and it’s little
wonder – those processes are relatively simple, intuitive, and “safe” (in that they do not
destabilize hierarchies or traditional teaching practices).
In the case of ELED, the extent to which participants engaged with Step Three,
which is about creation, was limited in Phase One and more considerable in Phase Two. I
believe that this phenomenon will arise whenever educators value students’ acquisition of
knowledge above their production of knowledge.
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Steps Four and Five, which are respectively about iterating based on feedback and
taking on new roles and responsibilities, were the least frequently modeled. I tend to
think that this reflects the wider world as well. Compressed timelines and “perfection vs.
failure” paradigms don’t lend themselves to iteration (Step Four), and traditional social
hierarchies that bifurcate teacher from student disallow varying and diverse access to the
identities of expert, learner, leader, etc (Step Five).

Playfulness
Review. As Chapter IV explicated, ELED participants’ learning process did not
depend heavily on iteration during Phase One; rather, because each session was stand-
alone, taught by a different graduate student instructor, their productions might be
described as “one and done.” However, during Phase Two, participants had the
opportunity to work on their showcase presentations over several weeks and to
incorporate Vartabedian’s and peers’ feedback. Joy was limited, I believe, at least during
Phase One, because we struggled a bit more than we laughed. During Phase Two, when
the jammed schedules were discarded for more open-ended creation of a meaningful final
product, the extent to which joy permeated the space increased. Therefore, the learning
process was barely playful during Phase One and somewhat playful during Phase Two.
For both sessions of the Summer Sandbox, iteration figured prominently. We had
designed the curriculum so that participants could develop their lesson plans, try them out
on us, see what worked and what didn’t, and then collect our feedback during discussions
afterwards. Joy was less centrally positioned in our curriculum; for example, we only
planned to play games on Day One.
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While game play is not the only way to realize joy (and for those who dislike the
game, it’s a non-starter), I mention games because their incorporation into a curriculum is
an explicit way to court joy, to make it a priority. Games are also more “controllable”
than individuals’ emotions — whether a participant is happy or has fun is largely up to
him/her. You can try to arrange the environment in ways that will support participants’
joy, and you can model joy by laughing, smiling, and putting out positive energy, but you
cannot hand out joy as easily as you can a board game, bouncy ball, or silly hat.
So, the way in which joy was (or was not) manifest across these two weeks is the
same as the ways in which all four cultural characteristics appeared: nearly immediately
and strongly in the case of Week 1, later but no less strong in the case of Week 2.
For POTB, the curriculum also favored iteration over joy. However, the gap
between the two elements had narrowed; that is to say, participants demonstrated more
joy during POTB than they had during the Summer Sandbox. As such, playfulness better
describes the POTB learning community’s process than that of the Summer Sandbox.
L4C robustly modeled playfulness — iteration and joy practically define
improvisational theater games. Several groups will play the same game, and both
experience, audience reactions, and coach’s notes can inform the ways in which
improvisers choose to work on various techniques. Joy is commonly manifest in
improvisational spaces because players often make humorous decisions that provoke the
audience’s laughter.
Implications. Across this dissertation’s case studies, iteration was more
commonly manifest than joy. This might be an artifact of program design; given Project
NML’s definition of Play as iteration, and established educational traditions that either
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disallow fun or distrust its legitimacy as a learning goal, facilitators and curricula may
have failed to consciously promote “joy.”
Limitations
It is commonly observed that our greatest strength also can be our greatest
weakness; I believe that particular principle applies to this dissertation. For example, my
methodologies for collecting data varied across studies. If I had consistently gathered
identical data, then the cases in this investigation might better lend themselves to
comparison. However, since learning takes place in so many contexts, the external
validity of such an approach might be limited — that is, it might prove difficult (if not
impossible) for action-researchers to consistently collect identical data, for two reasons.
First, because learning environments are complex and collaborative, action-researchers
might unproductively struggle to perform highly scripted data collection techniques.
Second, because learning environments are unique, certain types of data might be
irrelevant to or absent from various learning experiences.
One might argue that this investigation also benefited from its acquisition and
exploration of insights that emerged organically, or more organically than a more
controlled experiment. Since the emphasis was less on data collection, per se, and more
on teaching, learning, and growth, the objects of study better approximated the real world
and potentially yielded more useful information. Thus, the weakness of unstable data
collection might also be the study’s chief strength. Rather than gather data with one set of
collection tools, I analyzed data with a common set of analytical tools. I deconstructed
disparate learning environments through the lens of safety, connection, engagement, and
empowerment, four characteristics of learning cultures that I identified as most vital. I
278

maintain that this approach offered enough structure for analysis while simultaneously
providing enough flexibility to compare across unique contexts.
Similarly, to study both educators and students within the same investigation is
unusual. Had I dedicated more time to just studying educators or to just studying students,
then perhaps I might have learned more about each population. On the other hand, I did
study educators when they played the role of students, so my gaze was consistently fixed
on learners. One might additionally argue that such diversity (e.g., studying educators and
students) might also be regarded as a strength. Since educators and students must work
together, identifying their commonalities might help these actors to do so more
productively. Moreover, the line between “educator” and “student” is blurring and only
will continue to do so. Twenty-first century norms require everyone’s commitment to
lifelong learning, and 21
st
learning best practices frame educators and students as co-
learners. Therefore, exploring how members of both groups tend to teach and learn,
among peers and with each other, might prove quite useful indeed.
Directions for Future Research
I foresee multiple ways in which I personally might revisit this study’s concepts
and methodologies in order to enhance the conceptual clarity of each core area as well as
produce tools that might interrogate these areas more systematically. Here are a few
entryways:

Towards the Development of Models, Constructs, and Measures
Modeling ideal learning culture. The National School Climate Center (NCSS;
2007) identifies five major dimensions of school climate: safety, interpersonal
279

relationships, teaching and learning, institutional environment, and staff only. NCSS
elaborates upon each dimension with indicators of positivity, e.g., “clearly communicated
rules about verbal abuse, harassment, and teasing.”
But I find NCSS’s dimension/indicator approach unwieldy because it fails to
describe the key characteristics of a positive learning culture — it goes from the macro-
level (e.g., general considerations such as teaching and learning) to the non-specific
micro-level (e.g., attitudes such as “willingness to listen to students and to get to know
them as individuals,” failing to articulate what this looks like in practice and whether
these indicators are exhaustive).
To address these gaps, I follow the determination that “…school climate is
associated with and/or promotes safety, healthy relationships, engaged learning and
teaching, and school improvement efforts” (Thapa et al, 2013, p. 358), and identify the
words that seem to express these associated and/or promoted concepts as “safety,”
“connection,” “engagement,” and “empowerment.” I take these as the key characteristics
of a positive learning culture, and utilize NCSS’s indicators to explain the meaning of
each characteristic.
Table 8.1 shows my revision of NCSS’s table. I de-coupled NCSS-identified
indicators from NCSS-labeled dimensions and re-arranged these indicators in order to
describe the concepts of safety, connection, engagement, and empowerment. I neither
revised nor deleted any of NCSS’s indicator language; for theoretically compelling
reasons (see Brown 2008, 2010), I did add a single item, self-support, whose language I
picked up directly from the meta-analysis of school climate research published by Thapa
and colleagues (2013, p. 363).
280

