Literacy Now

We did take a more exploratory, student-driven discussion during class where I was just sparking an idea that the students would run with. At one point, they literally turned in their seats toward each other, and that’s when I knew they were super engaged not only with me, but with each other. It was AWESOME.

So reflected a preservice teacher we work with, following a lively discussion about Black Lives Matter in an urban 11th-grade English classroom. We are struck by this moment and by the teacher’s excitement.  For her, this moment is unusual and exemplary. Our work focuses around the question: How can such moments of dialogic teaching become more typical, rather than remarkable, in literacy classrooms?  Mary and her colleagues defined dialogic teaching as “the instructional designs and practices that provide students with frequent and sustained opportunities to engage in learning talk” (Juzwik, Borsheim-Black, Caughlan, & Heintz, 2013, p. 5). When teachers create space for such talk, students have an opportunity to build on their own and each other’s ideas and connect them into coherent lines of thinking and inquiry over time (Alexander, 2008; Boyd, 2016). When teachers purposefully nurture and sustain such a stance, they make a dialogic classroom environment possible. Dialogic classroom environments bolster student literacy achievement growth (e.g., Murphy, Wilkinson, Soter, Hennessy, & Alexander, 2009), prepare students for participation in democratic life (Juzwik et al., 2013), foster student engagement (Kelly, 2008), and create more humane and sustainable workplaces for teachers.

Dialogic tools

Mary’s research team identified dialogic tools as a key component of literacy teaching that successfully provided students with opportunities for learning talk (Juzwik et al., 2013). They identified both teacher- and student-centered tools such as anticipation guides, teacher-scripted questions, four corners, fishbowls, and literature circles. Teachers and students collaboratively use these tools in planning and classroom practice to scaffold learning talk (Alexander, 2008; Juzwik et al., 2013). We and the teachers we work with find these tools helpful for instructional planning, both short-term (lesson) planning and long-term (unit or yearlong) planning. For example, English teacher Liz Krause puts up a word chart of dialogic tools behind her desk to provide a reminder as she plans. Others provide students with sentence stems or discussion phrases or rubrics to focus students’ attention on dialogic moves.  
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Dialogic tools embedded in dialogic stance

Talking to learn is more than just increasing student talk or implementing particular tools. Using dialogic tools is more effective when embedded in a broader dialogic stance over time: “A teacher adopting a dialogic stance listens, leads and follows, responds and directs” (Boyd & Markarian, 2015, p. 273). A dialogic stance involves more than successfully enacting some dialogic tool. It further entails a sustained focus on the potential of student and teacher ideas to promote learning and inquiry. For example, a fishbowl tool should focus on the students and teacher building ideas together, not on students performing the elements of a good discussion. At the end of a fish bowl, instead of evaluating how the discussion went, students can instead consider questions about which ideas challenged them most or supported their thinking about a text. These questions emphasize listening, learning, and talking with each other. When teachers orient their classroom practices toward learning talk over the long term, a dialogic classroom environment where students and teachers learn together becomes possible.

Mary M. Juzwik is a professor at Michigan State University. She is also the coeditor of Research in the Teaching of English and coauthor of Inspiring Dialogue: Talking to Learn in the English Classroom. Mandie Dunn and Ashley Johnson are doctoral students in curriculum, instruction, and teacher education at Michigan State University.

The ILA Literacy Research Panel uses this blog to connect ILA members around the world with research relevant to policy and practice. Reader response is welcomed via e-mail.

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Over the last decade, schools have been increasing their technology infrastructure for a wide variety of reasons, including making school more engaging for students. Thus far, the benefits in regards to engagement have yet to materialize. In January, the Gallup Poll released its annual Student Poll results, showing that only 50% of students met the engaged criteria (involvement in and enthusiasm for school) and 21% of students were fully disengaged. According to the survey, engagement declines in every grade, beginning from 5th to 6th grade before bottoming out in 11th grade. Almost half (45%) of responses were neutral or disagreed with the statement “At this school, I get to do what I do best every day.” From 2012, engagement levels at each grade are down across the board, and active disengagement has risen in that time from 16% to 21% of respondents. Although technology may be part of addressing the engagement issue, our current uses don’t appear to be moving the needle. In turn, we might be better served by shifting our focus to engagement itself.

What do we know about student engagement?

