“That's more like how they know me as a person”: one primary pre‐service teacher's stories of her personal and ‘professional’ digital practices

In contributing to debates about how student‐teachers might draw from personal experience in addressing digital literacy in the classroom, this paper explores the stories that one primary student‐teacher told of her digital practices during a larger study of the role of digital literacy in student‐teachers' lives. The paper investigates the ‘recognition work’ this student‐teacher did as she aligned herself with different discourses and notes how themes of ‘control’ and ‘professionalism’ seemed to pattern her stories of informal and formal practices both within and beyond her professional education. The paper calls for further research into how student‐teachers perceive the relevance of their personal experience to their professional role and argues for encouraging pre‐service and practising teachers to tell stories of their digital practices and reflect upon the discourses which frame them.     

Developing Pragmatic Competence in Chinese EFL Classroom

This paper aims at investigating effective classroom-based instructive methods that facilitate the development of pragmatic competence of the intermediate-level adult English learners in China,who have gained relatively high grammatical competence but low pragmatic competence.The paper starts with the importance and components of pragmatic competence.It then examines what should be taught to help develop learners’ pragmatic competence.The paper focuses on some explicit instructive methods adopted by the author in her conversational English class that may raise learners’ awareness of pragmatic knowledge and enhance learners’ practice of pragmatic abilities:1) Encouragement of learners’ observation of pragmatic phenomena by English speakers from authentic audio-visual materials;2) Discussion of linguistic variations for each speech act and strategies of carrying out certain speech acts according to contextual cues;3) Role-play tasks engaging students in different speech events and communicative actions.The effectiveness of these methods is shown by test results after at the end of the course.     

Digital Literacies Go to School: A Cross-Case Analysis of the Literacy Practices Used in a Classroom-Based Social Network Site

The authors, working from a new literacies studies perspective, suggest that educators can better teach their students if they develop their own knowledge of the purposes, types, and language conventions students use in their informal out-of-school literacy practices. The purpose of this study was to identify the literacy practices used in a classroom-based social network site and determine how these practices reflect digital literacies. By connecting differences in the literacy practices of three fifth-grade girls to the instructional moves made by classroom teachers, the authors were able to identify and describe how classroom teachers unintentionally marginalized the kinds of digital literacies that are valued in the larger society. Findings point to the importance of creating online identities for establishing relationships in a social networking site and a need for teachers to model ways to shift language use when engaging in different writing contexts.     

Adult literacy,learning identities and pedagogic practice

This article discusses the relationship between persistence in adult literacy and numeracy programs, changes in the participants’ attitudes to engaging in learning and pedagogic practices using data from eight Scottish literacy education organizations. It argues that literacy learning can act as a resource that enables vulnerable adults to change their dispositions to learning, achieve their goals and make a transition towards their imagined futures. Pedagogic practices that operate from an approach that emphasized learners’ strengths, rather than their deficits, and critically interrogated learners’ experiences used as a resource for learning were the most successful in enabling this transition. Holistic provision that creates a supportive community of practice was found to be the most effective in bringing about the positive changes that learners identified they wished to make in their lives.     

A cautionary tale: digital resources in literacy classrooms

ABSTRACT

Supportive digital resources are key to supporting educators’ pedagogic practices in teaching children to be literate. But locating suitable resources can be confusing, with as claims about products being educational, aligned with curriculum outcomes, and even as ‘silver bullets’. In Australia, a lack of specificity in national and state curriculum guidelines about resource selection creates inconsistencies within and across schools. We investigate how teacher-selected digital resources are used in early childhood classrooms to support literacy learning. Drawing on three independent Australian classroom-based studies, we share three examples of children engaging with digital resources. Together, they show that not all digital resources promote active and engaged literacy learning in meaningful and socially interactive contexts. We propose principles for selecting digital resources to promote playful, scaffolded, and exploratory literacy learning.     