Table 8.1.
Reconceptualization of Key Indicators of a Positive Learning Culture.
NSCC: “The 12
Dimensions of
School Climate
Measured –
Dimensions”
NSCC: “The 12
Dimensions of School
Climate Measured – Major
Indicators”
My Characteristics My Dimensions
Rules and Norms: Clearly
communicated rules about
physical violence; clearly
communicated rules about
verbal abuse, harassment,
and teasing; clear and
consistent enforcement and
norms for adult
intervention.
Rules and Norms: Clearly
communicated rules about
physical violence; clearly
communicated rules about
verbal abuse, harassment, and
teasing; clear and consistent
enforcement and norms for
adult intervention.
Sense of Physical Security:
Sense that students and
adults feel safe from
physical harm in the
school.
Sense of Physical Security:
Sense that students and adults
feel safe from physical harm in
the school.
SAFETY
Sense of Social-Emotional
Security: Sense that
students feel safe from
verbal abuse, teasing, and
exclusion.
Sense of Social-Emotional
Security: Sense that students
feel safe from verbal abuse,
teasing, and exclusion.
Respect for Diversity: Mutual
respect for individual
differences (e.g. gender, race,
culture, etc.) at all levels of the
school—student-student; adult-
student; adult-adult and overall
norms for tolerance.
SAFETY
Respect for Diversity:
Mutual respect for
individual differences (e.g.
gender, race, culture, etc.)
at all levels of the school—
student-student; adult-
student; adult-adult and
overall norms for
tolerance.
(I moved this
indicator to
another area in the
table – SAFETY,
specifically.)
INTER-
PERSONAL
RELATION-
SHIPS
Social Support – Adults:
Pattern of supportive and
caring adult relationships
for students, including high
expectations for students’
success, willingness to
listen to students and to get
to know them as
individuals, and personal
concern for students’
problems.
Social Support – Adults:
Pattern of supportive and caring
adult relationships for students,
including high expectations for
students’ success, willingness
to listen to students and to get
to know them as individuals,
and personal concern for
students’ problems.
CONNECT-
ION

281

Social Support – Students:
Pattern of supportive peer
relationships for students,
including: friendships for
socializing, for problems,
for academic help, and for
new students.
Social Support – Students:
Pattern of supportive peer
relationships for students,
including: friendships for
socializing, for problems, for
academic help, and for new
students.

Self-support: “From a
psychological point of view,
relationships refer not only to
relations with others but
relations with ourselves—how
we feel about and take care of
ourselves” (Thapa et al., 2013,
p. 363).

Professional Relationships:
Positive attitudes and
relationships among school
staff that support effectively
working and learning together;
[administration] is accessible to
and supportive of school staff
and staff development.

Support for Learning: Use
of supportive teaching
practices, such as:
encouragement and
constructive feedback;
varied opportunities to
demonstrate knowledge
and skills; support for risk-
taking and independent
thinking; atmosphere
conducive to dialog and
questioning; academic
challenge; and individual
attention.
Support for Learning: Use of
supportive teaching practices,
such as: encouragement and
constructive feedback;
individual attention.

ENGAGE-
MENT
TEACHING
AND
LEARNING
Social and Civic Learning:
Support for the
development of social and
civic knowledge, skills,
and dispositions including:
effective listening, conflict
resolution, self-reflection
and emotional regulation,
empathy, personal
responsibility, and ethical
decision making.
(These seem highly
related to SEL’s,
which I identify as
outcomes, not as
characteristics of
climate. I believe
that a student’s
practice of these
skills indicates that
a climate supports
his/her sense of
safety,
connectedness,
engagement, and
empowerment.)
Support for Learning: Varied
opportunities to demonstrate
knowledge and skills; academic
challenge; support for risk-
EMPOWER-
MENT
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taking and independent
thinking; atmosphere conducive
to dialog and questioning
Leadership: Administration that
creates and communicates a
clear vision
School Connectedness/
Engagement: Positive
identification with the
school and norms for broad
participation in school life
for students, staff, and
families.
(This sense of
identification with
the school is
related to school
connectedness but,
in my opinion, does
not capture its most
important aspect,
which is a sense of
belonging within a
community and a
neighborly
orientation towards
fellow community
members. I do not
believe that
identification
describes
engagement.) INSTI-
TUTIONAL
ENVIRON-
MENT
Physical Surroundings:
Cleanliness, order, and
appeal of facilities and
adequate resources and
materials.
(While I
acknowledge the
importance of
adequate resources
and recognize the
impact of
aesthetics and
upkeep on pride
and motivation, I
believe this
consideration is
more logistical
than cultural.
Moreover, if
respect and
ownership
pervades a
community, I
believe that the
odds of superior
upkeep increase
considerably.)
Leadership: Administration
that creates and
communicates a clear
vision, and is accessible to
and supportive of school
staff and staff
development.

STAFF
ONLY
Professional Relationships:
Positive attitudes and

(I moved these
indicators to other
areas in the table –
CONNECTION
and
EMPOWERMENT,
specifically.)
283

relationships among school
staff that support
effectively working and
learning together.

I used this schematization in order to justify my selection of safety, connection,
engagement, and empowerment as the key elements of a positive learning culture, and to
articulate the meaning of each concept.
Constructs and measures for cultural characteristics and processes. As I
considered how to systematically analyze the diverse data, all differently collected, from
this investigation’s four case studies, I consulted with scholars’ theorizations and
researchers’ validated scales. I cobbled together various instruments, some of which I
modified, in order to represent the conceptual understandings that guided this
investigation (see Appendix M).
PLAY! and/or participatory learning PD’s. Kirsten Carthew, the Project NML
team member who offered one-on-one coaching to POTB participants, offered the
following suggestions to applied researchers who take up the PLAY! method and/or its
participatory learning cause:

1. Future pilots might benefit focusing on “early adopters” rather than a general
population since early adopter teachers most fully embraced PLAY! pedagogy
and emphasized the importance of having a peer group from whom to learn and
with whom share their learning.
2. The program might consider designing practical tools that introduce participatory
learning vocabulary into teachers’, students’, and families’ vocabulary. Such tools
include (but are not limited to): stickers; handouts; teacher handbook; song; how-
to videos; exemplar PLAYground Challenges; age-appropriate games/exercises.

Out-of-school contexts. With the notable exception of Sefton-Green (2013) and
Vadeboncoeur (2006), few researchers specialize in studying “learning at not-school.” I
284

look forward to continuing to scrutinize this space and welcome fellow researchers,
especially from my own discipline of communication, to join me.
Summary

This dissertation examined four out-of-school contexts, using the same 10
research questions in order to guide inquiry across these case studies. These questions
respectively interrogated learning culture, process, and participants’ skill development.
This investigation also posed an additional research question for each case study. An
over-arching research question attempted to draw conclusions across these four case
studies by answering, “Which trends and/or relationships between/among culture, process,
and skill development does this study suggest?” Finally, this dissertation reflected on
study limitations, discussed implications of this research for communication scholars, and
suggested directions for future research. I submit that looking through a communication
lens at the works of educators and students, across school-based and not-school learning
environments, offers valuable perspective on the complex and essential endeavor of
learning.

285

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294

APPENDIX A.

