Category Archives: Literacy teacher educators

Assessing Multimodal Projects

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You may remember, in a former post on Mar. 21, 2014, I (Cathy) shared some of my pre-service students’ multimodal projects.  The dilemma facing me after these wonderful creations were submitted, was how to assess them.  As these were only part of a larger assignment, I already had a rubric in place for whole project, but after seeing the brilliance of the multimodal aspect, I felt these alone warranted more thought and introspection on my part.  Having a background in the arts, I was used to assessing creative process and final product, but this was different.  Although artistic and expressive, this wasn’t “art”.  Hence, I looked up a number of sources on assessing multimodal work and discovered a few different opinions.

Kalantzis, Cope & Harvey (2003) argued that a multimodal assessment needs to measure the creative process and the collaborative skills demonstrated.   Jacobs(2013) suggested it wasn’t about the final product, but “watching and noticing what students are doing and then using that information to guide the students toward new skills and knowledge”.  In the end I sought out the opinion of Gunther Kress, the founder of the Multimodalities Theory.  Kress (2003) explained that representation and communication were an affective/cognitive semiotic process and this must be taken into account in the assessment. He suggested that I, as the teacher [educator] should not ask “How does this project match what I wanted or expected?”, but instead should ask, “How does this project give me insight into the interests and motivations of my learner?”  I found this question quite insightful. In the end, I used Kress’ question to guide my feedback, which will hopefully guide the students toward new insights and knowledge.  The required ‘grade’ was based on a combination of the learners’ expressed interests from within the context of the whole project (which was on diversity), the creative process and the collaborative nature of the work.

Through this process I discovered that assessing in the new age of multimodality demands mindfulness, insight and the ability to make many connections.  To be effective, it also requires that the teacher educator, or teacher, know his/her students well.  This type of assessment takes time, but it is much more meaningful. I have to admit, as much as the students loved doing these multimodal projects, I loved assessing them in this “new” way.  We all got more out of the process.  Below is a link to one more student project expressed as POW TOON digital creation.  How would you assess it?

POW TOON Link

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9uM68P2rk24&feature=share&list=UUdKEvJ3G8Z-W-geAhhsX9IA

Strategies for Maintaining Motivation and Satisfaction as a Teacher (and Teacher Educator)

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Teaching is challenging. As David Labaree (2004) says:

“[T]eaching is an extraordinarily difficult form of professional practice. It is grounded in the necessity of motivating cognitive, moral, and behavioral change in a group of involuntary and frequently resistant clients.” (pp. 55-56)

In our study of teachers, we (Clive and Clare) have been struck BOTH by the many challenges the teachers face AND how well they maintain their morale despite the challenges. Of the original cohort of 22 who began in 2004, none have quit teaching (though 2 have left the study) and none have experienced a substantial, permanent decline in motivation, though they have their ups and downs. When in 2012 we asked them explicitly about their motivation over the years, their responses were as follows:

     Average Motivation of Cohort 1 (18 interviewed) Over Their First Eight Years (Scale 1-5)

Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Year 4 Year 5 Year 6 Year 7 Year 8
4.7 4.4 4.4 4.4 4.1 3.8 3.8 4.2

 Interestingly, their highest motivation was in year 1. Though they were stressed and exhausted, they were excited to be doing what they had dreamed of for so long.

As for the strategies they used to keep up their morale, we noted the following:

  • Acknowledging the inherent challenges and limits of teaching – “it’s not just you”
  • Taking a broad approach to teaching, so it’s more social, meaningful, enjoyable
  • Becoming more skilled and effective as a teacher
  • Maintaining a work-life balance: having a life beyond teaching
  • Remembering why you became a teacher in the first place (see quotes below)

“Teaching is getting harder, and I’ve changed in that I would no longer recommend it to everyone…. However, I like it because I’m a doer, I enjoy being creative, and I like being challenged.” (Felicity, year 7)

“I’m happy to go to school [because] you just never know what’s going to happen; it’s always a new day.” (Jody, year 8)

“When things were going in a wrong direction [recently] with my school administration and in the school district, it brought me back to why I was there, why I wanted to be a teacher: working with the kids, dealing with their issues, getting down to the fundamentals of teaching them.” (John, year 8)

Great strategies! Good for teachers – and teacher educators too!

