Week 1 - Sept. 6th
Late Saturday Update: Well…it would help if I actually published this page! Appreciate your patience as I am learning a new technology tool!
The world of education has drastically changed in the last five years, and the relevancy of the ‘old-school traditional’ classroom is suggested to be long gone. Whether that is a good or bad thing is up to you. Regardless of where we stand, there is no denying the drastic changes that technology has brought to our world. What matters is how we are willing to respond as educators.
Culture is shifting, and literacy is shifting right along with it.
Multiliteracies: Theory and Pedagogy that Reflect a Changing World
The reference to Seymour Papert’s The Children’s Machine first called to mind the 1999 Disney movie Smart House. Before I went too far down the rabbit-hole of how long ago that feels (and actually is!) I remembered a story I read with my eighth grade students. The Veldt by Ray Bradbury tells the story of a family that live in an automated home and their two children who have a virtual reality nursery to play in. The commonality here is that both examples were created as a cautionary message against these technologies.
These days, our schools are 1:1 with devices for students. They have fully grown up with technology and do not know a world without it. One thing I have found interesting is that despite this upbringing, our students are often not tech-literate. It has not been presented to them as a tool for learning and comprehension. It simply exists and, in their eyes, always has.
We live in a multiliteracy world, and we always have.
Pilgrim, Vasinda, & Lisenbee
I was surprised to learn the term multiliteracies was coined in 1994 during a meeting of literacy researchers who challenged the stiff understanding of literacy. This new theory holds three tenets to inform multiliteracy pedagogy: diversity, multimodality, and design.
The term lifeworld leapt off the page from Kalantzis and Cope (2016). What a powerful way to explain the unique backgrounds and experiences our students bring! It is our responsibility as educators to keep these experiences in mind as we are working with our students. Each individual lifeworld brings unique learning abilities and preferences, so having a door open for student voice and choice, as we know, is incredibly important.
Seven Modes of Meaning (Kalantzis & Cope, 2016)
Prior to reading this chapter, I was only familiar with the seven modes of meaning as multiple intelligences. I remember taking a quiz in college along the lines of ‘Which Intelligence Are You’ that was designed to prove the (important) point that not all students will learn the same way I do. I had never made the connection of multiple intelligences playing a role in Multimodality and the ways that we interpret meaning. This has completely shifted my outlook on how my students build meaning in my classroom!
Universal Design for Learning Within a Multiliteracies Perspective
The key to a supportive and accessible education environment for all students is the Universal Design of Learning. Accessibility in education is something I feel I was not authentically prepared for in my teacher-prep program. My college experience centered around Culturally Responsive teaching, and while I am beyond grateful to have been guided through those hard conversations, I quickly noticed that I was missing a key piece for success when I was in charge of my own classroom. I worked hard and fast to compensate for that missing piece!
My key takeaway from this chapter was the mental shift in my personal language from ‘accommodations’ to ‘Universal Design.’ Instead of defaulting to the needs of a (big) handful of students that require legal accommodations, I’ve recognized that a language shift needs to occur in order to make sure that my classroom continues to be supportive to ALL learners (and not just those that administrators request accommodation listings for).
No Child Left Behind Act
I paused for a while on the No Child Left Behind Act portion of the chapter. Often in the social media comments of posts about state testing, there is typically at least one comment along the lines of, “No Child Left Behind ruined education.” NCLB was enacted a year before I entered the education system, so I have personally never experienced the education system without it. Despite the act being replaced by Every Student Succeeds Act a decade ago, I still see NCLB frequently referenced in online discourse. I would love to know if anyone else has come across these conversations online and what your thoughts are!