Table 9.1
NML Skills Aligned with Complementary SEL Competencies and Their Hybrid
Definitions.
NML Skill SEL Competencies Hybrid Definitions
Play Social awareness, Self-
management
Utilizing resources (including one’s
environment) in order to problem
solve/overcome obstacles through a
deliberate process of observation of
progress and revision goals, akin to
experimental protocols.
Performance Social awareness Adopting alternative identities through
embracing the perspective of and
empathizing with others for the purpose
of improvisation and discovery
Appropriation Social awareness,
Responsible decision-
making
Using community resources –
specifically media content – and
ethically, respectfully sampling and
remixing
Transmedia
navigation

Multitasking Self-management Regulating one’s emotions and attention
to handle stress, control impulses,
persevere in overcoming obstacles, and
focus on salient details
Collective
intelligence
Social awareness,
Relationship skills
Recognizing family, school, and
community members and institutions as
resources, pooling knowledge and
comparing notes with others, working
cooperatively toward a common goal
within the context of healthy, rewarding
relationships
Distributed
cognition

Simulation
Visualization
Networking Self-management,
Social awareness,
Relationship skills,
Responsible decision-
making
Seeking, synthesizing, and disseminating
information by effective, safe, and
appropriate exchanges with social
communities and informational
repositories
Negotiation Social awareness;
Responsible decision-
making
Interacting with diverse communities,
discerning, respecting, and being able to
take on multiple perspectives,
recognizing and appreciating individual
295

and group similarities and differences,
grasping and following appropriate
(possibly alternative) social norms, and
contributing to the well-being of the
community.
Judgment Responsible decision-
making
Making decisions based on ethical
standards, safety concerns, respect for
others, appreciation of consequences, and
evaluation of the reliability and
credibility of different information
sources.
SOURCE: Felt, L.J. (2009). Participatory learning methodologies for enriching an
HIV/AIDS intervention to Senegalese youth: The Case for social and emotional learning
and new media literacies. Unpublished manuscript.

296

APPENDIX B.
Dissertation Research Questions

RQ1. To what extent does each learning culture support participants’ sense of
safety?
RQ2. To what extent does each learning culture support participants’ types of
connection?
RQ3. To what extent does each learning culture support participants’ sense of
engagement?
RQ4. To what extent does each learning culture support participants’ sense of
empowerment?
RQ5. How does each program’s learning process negotiate participatory
governance?
RQ6. How does each program’s learning process negotiate participatory learning?
RQ7. How does each program’s learning process negotiate playfulness?
RQ8. To what extent does participants’ skill development demonstrate
proficiency in Dynamic Appreciation?
RQ9. To what extent does participants’ skill development demonstrate
proficiency in Resource Engagement?
RQ10. To what extent does participants’ skill development demonstrate
proficiency in Respectful Negotiation?
RQ11. Across these four case studies, which trends and/or relationships
between/among culture, process, and skill development does this study suggest?
RQ12. How does the practice of NMLs and SELs relate to proficiency in digital
citizenship?
RQ13. How, if at all, does our modeling of 21
st
century learning impact
participants’ behavioral intentions to model 21
st
century learning in their own
classrooms?
RQ14. How, if at all, does participation in this program affect participants’
relationships with the NML Play?
RQ15. How, if at all, do the norms and/or practices of improv affect the
establishment of a learning culture that supports participants’ sense of safety, connection,
engagement, and/or empowerment?

297

APPENDIX C.
Cast of Characters
Project NML
Vanessa Vartabedian
Laurel Felt
Erin Reilly
Kirsten Carthew
Ritesh Mehta
Akifa Khan
(Marina Micheli)

ELED
Participants
Samantha
Neal
Andy
Jake
Kalvin
Danny
Brian
Danielle

COMM 620 Graduate Students
Stefani Relles
Neta Kliger-Vilenchik
Blake Anderson
Ioana Literat
Meryl Alper
Andrew Schrock

Summer Sandbox Participants
Week 1
Isabel (first 4 days)
Diego
Henrietta
Bettina
Ken
Katie
Nancy
Bonnie

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Week 2
Isabel (last 1 day)
Helen
Dean
Larry
Ziyi
Natalie
Frank
Jorge
Nanette
Francine
Eve
Uma

POTB
Isabel
Frank
Natalie
Nancy
Nanette
Ziyi
Helen
Larry
Ken
Katie

L4C at RFK
Ed Greenberg
Kat Primeau
----
Bart
Karlos
Stacia
Helena
Leon
Kristina
Grant
Bennett
Katie
Tina
Sara
Kim
Kaylie
299

APPENDIX D.
University of Southern California
Annenberg School of Communication

CONSENT FOR NON-MEDICAL RESEARCH
PARENTAL PERMISSION

Explore Locally, Excel Digitally High School Afterschool Program
at the Robert F. Kennedy Community Schools

Your child is invited to participate in a research study conducted by Project New Media
Literacies at the University of Southern California, because s/he is enrolled in high school
at the Robert F. Kennedy (RFK) Community Schools.

Your child’s participation is voluntary. You should read the information below, and ask
questions about anything you do not understand before deciding whether to allow your
child to participate. Please take as much time as you need to read the consent form. Your
child will also be asked his/her permission and given a form to read, which is called an
assent form. Your child can decline to participate, even if you agree to allow him/her.
You and/or your child may also decide to discuss it with your family or friends. If your
child decides to participate, you will be asked to sign this form, and your child be asked
to sign the assent form. You will be given a copy of this form.

PURPOSE OF THE STUDY
The purpose of this study is to measure the new media literacy (NML) and social-
emotional learning (SEL) skills of RFK high school students during an after-school
educational program administered by Project New Media Literacies and in collaboration
with RFK-LA (Legacy in Action).

STUDY PROCEDURES
If s/he volunteers to participate in this study, your child will be asked to:
1. Fill out a pre and post survey, which will ask questions about his / her use of internet
and media and how frequently s/he engages in certain social practices.
2. Participate in a 17-week afterschool program on Fridays from 3:30 – 5:30 at school,
where s/he will participate in online and offline activities which will measure his/her
NML / SEL skills.

POTENTIAL RISKS AND DISCOMFORTS
There are no risks from participating in this study.

POTENTIAL BENEFITS TO PARTICIPANTS AND/OR TO SOCIETY
Children will get the opportunity to take part in a fun, practical, hands-on afterschool
series of workshops that will familiarize them with the concept of media literacy.
Moreover, they will enjoy snacks, and have the chance to participate in cutting-edge
media activities, which in turn will prepare them with a digital media portfolio. Since we
are trying to measure the effectiveness of a media literacy program in an urban high
300

school, their participation in this study will also help improve future
media literacy educational initiatives, much needed in today's schools.

PAYMENT/COMPENSATION FOR PARTICIPATION
There is no compensation for your child’s participation.

CONFIDENTIALITY
Any identifiable information obtained in this study will remain confidential. When the
results of the research are published or discussed in conferences, no identifiable
information will be used.

PARTICIPATION AND WITHDRAWAL
Your child’s participation is voluntary. Their refusal to participate will involve no penalty
or loss of benefits to which you or your child are otherwise entitled. You may withdraw
your consent, and your child may draw their assent, at any time and discontinue
participation without penalty. You or your child, are not waiving any legal claims, rights
or remedies because of your child’s participation in this research study.

INVESTIGATOR’S CONTACT INFORMATION
If you have any questions or concerns about the research, please feel free to contact:
Erin Reilly
USC Annenberg
ereilly@usc.edu | 213-740-1018

RIGHTS OF RESEARCH PARTICIPANT – IRB CONTACT INFORMATION
If you have questions, concerns, or complaints about your rights as a research participant
you may contact the IRB directly at the information provided below. If you have
questions about the research and are unable to contact the research team, or if you want to
talk to someone independent of the research team, please contact the University Park IRB
(UPIRB), Office of the Vice Provost for Research Advancement, Stonier Hall, Room
224a, Los Angeles, CA 90089-1146, (213) 821-5272 or upirb@usc.edu.

SIGNATURE OF GUARDIAN
I have read the information provided above. I have been given a chance to ask questions.
My questions have been answered to my satisfaction, and I allow my child to participate
in this study. I have been given a copy of this form.

_____________________________________________
Name of Guardian

_____________________________________________ ___________________
Signature of Guardian Date

301

PHOTO/VIDEO RELEASE
I allow my child’s image to appear in photo or video form for research-related endeavors.

