Reflecting on and Embracing the Complexity of Literacy Theories in Practice

This paper responds to the need to support complexities of literacy instruction by identifying and illustrating teaching strategies used by a practicing special education teacher rooted in a multi-theoretical approach to teaching literacy. We argue the importance of teaching from multiple theoretical standpoints and utilizing student-centered, asset-based approaches to pedagogy, assessment, and learning relating to literacy. We share our multi-theoretical approach to understanding and teaching literacy, defining literacy and its complexities. Then, we illustrate several teaching practices including using growth mindset, implementing asset-based data collection, utilizing feedback, and integrating inquiry-based learning that ultimately supports the cultivation of empowered literacy learners who deem learning as both interesting and valuable. Finally, we discuss tensions and challenges inherent to implementing a multi-theoretical approach. Throughout, we provide reflection points to empower teachers to rely on their agency, self-efficacy, and expertise and to feel capable in their knowledge and agency in an era where teachers are increasingly experiencing deprofessionalization through disempowering factors

A Positioning Theory Analysis of Interaction Surrounding Design Failures in an Elementary Engineering Club

This qualitative study applies Positioning Theory to identify positions that mediate the experiences of design failure within the context of an afterschool engineering club (EC) with elementary students diverse in language, race, ethnicity, gender, and academic abilities. We ask: (1) What kinds of structural design failure and failure responses did participants in EC experience? and (2) What are students’ and teachers’ positions in relation to responses to design failure? Types of positions (e.g., builder, tinkerer, idea-elicitor, director, observer) were identified in relation to children’s and teachers’ actions and speech in response to structural design failure during EC. Participants included 12 third-grade students and four teachers involved in EC for eight weeks. Data sources include audio transcripts, video, and field notes. Twenty-four design failure episodes were identified and transcribed multimodally from video, followed by coding of episodes using a multimodal Positioning Theory analytical framework. Findings discuss the kinds of engineering design actions and associated positionings unfolding in response to failure as well as the positions mediating teacher and student responses to design. We highlight the importance of student and teacher mediation as well as how Positioning Theory can be used to expand our understanding of (re)positionings that can occur within responses to design failure. Specifically, elementary engineering curricular materials must create the context to support the range of positions taken up in response to design failure. This includes explicit modeling of discursive actions surrounding design failure, multiple opportunities for students to experience and respond to design failure with time to improve beyond the design–build–test model, and support for teachers to address the range of students’ responses to design failures knowledgeably and flexibly

Intersecting Engineering and Literacies: A Review of the Literature on Communicative Literacies in K-12 Engineering Education

Given the increased attention on pre-college engineering education and its disciplinary nature pertaining to language, discourses, and communicative practices, this state-of-the-art literature review focused on findings of research articles informed by qualitative and quantitative data to foreground communicative literacies within engineering design teams at the pre-college level. A disciplinary literacies framework was used to interpret and analyze published works in this particular domain. A search, selection, and inclusion process typical for state-of-the-art reviews yielded 33 studies. Constant comparison and open-coding led to clustering studies under five overarching themes in ranked order of frequency of occurrence pertaining to: (a) engineering disciplinary communicative literacies in practice; (b) matters of access with populations underrepresented in engineering; (c) learning STEM content through engineering design; (d) affective responses to uncertainty and risk in engineering design; and (e) evaluating the quality of collaboration. With respect to the themes, we discuss possibilities of using literacy frameworks to deepen theoretical and methodological insights into the study of phenomena related to within-group communicative literacies in K-12 engineering spaces