Dynamic,Playful and Productive Literacies

This paper reflects on recent projects in a variety of media forms, in both formal and informal educational settings, discussing ways of expanding our notions of literacy practices which reflect their place in the wider lived experience of digital culture. We have collected these reflections under three headings. The first of these, Dynamic Literacies, presents an overarching view of literacy as both ideological, following the ‘new literacy studies’, and dynamic, incorporating both semiotic and sociocultural versions of literacy in ways which reflect the changing nature of lived experience in the digital age. The second strand, Productive Literacies, constructs an argument around digital making practices with younger learners which views these as media crafting, critique and artistry. The third strand, Playful Literacies, explores recent projects which are located in games and game-authoring practices as a specific example of connecting pedagogy to contemporary media forms and learner agency in formal and informal settings. Taken together, the three perspectives allow for common ground to be established between multimodal production practices, whilst providing suggestions for framing literacy pedagogy in response to the pervasive use of media and technology in contemporary digital culture.     

The palimpsest layers of pre-service teachers’ literacy autobiographies

In this article, we examine three literacy autobiographies written by pre-service teachers. Narratives are seen as not just stories relating a set of facts, but rather a means by which individuals interpret their experience. Literacy autobiographies are a reflective and interpretive account of one’s development as a literate being. Using the tools of narrative analysis, we (a) examine these stories to understand the processes of literacy development through the experiences of learners’ storied lives; (b) seek to understand the impact that teachers’ literacy journeys have on their view of literacy and literacy education; and (c) explore what these literacy autobiographies reveal about the contributions of teacher reflection to pre-service teacher education. Our analysis points to the importance of personal relationships in the development of literacy, providing the context within which literacy practices give meaning to the literacy events active in the narrators’ lives. We also note a persistent view of traditional forms of literacy in contrast to pre-service teachers’ involvement in multiliteracies, and argue that this gap needs to be addressed in order to prepare teachers for the twenty-first century classroom. We also consider how reflection can be a more intentional aspect of pre-service teacher education to enhance pedagogy and learning.     

Production-on-the-go practice: storyboarding as a retrospective and redundant school literacy activity

Storyboarding is one common strategy used in teaching young people digital media. This paper argues that in adolescents' literacy practices, they engage in production on the go. The metaphor is described in this paper to put forward the argument that storyboarding can be a retrospective and redundant literacy activity in adolescents' school literacy practices when it is not their inherent practice to engage in a two-step process in digital media production, i.e., design intended to precede production. Drawing on the theoretical underpinnings of New Literacy Studies, this study adopts an ethnographic perspective to gain insights into 10 14-year-old Chinese adolescents' literacy practices in Singapore. Data for this paper were collected over a period of eight months from participant observations, with video-and-audio recordings, semi-structured and in-depth text-elicited group and individual interviews, the adolescents' research diaries and artefacts from their literacy practices.     

Participatory pedagogy for empowerment: a critical discourse analysis of teacher–parents’ interactions in a family literacy course in London

This paper revisits and discusses some of Paulo Freire’s theoretical tenets for participatory education suggested as part of a critical approach to the education of adults. Through data collected during a family literacy programme, the author analyses her discursive interactions as an adult education tutor with parents as learners. These discourse practices are analysed using critical discourse analysis and are discussed against Freire’s principles for participatory pedagogy. The author’s decision to insert the analysis and discussion of her classroom practices within these theoretical frameworks lies on their focus on language and their alleged commitment to the transformation of discursive practices that reinforce unequal power relations in society. The findings of the study indicate the presence of authoritarian discourse that does little to change the power relations within the classroom. The author posits that despite managing to give rise to a discussion of themes related to parents’ advocacy and language awareness in their interactions within their children’s school, a deeper realisation and discussion of these issues was hindered by her failure to challenge the order of discourses present in her interactions with parents. The author concludes by suggesting that there is a need for teachers to closely re‐evaluate the features of their own discourse practices if immigrant parents attending family literacy courses are to be given a voice within the classroom as a first step towards raising their prospects of advocacy and empowerment in wider social contexts.     

