Challenges of Embracing ICT Tools in Literacy for Teachers Emerging from the Traditional Pedagogy - Research Paper Example

A report on the challenges of embracing ICT Tools in literacy for teachers emerging from the traditional pedagogy By Name University Module Instructor Submission Date © 2012 ABSTRACT There are a number of challenges associated with tools in the learning and teaching of literacy, particularly for teachers with considerable expertise in the traditional mode of instruction. Anstey and Bull (2010) indicate that the adoption of ICT becomes even more challenging when the traditional teacher is required to handle the technology-savvy learners of our times. It is therefore the aim of this paper to examine how seasoned teachers are coping with the challenges of adopting the use of ICT tools in classroom instruction. The report draws largely from the teachers’ perceptions of the changing pedagogies in literacy education when viewed against the fast-tracked technology. The key focus of this report is therefore to explore how these teachers are transiting their practice in order to meet the new demands of literacy teaching (Williams, 2011) as well as identify the strategies open for them in shifting from the traditional role of being knowledge-disseminators to mere facilitators. It is through this kind of analysis that I intend to theorise the benefits accruable to literacy teachers after they fully embrace the use of ICT tools in their pedagogic practices. INTRODUCTION Technologies have emerged in specific historical contexts to rule over every other aspect of our lives, including social and economic. The educational aspect of our lives has not been spared this onslaught, probably because literacy learning as explained by Waycott and associates (2005) hinges upon effective communication and interpersonal relationships. Zevenbergen and Lerman (2006) contend that when ICT technology is embraced in classroom instruction, learners are availed abundant opportunities of social networking with peers as well as being able to undertake collaborative learning. As observed by Walsh (2010), technological exploitations largely excite students’ cognitive, affective and social interactions. Research has variously shown that the use of digital tools in literacy dissemination is a powerful motivator in learners’ engagement, although the teacher’s positive support is more fundamental. Unfortunately, long-serving teachers who started working long before the advent of ICT are finding it quite challenging to guide students’ learning within today’s environments that are endowed with a lot of intricate information (Kress, 2003). But because teachers cannot be locked into traditional print-based pedagogies forever, it is the reason why this project is being undertaken. The findings of the present project are deemed to be instrumental in encouraging the use of ICT tools in all forms of literacy. LITERATURE REVIEW Background The use of ICT tools in the learning and teaching of literacy is gaining a lot of popularity in recent times. A number of governments in many states are showing a large presence in the support of use of ICT tools in schools and work places alike. Beauchamp (2004) for example reports that most schools in United Kingdom have received commendable government assistance in adopting the use of interactive whiteboards (IWBs). Armstrong and colleagues (2005) concur with this by claiming that large sums of money have been disbursed to finance the integration of IWBs in all levels of education. On the contrary, schools in Australia do not seem to be attracting any substantial financial assistance from the central government to implement the use of IWBs in the teaching and learning of literacy as underpinned by extant literature. Instead, majority of schools are employing orthodox strategies to ensure that implementation of these tools is achieved in one way or the other. In this way therefore, the implementation of ICT tools has turned out to be ‘school projects’ where specific schools have opted to source for funds without government support (Williams, 2011). Based on this realisation therefore, the implementation of ICT tools is lope-sided because it is guided by the availability of resources in the particular school. It also depends much on the teaching staff’s perception of the changing technology (Burnett and Myers, 2006). Drawing from this therefore, Robyn and partner (2007) claim that the adoption and integration of ICT tools across majority of Australian institutions of learning has not been very uniform. In a study conducted by Walsh (2010) exploring the ease of adopting new forms of technology, it was reported that the “experienced teachers were skeptical of these new forms of pedagogy as opposed to pre-service teachers who saw them as an integral and valued component of their future practice”. Attempting to encourage