David Shernoff and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi have spent years studying engagement and how it is achieved. Full engagement—which Csikszentmihalyi has termed flow—is described as a fully immersive experience where all mental energy is going into a meaningful task. Our skills are matched with an appropriate challenge that stretches our ability, but not to the extent of frustration. Time seems to fly by, we feel in control, and in many cases forget about our outside troubles and shortcomings. Setting goals and using feedback to move toward those goals are also essential components. Larry Ferlazzo has a fantastic blog with additional resources on flow.

According to Shernoff and Csikszentmihalyi, student engagement exists when students experience high levels of three factors: concentration, interest, and enjoyment. Concentration is the focus and mental energy put toward a specific goal or task. Interest is conceptualized as a student’s level of intrinsic motivation to expend time and effort into a task or building specific skills. Finally, enjoyment is a student’s feeling of satisfaction as a result of participating in the learning event.

These conditions arise when students are presented with learning opportunities that they deem to be both challenging and relevant. Choice and control over the learning experience are crucial to student engagement. Mismatches between a task’s challenge and a student’s skill set can lead to anxiety or boredom. Additionally, student flow appears to be symbiotic with teacher flow as high student engagement leads to a teacher’s sense of flow as he or she builds his or her differentiation skills to meet the needs of students. Research suggests that traditional lectures, videos, and exams are typically some of the least effective means to increase student engagement. Well-structured, student-selected inquiry tasks, however, are an excellent method to help students reach “flow.”

Examples from the field

Previously, I’ve written about my own experiences coleading students in interest-driven inquiry via a structure known as Genius Hour. In these multiweek inquiry projects, students are given at least one class period per week to explore a topic of interest. Students then share their findings in a TED-style talk. We’ve made two changes to our model this year. First, we’ve used the Right Question Institute’s Question Formulation Technique to help students better articulate their inquiries via interesting questions. Second, we plan to link students with a mentor or “broker” who can help the student with their chosen project. There is a multitude of resources for implementing Genius Hour including websites, books, and a vibrant Twitter community.

Interest-driven digital inquiry can also be done effectively with specific content area constraints as well. History teachers at Attleboro High School in Massachusetts have been making inquiry a regular part of their teaching practice. In Nicole Lane’s Government Course, students spend the trimester investigating self-selected problems within the local community. Students explore the root causes and solutions via both Internet research and e-mails or one-to-one meetings with municipal and state officials and then publically present their findings at the end of the term. In another class, Ari Weinstein teamed up with science colleague Gregg Finale to create the cross-disciplinary course, Science and Public Policy. In this class, students have tackled topics such as how to install solar panels on school buildings and how to teach middle school students about global warning. An interesting wrinkle to this course is that students design their projects so they can be handed off to peers taking the class in the next semester, enabling future students to build on and expand the existing work.

Attleboro High School History department head Tobey Reed has been a strong advocate for the use of inquiry in history courses. “I believe that this is the way that people learn naturally so why would we try to get them to learn another way?” he asked. “I think that it engages them as well because they are invested in finding out the ‘answer’ or at least understanding the question.”  

Making the pedagogical shift to inquiry, particularly digital inquiry, can be a challenge. “Almost all of it is foreign to them (students) because in many ways it’s the opposite of how they’ve traditionally done school,” said Attleboro history teacher Brian Hodges. “Students tend to struggle with asking good questions, finding and especially evaluating sources, contextualizing information they find and then turning it into a product.” Fortunately, teachers can now look to the Internet for resources to help improve students’ critical evaluation and digital authorship skills.

Despite the challenges, the benefits are extensive for students and teachers alike. Hodges explained, “Inquiry was difficult at the beginning because the idea was foreign to me, but the practice is way more engaging and way more enjoyable.” His students also appear to be reaching flow in these contexts. “There will be stretches in class when I’ll be going group to group and they’ll essentially tell me to go away and stop bothering them because they’re in the zone.” Reed said despite the extra planning, the digital inquiry project process makes it all worthwhile. “When the project is in full swing, it is way more fun to facilitate. The problems are unique and real.  The questions are honest and the engagement is infectious.”

David Quinn is a doctoral student in URI/RIC PhD in Education program and a member of the Attleboro School Committee. Previously, he was a history teacher at King Philip Middle School in Norfolk, MA.