What Can I Do With a PhD?: Opening Doors to Rewarding Careers

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With continued cutbacks at universities, it is becoming more and more difficult for newly graduated students to secure an academic position at a university. Is a career as an academic the only/best choice? A new report  suggests  a PhD can open many doors and during doctoral studies candidates should be exploring many option and acquiring a range of skills. The League of European Research Universities published an “advice paper” on Good Practice Elements in Doctoral Training. http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=2014020617152794

Some of the key findings of the report are:
·      PhDs are increasingly drivers of their own professional development; and the training model in which the PhD candidate is heavily dependent on one supervisor is no longer robust.
·      over and over again it demonstrates that some of the most research-intensive universities in Europe are prioritising transferable skills, which are now being built into training programmes for doctoral candidates and, most frequently it seems, as elective course options and often in collaboration with other organisations.
·      the introduction presents 29 such transferable competencies like ‘working in teams’, ‘persisting in achieving long-term goals’ and ‘understanding the working of a specific high-level research-intensive environment’.

As a doctoral supervisor, one of the first things I (Clare) want to know from my students is what do they want to do when they complete their doctorate. I want them to be honest  which is often difficult because the prevailing norm in universities is that doctoral candidates should want to be academics. Some of my former doctoral students did not want to be academics but were nervous to reveal their intentions. If I am going to support my students fully I want to know what they hope the doctoral studies will lead to. I can  report some of my students who did not want to be academics are happily employed in a range of positions:  research officer in a school district, classroom teacher, and psycho-educational consultant. During their doctoral studies I tried ensure they are set-up to get  a particular position (e.g., present at specific types of conferences). A PhD in education should open many doors. It is important for us as supervisors to know there are many doors all of which can lead to a fruitful career.

doorways

Multimodal Literacy

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My (Cathy) pre-service students were assigned a multimodal aspect to a major assignment this year.  If you are not familiar with the Theory of Multimodality, it is Gunther Kress’ alternative to Linguistic Theory (which only privileges reading and writing as the main modes of communication in a school curriculum).  The Multimodal Theory contests that in our new age of multiple literacies, students need to be communicating, responding and expressing through many different modes of communication (e.g. speaking, music, moving, gesturing, image, and digital technology).

When I first introduced the multimodal assignment to my students, there was some trepidation and even some anger.  It was suggested I did not have the right to be marking them on their artistry or on creativity.  Hence, I had to teach the concepts behind Multimodality Theory so they could better understand what we need to be offering students of the 21st century.  They needed to see that it would allow them the freedom to express in modes of their own choosing; that it was not graded as art but as a production of design; and, that the work could be symbolic or interpretive depending on the meaning they were portraying.  The multimodal projects would also be shared in class so all could learn from them.  This project was not just them regurgitating information for me, it was them designing and producing personally meaningful projects that express what they learned and what they deemed significant.

This week we finished viewing the projects.  They were amazing, and the student response to these projects was encouraging.  My students (concurrent students just finishing a five year educational degree) had never been given this kind of an assignment before.  They loved the element of choice; working together; taking a risk; pushing their boundaries; feeling creative; and, doing something they were interested in.  The modes they selected  to express themselves though were sometimes more traditional (dancing, rapping, singing,  writing and reciting  poetry, creating 3D sculptures, puppetry, multi-sensory art installation pieces); sometimes digital (iMovies, pod-casts, prezis, Pow Toons, popplets, infographics);  and, were often a combination of both.

Collectively, we were all blown away by the results.  We were moved.  We were inspired.  My students all said they would definitely use multimodality now as teachers.  Below are a few images of my students presenting their projects:

role play poemfish bowlRAPguitarpuppet photo (13)

Now, I have to assess these designs… but that, dear reader, is for another blog.

Academics in Picture Books: Mad Scientist Stereotype

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Yiola’s post yesterday commented on the positive impact of a children’s book. Today I Mad scientist(Clare) want to talk about negative images in children’s books. I came across Melissa Terras’ fabulous research on how academics are illustrated in pictures books. Oh goodness! Academics are typically presented in a very unflattering light (old, male, a bit mad). These stereotypes do damage to our reputation with the general public and are definitely not a positive image we want to present to children. Below are some of the findings from her extensive research which I found to be frightening and discouraging. Check out Melissa’s blog for the entire article: http://melissaterras.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/male-mad-and-muddleheaded-academics-in.html

What are academics in children’s books like?

