DOI: 10.4018/978-1-7998-1461-0.ch003
ABSTRACT
Supporting students in acquiring flexible skills for a fast-paced technological world is a challenge. Teachers need access to high-quality training and resources that shape teachers’ beliefs, improve self-efficacy, and build pedagogical knowledge surrounding technology integration. This qualitative exploratory case study explored the implementation and challenges one teacher faced when using small groups to develop upper elementary grade students’ online research and comprehension skills. Using the challenges the teacher discovered, including technology issues, instructional challenges, and students’ lack of computer knowledge, the authors propose several implications for implementing an instructional framework to teach online research and comprehension skills and provide educative curriculum examples for sup- porting teacher education efforts.
INTRODUCTION
I think they are quite knowledgeable about the Internet. Even from that first day, when they went on the web without prompting and she typed in her website and the other student was typing in Wikipedia over here, I’m thinking ok I’m not needed here. I can just leave the room! Anyway, it’s really more so something they do at home.
Preparing Teachers to Integrate Digital Tools That Support
Students’ Online Research and Comprehension Skills
Jennifer Van Allen
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2939-8249 Lehman College, City University of New York, USA
Vassiliki “Vicky” I. Zygouris-Coe University of Central Florida, USA
Preparing Teachers to Integrate Digital Tools That Support Students’ Online Research
- Fifth Grade Teacher, Bronx, NY
Digital literacy is a hot topic in education today for many reasons. New technologies are continually shifting conceptualizations of literacy and global communications in the world. Over the last decade, there have been increased calls by business leaders, policymakers, and leading educational organizations to meaningfully integrate digital literacies into the school curriculum (International Literacy Associa- tion [ILA], 2018; International Society for Technology in Education [ISTE], 2017; Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development [OECD], 2015; Pew Research Center, 2014; Wagner, 2008).
These calls focus schools on preparing graduates to locate information, critically evaluate and analyze information, collaborate and connect with others, and produce and share information to achieve personal, professional, and academic goals (Coiro & Dobler, 2007; OECD, 2015). Yet, schools have a long way to go to support students in acquiring flexible skills for a fast-paced technological world, particularly with teaching students skills and strategies for reading and researching online. Students who aren’t adept at accessing and using information found on the Internet will not have “full access to education, employ- ment and social opportunities afforded by digital devices” (OECD, 2015, p. 91).
While some studies report classrooms with successful technology integration (Salyer, 2015), others report missed opportunities for developing and supporting 21st-century literacy skills (McDermott &
Gormley, 2016; Paciga, 2019). Some research even suggests that, when accounting for digital litera- cies, the reading achievement gap is larger than expected. Leu et al. (2015) reported that economically advantaged seventh-graders outperformed their economically disadvantaged peers on an online research assessment, but all performed at low levels, especially when evaluating and communicating information on the Internet (Leu et al., 2015). Internationally, this problem has been noted as well. In 2015, student performance on the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) indicated that only 8%
of fifteen-year-olds internationally performed as skilled online readers, while 18% performed at low levels demonstrating basic ability to locate simple information in short digital texts when provided with explicit instructions for doing so (OECD, 2015). This performance gap exists even as 72% of students indicate using digital devices at school, with students spending an average of 25 minutes a day using the Internet at school (OECD, 2015).
Despite this gap in classroom instruction and student performance in 21st-century literacy skills, teachers perceive instruction in these skills to be important (Hutchison & Reinking, 2011; Van Allen &
Zygouris-Coe, 2019). A survey of literacy teachers conducted by Hutchison and Reinking (2011) found that these participants rated the importance of integrating technological tools into their instruction higher than their reported use of these same tools. In addition, when asked to define technology integration, participants’ responses indicated “they see integration more often as enhancing conventional instructional goals or using technology for its own sake as opposed to adopting new instructional goals involving new activities” (Hutchison & Reinking, 2011, p. 323). The quote from a practicing teacher at the beginning of this manuscript starts to examine some of the possible causes of this complex problem, ranging from teachers’ perceptions of their students’ skills to teachers’ own lack of knowledge and limited experiences with technology. For these reasons and many more, it is clear that teachers need more support integrat- ing instruction in online research and comprehension skills within existing classroom structures and instructional contexts in order to develop and support students’ digital literacy skills.
In this chapter, we present findings from a qualitative exploratory case study intended to explore the implementation and challenges one teacher faced when using small groups to develop upper elementary grade students’ online research and comprehension skills. The results of the study were used to develop an educative curriculum that utilized an online guided reading framework to support both the students’
49 Preparing Teachers to Integrate Digital Tools That Support Students’ Online Research
developing online research and comprehension skills and the teachers’ instructional approach. This book chapter reports the results of the study, describes the resulting educative curriculum materials, and explores implications for preservice and inservice teacher preparation.