teachers to adopt integration of ICT tools into their collection of pedagogic skills, a great deal of financial investment on the part of teachers need to be initiated in order to further enhance their technological aptitudes as well as their instructive skills as espoused by Beauchamp (2004). Additionally, Thorne (2008) underlines the importance of teachers recognising the presence of the valuable ‘involvement’ that comes with the use of ICT tools. In their views, ICT tools can bring about an approach that falls short of realising pedagogy that is attainable but instead promote students’ motivation in favour of the desired pedagogy. Armstrong et al (2005) direct that teachers must access ICT tools on a daily basis in order for them to be competent in their delivery. Additionally, Thorne (2008) demonstrates that the presence of ICT tools “as a teaching aid is only of value when it becomes part of the regular pattern of classroom life”. To this end, Armstrong et al (2005) advise that teachers should try as much as possible to acquire numerous software and applications related to their specific subjects in order to sharpen their skills further. This is coupled with regular and up to date in-service training on the use of ICT tools in literacy education. The need to change Pedagogy in the changing technology When comparing the use of ICT tools in classroom practice with the traditional print-media, Gore et al (2004) reported a considerably faster pace in lesson delivery in the former than in the latter. It also took students comparatively shorter time to answer questions in ICT supported lesson vis-à-vis the traditional mode. The same was observed as regards the frequency of pauses between lessons in both instances (Anstey and Bull, 2010). There was a faster pace in numeracy lessons as compared to those reported in literacy lessons. According to the views of these researchers, the adoption of ICT tools was not “significantly changing teachers’ underlying pedagogy” (Armstrong et al, 2005). This was pegged on the fact that a number of teachers spent most of their time in explaining as is the case in most print-media pedagogies. By and large, Beauchamp (2004) found that despite an increased pace in the lessons’ delivery, the length of the answers given by students seemed considerably short. This was in conjunction with reduced cases of teachers attempting to explain and clarify the responses given by students (Makin et al, 2007). Even though research has variously indicated that ICTs do have the capacity of changing the manner in which teaching is conducted, it is regrettable to note that this has not been observed practically (Robyn and Steve, 2007). According to Nelson and Miguel (2007), there has been a faster pace in lessons but unfortunately denying group work the much needed time. Moreover, the teachers have been blamed for remaining at the front of the class during an ICT integrated lesson. To dissipate this, Burnett and Myers (2006) suggest that the system should shift from “teacher-pupil interaction to one of pupil-pupil interaction”. To enhance the study of literacy in the classroom, Watson and Beswick (2007) underscore the significance of interactivity between the class members and the instructor at large. It is emphasised that the quality of questioning as well as its breadth must be developed in a more inclusive mode (Waycott et al, 2005). PROCESS The process employed in this project was that of incorporating professional learning development, collaboration and investigation with a bit of reflection on the changing views of literacy. Thus the researcher collaborated with teachers in the sampled schools to gain inputs and necessary support at different stages of the project. The research was basically qualitative in nature and was thus documented through a range of data collection techniques as stipulated by Watson and Beswick (2007). The methodology of collecting data involved video-taping of lessons progressing in the sampled schools where teachers were using ICT tools during instruction. This was compared with data collected from lessons where teachers were not using ICT tools but instead undertook the traditional pedagogy of print-media. The tapes accrued from this process were subjected to a productive pedagogies framework for analysis as described in the next section of this report. During the application of the said framework in analysing the ICT classes as suggested by Zevenbergen and Lerman (2006), a number of bothersome scores emerged when teachers used tools such as the Smartboards in literacy lessons. For better understanding of this outcome, I had to revisit the study schools on several occasions in order to interview teachers for clarity, after which I reviewed the tapes a number of times to observe the same lessons more keenly. For my project, I had a sample of five schools within Australia where only two schools