Blog Post Three - Leveraging Tools, Text, and Talk in My Teaching Context

When leveraging tools, text, and talk in the context of teaching there has to be considerations for equity and engagement with content. In a previous experience I had during a student teaching placement I observed how the utilization of online spaces can negatively affect students who do not have equal access to those spaces. In the effort to build new literacy skills and utilize digital resources in the pursuit of a classroom across spaces teachers must consider the tools that are available for all students. After reading this modules resources, my understanding of designing to support practices beyond the screen is that teachers have a responsibility to utilize face-to-face classroom analog instruction as well as online digital instruction to support the development of new literacies without negatively effecting the students in the process. New technologies should be constantly integrated into the classroom environment in order to bridge the gap between the classroom uses of technology and social uses of technology (Philip & Garcia, 2013). In my experiences, everything in education is about balance, for example, balancing between online and real-life learning experiences. While we want to incorporate online spaces for learning to better support our students new literacy skills, we must use this as a supplement to our real-world spaces for learning which present their own benefits as well.

In my opinion the best way to have conversations about new literacy practices and navigating them in a purposeful and informed manner is by putting them in the positon to have to use those practices and apply the necessary skills. In my experience, when integrating new literacies into assignments and course content these conversations will come naturally through teacher feedback and student engagement. It is for this reason that “technology should be considered within an array of educational tools and strategies and judged in light of its potential to introduce or reshape texts, tools, and talk.” (Philip & Garcia, 2013) It is easy to ban phone usage in classrooms and create paper copies of learning activities so that students do not have to have conversations about new literacy, however this only disadvantages the student themself in their pursuit to effectively support and contribute to the digital space around them. This further rotates back to the idea of creating classroom digital experiences that are relevant and connected to social digital experiences. Students are craving exposure, knowledge, and progress in this area as a result of increased social media influence in recent history, so we should expose them to these digital spaces in a safe and control manner that teachers students who to maximalise their capabilities.

One example of a project that I could assign in a mathematics classroom to incorporate analog and digital learning experiences towards a complex learning goal could be related to collecting and visualizing data. To teach qualitative versus quantitative data student's could be prompted to create a personalized topic which they want to research, including a variety of closed-ended quantitive practices as well as open-ended qualitative practices. Students could be encouraged to use analog experiences such as in person interviews and discussions as well as digital experiences such as an online survey or affinity group posting to collect the necessary data. Then, students could also use digital applications, such as google sheets or Microsoft excel, to generate data visualizations and practice new literacies through the exploration of different data visitation softwares.

Because this project allows for students to choose their own topic and path as well as engage with affinity groups that interest them, there is room for both positive and negative outcomes from this project. Positive outcomes include the use of reality pedagogy since this project encourages teachers to get proximal with students and gain authentic insights and asset-based perspectives of their culture and associated interests (Edmin, 2021). Additionally, incorporating the use of affinity spaces into data collection and the sharing of the data visualization has the capacity to build stronger presences in their affinity groups. One highlighted tension of the use of affinity groups is inconsistent feedback and experiences as a result of students not participating enough in the spaces in order to understand their online audience (Magnifico, 2018). However, by integrating affinity spaces into the data collection and sharing the data collection once it has been visualized in an illustrative format will help students in repeat exposure to their affinity group and thus create high opportunity for them to become invested in the responses and considerations of the other members of the affinity group. A project such as this will encourage student participation and cultural responsiveness by allowing students to pick their own topics. Additionally, this project would support a variety of analog and digital experiences aimed towards designing a classroom across spaces and utilizing a variety of resources to create increased digital competency and new literacy skills for the students.



References

Edmin, C., Adjapong, E., Levy, I.P. (2021). On science genius and cultural agnosia: Reality pedagogy and/as hip-hop rooted cultural etching in STEM education. The Education Forum, 85(4), 391-405.

Magnifico, A.M., Lammers, J.C., Fields, D.A. (2018). Affinity spaces, literacies and classrooms: tensions and opportunities. Literacy, 52(3), 145-152.

Philip, T. M., & Garcia, A. D. (2013). The Importance of Still Teaching the iGeneration: New Technologies and the Centrality of Pedagogy. Harvard Educational Review, 83(2), 300-319,400-401.