This article is part of a series from the Technology in Literacy Education Special Interest Group (TILE-SIG).

From the schoolhouse bells to the rows of desks, educational systems were once constructed to mirror the centralized structure of industrial workplaces. However, postindustrial workplace structures are rapidly adapting to living networks of collaboration and creativity. How can educators design hybrid learning environments that prepare students for the deictic literacies of future workplaces?

Connectivism, as defined by George Siemens, is a learning theory that embraces the impact of a global society that adapts to rapidly changing Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) through real-time collaborative networks. When designing hybrid learning environments, the theory of connectivism provides an ecosystem for educators to move beyond hardcopy curriculum binders to an online living curriculum.

During the 2015–2016 school year, we worked with a rural school district in southeastern Pennsylvania as it began its second year of implementing Chromebooks within a hybrid model of literacy instruction. As defined by this school district, a hybrid model contains direct, collaborative, and independent learning using both print and digital texts. To help educators conceptualize connectivism, we use a terrarium as a metaphor to explain the process of cultivating a living curriculum.

Layer 1: Select a shared space for living documents

Just as the glass of a terrarium creates the environment for growing plants, Google Drive provides a space for educators to cultivate a living curriculum.Google Drive is a free, online file storage system that provides a space to create and collaborate with others in real time. Real time is an essential component of a living curriculum because it moves educators from individual planning to collaboratively designing hybrid learning environments. For example, teachers used the comment feature on Google Docs to post revision suggestions and questions as they differentiated their English language arts instruction.

Layer 2: Establish foundational essentials

Gravel, the foundational layer of a terrarium, is made of several different types of rocks. Like the gravel, educators need to determine the variety of essential skills students need to be successful in school and future workplace. For instance, Common Core State Standards and College and Career Readiness initiatives suggest learning goals by grade level and content area. Because literacy skills are required in every field of study, it was important for teachers to cultivate a living curriculum that provided opportunities for students to practice these multidisciplinary literacies.

Layer 3: Balance common print and digital resources

Charcoal filters out toxins in the terrarium so the plants can thrive. Layering in authentic and relevant texts, like the charcoal, cultivates an environment for students to thrive as readers and writers. Instead of buying new texts, teachers critically examined current resources (i.e., anthologies, basals, science and social studies textbooks) that were already predominate in every classroom. Outdated stories and articles were filtered out and replaced with free, online resources that support students’ diverse interests and reading levels. For instance, teachers were able to access free, digital archives of magazines like National Geographic Explorer, Highlights, and NewsELA. Even graphic novelists such as Andy Runton (Owly) offer free digital copies of their work. Teachers also integrated interactive digital videos (e.g., Wonderopolis, Playposit, and TED-Ed) to engage students and extend their background knowledge. The hyperlink feature in Google Docs enabled teachers to quickly link and access new resources to the living curriculum, which grew into relevant multimodal text sets that balanced authentic print and digital texts.

Layer 4: Organize and create module components

Adding soil to the terrarium provides a mix of nutrients crucial for plant growth. A module, like soil, contains a mix of eligible content crucial for effective literacy instruction. Using the Google Docs, teachers outlined four modules, one for each marking period, and sorted standards and resources in a way that allowed for a progression of learning. Though all domains (i.e., foundational skills, comprehension and vocabulary, writing and language, speaking and listening) were covered, careful thought was given to the amount of time students would need to master different skills. The organized list of multidisciplinary skills and resources helped teachers recognize patterns and connections to real-world situations. For example, teachers use to teach isolated units on story structure in reading, weather in science, and Post-Revolutionary War events in social studies. Analyzing organized eligible content across the module cultivated an environment that enabled teachers to connect these isolated units into one central theme that addressed the importance of understanding how changes in the world impact the way people relate to each other. As a result, Changes became the title of the first module. The last task in this layer required teachers to create 8–10 learning goals and scales, identify academic vocabulary, and pose essential questions as a way to clarify the behaviors and language students need to become inquiring, critical thinking citizens.