_____________________________________________
Name of Guardian

_____________________________________________ ___________________
Signature of Guardian Date

302

APPENDIX E.
University of Southern California
Annenberg School of Communication

ASSENT FOR NON-MEDICAL RESEARCH
FOR YOUTH

Explore Locally, Excel Digitally High School Afterschool Program
at the Robert F. Kennedy Community Schools

You are invited to participate in a research study conducted by Project New Media
Literacies at the University of Southern California, because they are enrolled in high
school at the Robert F. Kennedy (RFK) Community Schools.

Your participation is voluntary. You should read the information below, and ask
questions about anything you do not understand, before deciding whether to participate.
Your parent’s permission will be sought; however, the final decision is yours. Even if
your parents agree to your participation by signing a separate consent document, you
don’t have to participate if you don’t want to. Please take as much time as you need to
read this form. You may also decide to discuss it with your family or friends. If you agree
to participate, you will be asked to sign this form. You will be given a copy of this form.

PURPOSE OF THE STUDY
The purpose of this study is to measure the new media literacy (NML) and social /
emotional learning (SEL) skills of RFK high school students during an after-school
educational program administered by Project New Media Literacies and in collaboration
with RFK-LA (Legacy in Action).

STUDY PROCEDURES
If you volunteer to participate in this study, you will be asked to:
1. Fill out a pre and post survey, which will ask questions about your use of internet and
media and how frequently you engage in certain social practices.
2. Participate in a 17-week afterschool program on Fridays from 3:30 – 5:30 at school,
where he / she will participate in online and offline activities which will measure your
NML / SEL skills.

POTENTIAL RISKS AND DISCOMFORTS
There are no risks from participating in this study.

POTENTIAL BENEFITS TO PARTICIPANTS AND/OR TO SOCIETY
You will get the opportunity to take part in a fun practical hands-on afterschool series of
workshops which will familiarize you with the concept of media literacy. Moreover, you
will enjoy snacks, and have the chance to participate in cutting-edge media activities,
which in turn will prepare you with a digital media portfolio. Since we are trying to
measure the effectiveness of a media literacy program in an urban high school, your
303

participation in this study will also help improve future media literacy educational
initiatives, much needed in today's schools.

PAYMENT/COMPENSATION FOR PARTICIPATION
There is no compensation for your participation.

CONFIDENTIALITY
Any identifiable information obtained in this study will remain confidential. When the
results of the research are published or discussed in conferences, no identifiable
information will be used.

PARTICIPATION AND WITHDRAWAL
You can choose to be in this study or not. If you volunteer to be in the study, you may
withdraw at any time without any consequences. You may also refuse to answer any
questions you don’t want to answer and still remain in the study.

INVESTIGATOR’S CONTACT INFORMATION
If you have any questions or concerns about the research, please feel free to contact:

Erin Reilly
USC Annenberg
ereilly@usc.edu
213-740-1018

RIGHTS OF RESEARCH PARTICIPANT – IRB CONTACT INFORMATION
If you have questions, concerns, or complaints about your rights as a research participant
you may contact the IRB directly at the information provided below. If you have
questions about the research and are unable to contact the research team, or if you want to
talk to someone independent of the research team, please contact the University Park IRB
(UPIRB), Office of the Vice Provost for Research Advancement, Stonier Hall, Room
224a, Los Angeles, CA 90089-1146, (213) 821-5272 or upirb@usc.edu.

SIGNATURE OF RESEARCH PARTICIPANT

I have read the information provided above. I have been given a chance to ask questions.
My questions have been answered to my satisfaction, and I agree to participate in this
study. I have been given a copy of this form.

___________________________________________ ___________________
Name of Participant Date

___________________________________________
Signature of Participant

304

PHOTO/VIDEO RELEASE

I allow my image to appear in photo or video form for research-related endeavors.

___________________________________________ ___________________
Name of Participant Date

___________________________________________
Signature of Participant

305

APPENDIX F.
Summer Sandbox Recruitment Flyer

306

APPENDIX G.
University of Southern California
Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism | 3502 Watt Way | LA, CA 90089

INFORMATION/FACTS SHEET FOR NON-MEDICAL
RESEARCH

PLAY!: Summer Sandbox Professional Development for Los Angeles-area Educators

PURPOSE OF THE STUDY
This study investigates Los Angeles-area educators’ philosophies and practices. It
particularly examines attitudes towards and adoption of new strategies for learning,
communication, and creation. We hope this will help us to better deliver meaningful
education for the 21
st
century.

PARTICIPANT INVOLVEMENT
Research participants will be asked to complete a similar questionnaire at two points in
time -- before and after the Summer Sandbox. This questionnaire should take
approximately 20 minutes to complete. Participants in the Summer Sandbox Professional
Development will also be asked to share their impressions of their learning process.
Spoken dialogue may be recorded or jotted by a note taker, while written reflections may
be copied.

PAYMENT/COMPENSATION FOR PARTICIPATION
Research participants will not receive any payment. Members of the Summer Sandbox
Professional Development will access innovative staff, technologies, and activities in
order to enrich their professional practice. They will earn one salary point, with the
option of earning an additional salary point for ongoing participation during the academic
year. They will also be served a light breakfast and box lunch during the session’s five
days.

CONFIDENTIALITY
There will be no identifiable information obtained in connection with this study. Your
name, address or other identifiable information will not be collected. The members of the
research team, the Gates Foundation, and the University of Southern California’s Human
Subjects Protection Program (HSPP) may access the data. The HSPP reviews and
monitors research studies to protect the rights and welfare of research subjects.

INVESTIGATOR CONTACT INFORMATION
Laurel Felt; Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism, 3502 Watt Way, Los
Angeles, CA 90089; felt@usc.edu; 847.528.1350. Erin Reilly; Annenberg School for
307

Communication & Journalism, 3502 Watt Way, Los Angeles, CA 90089-0281;
ereilly@usc.edu; 207-251-1617.

IRB CONTACT INFORMATION
University Park IRB, Office of the Vice Provost for Research Advancement, Stonier Hall,
Room 224a, Los Angeles, CA 90089-1146, (213) 821-5272 or upirb@usc.edu

308

APPENDIX H.
Summer Sandbox Application Questions

1. What specifically attracted you to this professional development program?
2. What do you hope to gain from participating in the Summer Sandbox?
3. You will be working with a diverse group of individuals (educators, students,
parents, neighbors) in a creative and collaborative community. Please tell us what
“community” means to you.
4. Tell us something new or different you wish would happen in each of the following
spaces:
a. your classroom.
b. your school.
c. the RFK community.
d. the neighborhood surrounding RFK Community Schools
5. What do you feel you would contribute to this program (such as personal qualities,
ideas, and/or interests)?
6. Any additional comments?
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APPENDIX I.
Summer Sandbox Baseline Survey

Digital Participation
Do you have a computer at home? Y/N

Do you have internet at home? Y/N

How many hours per week do you generally spend:
a. On the internet:
i. for school or work
ii. in your free time
b. Watching TV (via television set, not online)
c. Reading print (books, magazines or print newspapers)
d. Playing digital games (online, on your cell phone, on PlayStation, Wii,
Xbox etc.)

NML Attitude
[Slider as question type, 0-10, polar labels = Not at all, Extremely]

I enjoy…

… taking things apart and then putting them back together to find out how they work.

… putting myself in other people’s shoes to understand their problems or situations.

… playing the role of someone whose perspectives are different from my own.

… applying parts of media and pop culture to new contexts, like identifying people
according to their TV character types (e.g., “She’s the Carrie Bradshaw in my group of
friends” or “He turns into Archie Bunker at home”), writing a short story based on a
character in my favorite book, remixing music, or mashing up video.

