A Secondary ELA Classroom Curriculum Study Using Culturally-Relevant, Digital Texts To Increase Student Engagement And Understanding

The purpose of this capstone project was to create an engaging and challenging curriculum for a mid-level 11th-grade English course that would explore the use of culturally releveant, digital texts to increase student engagement and understanding. The paper that follows explores the reason why such an interactive and culurally relevant curriculum is needed in an increasingly-diverse suburban classroom. In particular, a blend of research around neuroscience, Culturally Relevant Pedagogy and Constructivism, the use of digital tools to enhance learning, and a look at how texts should fall under the mirrow-window continuum, was collected. Combinging theory and research led to the backward creation of a challenging, yet engaging curriculum for a racially, ethnically, and socioeconomically diverse classroom. What the researcher has concluded is that writing effective curriculum that looks to engage digital native students, while also challenging the status quo and empowering students on their learning journey, can and must be done. A fine balance must be struck by the educator between where students are currently and who they are, and where they must be and who they have the potential to be. Using culturally relevant, digital texts in an English classroom offers an effective framework for social justice pedagogy, which is crucial for life-long, critical learning to occur in today’s world

INTELLIGENT TUTORING SYSTEMS, PEDAGOGICAL AGENT DESIGN, AND HISPANIC ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNERS

According to the most recent data from the National Center of Education Statistics (NCES) there were approximately 5 million English Language Learners (ELLs) in the U.S. public schools in the Fall of 2016, representing about 10% of the student population (2019). Spanish is the primary language for most ELL students, by a large margin. As a group, ELLs have faced a deeply rooted and persistent math achievement gap (U.S. Department of Education, 2015). Despite research indicating that intelligent tutors and animated pedagogical agents enhance learning, many tutors are not designed with ELLs in mind. As a result, Hispanic ELL students may experience difficulty accessing the relevant content when using a tutor. This mixed-method research investigates how a tutor can reach Hispanic ELL students, based on the social and cultural Identity framework of the Figured Worlds Theory by Holland et al., (1998). Students will socially and culturally engage with their animated pedagogical agents constructing figured worlds of learning and connection that have the power to shape the students’ senses of themselves as learners of math. This study investigates how Hispanic ELL students perceive the utility of and relate to a learning companion (LC) design. Data was examined from 76 middle school students interacting with a math tutor, MathSpring. The findings indicate that ELL students find the MathSpring LC more useful and helpful than do non-ELL students and the ELL students designed LCs that looked more like themselves than did the non-ELL students. The findings also indicate that students formed ‘She/Me Connection’ and ‘She is Like Me’ figured worlds

Urban-Focused and Community-Based Teacher Preparation

Existing challenges in many urban schools have led to an increased emphasis on urban-focused teacher preparation. While this work can be demanding and complex, many Christian teacher education programs desire to engage in this work as part of their efforts to prepare their teacher candidates to teach all students and to promote more equitable educational opportunities in urban communities. In this article, the author reviews the literature on effective urban teacher preparation and then discusses the potential for collaboration with local schools and communities to support this work in Christian teacher education programs. The author argues that authentic engagement with urban schools and communities is necessary to provide teacher candidates with the understandings, frameworks, and experiences needed to flourish in their work and to develop meaningful relationships with students, families, and community members

Raising awareness of diversity and social (in)justice issues in undergraduate research writing: understanding students and their lives via connecting teaching and research

Inspired by my own experiences as an undergraduate writing student who did not see a connection between my life and the topics of the courses, this article details my first ventures into designing and teaching sections of a research writing class, entitled Researching Writing: Raising Awareness of Diversity and Social Justice Issues within and Beyond our Lives. The purpose of this course was to promote issues of diversity and social (in)justice in a required liberal studies course. Interview data from undergraduate women students who participated in this research writing course from 2009-2011 were explored in order to uncover their experiences in the class and understand what they found effective or ineffective. The findings indicated that most of the students appreciated being able to choose their own research topic, and also found chunking parts of the research project more effective for understanding the research process. Although engaging students in research and course activities related to controversial issues is difficult, there is a need for more liberal studies courses to incorporate topics related to diversity and social (in)justice

Blended learning internationalization from the commonwealth: An Australian and Canadian collaborative case study

This case depiction addresses the contentious issue of providing culturally and globally accessible teaching and learning to international students in universities in the Commonwealth nations of Australia and Canada. The chapter describes the university systems and cultures, the barriers to authentic higher education internationalization, and the problems frequently experienced by international students. Two university cases are presented and analysed to depict and detail blended learning approaches (face-toface combined with e-learning) as exemplars of culturally and globally accessible higher education and thereby ideologically grounded internationalization. Lessons learned are presented at the systems level and as teaching and learning solutions designed to address pedagogical problems frequently experienced by international students in the areas of communication, academic skills, teaching and learning conceptualization, and moving from rote learning to critical thinking. The blended learning solutions are analysed through the lens of critical theory

