Technology, learning and instruction: distributed cognition in the secondary English classroom

Abstract

In this paper, we analyse interactions between secondary students and pre-service teachers in an online environment in order to understand how their meaning-making processes embody distributed cognition. We begin by providing a theoretical review of the ways in which literacy learning is distributed across learners, objects, tools, symbols, technologies and the environment in modern English language arts classrooms. This is followed by a case study where we identify how programme values, textual resources and cultural schema function as distributed tools. In traditional schools, with an emphasis on taking standardised tests, the learning environment is designed on the view that learning is a transaction that happens solely 'inside the head'. Unfortunately, this pushes many students to the margins of classroom engagement and participation. By analysing students' and pre-service teachers' online discourse, we argue that virtual spaces can facilitate critical dialogue and can act as catalysts for a distributed theory of mind.

What’s to be learned?

“…blog posts, multimedia projects, discussion board posts, mind maps, reflective essays). Little of this dimension of the data was problematized with respect to institutional values and forces working on students' coursework productions and how this, in turn, might have shaped findings (for exceptions, see Burnett, 2011 andGomez et al, 2010). Problematizing this tension between wanting to promote digital literacies in pre-service teachers' coursework and using required assignments as data might be fruitful avenue for future research to examine.…”

“…Four of the studies focused on wikis and blogs (including microblogging) or both (Dymoke & Hughes, 2009;Hungerford-Kresser et al, 2011Rosaen & Terpstra, 2012;Mills & Chandra, 2011), while two used online discussion forums (Ajayi, 2010;Gomez et al, 2010), and one focused on text posts to Facebook groups (Reid, 2011). Four studies reported on diverse multimedia projects and presentations (open to student teachers' choices) and different digital tasks-such as creating videos, stop motion animations creation, and digital comics, and participating in online networking and affinity spaces (Honan et al, 2013;Hundley & Holbrook, 2013;Kingsley, 2010;Howard, 2014).…”

“…elementary, primary; secondary), we interpreted a focus on "English education/English subject area" to mean secondary preservice teaching courses and "language arts/literacy" as referring to pre-service teachers enrolled in elementary or primary school specializations. Thus, three studies were grounded in elementary or primary school level literacy or language arts teaching (Burnett, 2012;Rosaen & Terpstra, 2012;Honan et al, 2013), three studies spanned kindergarten to Grade 12 pre-service teachers (Ajayi, 2010;Ajayi, 2011;Dymoke & Hughes, 2009), and three studies focused on preparing secondary English teachers (Gomez et al, 2010;Howard, 2014;Hundley & Holbrook, 2013). The present authors were surprised by this balance in school levels, believing that the increasingly regulated and locked-down early schooling literacy/language arts curricula now operating in many countries (cf., Honan et al, 2013;Knobel & Kalman, 2016) would have dissuaded the inclusion of digital literacies in primary or elementary school specializations.…”

The Role of Dissonance and Schema: An Exploration of Florida Public Perception after the DWH Oil Spill

“…Focus groups are used in many communication studies to understand participants' "knowledge and experiences and can be used to examine not only what people think but how and why they think that way" (Kitzinger, 1995, p. 299). Several previous studies have utilized focus groups to examine the influence of schema and cognitive dissonance on decisions and perceptions (Bray, Johns, & Kilburn, 2011;Gomez, Schieble, Curwood, & Hassett, 2010;Hares, Dickinson, & Wilkes, 2010;Woods-Giscombé, 2010).…”

English Teachers’ Cultural Models About Technology

“…Consequently, situated meanings do not reside in individual minds. Instead, they are frequently negotiated between people in and through social interaction (Gomez, Schieble, Curwood, & Hassett, 2010). According to Gee and Green (1998), Cultural models "explain," relative to the standards (norms) of a particular social group, why words have the range of situated meanings they do for members and shape members' ability to construct new ones.…”