Incorporating the notion of recontextualisation in academic literacies research: the case of a South African vocational web design and development course

This article describes a small scale ethnographically oriented research study seeking to contribute to understanding student academic literacy practices in a South African vocational, web design and development course. In this course digital multimodal assessments are the main means whereby students demonstrate their learning. The findings of the study provide insights into the contextualised ways in which student academic literacy practices are shaped by academic and professional contexts where digital and multimodal practices are privileged. The academic literacies perspective used in this study, while useful for exploring the nature of student academic literacy practices, has not paid enough attention to theorising how literacy practices are shaped by broader contextual influences. To address this limitation the paper speculates about how the Bernsteinian concept of knowledge recontextualisation might be used alongside an academic literacies frame. The inclusion of an empirical focus on recontextualisation can provide an opportunity to explore how knowledge construction and transformation processes in the academic and professional domains result in the privileging of particular academic literacy practices.     

Creating and facilitating a teacher education curriculum using preservice teachers’ autobiographical stories

Preservice teachers’ autobiographical stories can serve as a personal, powerful, and poignant curriculum for teacher education. This research examines what and how preservice teachers learned through sharing their own and witnessing others’ autobiographical narratives in a literacy methods course. The teacher educator’s key role is examined in facilitating a public context of vulnerability in which preservice teachers shared painful stories revealing their sociocultural inequalities and personal struggles as literacy learners. Roles of the teacher educator are discussed in the transformation of autobiographies into deep understandings, universal connections and substantive strategies for preservice teachers to teach literacy effectively with diverse students.     

Conceptualisations of literacy and literacy practices for children with severe learning difficulties

Literacy is traditionally narrowly conceptualised as a set of skills related to accessing and generating written or printed text. For children designated as having severe learning difficulties (SLD), who are unlikely to develop these ‘conventional’ literacy skills, such a conception implies their semi‐literacy or nonliteracy. Although conceptions of multimodal literacy and multiliteracies have rarely been applied to this group, broader understandings of literacy that include a range of activities, modes and media provide greater opportunities for including these learners in literacy practices. Drawing upon our research with teachers of this group of children and young people, we illustrate these literacy practices. We note, however, that such practices are often haphazard, not coherently thought through, and that there is much confusion regarding any distinction between communication and literacy. We argue for literacy as a specific form of communication, but conclude that broader models of literacies should be utilised to guide and support practitioners in developing interactive practice and in making reasoned and principled approaches and decisions about literacy practices, routes and progression for children with SLD.     

Mapping Playgrids for Learning Across Space,Time, and Scale

In this article, we analyze the production of learner-generated playgrids. Playgrids are produced when learners knit together social media tools to participate across settings and scales, accomplish their goals, pursue interests, and make their learning more enjoyable and personally meaningful. Through case study methodology we examine how two platforms - Slack and Hypothesis - enabled learners to curate and participate among their own digital resources and pathways for learning. We contend that both theoretical and pedagogical development is necessary to support adult learners as they curate tools and pathways based upon their contingent needs and goals, and that the concept of playgrids does so by usefully connecting less formal social media practice with more formal professional learning across various settings and scales. In the end, we demonstrate the importance of honoring learners’ desire to connect their completion of formal course activities with their less formal social media practices; both sets of practices need not be in conflict and may be complementary.     

Using a cashbook as textbook

In the Gambia, an innovative shceme was developed by government and parastatal organizations to provide small-scale businessmen and women with the skills required for banking and record-keeping. The course they developed applied the approach of specific literacy and numeracy. Specific literacy identifies and transmits a select group of literacy skills necessary to perform a given task. The course encouraged the learner to recognize, copy, and associate words with objects or ideas and, at the same time, learn to identify sounds with written letters. Role plays, homework assignments, self-corrected quizzes, and cashbook/workbooks were some of the techniques used to ensure that learners were able to create records and keep accurate account of their daily cash flow. The purpose of this short 6-month course was not to achieve full literacy for each and every learner, but to introduce specific skills that integrated literacy and business. In this way, the course emphasized the essentials of record-keeping, and hopefully encouraged the learners to develop their own practice: to create a system of written conventions they would use reularly to monitor their business transactions.     

数字时代高校教师数字素养提升策略研究

数字时代的高校教师需具备数字素养以应对新型技术整合教学的挑战,帮助学习者充分适应未来的智能化社会.文章对比国内外数字素养研究,分析探讨了数字素养的内涵及其构成要素,制定了数字时代高校教师数字素养框架,并据此提出高校教师提高数字素养的策略:需要政府层面制定具有层级的高校教育者数字素养框架;需要重点探索高校教师数字素养与学...     