… using tools like spell check, a calculator, or an encyclopedia to help me in my learning
or work.

… juggling tasks, like writing a report as I schedule a dentist appointment and joke on IM.

… sharing tips with and getting recommendations from lots of people.

… evaluating information from several sources (like TV, radio, the internet, various
people) to try to get the full picture.

… keeping up with topics I care about in multiple ways, like reading newspapers,
watching videos, monitoring RSS feeds, and chatting with peers.

310

… connecting people with helpful resources, like sharing interesting links on Twitter or
introducing like-minded folks.

…interacting with diverse others, either online or face-to-face.

…learning from images, graphs, diagrams, and other visual tools.

NML Practice
[Slider, take numbers off; Labels:
Never or almost never (0-3 times per year)
Rarely (about once every two months)
Sometimes (about once a month)
Often (about twice a month)
Constantly (about once a week)
Daily]

I learn about things by watching what happens when I play with them. Examples:
pushing all of the buttons on a new cell phone to see what they do; experimenting with
ingredients to discover if they improve a dish.

I participate in simulations of real-world processes. Examples: playing a mission-based
game, like flying an aircraft or solving a murder mystery; engaging in scenario planning,
emergency drills, mock trial, or Model UN.

I take on different identities in order to experience something new or to solve a problem.
Examples: varying my profile information depending on social networking site role-
playing in online games and theatre exercises.

I incorporate other people’s public work into my own creative products. Examples:
making an art collage; writing fan fiction; mixing music tracks; stringing together video
clips.

I use tools from my surroundings in order to work smarter. Examples: using a calculator,
spell check, or an encyclopedia; asking an expert.

I work on several things at once, often when other things are happening around me.
Examples: toggling between windows on the computer; focusing on a project even if
there is music and chatter in the background.

I access others’ ideas and work, as well as share my own, in order to solve problems.
Examples: contributing to Wikipedia, Yelp, and/or neighborhood committees;
participating in team games and/or fan communities.

I effectively determine the reliability and credibility of different information sources.
Examples: identifying prejudice or bias in a media product or speaker’s message;
deciding which results from an online search will be the most useful.
311

I follow stories and pursue information (like breaking news, favorite TV shows/movies,
or community events) across different platforms and media. Examples: going online to
learn more about something shown on TV; reading a book and watching its movie
adaptation.

I seek out and pass along information within my network. Examples: posting links on
Facebook and Twitter; updating friends on mutual acquaintances’ latest news.

I encounter members of diverse communities, learn about their perspectives, and respect
their ways. Examples: observing how people interact in World of Warcraft and joining in
smoothly; attending a different culture’s ceremony and discovering how to engage
appropriately.

I understand and represent information visually. Examples: using GoogleMaps and
GoogleEarth; creating images, graphs, and diagrams.

Self-Efficacy: NML and Civic Engagement

Different activities are listed below. Indicate how confident you are that you can do them
as of now. Rate your degree of confidence by selecting a number from 0 to 10 using the
scales given below:

Experiment with my surroundings as a form of problem-solving
[0-10 slider, labels = 0 (Cannot do at all), 50 (Moderately certain can do,
10 (Highly certain can do)]
Interpret and construct dynamic models of real-world processes
[0-10 slider]
Adopt alternative identities for the purpose of improvisation and discovery
[0-10 slider]
Meaningfully sample and remix media content
[0-10 slider]
Interact meaningfully with tools that expand mental capacities
[0-10 slider]
Scan my environment and shift focus as needed to salient details
[0-10 slider]
Pool knowledge and compare notes with others toward a common goal
[0-10 slider]
Evaluate the reliability and credibility of different information sources
[0-10 slider]
Follow the flow of stories and information across multiple modalities
[0-10 slider]
Search for, synthesize, and disseminate information
[0-10 slider]

312

Travel across diverse communities, discerning and respecting multiple perspectives, and
grasping and following alternative norms
[0-10 slider]
Translate information into visual models and understand the information communicated
by visual models
[0-10 slider]
Make a difference in my teaching team
[0-10 slider]
Make a difference in my school community
[0-10 slider]
Make a difference in the wider community in which my school is embedded
[0-10 slider]
Make a difference in the LAUSD school system
[0-10 slider]

Classroom digital media
How comfortable are you… [Not at all 0 -- Extremely 10]

… using digital media to develop curriculum?
… using digital media to implement curriculum?
… with students using digital media to respond to curriculum?

How do you currently incorporate digital media into your classroom?

How do you perceive the costs-versus-benefits of bringing digital media into your
classroom?

What support would you appreciate, if any, around bringing digital media into your
classroom?

Recognize and respond to core debates
How familiar are you with each of the following: [Not at all 0 -- Extremely 10]

… media literacy?
… the New Media Literacies framework?
… participatory learning?

In your own words, how would you explain media literacy?

In your own words, how would you explain the New Media Literacies framework?

In your own words, how would you explain participatory learning?

How do you currently incorporate participatory learning into your classroom?

How do you perceive the costs-versus-benefits of participatory learning?
313

What support, if any, would you appreciate around bringing participatory learning into
your classroom?

Theoretical understandings and curriculum
Please rank the relative importance of each function of your curriculum from 1 to 10,
with 1 being most important and 10 being least important. For you, how important is it
that your curriculum…

… incorporates meaningful play and experimentation?
… models the format of standardized tests?
… addresses students’ identities and interests?
… utilizes the same books and/or activities as fellow teachers?
… extends opportunities for creating and solving problems using a variety of media, tools
and practices?
… complements students’ work in other subjects?
… enables and encourages connections between home, school, community, and world?
… requires modest resources in order to execute, both in the classroom and outside of
school?
…allows students and teachers to join in the tasks of teaching and learning?
… other (specify)

Demographic Information
Did you participate in the Summer Sandbox?

Did you participate in Playing Outside the Box?

Did you participate in any Play On! Workshops?

If so, which one(s)?

Employer/workplace:

What is the composition of the students with whom you work?
X-axis: None (0%); Some (1-20%); Moderate (21-40%); About Half (41-60%); Many
(61-80%); Most (81-99%); All (100%)
· Low-Income
· Technologically Advanced
· English Learners
· Standard English Learners
· Special Education Students
· Culturally Diverse Students
· Gifted and Talented Students
314

Years in the education profession: [drop down]

Educational background: Some college/Associates Degree/Bachelors Degree/Masters
Degree/PhD/EdD/Other (specify)

Primary language spoken at home: English/Spanish/Korean/Chinese/Russian/Other
(specify)

Sex: M/F

Ethnicity: White/Hispanic/African-American/Asian/Native American/Pacific
Islander/Other

Age: [drop down]

Name:

315

APPENDIX J.
University of Southern California
Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism
3502 Watt Way
LA, CA 90089

INFORMATION SHEET FOR NON-MEDICAL RESEARCH

PLAY!: Professional Development Pilot

PURPOSE OF THE STUDY
This study investigates Los Angeles-area educators’ philosophies and practices. It
particularly examines attitudes towards and adoption of new strategies for learning,
communication, and creation. We hope this will help us to better deliver meaningful
education for the 21
st
century, particularly in terms of participatory learning and
participatory models of professional development. Your participation is voluntary.

Completion of the study activities will constitute consent to participate in this
research project.

PARTICIPANT INVOLVEMENT
If you agree to participate, you will be asked to do some or all of the following:

4 hours - Read Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education
for the 21st Century, Henry Jenkins with Ravi Purushotma, Margaret Weigel, Katie
Clinton, and Alice J. Robinson, (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2009).
It is encouraged to start discussions on this wiki as to how you see this work relating to
the concepts and practices of PLAY!, in addition to any other things that come up for you
that you'd like to share, or have dialogue around.

