I cannot believe the timeliness of our session tonight with Sharon Peters. Her discussion on Digital Literacies is exactly the discussion I’ve was having with my Grade 1 teachers this afternoon. It is discussion that everyone needs to participate in -all teachers (whether ELA or not), administrators, parents, community at large, and last but certainly not least, our students. The media rich world we’re living in requires a shift in our understanding of “literacy”, which while not an entirely new concept – does have implications for our practice in our classrooms.
Earlier this fall, we rolled out to our Grade 1 teachers a set of rubrics and common assessments for ELA – which basically houses the entire curriculum in 6 pages. Teachers report on every strand, every term. One of the major purposes of the project was to compact the curriculum and make it more teacher friendly, but another major purpose was to encourage teachers to begin focusing instruction in all 6 strands (reading, writing, listening, speaking, representing, and viewing). While the strands have been in provincial curriculum for several years, I think it’s a fair assumption to make that they have not been given equal weighting in the classroom. Reading and writing are considered the most critical strands by pretty much all parties involved.
So how do we move ourselves towards this understanding that engaging students in all strands, and multiple literacies, is important and necessary work?
The project is a start, to be sure.
One teacher commented how one of her students struggled with reading, but was far exceeding expectations in the viewing strand. She acknowledged how empowering it was to be able to share that information with parents during interviews, where traditionally, she would have typically had less positive news if she’d only focused on reading and writing. No doubt that student also felt empowered.
I could share a myriad of positive feedback that came from today’s session…which is wonderful to have. But, there is still concern about the validity of focusing equally on all 6 strands. These teachers want the research. Where is the proof that focusing on all 6 strands will lead to improved student learning? Why should they give up what they’ve always done? Is this just anothere bandwagon that we’re jumping on?
One of the suggestions that came from today’s session was to develop an information video for parents about the 6 strands, which could be played at PTI’s. I’m going to start working on it right away – because the message does need to be spread.
Our kids need to critically view, listen, read, represent, speak and write. Our teachers need to provide them authentic, contextualized opportunities to do so.
This group of teachers is working hard to figure out how to do that. It’s not easy work. But they’re mucking about, talking, questioning, experimenting, but most importantly, reflecting…and I think that is what is most critical – whether we’re implementing new technology, new instructional strategies, or a new definition of “literacy”.
Making Sense of It All... 
February 14, 2008 at 11:22 am
I constantly struggle with the quality of assessments we use. So much of our assessments and understanding of assessments tend to focus on reading and writing. We understand how to grade the quality of paragraph. We can break down the elements to focus on sentence structure, conventions and even creativity. Most teachers have a harder time assessing video, images and multimedia in general. That’s why I think we have a hard time with our own data.
It’s always going to be a struggle when teachers themselves don’t use these mediums for personal or professional use. It’s too abstract. They are comfortable with text…not so alternate medias. Until they begin to use it for themselves, it will remain on the fringe I think.
The challenge is that good visual media takes more work. Writing a paragraph is easy in terms of access to resources and composition. Video is hard because it requires both writing, and imagery and even audio. Way more complex and time consuming. When we try too hard to minimize these elements, the result is often very lousy work. (just watch 90% of kids PPT’s)
No easy answer that’s for sure.
February 14, 2008 at 10:49 pm
yup…you’re right…much higher levels of thinking required to work with a variety of media. And you’re also right – much more difficult to instruct how to be critical viewers & representers when it isn’t something most teachers have ever had to think about.
It will come…just gonna take time!
February 16, 2008 at 6:01 pm
I think a big problem is that curriculum documents and assessment have been rolled out without the kind of support that teachers need to implement.
I am now advocating for in school support (mentors, instructional leaders that get release time) to help teachers implement new instructional strategies and assessments.
February 18, 2008 at 4:23 pm
I’d agree entirely with you Laurie, and we too are trying to move towards job embedded professional development. Getting release time is a critical piece though. We’ve been working towards building capacity and encouraging teachers to take on leadership roles, and yet we expect them to still prepare for a sub while they work with other teachers. That model will not be sustainable, so we certainly need to look at other options.