BACKGROUND
Significance of the Problem
Eager students arrive in classrooms at the start of each school year ready to learn about the world.
The technological tools provided in their classrooms and schools often motivate these students, who come with various experiences using technology, to engage in schoolwork. When technology is used effectively in the classroom, student motivation, attitude, and engagement increase, and teacher-student and home-school relationships are improved (Zheng, Warshauer, Lin, & Chang, 2016). Transformed teaching and learning makes use of challenges, creativity, exploration, choice, collaboration, and active student engagement with instruction in online research integrated and used as a tool for discovering and expressing ideas (Ertmer, Ottenbreit-Leftwich, Sadik, Sendurur, & Sendurur, 2012). While many causes and factors contribute to students’ lack of online research and comprehension skills, two of the greatest challenges are providing access to reliable, up-to-date technology and Internet connectivity and preparing teachers to integrate these skills into their instruction.
Barriers to Technology Integration
Ertmer et al. (2012) have identified two types of barriers that influence teachers’ use of technology in classrooms. Fortunately, first-order barriers, those referring to external barriers beyond the teacher’s con- trol, such as lack of resources, are being overcome in schools today. Significant progress has been made in ensuring that classrooms are equipped with technology for student and teacher use and that schools across the United States have access to reliable, high-speed Internet connections (U.S. Department of Education, Office of Educational Technology, 2017). National initiatives such as the ConnectEd initia- tive, which strives to provide high-quality Internet access, technology, and professional development on technology integration to schools and teachers, have been implemented widely (Office of Educational Technology, n.d.). As a result, in 2015, 71% of children ages 3 to 18 had access to the Internet, with 65%
of those children using the Internet at school (McFarland et al., 2018). However, structural and finan- cial barriers still remain as schools struggle to provide access to timely technical support when devices malfunction, find funding to update technology in a rapidly advancing age, and ensure student equity of access outside of the school environment (Neuman & Gambrell, 2015; U.S. Department of Education, Office of Educational Technology, 2017).
Second-order barriers, those referring to internal barriers related to the teacher, are noted to be the most pervasive and challenging to overcome (Ertmer et al., 2012) and are the focus of our work. Factors such as teachers’ pedagogical knowledge of technology integration (Hutchison, 2012), own self-efficacy with the Internet (Liu, Ritzhaupt, Dawson, & Barron, 2017; Wu & Wang, 2015) and beliefs and attitudes about technology (Ertmer et al., 2012; Ertmer, Ottenbreit-Leftwich, & Tondeur, 2014) affect if and how instruction is transformed in individual classrooms. Recently, Liu et al. (2017) found that teachers who had higher self-confidence and comfort with technology and used technology more frequently in their
Preparing Teachers to Integrate Digital Tools That Support Students’ Online Research
personal lives incorporated more technology into their classroom instruction. Wu and Wang (2015) examined the Internet self-efficacy of elementary teachers in China and found that those teachers who indicated that they used elaborate search strategies and evaluative standards of experts when viewing websites had a greater Internet self-efficacy and were more likely to teach these skills to students. In addition, Ertmer et al. (2014) note that teachers with more traditional beliefs include technology as a supporting role in classrooms, such as presenting a lecture with a PowerPoint presentation or using online games to support drill and practice of skills; while teachers with constructivist beliefs tend to use technology in more integrated ways that support students as researchers, designers, and problem solvers, such as facilitating students’ use of blogs to reflect on their learning and encouraging parents and other students to comment on the blog posts.
Much of the preparation provided to preservice and inservice teachers currently occurs in short, de- contextualized workshops or classes that focus on introducing and using specific applications, websites, and other digital tools (Blocher, Armfield, Sujo-Montes, Tucker, & Willis, 2011; Hutchison & Wood- ward, 2018). Yet, this type of training does little to address second-order barriers, such as impacting the dispositions of teachers who are intimidated by technology or do not believe that technology use in the classroom improves student learning. In addition, this type of training does not support teachers in envi- sioning actual use of these applications and tools in a constructivist learning environment (Tondeur, van Braak, Ertmer, & Ottenbreit-Leftwich, 2017). Therefore, it is imperative that teacher education provide preservice and inservice teachers access to high-quality training and resources that shape their beliefs, improve their self-efficacy, and build their pedagogical knowledge surrounding technology integration, and more specifically online research skills.