Layer 5: Add instructional methods and assessment

Selecting plants for a terrarium requires careful consideration of light, size of the foliage, and level of humidity. Because Google Docs have unlimited content capacity, teachers were able to carefully design a vibrant array of instructional methods and assessment. Each module contained seven cycles with six days of 90-minute English language arts instruction time. Within a hybrid learning environment, cycles were written to balance whole group, direct (small group), collaborative, and independent learning. Summative assessments were embedded at the beginning and end of each module to guide differentiating instruction. At the same time, formative assessments were embedded throughout each cycle to inform the level of scaffolding students required. Learning goals were paired with instructional methods to keep the learning fresh and vibrant. Teachers across the district, from three schools, were able to access the living curriculum, on demand, to add comments where instruction needed adjusted or to add links to new resources they created or found online.

Tending to a hybrid learning environment

The benefits of using Google Docs go beyond having teachers engage in ICTs in order to access the curriculum. Using Google Docs has cultivated a community of collaboration and connectivism, a sense that everyone is working as a team to tending to the living curriculum. Where scripted lessons were once provided in basal teacher manuals, educators now care for these living documents the same way they would a terrarium. Teachers continue to cultivate the hybrid learning environments by adding new or updated resources anytime from their devices with Internet access to Google Apps. Designated grade-level leaders review comments made on documents and make real-time changes that grow and adapt to the ever-changing technology, resources, and needs of students. In this manner, educators are able to keep the curriculum writing process in constant momentum without revisiting dead documents every five years. As a result, educators are invested in keeping teaching and learning alive.

Additional resources:

1. A module for second grade.
2. A cycle for second grade.
3. A previous blog post about the three-week instructional framework we used to support teachers’ pedagogical technological and content knowledge.

Julie B. Wise is a doctoral candidate at the University of Delaware. You can follow her onTwitter. Meg Rishel is an Instructional ELA Coach for Eastern York School District. You can follow her on Twitter.

This article is part of a series from the Technology in Literacy Education Special Interest Group (TILE-SIG).

On the first day of classes last fall, I asked education undergraduates to create a professional Web space where they would document their growth as teachers. In addition to learning core content, I explained we would work to develop professional digital literacies skills, including skills allowing us to create online content and participate openly in professional online networks. I explained that students would share their in-process work on their blogs. I encouraged them to chronicle and curate evidence of their emergent teaching skills, too. Add images, videos, lesson plans—even the ones that flop, I said. Looking around the room, I saw dozens of millennial faces—fresh, eager, and terrified.

At the end of class, I invited students to submit pressing questions on exit slips. I expected nerves about lesson plans, differentiation, whether they could hack it as a teacher. I did not expect that 20 out of 80 comments would be about online participation.

One student wrote: “I prefer to keep close control over what I put online. And I feel that might stifle what I’m willing to put out there. Plus, I might want to save the best ideas for myself.”

Others wrote:

• “I don’t like putting information online.”
• “I have no idea  how to create a blogging space.”
• “I have privacy concerns about public assignments.”
• “I’m a little concerned about creating a digital hub and a Twitter account, as this is all really new for me.”
• “What are we allowed and not allowed to put online as far as professionalism goes?”

At mid-term, I invited more feedback.

One student wrote: “I don't want to be on Twitter, nor will I be required to be on Twitter as a teacher, yet it is a requirement for this class. Same for the personal website. I will not be required to have a website as a teacher.”

From my perspective, the benefits of social, networked learning have been well documented by scholars including Roy Pea, Henry Jenkins, Lev Vygotsky, Christine Greenhow, and danah boyd. As a learner, I think with, through, and because of others. To me, sharing and learning from others online is beneficial. Some of my students felt differently.

Professors Jon Dron and Terry Anderson of Athabasca University offer an explanation that resonates. In their recent chapter entitled “Agoraphobia and the modern learner,” they point out that when learning moves into the open, as it did in my class, students can feel vulnerable. Skillful online learners know when, how, and how much to share in networked spaces, but for novices, the networked world brings new reasons for fear. Online work might reify their ignorance, or expose them as inadequate. Moreover, the authors note that offline social structures in any learning community play a significant role in learners’ willingness to contribute openly. On the first day of their professional preparation program, I bet nobody felt sure of their place offline or online. 

A report published by MediaSmarts in 2015 places openness at the center of its model of teaching and learning in the digital terrain. Mozilla’s Web literacy framework does, too. Together, these frameworks suggest that literacy today includes sharing, collaborating, participating, and understanding how to use and create openly accessible resources, without (as Dron and Anderson also say) shame or fear of being wrong. My experience with teacher education students suggests there is work to do. 

