On Digital Literacy Frameworks

Here is how I see the articulation among the following three knowledge constructs we delved into this week in the Seminar in Digital Literacy (Graduate Certificate in Digital Literacy, URI). TPACK (Koehler & Mishra, 2008) is the framework, the larger knowledge construct that undergirds the Grounded Approach to Technology Integration (Harris & Hofer, 2009), which is further operationalized into the Technology Integration Planning Cycle (Hutchinson & Woodward, 2014).

What TPACK does brilliantly is capture the complexity of the knowledge of good teachers (Shulman, 1986). It identifies the knowledge components (pedagogical, technological, and content knowledge) but it goes beyond; it explores the intersections among them, which is where good teaching practices are situated. However, TPACK is a theoretical framework which does not serve teachers in planning their instruction. We therefore need to articulate an approach to technology integration, more specifically one that is grounded in content, pedagogy, and how teachers plan instruction (Harris & Hofer, 2009). It proposes five basic steps to planning instruction:

  1. Choose learning goals
  2. Make pedagogical decisions
  3. Select activity types to combine
  4. Select assessment strategies
  5. Select tools/resources

What I found most useful in this approach is the continua of eight pedagogical decisions that teachers need to make to plan a learning event. They are captured in the following questions:

  1. Will the learning experience be more teacher centered or more student centered?
  2. Should students develop similar understandings (via convergent learning) or draw their own conclusions (via divergent learning)? Should the learning be more hands-on or more abstract?
  3. Are students’ prior knowledge and experiences less relevant or more relevant for the learning to unfold?
  4. Do the curriculum standards defined for the learning event require surface comprehension or deep knowledge construction?
  5. How much time will be needed relative to the depth of understanding (4) required? Will it require a shorter duration or a longer duration plan for learning, in and out of the classroom?
  6. Considering all of the above, plus students’ specific and general strengths and challenges relative to the planned activity, is more or less structured learning more appropriate?
  7. What should be the learner configuration(s) to best assist learning in the context the learning event will occur? Will whole-group, small-group, pairwork, individual configs work best for the learning event?
  8. Are fewer, more or no additional resources needed for students to participate in the learning experience? This hinges on step 5, the selection of tools/resources.

Hutchinson & Woodward’s planning cycle (2014) complements and expands on the grounded approach by zooming into a couple of important aspects: how digital tools contribute to the instruction and to the development of digital literacy skills. The authors give teachers permission to opt out of digital tool adoption should they discover, upon reflection, that “using a digital tool will not make a strong contribution to their instruction or if they are unable to locate a tool that will appropriately support their learning goal.” (p.458) Furthermore, they propose that teachers take the classroom environment and routines into consideration when considering the constraints of the tools selected for the learning event. Most importantly their cycle “(…) is specifically aimed at helping literacy teachers consider whether their planned instruction contributes to both digital and nondigital literacy development.” (p.458)

Tech for knowledge building and convergent/divergent thinking in your instruction

This brief post is a reflection prompted by the following questions:

What opportunities do you currently provide to: (a) enhance students’ knowledge building and (b) enable them to celebrate and showcase their knowledge?

What role might technology play in diversifying knowledge building and/or expression in your content area?

Does the idea of promoting students’ divergent thinking about your content inspire you or scare you? Explain and give reasons why you think divergent thinking opportunities should be embraced or avoided.

More than ever, technology plays a prominent role in enhancing students’ knowledge building and expression. Digital texts as well as digital tools have great potential, when effectively integrated into instruction, to enable both convergent and divergent thinking. Rothstein and Santana (2011) refer to convergent thinking as the “ability to analyze and synthesize information and ideas while moving toward an answer or conclusion.” Divergent thinking is “the ability to generate a wide range of ideas and think broadly and creatively.” Metacognition, “the ability to think about one’s thinking and learning”, completes the critical thinking triad, to which the authors refer as being “the three wise thinking abilities.”

Creativity requires “constant shifting, blending pulses of both divergent thinking and convergent thinking, to combine new information with old and forgotten ideas. Highly creative people are very good at marshaling their brains to tap into both kinds of thinking.” (Rothstein and Santana, p.17) Therefore, we need to plan instruction that stimulates and capitalizes on both thinking abilities if we wish to contribute to the development of both critical and creative individuals. Therefore, digital texts and tools have the potential of enhancing the various types of learning activities (Harris & Hofer, 2009) that leverage these thinking abilities, ultimately enabling learners to hit the learning objectives.

Rothstein, D. & Santana, L. (2011). Make Just One Change – Teach Students to Ask Questions

New Literacies & Digital Inquiry

LABELING AND DEFINING LITERACY IN 2020

Literacy is an evolving concept. It wasn’t until the 70’s that reading instruction began morphing into literacy instruction. Prior to the 70’s the concept of reading was grounded in psycholinguistics and centered in decoding printed text, with less emphasis on encoding practices (Lankshear & Knobel 2006). Among the most prominent historical reasons for the concept of literacy to take front and center in formal education is Paulo Freire’s critical pedagogy, in which literacy is conceptualized as ‘reading the word and the world’:

“In Freire’s pedagogy, learning to write and read words became a focus for adults in pursuing critical awareness of how oppressive practices and relations operated in everyday life. (…) Within Freire’s approach to promoting literacy, then, the process of learning literally to read and write words was an integral part of learning to understand how the world operates socially and culturally.” (Lankshear & Knobel 2006)

The rise of a sociocultural perspective in language studies and social sciences strengthened the role of identity and Discourses (Gee 2000) within the concept of literacy. Discourses are “ways of being in the world’, which integrate words, acts, gestures,attitudes, beliefs, purposes, clothes, bodily movements and positions, and so on.” (ibid. 2006) Each one of us has a primary Discourse which we learn from and use with our immediate group (family members, intimate relations), and we also have multiple secondary Discourses that will vary according to our social relations and our participation in different secondary social groups, such as community groups, churches, and schools. Literacy then becomes ‘literacies’, in its plural form, since they are “bound up with social, institutional and cultural relationships, and can only be understood when they are situated within their social, cultural and historical contexts (Gee et al. 1996). Freire blew up the concept of text, from the printed word to the world; Gee and the sociocultural perspective blew up the concept of reader identity and its interplay with texts. Both galvanized the concept of literacy as being critical, multiple, socially situated and embedded with power. Literacy is, after all, a sociological concept.

