Planning and Analysis
Asynchronous Session
Teaching Design Thinking to Increase Social Justice Awareness and Information Literacy
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Peggy Bloomer
In these projects, students use design thinking, study the impact of redlining on urban communities, raise their social awareness of the historical heritages of local places, and increase their information literacy. Projects are both student-centered and research-informed, as students create photobooks and data projects exploring the topics through data visualization to create visual stories that they share as presentations and exhibitions within the university. The assignments start with the 1940 HOLC map of New Britain, CT, old and current U.S. Census information, and a list of city neighborhoods supported by the resources in the university library. Project 1: Each student develops a route for a photo walk based on their research and takes photos that illustrate the design elements, principles, and characteristics of the communities. Students design and produce a photobook. Project 2: Students continue exploring the maps, images, census, and other data demonstrating the ways that social and economic policies shaped New Britain. Focus may include architecture, immigration, religion, poverty, crime rates, school funding, and changes within communities. Students create a large-format collage and an infographic showing their findings and connections. My presentation will show the progress and results of the projects and include portions of the class’s collective reel of the neighborhoods. This additional version of their projects allows students to combine contemporary tools with traditional printed design and develop graphic design skills. The results of student surveys rate what they have learned from this assignment and are also included.
The Interplay between Pedagogical Content Knowledge and Teacher Beliefs in Hong Kong ESL Lesson Planning: A Multiple Case-study Approach
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Vivaldi Chung
Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK) and teacher beliefs are well-researched areas within the field of teacher cognition. Existing research has shown that they are highly influential in pedagogical implementation and the effectiveness of classroom instruction. Yet, few studies have attempted to bridge these closely related areas of research and extrapolate the intricate relationship between them, especially within the ESL context. It is argued that gaining a deeper understanding into the synergy between PCK and teacher beliefs is needed to fully make sense of teachers' decision-making processes that lead to successful ESL instruction. This multiple case study set out to investigate the PCK of Hong Kong ESL teachers and its interplay with their beliefs during lesson planning. Self-designed lesson plans and instructional materials were first collected. Participants were then invited to participate in a stimulated recall interview to share their experiences. The data was inductively coded, and attention was paid to aligning and cross-mapping teachers’ PCK with their beliefs. Data show that participants exhibited extensive PCK, with content and pedagogical knowledge being the most activated knowledge domains. Dynamic interactions were also shown to exist between teachers’ beliefs and their PCK. In particular, unilateral and integrative interactions between PCK, teacher beliefs, and lesson planning were generalised as the dominating types of interactions. The lack of awareness towards these interactions also revealed the urgent need to further develop teachers’ awareness towards their own belief and knowledge systems in order to better understand their own decision-making as classroom practitioners.
Exploring Root Causes for the Low Reading Literacy Levels in South African Primary Schools: An Analysis of the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study Reports View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Jean Fourie
South African fourth grade pupils have continually achieved the lowest reading literacy results out of 50 participating countries in the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) cycles. PIRLS assesses reading literacy in 11 official languages and benchmarks against international standards. Data were collected through analysis of the PIRLS reports. Findings show that in the 2006 and 2011 cycles, 58% of grade 4 pupils were unable to read for meaning. This increased to 78% in the 2016 cycle and to a staggering 81% in the 2021 cycle. Only 19% of fourth graders were able to recognise, locate and reproduce information explicitly stated in texts and make straightforward inferences. Pupils should have ‘learned to read’ by the end of third grade and acquired these basic reading skills that would enable them to ‘read to learn’ across school subjects. Yet these results imply that fourth graders are unable to ‘read to learn.’ The literacy crisis was exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic which interrupted conventional schooling with nationwide closures. We show that in 2023 pupils were lagging a full year behind the same-age pupils of 2019. Previously existing inequalities were aggravated as well-resourced, technologically advanced schools switched to online remote learning, whereas pupils in under-resourced schools simply stayed at home without continuing any education. The pandemic after-effects were detrimental to the least proficient readers which could have dire long-lasting consequences. We make recommendations for critical national policy and school practice improvements regarding timely, targeted literacy interventions to combat this literacy crisis.