With support from ILA’s Literacy, eLearning, Communications, and Culture Committee, Ian O’Byrne, Heather Woods, and I soon will launch a survey of digital literacies teaching practices at digitallyliterate.net. We’re particularly interested in the ways teachers design learning experiences that build confident online collaborators. Our processes, our data, and our analyses will be shared openly on our website. As the project grows, we will invite your thoughts and critical perspectives. Importantly, we hope the project will generate new understandings of what literacies educators around the world are doing to prepare children, teens, and adults to live and learn in open, digitally networked spaces.

Michelle Schira Hagerman is assistant professor of educational technology at the University of Ottawa.

This article is part of a series from the International Reading Association’s Technology in Literacy Education Special Interest Group (TILE-SIG).

Do you remember what happened Nov. 4, 2008? If you said the election of the United States’ first African American president, you would be correct. But that’s also the day I began fearing technology and its negative impact on the teaching profession. That was the day I got the indisputable confirmation that technology would change the profession whether we wanted it to or not.

That evening I watched CNN’s Anderson Cooper in Atlanta interview will.i.am in Chicago using a 360­degree holographic projection, not teleconferencing and not  video conferencing. You might say, “What does that have to do with teaching?” Everything!

Would you love to have J.K. Rowling in your classroom reading Harry Potter to your children? Who wouldn’t love Neil deGrasse Tyson in their classroom every day to teach physics? Why not invite Elie Wiesel to your classroom to talk about his experiences in the Holocaust? If all those things are possible using technology, why do we need teachers?

As Laura McKenna from The Atlantic lamented the nationwide teacher shortage, she also mentioned how many states are implementing virtual­ education programs as a solution. TED million-­dollar prize winner Sugata Mitra even suggested we build a school in the cloud through the use of technology rather than relying on conventional schools with teachers.

Since then, however, I had a change of heart. As I reconsider my role as the classroom teacher, I can’t help but be grateful for this new Golden Age of Technology. Why? Because I finally understood what Seymour Papert meant when he said, “The role of the teacher is to create a condition for invention rather than provide ready made knowledge.”

The transformation began with gaining knowledge on learning science and better information on technology implementation in schools. For instance, when I saw that of 12,725 students who attempted Duke’s first-ever MOOC course, only 313 students completed it, I felt vindicated for thinking hybrid or so­-called blended learning models makes the most sense in today’s information economy. Even after learning about the TPACK Framework advocated by Matthew Koehler and Punya Mishra—which puts  equal importance among technological, pedagogical, and content knowledge of a teacher's knowledge base—I am more convinced than ever that a teacher’s technological knowledge is always subordinate to his or her content and pedagogical knowledge. A teacher with superior pedagogical knowledge can turn the most primitive piece of technology such as a paper and pencil into the best possible learning tool for his or her students.

Of course, I am not saying advanced technology is not important. It is vitally important in today’s learning environment. However, I am simply arguing that we should never forget the importance of good teaching that must accompany the tools.

Kentaro Toyama, associate professor of technology and global development at the University of Michigan, emphasized such a sentiment. Based on the research conducted in India where Sugata Mitra’s “school in the cloud” originated, Toyama found that less technology with superior pedagogy yielded better student learning than advanced technology without great teaching. As we learned from the error in judgement from the LA Unified School District's iPad debacle, no amount of instructional technology can yield good student learning without a solid pedagogy based on sound learning science.

As we think more about education technology, let us never forget that even with the best piece of technology such as his lightsaber, Luke Skywalker had to carry Yoda on his back to learn to be the best Jedi he could become. Yes, my students can learn great math skills from Khan Academy videos and learn foreign language from Duolingo on their smartphones, but without a caring teacher in their classroom to provide a solid context for learning, they will not succeed as well as they could. I am sure of it.

Kip Glazer is a native of Seoul, South Korea, and immigrated to the United States in 1993 as a college student. She holds California Single Subject Teaching Credentials in Social Studies, English, Health, Foundational Mathematics, and School Administration. In 2014, she was named the Kern County Teacher of the Year. She earned her doctorate of education in learning technologies at Pepperdine University in October 2015. She has presented and keynoted at many state and national conferences on game-based learning and educational technologies. She has also consulted for Center for Innovative Research in Cyberlearning and the Kennedy Center ArtsEdge Program.