Supporting Technology Integration
Since the role technology plays in a classroom is predicated on a teacher’s conceptions of effective teaching and learning, supportive professional development (PD) is essential in schools and teacher preparation programs. Preservice and inservice teachers need more professional preparation on tech- nology integration that is timely and provides appropriate background knowledge, on-going support, multiple exposures to content, time to explore, practice and prepare content, and access to models of instruction (Hutchison, 2012). Studies show that shifting teacher preparation to emphasize how to apply these tools to reach instructional goals and support students is much more effective and widely received by teachers (Blocher et al., 2011; Hutchison & Woodward, 2018). In addition, in order to shift teachers’
existing beliefs and practices, these efforts should be long-term and include mentoring and communi- ties of practice in supportive school environments that encourage teacher inquiry (Tondeur et al., 2017).
One example of a successful PD effort was the Technology Integration Planning Cycle Model of PD, which emphasized the “range of possible pedagogical approaches to using technology in the classroom, as well as in how to plan [literacy] instruction that effectively utilizes digital tools to create meaningful learning experiences for students” (Hutchison & Woodward, 2018, p. 3). In this sense, the yearlong PD model focused teachers on creating meaningful learning opportunities for students using the affordances of technology to collaborate with others and communicate information, rather than solely on how to use the technological tools. Teacher participation in this comprehensive, situated model included whole- group PD sessions, a long-range planning session, access to instructional coaches for support, weekly participation in professional learning communities facilitated by an instructional coach, teaching obser- vations with reflective feedback, weekly emails with digital tools and lesson plan examples, and access
51 Preparing Teachers to Integrate Digital Tools That Support Students’ Online Research
to a website that held resources, ideas, and opportunities for social networking. As a result, the teachers in the study achieved true curricular integration with a better understanding of the role of technology in instruction, their shifting roles as teachers, and more effective planning and use of technology to support instructional goals. In addition, the model overcame many second-order barriers, such as low teacher confidence using technology and negative beliefs about technology integration in schools (Hutchison
& Woodward, 2018).
While a situated approach to supporting technology integration has been found effective, other ap- proaches are also effective in supporting teacher knowledge and pedagogy through existing curriculum.
Teachers are continually building knowledge as they plan and implement lessons, assess student learning, collaborate with colleagues, and communicate with parents (Davis & Krajcik, 2005). Therefore, teachers are constantly developing and integrating their knowledge about content and pedagogy and applying their knowledge to make professional decisions about how to implement curriculum and curriculum materials (Davis & Krajcik, 2005). Since teachers’ continuous learning and development of teaching practices are situated through the enactment of the curriculum materials and teaching resources they are provided, these materials provide an opportunity to support pedagogy (Davis, Palinscar, Smith, Arias,
& Kademian, 2017). Educative curriculum materials, those designed with the intention of promoting teacher learning, have been proposed as one way to provide “just in time” support as teachers build and integrate their knowledge of new and existing content and pedagogical practices (Davis & Krajcik, 2005; Davis et al., 2014).
A central element of educative curriculum materials is a quality base curriculum that includes com- plete and accurate content and effective pedagogy (Davis & Krajcik, 2005). Then, educative features for teachers that focus on instructional approaches, rationales, and recommendations for use are embedded within the base curriculum to support teacher knowledge and teacher learning by connecting theory to practice. These components are meant to help teachers predict and understand students’ responses to instruction, support their own learning of disciplinary content and practices, consider how to connect curriculum units, understand the pedagogical rationales of the developers, and “promote a teacher’s pedagogical design capacity” (Davis & Krajcik, 2005, p. 5) as they enact and adapt the curriculum to fit their needs (Davis et al., 2017).
Many studies point to the potential of educative curriculum materials to support teacher learning (Cervetti, Kulikowich, & Bravo, 2015; Land, Tyminski, & Drake, 2015; Schneider, 2013). A case study of one teacher’s implementation of a science curriculum with educative curriculum features emphasiz- ing inquiry-based science techniques indicated that the teacher’s knowledge development of inquiry practices greatly improved as she interacted with the curriculum materials and students (Schneider, 2013). Another experimental study examined the extent to which educative curriculum features focused on supporting English Language Learners’ (ELs) needs influenced teachers’ enactment of strategies to support these learners and improve their achievement (Cervetti et al., 2015). Results indicated that the treatment group used a wider range of strategies that supported student learning as they modified the curriculum for ELs than the control group, although no significant differences in student achievement were noted (Cervetti et al., 2015). Land et al. (2015) explored how educative curriculum materials sup- ported preservice teachers’ learning of best practices in teaching elementary mathematics. While the preservice teachers did not immediately recognize the educative potential of these features for their own learning, the authors concluded that focused close reading and purposeful questions posed by an instructor may help build prospective teachers’ knowledge of curriculum materials, content knowledge, and pedagogical approaches simultaneously (Land et al., 2015). Educative curriculum materials provide
Preparing Teachers to Integrate Digital Tools That Support Students’ Online Research
a valuable method of supporting teacher learning through timely resources and information that can be readily implemented in teaching. However, some researchers indicate that without accompanying situ- ated, guided, and/or differentiated PD, educative curriculum materials alone are not enough (Krajcik &
Delen, 2017; Schuchardt, Tekkumru-Kisa, Shunn, Stein, & Reynolds, 2017).