The 108 academics found consist of 76 Professors, 21 Academic Doctors, 2 Students, 2 Lecturers, 1 Assistant Professor, 1 Child, 1 Astronomer, 1 Geographer, 1 Medical Doctor who undertakes research, 1 researcher, and 1 lab assistant. In general, the Academic Doctors tend to be crazy mad evil egotists (“It’s Dr Frankensteiner – the maddest mad scientist on mercury!”), whilst the Professors tend to be kindly, but baffled, obsessive egg-heads who dont quite function normally.
The academics are mostly (old, white) males. Out of the 108 found, only 9 are female: 90% of the identified academics are male, 8% are female, and 2% have no identifiable gender (there are therefore much fewer women in this cohort than in reality, where it is estimated that one third of senior research posts are occupied by women).  They are also nearly all caucasian: only two of those identified are people of colour: one Professor, and one child who is so smart he is called The Prof: both are male: this is scarily close to the recent statistic that only 0.4% of the UK professoriat are black. 43% of those found in this corpus are are elderly men, 33% are middle aged (comprising of 27% male and 6% female, there are no elderly female professors, as they are all middle age or younger). The women are so lacking that the denoument of one whodunnit/ solve the mystery/ choose your own adventure book for slightly older children is that the professor they have been talking about was actually a woman, and you didn’t see that coming, did you? Ha!
Most of the identified academics work in science, engineering and technology subjects. 31% work in some area of generic “science”, 10% work in biology, a few in maths, paleontology, geography, and zoology, and lone academics in rocket science, veterinary science, astronomy, computing, medical research and oceanography.
The names given to the academics are telling, with the majority being less than complimentary: Professor Dinglebat, Professor P. Brain, Professor Blabbermouth, Professor Bumblebrain, Professor Muddlehead, Professor Hogwash, Professor Bumble, Professor Dumkopf, Professor Nutter, and two different Professor Potts. There is the odd professor with a name that alludes to intelligence: Professor I.Q, Professor Inkling, Professor Wiseman, but those are in the minority.
Academics are routinely shown as individuals obsessed with one topic who are either baffled Mad scientistand harmless and ineffectual, or malicious, vindictive and psychotic, and although these can be affectionate sketches (“bless! look at the clueless/psychopathic genius!”) academics routinely come across as out of touch wierdos – and what is that teaching kids about universities?  In this age of proving academic “impact”, it might be not so bad for us to be able to show we were relevant to society? That there is more to academia than science? Or for the kids books I show my kids to have more positive and integrated representations of professors and academics? Perhaps this is not the role of kids books though, and I should just be telling my kids my own tales of academic derring-do. 

I think these images of professors can undermine our identity as academics. I certainly do not see myself as the mad professor!

 

Dialogic Talk

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It’s a powerful statement about a book when while reading it, you implement a suggested strategy the next day in class.  That’s exactly what happened while I was reading Classroom Talk: Understanding dialogue, pedagogy and practice, by Edwards-Groves, Anstey and Bull (2014).  The premise- talk is the foundation to all learning- is not new, but the connections made to multiple theories (e.g. Theory of  Practice Architectures, Theory of Multimodality, Social Semiotic Theory) makes this book very current.

book

I particularly enjoyed the section on conversation vs dialogic talk.  I do believe in “vacating the floor” as is suggested in the book and letting the students discuss issues in small groups.  In one particular class I teach, I always allowed my students to select their own discussion groups, as these are university students and felt they needed to make their own choices.  However, many of the groups were not focused, they veered way off topic (or never addressed the topic at all) and some students were still not voicing their opinion (even after much community building).  The section on dialogic talk prompted me to reframe my concept of small group discussion.  It suggested conversation is an informal discourse where direction and end point of the talk are unclear.  This was pretty much where my students were with their discussions.  Dialogic talk, however, sought to engage all listeners and had more purpose.  Plus, dialogic talk was not as relaxed as conversation, it was driven.  I needed driven.  I wanted more engagement.

As a result, I immediately set up ‘Dialogue Groups’ with an assigned moderator, who ensured everyone’s opinion was invited and heard.  I decided who would go into each group (which I thought they might resent and discovered they preferred!).  For each discussion I provided prompt questions to get the talk started.  I also assigned a time keeper who kept the dialogue to the time limit and a recorder who kept general notes about what was discussed.  I honestly didn’t think this would be necessary at the university level, but the difference was incredible.  There was thoughtfulness in the answers.  The discussants were suddenly animated and energetic.  They were really listening to each other.   This was a small change, but it made a world of difference in how they were hearing and responding to each other.

