Sustaining the Inquiry Cycle:

Digital Literacy Reframed

1

Leo Casey,

National College of Ireland

Bertram Chip Bruce,

University of Illinois, Champaign IL.

Opening Question

How will we know digital literacy in a class room?

Something really useful…..

Nice to eat - even better with cream

Kids like banana splits

Teacher organises a class activity: making a banana split

..can be eaten later!

Something else that’s useful…..Captures the moment

Kids like taking pictures

Teacher organises a class activity: taking pictures

..can be reviewed later!

Digital Literacy

The camera and the banana

(just) tools to support inquiry

Background• Question: new digital media - rich opportunities for learning - but

how do we translate to instructional practice?

• Need a framework that deals with new digital technologies in class room practice.

• Purpose of such a framework:– enable study and evaluation of new media engagement and learning

– facilitate planning of instructional strategies vis-à-vis the affordances and constraints of digital media

• Components of such a framework:– The Inquiry Cycle (a model of learning drawing on Dewey)

– Definition of Digital Literacy (appropriate for primary schools)

Research*

Goal: to propose a new definition and conceptual framework for digital literacy in primary schools (DLIPS).

This definition draws on the theoretical work of Dewey and a model of learning based on the Inquiry Cycle (Bruce & Bishop, 2002).

This definition and framework was developed and validated in a study of the classroom practices of eight Irish primary schools.

* The research described in this report was supported by a grant from the Research & Development Committee of the Department of Education and Science. The views expressed in this report are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views or policy of the

Department of Education and Science.

Full report available here

Digital Literacy - orientations

Literacy as skills.... Literacy as social practice.....

individual’s have or have not associated with situations not individuals

specific to technology or software shared meaning

measured by tests emphasis on tasks and activities

quantitative research qualitative research

Primary Schools

Practices: learning and teaching - regard digital literacy w.r.t. a model of learning appropriate for primary schools.

The Inquiry Cycle (Bruce & Bishop, 2002) provides such a model.

Dewey“If we roughly classify the impulses which are available in the school, we may group them under four heads.

There is the social instinct of the children as shown in conversation, personal intercourse, and communication.

…. Then there is the instinct of making -- the constructive impulse

. ….the instinct of investigation seems to grow out of the combination of the constructive impulse with the conversational. There is no distinction between experimental science for little children and the work done in the carpenter shop. Children simply like to do things, and watch to see what will happen….

And so the expressive impulse of the children, the art instinct, grows also out of the communicating and constructive instincts.”

John Dewey. "The School and the Life of the Child," Chapter 2 in /The School and Society/. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. (1907)

A new definition of digital literacy

“Digital literacy in primary schools involves pupils and teachers using digital technology to enable, sustain and enrich all aspects of the inquiry cycle of learning

as: ask, investigate, create, discuss and reflect”

(Casey et al., 2009 p 7).

The definition suggests three ways in which digital media practices can enhance the Inquiry Cycle.

(i) practices can enable the cycle by offering new entry points such as taking pictures for investigating or facilitating discussion through on-line connection.

(ii) practices can sustain the cycle through expansion as in when new questions arise from reflection facilitated by reviewing creative outputs such as a photo story or web site.

(iii) digital media practices can enrich the Inquiry Cycle by facilitating different modes of experience and engagement such as visual (the fine detail of the flower), aural enrichment (the sound of the wind), narrative, music, text and symbols.

The DLIPS ResearchIn order to investigate digital literacy as a contextualized practice we

sought a setting with the following characteristics:

• disadvantaged schools – not schools with a long tradition of technology practice;

• teachers who were at the early stages of use of digital tools but with just enough support for such practices to be within grasp.

This study investigated digital literacy in four Irish primary schools that met these criteria.

Investigation focused on the nature of student engagement and participation, and the connection between digital literacy and print literacy skills.

Target Group• The four schools were supported as part of a learning

initiative known as Elevate whereby schools in the vicinity of Dublin’s Digital Hub were given additional support with the integration of ICT.

• In practice, this comprised of a range of professional development workshops for teachers as well as school visits by experts in the use of ICT and teaching.

• The investigation focused on class projects rather than

wider school contexts.

Approach

• Six investigators worked in pairs as observers. • We devised a Component Checklist (next slide) to rate

what we observed • The Component Checklist had the potential to function

not just as an observation tool but also as the basis of a new framework for conceptualizing digital literacy.

• For this reason much attention was given to naming and characterizing each of the components and the levels within each component.

