A recent article in The Reading Teacher echoed the concerns
I have heard numerous elementary teachers voice when striving to incorporate
contemporary technologies within the traditional literacy block. More
specifically, Scott and Meeussen (2017)
maintain that, “Teachers often hesitate to embrace technology-enhanced learning
because they fear students will be distracted, access inappropriate sites,
argue over sharing devices, or fail to set goals and timelines” (p.659).
Although they acknowledge the legitimacy of these concerns, Scott and Meeussen argue
that teachers have an obligation to encourage students’ developing digital
proficiencies. They claim that the key to establishing a productive open
literacy block in which students choose to work collaboratively on activities
such as creating stories with Bitstrip, internalizing new vocabulary with
Scribblenauts, conducting research on the internet or synthesizing their
reading with Pic Collage involves the internalization of self-regulation
strategies.
Scott and Meeussen define self-regulated learners as those
who “take responsibility for their own learning…set goals, select effective
learning strategies, monitor their progress, seek assistance from both their
teacher and classmates, and persevere until their goals have been met” (p.660).
Research supports the claim that
self-regulated students are often more effective learners, and so the following
strategies are offered by Scott and Meeussen (2017) to facilitate students’
self-regulated learning with technology:
1.
Teach students how to collaborate: Clearly
articulate the social skills required of active collaboration and provided
ample time to practice skills. How to go about sharing devices, asking for help
and giving feedback are just a few of the social skills emphasized by Scott and
Meeussen.
2. Encourage students to set goals related to
self-regulation: Making time each week to generate and
reflect upon individual and/or group goals centered on self-regulation is
crucial.
3.
Cultivate student autonomy via thoughtful
decision making: When students make activity selections for literacy block,
such as choosing to utilize a specific app, Scott and Meeussen suggest asking
students to also justify how the app supports their individual literacy
learning.
4.
Help students monitor their own progress:
Checklists and/or tracking sheets are recommended to aid students in
self-reflection and to make their progress more visible. Specifically, students can reflect on
progress made towards meeting academic and self-regulation goals.
What is your take on embedding
contemporary technologies into the traditional literacy block? Is self-regulation the key to a productive,
technologically enhanced session? Are
you able to meet with individual students or a small group of readers while others embark on digital projects? We
would love to hear your thoughts on both technology-infused literacy blocks and
self-regulated learning.
Scott, R. M. & Meeussen, N.
(2017). Self-regulated learning: A touchstone for technology-enhanced
classrooms. The Reading Teacher, 70(6), 659-666.
Comments
Post a Comment