Of course there are many other interesting and practical suggestions in the book.  The connections between theory and practice are very strong.  I highly recommend it.  This book was published by the Primary English Teaching Association of Australia (PETAA).  Check out their web site!

http://www.petaa.edu.au/

A Foot in Many Camps: Literacy Teacher Educators Acquiring Knowledge Across Many Realms and Juggling Multiple Identities

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research teamFor those of you have been following this blog, you know we are conducting a study of literacy/English teacher educators in four countries (Canada, U.S., Australia, and UK). Our first paper from the study has recently been published in Journal of Education for Teaching 39(5), 534-540. The paper A Foot in Many Camps: Literacy Teacher Educators Acquiring Knowledge Across Many Realms and Juggling Multiple Identities is available through this link:  Foot In Many Camps

In the paper we describe how the teacher educators had a range of classroom teaching experience which they drew on in many ways. Most went far beyond simply telling stories about their previous work. All were heavily influenced by their own childhood experiences, which continue to affect their current work. Many felt that they needed to hold dual identities, teacher and academic, because they were still heavily involved in schools through their research and in-service activities. Several felt that there was a hierarchy in their department with those most removed from schooling at the highest tier. Most saw themselves in the field of literacy not teacher education and gravitate towards literacy-focused conferences and journals rather than those in teacher education. I (Clare) hope you find the paper interesting. We certainly have found this entire study fascinating.

Yiola Cleovoulou wins OISE Teaching Award

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Congratulations to Yiola Cleovoulou a member of our research Yiola Cleovoulouteams who has just received the OISE teaching award for Excellence in Initial Teacher Education. She was nominated by her students which in itself is  an honour. This is a very competitive award so to win it is a real  accomplishment. I have team taught with Yiola and know that she is a truly outstanding literacy teacher educator. For more info on Yiola click on the link About Our Research then click on Meet the Research Team. Clare

Walking for the Brain

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To further our theme from earlier posts on well-being and schooling, I (Cathy) looked up the right time to exercise to help your brain.  These tips were suggested:

  • In general, anything that is good for your heart is great for your brain.
  • Aerobic exercise is great for body and brain: not only does it improve brain      function, but it also acts as a “first aid kit” on damaged brain      cells.
  • Exercising in the morning before going to work not only spikes brain activity and prepares you for mental stresses for the rest of the day, but also      produces increased retention of new information, and better reaction to      complex situations.
  • When looking to change up your work out, look for an activity that incorporates coordination along with cardiovascular exercise, such as a dance class.

http://www.positscience.com/brain-resources/everyday-brain-fitness/physical-exercise

These all made sense, but none of them identified when or why I like to exercise for my brain.  When my mind is somewhat numb after a few hours of academic writing, I need to push the refresh button.  I achieve this walking by the lake.  I am sure it is good for my lungs, my joints and my heart, but I really head to the water to recharge my neuro cells and feast my eyes.  The scenery renews me as much or more than the exercise.  Maybe just seeing what I saw yesterday will refresh your neurons…

photo 1 photo 2 photo 3 photo 4

Teaching Music Literacy – It Ain’t Easy but Must be Done

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Young people spend so much of their day listening to music, yet it’s barely addressed in school. Something needs to be done about that – but it won’t be easy. I remember my (Clive’s) grade 5 teacher telling us that Bing Crosby couldn’t sing, he was just a crooner. He probably thought he was “educating” us about music, but he fed into my early prejudice against popular music.

In France there’s a lot of “music appreciation” in schools, which is great because music-making shouldn’t be all we teach. However, again the stress is on classical music.

One of the teachers in our longitudinal study (Candice) recently became a music specialist in her school and established a wonderful approach. In her seventh year she said:

I’ve become keen on the Orff method: it emphasizes improvisation and creating your own music, and leads in the teen years and adulthood to more of a jazz approach…. My focus is on teaching children in such a way that they can create music, understand it, and participate in it. So when they’re listening to pop music they understand what instruments are used, how the music is made, and what mood it creates.

But is there still too much emphasis here on performance?

A respected Toronto columnist recently wrote a rather negative article about popular music. He asked how much of interest could come from a genre where everything is a sentimental song about 3 minutes long in 4/4 time? I asked a musician in my ITE class about this and he said there’s an enormous variety and depth of structure and rhythm in popular songs. We noted that a similar argument could be made against English literature on the ground that it uses just 26 letters and a few punctuation marks (see the quote form Neil Gaiman in Lydia’s recent blog).

Teaching music literacy in schools has many pitfalls. Like the Fiddler on the Roof, teachers will have difficulty keeping their balance. But a way must be found – in many subject areas – if schooling is to be relevant.