were using the ICT tools and the rest were not. Across the two schools using ICT tools, not all classrooms had evidence of using the tools on a regular basis. From the foregoing, it is clear that data sources and analysis involved non-participant observation by the researcher in the classroom, face-to-face interviews, video recordings, and field notes as stipulated in such researches (Williams, 2011). Specific sessions were timetabled to fit within the regular class programme for the researcher to be in line with the ethical considerations laid down at the inception of the project. These sources of data were supplemented by a plethora of other sources including interpretations of professional documents from the teachers as well as from their personal journals. These additional sources proved instrumental during the analysis of the data as they helped in reflecting critical change and shifts in thinking on the part of the teachers (Walsh, 2010). Particularly from the personal journals kept by the teachers, collaborative discussion around key issues, personal response, and exploration of incidences as identified and highlighted by the teachers was very possible. This way, the journals acted as the “voices of teachers” as the researcher collaborated with them. FINDINGS The results of the data collected in this project have been extrapolated so as to include a more informative study. Moreover, the research results have largely borrowed from a much larger study done elsewhere exploring the success of integrating Information Technology (IT) in literacy classrooms in virtually all levels of learning (Makin et al, 2007). For starters, I have been fortunate enough to witness the introduction of ICT tools in some of my participating schools. This advantage of my witnessing the unfolding of ICT tools has provided me with an insight into the present project. As already demonstrated in the preceding section, the process for data collection was non-participant but only required the researcher to make lesson observations, conduct teacher interviews and take video clips of lessons as they progressed in the study area. Following this process therefore, some aspects of this project emerged. From the outset, certain common instances emerged after reviewing the tapes of classroom instruction. From the data obtained, it was observed that there was a great similarity between the nature of questioning resident in these lessons compared to what was reported in the study of Anstey and Bull (2010). According to the results of the said study, more recall questions were reported to have been used than those classified by Bloom to be in the high order thinking skills’ category (cited in Armstrong et al, 2005). Asking of questions in the low order thinking skills category has been known to be a strategy by teachers to pace up a lesson since such questions requires responses that are of very shallow depth on the part of the learner. This approach was predominant amongst the teachers who were not embracing ICT tools in their pedagogies. However, the main approach used by teachers embracing the ICT tools in their instruction was that of whole class teaching. Considering all the settings where ICT tools were in application, it was observed that the teacher had total control of the lesson and only invited students to participate in manipulating the objects as need arose (Kress, 2003). The ICT tools were particularly used by the teachers in all cases to introduce the lesson, after which the learners were given an opportunity to have hands-on experiences with the tools. This involved total participation of every student as the tools seemed to excite a lot of interest in all the learners, in line with ideals proposed by Bloom (cited in Nelson and Miguel, 2007). Depending on the variety of ICT tools at the disposal of the teacher, there were instances where the introduction to aspects of literacy was full of knowledge as compared to cases where use ICT tools were absent. ANALYSIS In analysing the data collected in this study, the productive pedagogies analysis suggested by Robyn and Steve (2007) was applied. Based on this framework, four dimensions exist namely: “Logical Worth, Significance, Enabling Institutional Atmosphere, and Identification of Variance” (Robyn and Steve, 2007). In these dimensions, several pedagogic strategies are found to excite particular subject-matter as outlined in the Appendix of this report. This application involved careful observations of classroom teaching and learning process. During the observation process, each “lesson was rated against nominated criteria on a scale of 0-5; where 0 indicated that there was no evidence of that criterion in the lesson, and 5 indicated that it was a strong feature that was consistent throughout the lesson” (Beauchamp, 2004). Most of the ICT compliant lessons had ratings of between 3 and 5 while the