8 hours - Play On! Programs (Contact person Vanessa Vartabedian)
You can choose from any of the Play On! programs to participate in during the fall. You
may participate in one or more workshops of your choosing, however only 8 hours will
count toward your course credit. These workshops will be held after-school and on
Saturdays and vary in length and frequency. Programs will include a variety of lo/no tech,
as well as high tech programs with a collective theme of civic engagement through
storytelling that emphasize ways in which you and your students can work toward a more
participatory approach of learning. PLAY! researchers may be present during some
sessions to document activities.

316

4 hours - One-on-One's with PLAY! Researcher (Contact Kirsten Carthew)
During the fall semester, you will have the opportunity for advisory time with one of our
program researchers on an ongoing basis. This support is intended to facilitate the
sustainability of educators’ efforts and goals set during the Summer Sandbox, to provide
guidance with implementation of those goals and inform our research on participatory
learning. This correspondence can occur via email, Skype, phone or in person depending
on schedules / availability. These sessions will be documented using various multi-media
tools. This researcher will administer a midpoint interview and ask you to complete a
final evaluation.

5 hours - Peer/Self-Assessment Video (Contact person Akifa Khan and Chris
Tokuhama)
You will be asked to videotape yourself teaching a lesson/activity in their classroom
which incorporates one or more of the participatory practices explored during the
Summer Sandbox. The goal of these videos will be to observe and reflect on how you and
other teachers are implementing these practices and skills, and your efficacy in doing so.
By commenting on each other's videos, you will be given the opportunity to provide
valuable feedback to one another, and when annotating your own video, you should
reflect on your process and post-observations regarding the success or needs-
improvement. Direction for uploading and commenting are located on
the Vimeo homepage. Please schedule a deadline with Akifa for submitting your video,
and provide feedback via commenting to at least two other teachers.

15 hours – The Playground (alpha testing) (Contact person Vanessa Vartabedian)
The Playground is an open-content, open-knowledge online system that encourages both
adults and youth alike to discover, learn and teach each other.

During these 15 hours you will be required to:
• develop an online challenge in the Playground that encourages participatory learning -
and implement it in your classroom
• create a second challenge that reflects on and adapts the first challenge based on
inmplementation
• attend two Playground Focus group session at the USC Annenberg Innovation Lab on the
following dates/times:
o Focus Group 1: Monday, Oct. 3 from 4:30 pm - 6 pm
o Focus Group 2: Thursday, Nov. 3 from 4:30 pm - 6 pm
• complete challenges built by other teachers and provide feedback by commenting within
the challenge and participating in "your turn"s
• provide feedback or ask questions about using the platform

In order to support your efforts to use the Playground as a valuable learning strategy in
your classrooms, we will offer monthly support this fall at the RFK-LAb to assist in your
conceptual and/or practical needs. The sessions will be held on the following dates
(optional):
• Thursday, Oct. 27 - 3:30 pm - 5:30 pm
• Thursday, Nov. 17 - 3:30 pm - 5:30 pm
317

4 hours – PLAY! Retreat (Sat. Dec 3rd, 8:30am-12:30pm) (Contact person Vanessa
Vartabedian)
All participants from the Summer Sandbox and Playing Outside the Box PD Extension
will meet for one last session to share classroom experiences, discuss sustainability, plan
for next steps and test the Playground usability. All will be encouraged to maintain
asynchronous collaboration and to provide ongoing feedback and support for one another.
By mid-January, you will be asked to complete a 30-minute post-survey.

1. 15 hours - Sustainability - Participants agree to develop and implement a plan that
allows for sustaining the work they have started and to spread it to their peers through
either a) professional development at their schools, b) regular meetings with other
educators from their grade or content focus to develop ways they can implement the
PLAY! approach, or c) both. You will present your plan for feedback and discussion at
the December 3rd retreat.
2. 4 hours - Other forms of PLAY! - Your time outside of these requirements to take up
the PLAY! philosophy and practices and share your experiences via photos, video, lesson
plans or blogging.
3. 1 hour - Classroom Observation participation

PAYMENT/COMPENSATION FOR PARTICIPATION
You will be eligible to receive $1000 and 2 salary points for your participation. Members
of the PLAY! Professional Development Pilot will access innovative staff, technologies,
and activities in order to enrich their professional practice.

CONFIDENTIALITY
Any identifiable information obtained in connection with this study will remain
confidential and will be disclosed only with your permission or as required by law.
Data will be coded with a code or false name and will be stored on a secure online
repository for five years and then destroyed.

The members of the research team, the Gates Foundation, and the University of Southern
California’s Human Subjects Protection Program (HSPP) may access the data. The HSPP
reviews and monitors research studies to protect the rights and welfare of research
subjects.

When the results of the research are published or discussed in conferences, no identifiable
information will be used.

ALTERNATIVES TO PARTICIPATION
Your alternative is to not participate in this study. Your relationship with your institution
or USC will not be affected, whether or not you participate in this study.

318

INVESTIGATOR CONTACT INFORMATION
Laurel Felt; Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism, 3502 Watt Way, Los
Angeles, CA 90089; felt@usc.edu; 847.528.1350. Erin Reilly; Annenberg School for
Communication & Journalism, 3502 Watt Way, Los Angeles, CA 90089-0281;
ereilly@usc.edu; 207-251-1617.

IRB CONTACT INFORMATION
University Park IRB, Office of the Vice Provost for Research Advancement, Stonier Hall,
Room 224a, Los Angeles, CA 90089-1146, (213) 821-5272 or upirb@usc.edu

319

APPENDIX K.
Kirsten Carthew’s POTB Report

1. One-on-one support is useful. It is easiest for teachers to access when there is only
one contact person (versus multiple staff with confusing, overlapping roles).
2. Despite the growth that occurred during the Summer Sandbox, many POTB
participants’ initial goals focused on multimedia literacy and technology know-
how, and traditional assessment models (rather than new media literacy, just-in-
time technology know-how, and innovative assessment models).
3. Future pilots might benefit focusing on “early adopters” rather than a general
population since early adopter teachers most fully embraced PLAY! pedagogy
and emphasized the importance of having a peer group from whom to learn and
with whom share their learning.
4. All of the teachers shared their discomfort with risk-taking and spearheading new
ways of working that required they “let go” of a need to be seen (by students and
by themselves) as experts. These teachers described their POTB process as
consisting of increasing their confidence, resiliency, and willingness to
experiment – or play – more in their practice.
5. Not everything went smoothly, but by the end of the program, teachers had gained
confidence in their understanding of the NMLs and especially the 4 Cs. All of the
teachers seemed genuinely appreciative of their learning. Even those who were
less enthusiastic described the pilot as a positive experience overall with solid
takeaways.
6. Many of the teachers did not want their classrooms to be watched, either by
physical visitors or by virtual observers of videotaped lessons. In the future, the
program might consider requiring the coach to take care of the video camera
arrangements, recording and uploading of the footage.
7. While the culture of each participant’s school was different, every teacher
appeared to work independently and/or lean on select peers for support; this
suggests that teachers (or at least those who self-selected for POTB) primarily
work in isolation. Therefore, this type of professional development is potentially
quite valuable by virtue of its rarity, but it also presents a challenge since teachers
might lack the mechanisms and habits for collaboration.
8. For many teachers, accessing digital technology is either impossible (due to its
absence) or difficult (due to its scarcity, age, or entanglement in administrative
red tape); this militates against incorporating digital technology (but not popular
culture or analog media) into curricula.
9. The program might consider designing practical tools that introduce participatory
learning vocabulary into teachers’, students’, and families’ vocabulary. Such tools
include (but are not limited to): stickers; handouts; teacher handbook; song; how-
to videos; exemplar PLAYground Challenges; age-appropriate games/exercises.