Readers interested in the full component checklists see Casey et al (2009).

Component  

Ask

Rating 1 Rating 2 Rating 3 Rating 4 Rating 5

Investigate

Create

Collaborate

Reflect/Express

Participation (depth)

Participation (scope)

Print literacy

Media ecology

Use of digital media

Component  

Ask

Rating 1 Rating 2 Rating 3 Rating 4 Rating 5

Investigate

Create

Collaborate

Reflect/Express

Participation (depth)

Participation (scope)

Print literacy

Media ecology

Use of digital media

Scale for the Component “Ask”

Rating 1 Significant questions e.g. recognizing both the affordances and the constraints and/or the nature of the mediation of the topic

Rating 2 Inquiries tend to be more purposeful

Rating 3 Inquiries tend to be somewhat limited in scope

Rating 4 Some inquiry but questions are disconnected from one another and from other aspects of learning and from lived experience

Rating 5 Little evidence of questioning or inquiry

Data Gathering and Analysis

• The unit of analysis was a class project carried out by a specific teacher. We asked teachers to select an appropriate project-based activity for researchers to observe during the two school visits – the choice of project was left entirely up to the teacher.

• Data collected:

• classroom observation using the Component Checklist, • interviews with school principals and teachers, • examination of student project outcomes and class photos, audio

recordings and contemporaneous notes

Cases

For the purposes of this research, each project was classified as a ‘case’. The eight cases were titled:

Bills New Frock, Vikings, The Digital Dog, How to Make a Banana Split, The Three Little Pigs, Fractions, Memories St Patrick.

These titles reflect the content themes as either book titles or story lines.

Data Gathering and AnalysisInvestigators collated data using a protected web site – this facilitated

independent data input by each observer and subsequent comparisons of individual component ratings.

----------X1------- O1 ------------class---project------------------ O2----X2-------

X1 first teacher interview X2 second teacher interview (optional)

O1 first class observation O2 second class observation

Researchers observed in pairs and each individual researcher was required to independently classify the activities using the Component Checklist.

Findings

(i) the development of a new definition and framework for digital literacy

(ii) our observations on the practices of primary teachers and pupils using digital media in classroom activities and

(iii) our findings on the relationship between digital media and the use of print media.

(i) Definition of digital literacy and the associated framework

• This definition arises from observation and analysis of instructional practice in the schools and engagement with the teachers and support staff.

• Further, the digital literacy definition is the starting point for a descriptive framework that connects classroom practices with the Inquiry Cycle model of learning.

• Tools such as the Component Checklist and the Inquiry Cycle Activity Summary arose as a means classifying and analyzing classroom activities for research purposes.

How is

Ask

facilitated by activity centered on

Teacher?

Investigate Group work?

Create Print media?

Communicate Digital media?

Reflect Other materials?

Inquiry Cycle Activity Summary

Findings (ii) observations of classroom practices using digital media

• Use of digital technology was generally observed as embedded within structured learning activities directed at curriculum learning outcomes rather than as an end in itself.

• Teachers were found to use tools such as the digital camera, audio devices as well as classroom computers to engage pupils in different roles and to facilitate inquiry learning and group work.

• Furthermore, digital outputs such as photo-stories, podcasts and video served as project goals and were usually the culmination of a broad range of preparation and production activities

• Reading and writing activities were frequently integrated into the planning and content components of digital productions.

Findings (iii) digital literacy and print literacy

• We found evidence that digital literacy and print literacy could be mutually supportive – for example, text was used for narrative and dialogue in storyboards, pupils wrote accounts of their activities and many of the projects were derived from books that were being read in class.

• Teachers embedded print literacy tasks into pupil activities as they planned and carried out their digital projects.

• This research did not extend to measure any uplift in reading scores over time.

ReferencesBruce, B. C., & Bishop, A. P. (2002). Using the web to support

inquiry-based literacy development. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 45(8), 706-714.

Casey, L., Bruce, B. C., Martin, A., Shiel, G., Brown, C., Hallissy, M., et al. (2009). Digital literacy: New approaches to participation and inquiry learning to foster literacy skills among primary school children. Retrieved 19th of October 2009 from http://hdl.handle.net/2142/9765.

Dewey, J. (1938). Experience and education (60th Anniversary ed.). Indianapolis: Kappa Delta Pi.

Dewey, J. (1991/1938). Experience and education (original work published 1938). In J. A. Boydston (Ed.), John dewey: The latter works, 1938-1939 (Vol. 13). Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press.

Q & A