Given the need to support students’ digital literacy skills in online research and the need to support teachers’ learning of how to instruct students in these skills, we wondered about the challenges associated with implementing instruction in online research and comprehension through a widely used framework in schools today, guided reading. In this study, we examined how one fourth-grade teacher adapted her guided reading instruction with a group of above-average readers to develop their online research skills. We used what students and the teacher learned, along with the challenges they experienced with implementing instruction on online reading and comprehension, to propose educative features that may support teachers’ knowledge about technology integration, providing specific examples that focus on developing students’ online research and comprehension skills. In addition, we explore how existing curriculum structures may be adapted to support technology integration efforts and instruction in online research and comprehension skills.
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORKS
Several theoretical frameworks informed this study including New Literacies Theory, particularly lowercase new literacies theory surrounding online research and comprehension (Leu, Kinzer, Coiro, Castek, & Henry, 2017), the Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge Model (TPACK; Mishra &
Koehler, 2006), and the guided reading framework (Fountas & Pinnell, 2012). While the guided reading framework served as our curriculum structure, New Literacies Theory provided the target online research and reading comprehension skills to be taught and the TPACK model supported our understanding of the teaching decisions and challenges the teacher and students faced.
New Literacies Theory
As technology continues to develop and more advanced forms emerge, what it means to be literate also evolves with different forms of skills, knowledge, and dispositions needed to read, write, and commu- nicate (Leu et al., 2017). The Internet continues to have a profound effect on the ways we communicate with others and share knowledge in a global society. These effects are felt not only in our personal and professional lives, but also in policy, including educational policy initiatives such as the Common Core State Standards (National Governors Association Center for Best Practices, Council of Chief State School Officers, 2010) in the United States, and the Digital Technologies in Focus project (Australian Curricu- lum, n.d.) supporting the implementation of digital technologies in Australia. The dual level theory of new literacies proposed by Leu et al. (2017) examines multiple perspectives of the continuously chang- ing definition of literacy ranging from the broad assumptions and common patterns in uppercase new literacies theory to literacies and patterns found within specific technologies and areas of new literacies in lowercase new literacies theory. Some of the common assumptions that guided our work from up- percase new literacies theory were:
53 Preparing Teachers to Integrate Digital Tools That Support Students’ Online Research
• The Internet and related technologies require additional new literacies to fully access their potential.
• Critical literacies are central to new literacies.
• New forms of strategic knowledge are required with new literacies.
• Teachers become more important, though their role changes, within new literacy classrooms. (Leu et al., 2017, p. 5)
The lowercase new literacies of online research and comprehension skills had the largest impact on our work as it describes how students conduct online research and read in online environments and defines specific skills needed (Leu et al., 2017). According to Leu et al. (2017), online research involves a problem-based inquiry process that requires new skills, strategies, dispositions, and social practices.
Online researchers must direct their own reading paths as they construct text and knowledge across a variety of multimodal sources using traditional reading comprehension strategies, as well as an extended set of skills and strategies specific to reading on the Internet. Five broad processing practices, each encom- passing various skills, strategies, and dispositions, are required for online research and comprehension:
1. Identify important problems or questions.
2. Locate information.
3. Evaluate information critically.
4. Synthesize information.
5. Communicate information (Leu et al., 2017, p. 8).
In our study, these skills, strategies, and dispositions were the focus of the teaching and learning that occurred.
Guided Reading
Many states, districts, and schools require elementary teachers to provide small group, targeted literacy instruction as part of their curriculum. Guided reading is one such small group instructional context commonly utilized in diverse classrooms (Iaquinta, 2006). The guided reading framework emphasizes responsive teaching through explicit teaching and prompting of strategic behaviors good readers employ to read and understand text (Fountas & Pinnell, 2017). Small groups are typically formed with readers who are on the same reading level or exhibit similar reading behaviors, which allow the teacher to care- fully select texts and focus skills for targeted instruction. These skills are based on a system of strategic actions readers should employ when thinking within the text (e.g., decoding words and identifying im- portant information), thinking about the text (e.g., making connections and synthesizing information), and thinking beyond the text (e.g., analyzing the writer’s craft and evaluating ideas). Instruction occurs in a three-part lesson consisting of before reading, during reading, and after reading portions. Before reading, the teacher briefly introduces a text to students and invites them to share what they notice about the text through discussion. During reading, the students read the text and the teacher observes students’
reading behaviors, interacting with students to prompt and support for strategic actions when a challenge occurs. After reading, the teacher engages the students in a discussion about the text, inviting their own personal responses, and provides one or two teaching points during which students return to the text for