320

APPENDIX L.
L4C End-of-semester Interview Questions

1. What have you enjoyed about improv workshop?
2. How, if at all, do you think you’ve changed from the first day of improv
workshop to today?
3. What goals do you have for next semester in improv workshop?
4. What would you change about improv workshop—to improve it or just to switch
it up— next semester?

321

APPENDIX M.
Scale Development for Measuring Variables of Interest

Relatedness
(Van den Broeck, Vansteenkiste, De Witte, Soenens, & Lens, 2010, p. 991)
– 1 = totally disagree, 5 = totally agree
*1. I don’t really feel connected with other people at my job.
2. At work, I feel part of a group.
*3. I don’t really mix with other people at my job.
4. At work, I can talk with people about things that really matter to me.
*5. I often feel alone when I am with my colleagues.
6. Some people I work with are close friends of mine.

Student Emotional Interest
(Mazer, 2012, p. 108)
9. The class experience feels very positive.

Teacher-Student
(Pope, 2010, p. 7)
How many of your teachers…
1. Care about you?
2. Value and listen to the students' ideas?
3. Are willing to help with homework?
4. Get to know the students personally?

Teacher-Student
(Bridgeland, Dilulio & Morison, 2006, p. 5)
Can you go to a staff person for school problems?
Do you have someone in school to talk to about personal problems?
Does your school need to do more to help students with problems outside of class?
Do you have in your life a staff member or teacher who cares about your success?

Self-compassion
(Neff, 2003a, p. 89)
(a) self-kindness—extending kindness and understanding to oneself rather than harsh
judgment and self-criticism,
(b) common humanity—seeing one’s experiences as part of the larger human experience
rather than seeing them as separating and isolating, and
(c) mindfulness—holding one’s painful thoughts and feelings in balanced awareness
rather than over-identifying with them

322

Shame Resilience
(Brown, 2006, pp. 48-49)
1. acknowledging personal vulnerabilities;
2. raising critical awareness of how social/cultural expectations shape and narrowly
define their experiences;
3. reaching out to others to both find and offer empathy; and
4. developing fluency in the language of shame

The Wholehearteds’ Gifts of Imperfection
(Brown, 2010)
1. Cultivating Authenticity: Letting Go of What People Think
2. Cultivating Self-Compassion: Letting Go of Perfectionism
3. Cultivating a Resilient Spirit: Letting Go of Numbing and Powerlessness
4. Cultivating Gratitude and Joy: Letting Go of Scarcity and Fear of the Dark
5. Cultivating Intuition and Trusting Faith: Letting Go of the Need for Certainty
6. Cultivating Creativity: Letting Go of Comparison
7. Cultivating Play and Rest: Letting Go of Exhaustion as a Status Symbol and
Productivity as Self-Worth
8. Cultivating Calm and Stillness: Letting Go of Anxiety as a Lifestyle
9. Cultivating Meaningful Work: Letting Go of Self-Doubt and “Supposed To”
10. Cultivating Laughter, Song, and Dance: Letting Go of Being Cool and “Always in
Control”

Engagement
(Mazer, 2012, p. 109)
1. Listened attentively to the instructor during class.
2. Gave your teacher your full attention during class.
3. Listened attentively to your classmates’ contributions during class discussions.
4. Attended class.
5. Participated during class discussions by sharing your thoughts/opinions.
6. Orally (verbally) participated during class discussions.
7. Thought about how you can utilize the course material in your everyday life.
8. Thought about how the course material related to your life.
9. Thought about how the course material will benefit you in your future career.
10. Reviewed your notes outside of class.
11. Studied for a test or quiz.
12. Talked about the course materials with others outside of class.
13. Took it upon yourself to read additional material in the course topic area.

Student Emotional Interest
(Mazer, 2012, p. 108)
I am interested in this class because…
1. I feel enthused about being in this class.
2. The class makes me feel excited.
323

3. The class causes me to feel energized.
4. The topics covered in the course fascinate me.
5. Being in the class is enjoyable.
6. The class experience makes me feel good.
7. The material fascinates me.
8. I like the things we cover in class.
9. The class experience feels very positive.

1. The tasks required of me in this class are personally meaningful.
2. I look forward to going to this class.
3. This class is exciting.
4. This class is boring.

Student Cognitive Interest
(Mazer, 2012, p. 108)
10. I can remember the course material.
11. I feel like I am learning topics covered in the course.
12. I can understand the flow of ideas.
13. I understand the course material.
14. The information covered in the course is making me more knowledgeable.
15. The information in the course is useful.
16. I realize what is expected of me.

5. This class is interesting.

Teacher Immediacy – Non-verbal
(Richmond, McCroskey & Johnson, 2003, p. X)
-- 1 = never, 5 = very often
1. I use my hands and arms to gesture while talking to people.
2. I touch others on the shoulder or arm while talking to them.
*3. I use a monotone or dull voice while talking to people.
*4. I look over or away from others will talking to them.
*5. I move away from others when they touch me while we are talking.
6. I have a relaxed body position when I talk to people.
*7. I frown while talking to people.
*8. I avoid eye contact while talking to people.
*9. I have a tense body position while talking to people.
10. I sit or stand close to people while talking with them.
*11. My voice is monotonous or dull when I talk to people.
12. I use a variety of vocal expressions when I talked to people.
13. I gesture when I talk to people.
14. I am animated when I talk to people.
*15. I have a bland facial expression when I talk to people.
16. I move closer to people when I talk to them.
17. I look directly at people while talking to them.
*18. I am stiff when I talk to people.
324

19. I have a lot of vocal variety when I talk to people.
*20. I avoid gesturing while I am talking to people.
21. I lean toward people when I talk to them.
22. I maintain eye contact with people when I talk to them.
*23. I try not to sit or stand close to people when I talk with them.
*24. I lean away from people when I talk to them.
25. I smile when I talk to people.
*26. I avoid touching people when I talk to them.

Teacher Immediacy – Non-verbal
(Gorham, 1988, p. 44)
*21. Sits behind desk while teaching.
22. Gestures while talking to class.
*23. Uses monotone/dull voice when talking to class.
24. Looks at class while talking.
25. Smiles at the class as a whole, not just individual students.
*26. Has a very tense body position while talking to the class.
27. Touches students in the class.
28. Moves around the classroom while teaching.
*29. Sits on a desk or in a chair while teaching.
*30. Looks at the board or notes while talking to the class.
31. Stands behind podium or desk while teaching.
*32. Has a very relaxed body position while talking to the class.
33. Smiles at individual students in the class.
34. Uses a variety of vocal expressions while talking to the class.

Teacher Immediacy – Verbal
(Gorham, 1988, p. 44)
1. Uses personal examples or talks about experiences she/he has had outside of class.
2. Asks questions or encourages students to talk.
3. Gets into discussions based on something a student brings up even when this doesn’t
seem to be part of his/her lecture plan.
4. Uses humor in class.
5. Addresses students by name.
6. Addresses me by name.
7. Gets into conversations with individual students before or after class.
8. Has initiated conversations with me before, after or outside of class.
*9. Refers to class as “my” class or what “I” am doing.
10. Refers to class as “our” class or what “we” are doing.
11. Provides feedback on my individual work through comments on papers, oral
discussions, etc.
12. Calls o*n students to answer questions even if they have not indicated that they want
to talk.
13. Asks how students feel about an assignment, due date or discussion topic.
14. Invites students to telephone or meet with him/her outside of class if they have
questions or want to discuss something.
325

*15. Asks questions that have specific, correct answers.
16. Asks questions that solicit viewpoints or opinions.
17. Praises students’ work, actions, or comments.
*18. Criticizes or points out faults in students’ work, actions, or comments.
19. Will have discussions about things unrelated to class with individual students or with
the class as a whole.
20. Is addressed by his/her first name by the students.

