Literacy Teaching and Learning MOOC’s Updates
Section 3a: Literacies Pedagogy in Action
To see some rich examples of literacies pedagogy, go to the 'Literacies Pedagogy in Practice' section of our supporting materials website. While you're looking through these learning modules, do keep an eye out for the pedagogical tags—the icons on the 'For the Teacher' side.
Comment: How is contemporary literacies pedagogy different from traditional literacy pedagogy? (What are your initial thoughts? We'll be considering this question in much more detail in the sections that follow.)
Contemporary literacies pedagogy marks a significant departure from traditional approaches by recognizing the evolving nature of communication in today's digital age. It expands the scope of literacy beyond basic reading and writing skills to encompass digital, media, information literacy, and critical thinking abilities. In our interconnected world, being literate means navigating a diverse array of digital platforms, discerning credible information from a wealth of sources, and critically engaging with various forms of media. Moreover, this pedagogy places a premium on cultural and global awareness, fostering an understanding of diverse perspectives and values in our increasingly multicultural society. It embraces a student-centered and experiential learning approach, prioritizing active participation, collaboration, and problem-solving over rote memorization. Recognizing that students bring diverse experiences to the classroom, it leverages these assets to create an inclusive and dynamic learning environment. Additionally, contemporary pedagogy seamlessly integrates technology into the learning process, understanding that digital tools are fundamental to modern communication and information access. This requires teaching technical skills and cultivating critical thinking and ethical decision-making in the digital realm. In essence, contemporary literacies pedagogy equips learners with the multifaceted skills needed to thrive in a complex, interconnected, and rapidly changing world, empowering them to consume information and critically analyze, create, and meaningfully contribute to an evolving global society.
For Traditional Literacy it means the capacity for language use, including the ability to read, write, listen, and talk. Next, we have contemporary literacy, a relatively recent literacy that refers to the capacity for digital communication and creation.
Throughout my education, I have experienced when learning was just purely books and writing in notebooks to changing to having technology be an essential part. I have no problem with it, actually lucky that I'm well versed in both. But with how modern we are now, I'm sure the next generations are going to lean on more on technology. When used well and appropriately, success and innovation is possible.
In education, authentic learning is an instructional approach that allows students to explore, discuss, and meaningfully construct concepts and relationships in contexts that involve real-world problems and projects that are relevant to the learner.[1] It refers to a wide variety of educational and instructional techniques focused on connecting what students are taught in school to real-world issues, problems, and applications. The basic idea is that students are more likely to be interested in what they are learning, more motivated to learn new concepts and skills, and better prepared to succeed in college, careers, and adulthood if what they are learning mirrors real-life contexts, equips them with practical and useful skills, and addresses topics that are relevant and applicable to their lives outside of school.
Schools are looking to replace the bulkier hard-copy textbooks with digital ones that are accessible via tablet.
1 Pro of this would be that that they eliminate the need for students to carry around a heavy backpack full of books.
1 con of this would be in order to fully implement this schools would need to provide a tablet to every student and have a system in place for damaged, stolen of lost assets.
Through the years that I’ve worked in a school media center, I’ve come across many literacy learning resources that I’ve found to be quite innovative. One in particular stands out in my mind, and it’s something that my team and I have been using frequently since the pandemic first began.
I’m referring to interactive eBooks, a great resource for students of all ages. One of the things that the media center at my school has been lacking in for the past two school years has been interaction between the media center specialists and the students. Although it doesn’t solve the problem, interactive eBooks have helped our students to enjoy some of the interaction that they’ve lost.
I consider interactive eBooks to be innovative because they include all of the information that a regular book contains, along with videos, games, and other special features to make learning simpler and more enjoyable to all students. They vary a lot depending on the ages of the students and the genre of the book, but this, in my opinion, makes them even better, because young students get tired quickly of predictability. I can say with complete certainty that interactive eBooks are innovating, engaging, and have revolutionized the way students read and get information.
During the length of the pandemic, one of the most frequent complaints I’ve received from students and classroom teachers was that the students missed being able to check out physical books. It is my firm belief that physical books are extremely important and have a very special place in education, and nothing will ever replace them, no matter how much technology advances. However, the pandemic has taught us that sometimes we must make sacrifices and miss out on things that are important things. Interactive eBooks haven’t filled in the gap where physical books once were, but they are a great alternative for the moment.
I think contemporary literacies pedagogy is trying to include the internet and computer software and hardware.
Pedagogical literacy is an important cognitive tool of pedagogical content. Being pedagogically literate means being professional teacher. While teaching being able to find a way how to communicate with children, try to find out what do they need and what do they expect from the lesson and help them if they need a help.
Moreover, teacher understands the identity of learners has synesthetic ways of dealing with different models and when teacher explains his subject, he has to be sure that learners understand him and will be able to use gained knowledge in their life.
In the video there is presented activity types in literacies in pedagogy. The authors show the diagram which is divided into sections according to the types of the tasks. First while teaching teacher uses the method as situated practice which means teacher understands students’ interests and get to know what they know. The second is overt instruction using this learners try to conceptualize with theory and try to apply in practice. Another orientation is critical framing, where learners understand why do they use them. And the last one is applying. To know all types of activity helps in understanding and explaining theory and apply in real world.