non-ICT compliant lessons scored between 0 and 1. In addition to this, the researcher similarly analysed the video clips of class instructions so as to explore the use of ICT tools in teaching literacy. The results from both the classrooms using ICT tools and from those not applying ICT were compared by looking at their means and standard deviations as demonstrated in the Table shown below. In view of the results presented in the said Table, it is indicated that the effectiveness of delivery using ICT tools is somewhat enhanced than when using other pedagogical approaches. The results of this study conform to the results of another one conducted by Zevenbergen and colleague (2006) elsewhere exploring the use of ICTs in supporting numeracy learning. Moreover, it was further observed that there were few behaviour problems with students when ICT tools were applied as opposed to teaching using other pedagogical approaches. This observation linked to the increased interest excited from learners by the use of computer assisted devices as noted by Williams (2011). Table 2: Analysis of ICT compliant lessons versus non-ICT compliant lessons ICT Compliance ICT non-Compliance Measurable Instructive Factor Mean Std. Dev. Mean Std. Dev. Complexity of content Depth of syllabus coverage Instruction language Entry behaviour Level of understanding Learner exposure Quality of discussion Plot of the lesson Explanation Comprehension Thought process Participation HOTs School involvement Learner intuition Personality Patriotism Clear conditions Group harmony Cost Benefits 2.54 2.26 3.10 2.30 0.79 0.17 2.66 2.06 2.28 2.07 3.58 3.64 2.17 2.61 1.91 1.98 3.19 2.17 3.38 3.78 3.21 3.34 4.12 4.04 2.14 2.65 3.12 3.08 1.19 1.27 2.43 2.22 1.44 1.48 3.28 2.71 1.03 1.15 2.13 2.34 2.45 2.36 1.90 1.80 0.35 0.97 2.57 2.53 1.22 1.25 2.62 2.65 1.17 1.18 1.67 1.58 2.37 2.43 3.56 3.45 2.92 2.96 3.15 3.54 2.14 2.26 2.15 2.61 1.01 1.18 1.54 1.51 1.73 1.91 2.13 2.11 0.65 0.70 1.63 1.67 Source: Modified from Watson, J & Beswick, K. (2007) CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS Although this research bonders on a very small scale, the findings presented here nevertheless do concur with the results of other studies conducted elsewhere (Anstey and Bull, 2010; Walsh, 2010). In line with these other studies, it is suggestive that adoption of technological changes inherent in reading, writing and manipulative skills have been more effective as opposed to reading and writing using printed texts (Thorne, 2008). For this reason therefore, it has become fundamental for all teachers bent on being effective in their teaching practices to embrace the changing technological pedagogies with the changing times. In the views of Makin et al (2007), the social and collaborative practices of literacy have evolved as part of the continued development of ICT integration in literacy. The main reason being that this approach excites students’ cognitive, affective and social interactions than any other. The foregoing developments are not without any shortcomings. Take for instance the case of a novice teacher attempting to embrace these changing technological pedagogies. Research has indicated that such a teacher lacks the necessary expertise to enable him or her ascertain the prior knowledge of the students coming in to apply the new technological tool being introduced (Robyn and Steve, 2007). Additionally, Waycott et al (2005) caution that noting individual difference in this case is very difficult for the teacher. This problem is resident in the fact that learners’ responses and prior knowledge can vary quite significantly from each other in their actions, and thus requires the very experienced teacher to notice. Apart from this limitation, the adoption of the new technological pedagogies is faced with the problem of students self-regulating themselves towards the undesired direction the moment they notice the excitement inherent in the ICT tools. This poses the danger of the students abandoning the writing processes that come with the approach and instead concentrate more on the visual displays once they realise how exciting they are (Nelson and Miguel, 2007). The limitation emanating from cost implications has made most schools in Australia and elsewhere in the world to shy away from the use of the new technological pedagogies as found in study (Anstey and Bull, 2010). This has been coupled with technology phobia on the part of the teachers, particularly those boasting of long years of teaching under the traditional mode of pedagogies. Despite these limitations in embracing the new technologies, the present report recommends that adoption is the only way out. The reason for this is because the present study and others done before it have facilitated “a pedagogical shift from traditional teacher-centred instructional approaches to student-oriented approaches which are deemed