Instructional Framework for Integrating Cross-Cultural Content Using Culturally Responsive and Linguistically Affirming Pedagogies

This chapter describes an instructional framework for culturally relevant and affirming teaching and curricula that addresses effective ways to interconnect cross-cultural content to expand cultural and content literacy in K-12. The Culturally and Linguistically Affirming Pedagogies for Local Context (CLAP-LC) Framework was developed to create culturally and linguistically affirming content, promote equitable education, and nurture student engagement. The framework centers on the intersection of cultural knowledge and lived experiences of students, families, and communities in content and curriculum to promote student achievement, especially students from minoritized and marginalized groups

Charting the role of the online teacher in higher education: winds of change

The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of the online teacher at the University of Southern Queensland, Australia. In this paper, it is intended to identify the issues and dilemmas facing those who are navigating the online teaching environment, to elaborate on the issues/dilemmas, and to offer some ways of addressing these issues by referring to the responses of experienced practitioners, online students, to the literature and to data collected for an Australian Government-funded educational evaluation project. Much of the data presented in this paper relates to an online course, Designing Instruction for Flexible Learning, which is part of the totally online initiative, launched at USQ in 1997. The authors of this paper have been involved in both teaching and instructional design of online courses for several years and have identified a significant shift in the role of the online teacher

Gardening and Watering 21st Century Soil: Culturally Responsive and Technology Enhanced Instructional Design in K12 Schools

Decades of research have documented the positive impact of culturally responsive teaching on academic outcomes for African American and LatinX students. However, as the field of education has become increasingly embedded with technology as a powerful tool of instruction, more attention is needed to understand how culturally responsive teachers use technology to close achievement gaps. Although national public policy over the last twenty-years has documented the negative impact of the digital divide on low SES, African American and LatinX students, large-scale efforts to close the divide have focused primarily on access to devices only. More recently, the second digital “use” divide has brought attention to examining teachers’ instructional practices after the physical technology infrastructure is in place. This qualitative case study explored how, why, and in what ways culturally responsive teachers used technology. Data from this study revealed that teachers’ pedagogical beliefs, their personal schooling experiences, training, disposition, mentorship, and expectations from school administrators influenced the ways in which they integrated technology with culturally responsive intentionality. This study provides insights for school leaders [post-COVID] tasked with the imperative to provide both access to technology and support for the uses of technology towards closing persistent achievement gaps. This information can also prove valuable for teachers seeking to improve technology-enhanced instructional practices toward providing equitable school experiences and long-term positive outcomes for an increasingly culturally diverse public-school population across the United States

Culturally Responsive Applications of Computer Technologies in Education: Examples of Best Practice

For more than a decade, scholars have identified culturally responsive pedagogy as a teaching method for improving the academic achievement of culturally and linguistically diverse students. Scholarly research on the intersection of culturally responsive teaching and educational technology, however, remains scant. The purpose of this literature review is to highlight research-based examples of culturally responsive applications and to provide recommendations for the design of technology-based learning environments

Critical Media Literacies in the Twenty-First Century: Writing Autoethnographies, Making Connections, and Creating Virtual Identities

Critical media literacies can help nurture students’ creative agencies and engender positive, sustained change in local communities. Kellner and Share (2005) have noted that students do need to develop faculties with digital technologies but that they must also participate in critical readings of cultural artifacts and discriminate between various multimedia sources. It is important for youth to conceptualize language as perpetuating different kinds of ideologies, for viewpoints are “connected to negotiable, changeable, and sometimes contested stories, histories, knowledge, beliefs, and values encapsulated into cultural models (theories) about the world” (Gee, 2008, p. 29). Semiotic meanings are in constant flux due to individual interests, community dynamics, and sociohistorical contexts, and students need to develop critical stances to better distinguish between authentic narratives, purported truths, and the in-between gray areas of discursive communications. The proliferation of digital and mobile applications expand academic and political boundaries, for within a critical media literacies framework, reading is a collective transaction, learning is a generative act, and political engagement is an accessible and possible achievement. This paper thereby provides an overview of several significant studies that have interrogated the possibilities of critical media pedagogies in youth spaces. The following sections chart ways in which students can engage with critical media literacies — namely by 1) affording the production of meaningful and authentic autoethnographies, 2) facilitating hospitable connections with near and distant others, and 3) encouraging imaginative self-constructions of identities within virtual communities