Positive Psychology as

Second Nature

Katie JenningsFielding Graduate University

December 2010

Second Nature

A positive schooling center and a positive youth development program propose to collaborate to train after-school program staff to deliver environmental science education.

Because science “reflects the nature of hope,” (Snyder & Lopez’s 2007) and community-based projects create a “sense of belonging” (Adler, in Niemiec & Wedding 2008).

Positive Schooling:IslandWood

IslandWood reflects Snyder & Lopez’s (2007) theory of the “positive schoolhouse,” laying a foundation of caring, trust and respect for diversity, creating goals and plans, model motivation and hope, and allow students to contribute to society.

A Positive Place for Kids: Boys and Girls Clubs of King County

BGCKC specializes in many of the elements of positive youth development cited by Snyder & Lopez (2007), including promoting social and moral competencies, building beliefs in the future, and establishing prosocial norms.

Second Nature Project Elements

Blended courses Face to face, online, mentoring

Resources Wiki, videos

Assessment Outside evaluators, documentary film

Why this project design?

Blended Courses

Because a combination of in-person and online training elements are more effective than either one separately (U.S. Department of Education, 2007).

Face to face trainings

Because online learning environments are effective when there is a strong face-to-face component (Rudestam & Schoenholtz-Read, 2010).

Online assignments and community-building

Because “asynchronous dialogue… allows for a reflective exchange of ideas” (Wildflower, 2010.)

In person mentoring

Because “through the mentor relationship, both the mentor and the novice teachers are part of building professional learning communities, and mentors who participate in their own professional learning contribute to developing the leadership capacity within the school and sustaining a focus on continuous improvement,” (Loucks-Housley, et al 2010)

Wiki

Because the project should “build the commons through the collectivity culture,” and be a “mechanism to harvest, accumulate, and distribute locally created educational assets, pedagogical innovations, and wisdom of practice in a manner that can be reused effectively in different local contexts.” (Iioyoshi et al, 2008).

Video: The Warmup Dance

Because Bandura’s Social Learning Theory posits that people learn from one another through imitation and modeling (Crain, 2005).

Video: Community Web

Because pictures of successful program delivery are likely to encourage program staff that they can also perform the lessons well, which may make them more likely to take on difficult tasks and persist when things don’t go right the first time (Bandura, 1977).

Assessment

Because formative, ongoing, and summative research by Inverness Research will afford continuous improvement and provide the research backbone for the documentary film, “Second Nature.”

“Second Nature:” Documentary Film

Because research on youth motivation has found that young people often discussed the positive impact that documentaries had on motivating them toward life purposes (Price-Mitchell, 2010)

But really, why bother?

Because, “the unalterable fact is that our being will forever remain part of the warp and woof of what is. The more psychic energy we invest in the future of life, the more we become a part of it.” (Csikszentmihalyi, 1997)

References Page 1

http://www.positiveplace.org/

http://vimeo.com/islandwood/albums

http://www.youtube.com/user/IslandWoodMedia?feature=mhum

http://edwiki.islandwood.org/index.php?title=Main_Page

Bandura, A. , Self-efficacy: Toward a Unifying Theory of Behavioral Change, Psychological Review 1977, Vol. 84, No. 2

Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1997) Finding Flow: The Psychology of Engagement with Everyday Life. New York: Basic Books.

References Page 2 Loucks-Housley, Stiles, Mundry, Love & Hewson. (2010). Designing

Professional Development for Teachers of Science and Mathematics. Thousand Oaks CA: Corwin

Neimic, R. and Wedding, D. (2008) Positive Psychology at the Movies: Using Film to Build Virtures and Character Strengths. Hogrefe & Huber: Cambridge, MA

Rudestam, K.E. & Schoenholtz-Read, J.S. (2010) Handbook of Online Learning, 2nd Edition. Thousand Oaks, California: Sage Publications.

Snyder, C.R. & Lopez, S.J. (2007). Positive Psychology: The Scientific and Practical Exploration of Human Strengths. Thousand Oaks, California: Sage Publications.

U.S. Department of Education (2007) The Power of the Internet for Learning: Report of the Web-Based Education Commission to the President and the Congress of the United States. Washington D.C.

Wildflower, L. (2009). Teaching Professionals to be Effective Online Facilitators and Instructors. In K. Rudestam and J. Schoenholtz-Read (Eds.), Handbook of Online Learning, 2nd Edition. London: Sage.