constructive in learning and greatly motivating” (Watson and Beswick, 2007). Further, Watson and Beswick indicate that the orientation of the approach does not preclude knowledge transmission or skills teaching, but operates within it. REFERENCES Anstey, M., & Bull, G. (2010). Evolving pedagogies: Reading and writing in a multimodal world. Curriculum Press: Education Services Australia Ltd. Armstrong, V., Barnes, S., Sutherland, R., Curran, S., Mills, S., & Thompson, I. (2005). Collaborative research methodology for investigating teaching and learning: The use of interactive whiteboard. Educational Review, 57(4), 457-469. Beauchamp, G. (2004). Teacher use of the interactive whiteboard in primary schools: Towards an effective transition framework. Technology, Pedagogy and Education, 13(3), 337-348. Burnett, C. & Myers, J. (2006). From observing children writing on screen: Exploring the process of multi-modal composition. Journal of language and literacy in education 8 (2) 1-30. Gore, J., M., Griffiths, T., & Ladwig, J., G. (2004). Towards better teaching: productive pedagogy as a framework for teacher education. Teaching and Teacher Education, 20, 375–387. Kress, G. (2003). Literacy in a new media age. London: Routledge. Makin, L., Diaz, C.J., & McLachlan, C. (2007). Literacies in childhood: Changing views, challenging practice. Victoria: Elsevier. Nelson, C & Miguel, C. (2007). Key writing challenges of practice-based doctorates. Journal of English for Academic Purposes 6; 71–86 Robyn, Z & Steve, L. (2007). Pedagogy and Interactive Whiteboards: Using an Activity Theory Approach to Understand Tensions in Practice. Mathematics: Essential Research, Essential Practice – Volume 2; pp 853-861 Thorne, S. L. (2008). Mediating technologies and second language learning. Handbook of Research on New Literacies. USA: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Walsh, M. (2010). Multimodal literacy: What does it mean for classroom practice? Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, 33 (3), 211-239. Watson, J & Beswick, K. (2007). Proceedings of the 30th annual conference of the Mathematics Education Research Group of Australasia (1st Edition). Mathematics: Essential Research, Essential Practice – Volume 2, pp 853-861 Waycott, J., Jones, A., & Scanlon, E. (2005). PDAs as lifelong learning tools: An activity theory based analysis. Learning, Media & Technology, 30(2), 107 - 130. Williams, M. (2011). A teacher’s voice: Embracing change to make a difference. Computers in New Zealand Schools: Learning Teaching Teachnology. Vol 23, No. 1: pp 33-53. Zevenbergen, R & Lerman, S. (2006). Numeracy, equity and ICTs: Final Report. Brisbane: Griffith University. Appendices Appendix 1: Instructive Factors, Productive Pedagogic Themes and Concerns Instructive Factor Theme Concerns Logical Worth Complexity of content Are complex thought processes and critiquing plus Intellectual quality occurring? Deep knowledge Does the lesson cover operational fields in any depth detail or level of specificity? Deep understanding Do the work and response of the students provide evident of understanding concepts and ideas? Depth of syllabus coverage Is the syllabus covered to the desired level, are the materials included to level of the learners’ abilities? Level of understanding Do the learners demonstrate any form of understanding by answering the questions correctly during the lesson evaluation? Instruction language Is the language of instruction familiar to both the learners and the teachers? Significance Comprehension Does the lesson present a wide range of activities that the learners can be engaged in? Entry behaviour Does the lesson attempt to connect with learners’ prior knowledge in the subject matter? Learner exposure Do lessons and assignments given to the learners have any relevance to real life situations? Quality of discussion Are the learners involved in any worthwhile discussions during class instruction? Enabling Institutional Atmosphere Personality Do the learners get autonomy in any way during classroom hands-on sessions with the tools? Cost Benefits Is the adoption of the ICT tools beneficial in any way to 6the institutions applying them? School involvement Are the participating schools involved in supporting the ICT projects? Clear conditions Are conditions for student performance made explicit? Learner intuition Is the direction of students’ behaviour self-regulatory and on course? Identification of Variance Multi-culturism Are diverse cultures included in the instruction menu? Participation Are learners with diverse background encouraged to have full participation in the learning process? Explanation Is the instruction purely rote or discursive? Group harmony Does instruction enhance group homogeneity amongst the learners? Patriotism Are the learners encouraged to become active citizens? Source: Watson, J & Beswick, K. (2007) Read More