Teacher Clarity
(Titsworth et al., 2004, p. 30)
– 1 = strongly disagree, 5 = strongly agree
1. The teacher verbally stresses important issues presented in the lecture.
2. Written examples of topics covered in the lecture were provided to the class in the
form of handouts or visual materials (e.g., powerpoint, overheads, or chalkboard).
3. The organization of the lecture was given to me in written form, either on paper or as a
part of a visual aid like an overhead or the chalkboard.
4. The teacher tells us what definitions, explanations, or conclusions are important to
make note of.
5. The teacher explains how we are supposed to see relationships between topics covered
in lecture.
6. The teacher provides us with written descriptions of the most important things in the
lecture.
7. The teacher explains when she/he is presenting something that is important for us to
know.
8. The teacher provides us with written or visual definitions, explanations, or conclusions
of topics covered in lecture.
9. The teacher verbally identifies examples that illustrate concepts we are supposed to
learn from the lecture.
10. Written explanations of how ideas in the lecture fit together are presente don the
chalkboard, overhead, powerpoint, or in handouts.
11. The teacher explains when he/she is providing an important definition or explanation
of a concept.
12. Handouts, the chalkboard, overheads, or powerpoint is used to emphasize important
issues addressed in the lecture.

Shame as a Management Tool
(Brown, 2012, pp. 174-175)

1. What behaviors are rewarded? Punished?
2. Where and how are people actually spending their resources (time, money, attention)?
3. What rules and expectations are followed, enforced, and ignored?
5. What are the sacred cows? Who is most likely to tip them? Who stands the cows back
up?
6. What stories are legend and what values do they convey?

326

4. Do people feel safe and supported talking about how they feel and asking for what they
need?
7. What happens when someone fails, disappoints, or makes a mistake?
8. How is vulnerability (uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure) perceived?
9. How prevalent are shame and blame and how are they showing up?
10. What’s the collective tolerance for discomfort? Is the discomfort of learning, trying
new things, and giving and receiving feedback normalized, or is there a high premium put
on comfort (and how does that look)?

Meaningfulness
(Frymier, Shulman, & Houser, 1996, p. 192)
1. The tasks required of me in this class are personally meaningful.
2. I look forward to going to this class.
3. This class is exciting.
4. This class is boring.
5. This class is interesting.
6. The tasks required of me in this class are valuable to me.
7. The information in this class is useful.
8. This course will help me achieve my future goals
9. The tasks required in this course are a waste of my time.
10. This class is not important to me.

Relevance
(Frymier & Shulman, 1995, p. 46)
0 = never, 4 = very often
1. Uses examples to make the content relevant to me.
2. Provides explanations that make the content relevant to me.
3. Uses exercises or explanations that demonstrate the importance of the content.
4. Explicitly states how the material relates to my career goals or to my life in general.
5. Links content to other areas of content.
6. Asks me to apply content to my own interests.
7. Gives assignments that involve the application of the content to my career interests.
8. Helps me to understand the importance of the content.
9. Uses own experiences to introduce or demonstrate a concept.
10. Uses student experiences to demonstrate or introduce a concept.
11. Uses discussion to help me understand the relevance of the topic.
12. Uses current events when teaching a topic.

Relevance
(Bridgeland, Dilulio & Morison, 2006, p. 5)
Opportunities for real-world learning
Experiential learning
Help students to see the connection between school and getting a good job.

327

Impact
(Frymier, Shulman, & Houser, 1996, p. 192)

1. I have the power to make a difference in how things are done in this class.
2. I have a choice in the methods I can use to perform my work.
3. My participation is important to the success of this class.
4. I have freedom to choose among options in this class.
5. I can make an impact on the way things are run in this class.
6. Alternative approaches to learning are encouraged in this class.
7. I have the opportunity to contribute to the learning of others in this class.
8. I have the opportunity to make important decisions in this class.
*9. I cannot influence what happens in this class.
10. I have the power to create a supportive learning environment in this class.
*11. My contribution to this class makes no difference.
12. I can determine how tasks can be performed.
13. I make a difference in the learning that goes on in this class.
*14. I have no freedom to choose in this class.
15. I can influence the instructor.
16. I feel appreciated in this class.

Autonomy
(Van den Broeck, Vansteenkiste, De Witte, Soenens, & Lens, 2010, p. 991)
– 1 = totally disagree, 5 = totally agree
1. I feel like I can be myself at my job.
*2. At work, I often feel like I have to follow other people’s commands.
*3. If I could choose, I would do things at work differently.
4. The tasks I have to do at work are in line with what I really want to do.
5. I feel free to do my job the way I think it could best be done.
*6. In my job, I feel forced to do things I do not want to do.

Competence
(Frymier, Shulman, & Houser, 1996, p. 192)
1. I feel confident that I can adequately perform my duties.
2. I feel intimidated by what is required of me in this class.
3. I possess the necessary skills to perform successfully in class.
4. I feel unable to do the work in this class.
5. I believe that I am capable of achieving my goals in this class.
6. I have faith in my ability to do well in this class.
7. I have the qualifications to succeed in this class.
8. I lack confidence in my ability to perform the tasks in this class.
9. I feel very competent in this class.

Competence
(Van den Broeck, Vansteenkiste, De Witte, Soenens, & Lens, 2010, p. 991)
– 1 = totally disagree, 5 = totally agree
*1. I don’t really feel competent in my job
328

2. I really master my tasks at my job.
3. I feel competent at my job.
*4. I doubt whether I am able to execute my job properly.
5. I am good at the things I do in my job.
6. I have the feeling that I can even accomplish the most difficult tasks at work.

Abstract (if available)

Abstract This dissertation examines four out-of-school learning contexts, using the same 10 research questions pertaining to culture, process, and skills in order to guide inquiry across these case studies. In terms of culture, this dissertation argues that safety, connection, engagement and empowerment are the four most important characteristics to scrutinize. In terms of process, this dissertation looks at participatory governance, participatory learning, and playfulness. And in terms of skills, this dissertation analyzes according to the original, multi-faceted constructs of Dynamic Appreciation, Resource Engagement, and Respectful Negotiation. This investigation also poses an additional research question for each case study, reviewing a unique feature of each experience. Collectively, this dissertation seeks to discover trends and/or relationships between/among culture, process, and skill development. I submit that looking through a communication lens at the works of educators and students, across school-based and out-of-school learning environments, offers valuable perspectives on the complex and essential endeavor of learning.

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Asset Metadata

Creator Felt, Laurel Jeanne (author)

Core Title Towards 21st century learning: culture, process, and skills

School Annenberg School for Communication

Degree Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Program Communication

Publication Date 11/04/2014

Defense Date 09/05/2014

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag 21st century learning,improvisation,new media literacies,OAI-PMH Harvest,out-of-school,play

Format application/pdf (imt)

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Jenkins, Henry (committee chair), Kuhn, Virginia (committee member), Riley, Patricia (committee member)

Creator Email felt@usc.edu,laurelfelt@gmail.com

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c3-514273

Unique identifier UC11297649

Identifier etd-FeltLaurel-3062.pdf (filename),usctheses-c3-514273 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-FeltLaurel-3062.pdf

Dmrecord 514273

Document Type Dissertation

Format application/pdf (imt)

Rights Felt, Laurel Jeanne

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the a...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 2810, 3434 South Grand Avenue, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, California 90089-2810, USA