Beliefs and practices of itinerant teachers of deaf and hard of hearing children concerning literacy development

A qualitative case study examined beliefs and practices of itinerant teachers of deaf and hard of hearing students concerning literacy development, the match between these teachers' beliefs and practices, and the impact of itinerant settings. Five itinerant teachers and 15 students participated. Hearing losses were mild to profound. The research addressed 5 areas: sociocultural aspects of literacy development; effects of hearing loss on literacy development; beliefs about teaching and literacy development; practices used to develop literacy; the impact of itinerant settings on literacy development of deaf and hard of hearing learners. Five themes emerged from the data: Itinerant teachers used a variety of practices to develop literacy; itinerant teachers played a supporting role in developing literacy; most of the teachers' beliefs about literacy development were matched in their practices; the itinerant teachers were lifelong learners; the impact of itinerant settings on literacy development took many forms.     

Formative assessment: translating high-level curriculum principles into classroom practice

The curriculum is the totality of experiences which are planned for young learners through their education, wherever they are being educated. It determines the ethos of the school as a learning community, curriculum subjects and areas, interdisciplinary learning, and opportunities to attain personal and learning goals. An effective curriculum, which meets the needs of the twenty-first century learner improves numeracy and literacy, promotes health and well-being, and supports the social and technical skills required for learning, life and work (lifelong learning). Relatively recent developments in the policy frameworks of numerous nations have seen the implementation of an interactive style of teaching and learning called formative assessment. Formative classroom assessment is a potentially powerful instructional process because the practice of sharing assessment information that supports learning is embedded into the instructional process by design. This article uses a range of sources, including policy and framework documentation relating to the development and implementation of a curriculum which drives interactive assessment practices designed to make evidence of learning visible as assessment data with potentially lifelong effects. The purpose of this article is to delineate a ‘formative curriculum’ designed to drive classroom practices that create responsible citizens, confident individuals, effective contributors, and successful learners.     

Stories of self,stories of practice: enacting a vision of socially just pedagogy for Latino youth

This narrative inquiry examines how one Latina novice teacher articulates and implements a vision of teaching for social justice within the contexts of her teacher education program and her practice as a bilingual resource teacher. Informed by Latino/a critical race (LatCrit) theory, the analysis traces connections between stories of self and practice, focusing on her development of an innovative middle school literacy course for Spanish speakers. This article highlights the ways in which she recruits her experiences as a member of a marginalized group and brings them to bear on practice in the crafting of a critical pedagogy that takes learners’ interests and concerns as central while encouraging social action. Findings are discussed in light of the following themes: critical questioning and resistance; analysis of systems of oppression and positioning; and encouraging social action and practicing democracy. This study has implications for teacher preparation committed to socially just pedagogies for all children, but especially for Latino/a youth.     

Just Google it! Digital literacy and the epistemology of ignorance

ABSTRACT

In this paper we examine digital literacy and explicate how it relates to the philosophical study of ignorance. Using data from a study which explores the knowledge producing work of undergraduate students as they wrote course assignments, we argue that a social practice approach to digital literacy can help explain how epistemologies of ignorance may be sustained. If students are restricted in what they can know because they are unaware of exogenous actors (e.g. algorithms), and how they guide choices and shape experiences online, then a key issue with which theorists of digital literacy should contend is how to educate students to be critically aware of how power operates in online spaces. The challenge for Higher Education is twofold: to understand how particular digital literacy practices pave the way for the construction of ignorance, and to develop approaches to counter it.     

Reclaiming literacies: competing textual practices in a digital higher education

This essay examines the implications of the ubiquitous use of the term ‘digital literacies’ in higher education and its increasing alignment with institutional and organisational imperatives. It suggests that the term has been stripped of its provenance and association with disciplinary knowledge production and textual practice. Instead it is called into service rhetorically in order to promote competency-based agendas both in and outside the academy. The piece also points to a tendency to position teachers in deficit with regard to their technological capabilities and pay scant attention to their own disciplinary and scholarly practices in a digital world. It concludes that there is a case for building on established theoretical and conceptual frameworks from literacy studies if we wish to integrate advantages of the digital landscape with thoughtful teaching practice.