In the literacies pedagogy it is purposeful and deliberate advance of pedological tradition for different purpose. Teachers are expected to develop repertoires of pedagogical practices. In a school a teachers has to teach a subject and makes sure the learners learn and can apply what was taught. Teacher's are expected to come up with different approaches to repertoires pedagogy.
This is a example being use by Dr. Vincent in teaching children with dyslexia. They learned different ways on how to approach children with difficulties in reading and writing they did research and came up with fun ways to teach the kids making sure they understand the phonological and graphemes. You want learners to become useful and meaningful.
In a video by Dr. Vincent Geotry, he was using a puppet to teach and show how it is helpful in the grapheme phoneme correspondence (GPC) to slow learners. This allows for the students to be using both their visual and auditory kinesthetic.
At first he introduces the puppet by saying its name and where it’s coming from, he then went on to say that the puppet does not understand our language (English), and that the students will have to help him learn it. He would then say incorrect pronunciation of words for example ( he meant to say ), then he would have the students point a pointer or a rock or something to help them separate the word into the correct amount of graphemes. After they would’ve done this he then asks them to say the sounds and then replace it with what they think the correct word is or what the puppet is trying to say as in the example the correct word was.
I think this is a very innovative method of teaching because it is fun it keeps all of the students focused on what is it their trying to do and by working in groups there is a better chance of every one grasping the content of the lesson. It also keeps them occupied in more ways than one and as mentioned in videos 3.3 to 3.5 it does consist of at least two of the four domains.
For example, the first one would be experiential learning the students were introduced to something new, which was something unfamiliar to them but captivating. The other would be applied learning the students would then want to know how is this method of studying helping them, can it be used in other subjects areas etc and lastly conceptualizing they would've then learnt that they can use this method to learning new words how to pronounce and spell them also.
There are many other innovative resources in the following links:
https://scholar.google.co.id/scholar?q=innovative+literacy+learning+resources&hl=en&as_sdt=0&as_vis=1&oi=scholart
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.pinterest.com.au/amp/edgalaxy/innovative-literacy-teaching-ideas/
https://www.scholastic.com/teachers/blog-posts/scholasticcom-editors/2018-2019/17-must-have-literacy-resources-to-catapult-your-students-to-rea/
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.pinterest.com/amp/erin_wing/literacy-activities-for-kids/
Bedrock Vocabulary https://bedrocklearning.org/ is a literacies learning resource which seeks to engage students meaningfully with a rich curriculum of texts. According to its promotional materials, Bedrock ‘immerses students in an academic vocabulary, whilst ensuring learners read interesting fiction and non-fiction texts’. The program claims to meet students at their level of understanding, giving reading exercises with ‘engaging, language-rich fiction and non-fiction texts that expand their knowledge of the world as well as their vocabulary’. Students learn between three and five new words per lesson, in a meaning context which extends into synonyms and antonyms, and they are assessed at the end of each lesson, giving an ‘immediate sense of progress’.
I believe this is innovative because, firstly it is accessible on mobile devices and tablets, making it easier to get the program into the arms of students. By connecting the formal setting of the classroom with the informal setting of one’s phone or tablet, especially during the privations of COVID19, Bedrock Vocabulary promotes ‘self-directed learning’. Teachers are commissioning their students to the use of the program. In so doing, teachers also commit to accompany their students through using it, following their progress and intervening where necessary to give prompts of encouragement, support and one-to-one direct instruction. The program offers a high degree of tracking and qualitiative data for the benefit of teachers and parents alike.
The idea behind the program is to support students in taking ownership over their own learning, achieving a level of agency over their progress which can propel the learner to new discoveries. It is clear that improvements in language acquisition empower the learner. A student who has a greater understanding of words in their contexts, can grow to see themselves in relation to the world of the texts, an experience which is fundamentally life-affirming.
In Gustavo Garcia Botero’s article ‘Self-directed language learning in a mobile-assisted, out-of-class context: do students walk the talk?’ looks at the case of “Duolingo” - a popular app for learning an additional language. Botero, citing Garrison (1997), names ‘self-monitoring’ and ‘motivation’ as key elements of self-directed learning, an aim of both DuoLingo and Bedrock Vocabulary. Indeed, ‘self-monitoring’ is a key platform of the advertised Bedrock Vocabulary user experience. The goal is to prepare students’ metacognitive ability to recognise the ways they are building new ideas and concepts into prior understandings. One of the other key goals of programs like Bedrock is to keep students’ motivation level engaged throughout each lesson. Until I begin teaching with Bedrock in early August, it’s still too early to tell from my own experience whether this appears to be true.
Gustavo García Botero, Frederik Questier & Chang Zhu (2019) Self-directed language learning in a mobile-assisted, out-of-class context: do students walk the talk?, Computer Assisted Language Learning, 32:1-2, 71-97, DOI: 10.1080/09588221.2018.1485707