The three-dimensional model of literacy (Green 1988, 1997) embodies a sociocultural perspective by articulating language – the operational dimension, meaning – the cultural dimension, and context – the critical dimension. “(…) rather than focusing on the ‘how to’ knowledge of literacy, the 3D model of literacy complements and supplements operational or technical competence by contextualizing literacy with due regard for matters of culture, history and power.” (Lankshear & Knobel 2006) Literacy in its singular form now describes a category of proficiency level in any given area, whereas literacies are fully charged by a sociocultural perspective. It is as if the term multiliteracies set in motion the tetradic heuristic of reading comprehension (RAND 2002), blurring its divisions.

New literacies presuppose one’s understanding that “the internet has happened to education. Now what?” (Cormier). The advent of the Internet has blown up the variety of modalities of texts. “The Internet, in particular, provides new text formats, new purposes for reading, and new ways to interact with information that can confuse and overwhelm people taught to extract meaning from only conventional print.” (Coiro 2003). The multimodality of online texts elicit new strategies from readers. Online reading is, thus, “a problem-based inquiry process involving new skills, strategies, and dispositions on the Internet to generate important questions, then locate, critically evaluate, synthesize, and communicate possible solutions to those problems online.” (Castek, Coiro, Henry, Leu, & Hartman 2015) I understand the use of the terms ‘online reading comprehension’ and ‘digital inquiry’ as being in different ends of a conceptualization spectrum. The first term refers simply to the location or text type – online as opposed to offline, or traditional print – whereas the latter coalesces into a new understanding of online reading as necessarily sparking from a continuous process of inquiry. Digital inquiry therefore necessarily begins with a question and engages the reader in new strategies such as locating, critically evaluating, self-regulating so as not to lose sight of one’s purpose, synthesizing and communicating information with the Internet (Leu et al., 2007) “The fact that online reading comprehension always begins with a question or problem may be an important source of the differences between online and offline reading comprehension.” (ibid 2015) Therefore, the benefit in moving from ‘online reading comprehension’ to ‘digital inquiry’ is the increase in awareness of the centrality of inquiry and one’s capacity to formulate questions and identify problems as critical skills for readers to engage and participate as citizens in today’s information and innovation age.

IMPLICATIONS FOR TEACHING AND LEARNING

Online reading/digital literacy skills, strategies, practices, and mindsets are equally important for today’s learners compared to those related to offline reading comprehension, vocabulary, and/or fluency skills and strategies. Digital inquiry strategies build on and expand offline reading strategies. In an era when our youth is immersed in social media and ‘digital for play’, super exposed to the algorithmic manipulation and the subtle education of the eye and the senses, it is essential that they develop the skills that will enable their understanding of the inner workings of the Internet, as well as their engagement in critical digital consumption, production, distribution, and invention (Mirra & Morrell 2018).

Internet Reciprocal Teaching is a promising online reading instruction and digital inquiry methodology in that it effectively scaffolds learners’ abilities to understand and engage with online, multimodal texts. Gradually and intentionally moving from teacher-led instruction, to collaborative modeling of online research and comprehension strategies, to inquiry, teachers find opportunities to build on their curriculum, expanding the offline work with traditional print texts and engaging learners in the development of critical strategies and dispositions, thus preparing them for active citizenship in today’s highly complex and culturally multifaceted social environments. In an age where the social fabric of our democracies is challenged by an information ecosystem that is ever more polluted (Phillips 2020), we need to look beyond media and beyond literacy. We need to situate ourselves as critical readers of the world, and support our youth in becoming critical readers and participants themselves.

REFERENCES:

Castek, Coiro, Henry, Leu, & Hartman, (2015). Research on Instruction and Assessment in the New Literacies of Online Research and Comprehension.

Coiro, J. (2003). Expanding our understanding of reading comprehension to encompass new literacies. The Reading Teacher.

Coiro, J. (October, 2013). (Online reading comprehension challenges video of keynote delivered in Colombia: “Comprensión lectora en línea:oportunidades, retos y nuevos pasos” available on YouTube: https://youtu.be/wsWDEr2fKxA

Hammerberg, D. (2004). Comprehension instruction for sociocultural diverse classrooms: A review of what we know. The Reading Teacher, 57(7), 648-656.

Lankshear, C., & Knobel, M. (2008). From ‘reading’ to ‘new literacy studies. In C. Lankshear & M. Knobel, New literacies: Everyday practices and classroom learning. Berkshire, England: Open University Press/McGraw-Hill Education.

Mirra N, Morrell, E. & Filipiak, D. (2018). Digital Consumption to Digital Invention: Toward a New Critical Theory and Practice of Multiliteracies, Theory Into Practice, 57:1, 12-19.

Phillips, W. (2020). “Looking Beyond Media and Beyond Literacy” keynote delivered in the 2020 Northwestern Media Literacy Conference.

RAND Model of Reading Comprehension. (2002).