Literacy in practice: introducing four key learning processes.

Simpson, Alyson ; White, Simone

What will the future bring for literacy teaching for the 21st century classrooms in the context of the current national curriculum, assessment and reporting reforms as well as within the constantly changing and ever increasing multi-literacy landscape? This is a big question faced by graduate and experienced teachers alike in the ever busy school year, with overwhelming pressures to keep up with curriculum demands and match the literacy needs of their students. How can teachers ensure that they include the reflective practices known to help them learn from their own actions and how can teacher education contribute to preparing teachers for this changing literacy landscape?

As Cochran-Smith and Lytle (2009) emphasise, because educators are inundated with 'scripted curricula and teacher-proof materials' (p. 125), they must constantly work to engage in a cycle of questioning, observing, acting, and learning. Moreover, they highlight that such work cannot happen in isolation--its success often depends on ongoing collaboration and dialogue with other members of the school community. Similarly the work described in this article involves a cycle of learning processes steeped in practices for preservice and in-service teachers to use as tools to assist in meeting the demands of the literacy curriculum and developing a sense of professional judgement.

This judgement depends on teachers being able to consider a problem from a number of perspectives informed by a personal knowledge base built up through practical experience and study of prior research. In other words, good teachers know how to look carefully at the students they teach and make decisions based on different kinds of information. They take deliberate control of the pedagogic landscape in the classroom and beyond to shape their lessons in ways that best impact student learning based on intellectual inquiry. As Groundwater-Smith says, when teaching is informed by such professional scholarship, it becomes 'not merely a learning profession but a learned profession' (Groundwater-Smith in Aubusson, Ewing & Hoban, 2009, p. 60).

Learning to look carefully at your own teaching takes practice. In teacher education programmes students often work on assessments designed to teach them how to reflect so that they become aware of their professional decision making processes. Principles of action learning are taught that build connections between 'the doing and the thinking about the consequences of doing' (Aubusson et al. 2009, p. 5). This kind of 'practitioner inquiry' encourages teachers to acknowledge uncertainty and make improvements (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 2009, p. 37). But, once in the classroom, this incredibly important process is often lost in the rush to complete syllabus requirements, improve test results and deal with the daily stress of a very demanding job.

To work against this problem, two teacher educators, Simone White and Alyson Simpson, have devised four learning processes that can be easily incorporated into the planning, teaching, assessing cycle so teachers can claim back some mental space for reflection. We propose that teaching needs to be conceptualised as two balanced halves that form a whole. The two halves are theory and the practical application of that theory. Practitioner research shows that pre-service teachers and teachers learn best about literacy by building up their professional knowledge as well as putting this knowledge into practice. The four learning processes presented in this article are tools to assist pre-service and in-service teachers to engage in the meta-analysis of practice discussion and reflection as they investigate the way they teach about literacy. The tools have been designed as one way to resist anti-intellectual patterns of teaching or a 'pedagogy of poverty' (Haberman, 1991) that only provides inquiry and choice to some and offers drill and compliance to others. This work also builds on the ideas of Pam Grossman (2009) and others in the Carnegie Foundation and their attempt to make more explicit and visible the specific strategies necessary to improve student learning.

Four Learning processes--

The four learning practice processes are investigating, engaging, enacting and reflecting. By using any and all of these processes teachers would be working towards developing habits of the mind (Vygotsky, 1978) that create ongoing opportunities for action learning. In the article below the learning processes are described using examples of teachers working to improve students' literacy. The learning processes are represented as kinds of tools that can be picked up and used when most applicable to identify the principles that underpin literacy practices.

We only have room in this article to give a very brief overview of the practices with short illustrative examples that give a sense of what the tool achieves. A more extended discussion of the learning processes will appear in a book published by Oxford University Press that is forthcoming.

Investigating

The term 'investigate' is often used as a synonym for other terms such as inquire, look into and study. Teachers who are active investigators do not wait for information to be given to them but seek out many sources of knowledge and then consider them from different points of view. This process encourages teachers to find out as much information as they can about a learning context including the theory through which our current knowledge base in the field of language, literature and literacy has been formed.

We have used the metaphor of the magnifying glass for this process as we hope it implies seeking out and uncovering information or knowledge that at first glance might be hidden from view. In the learning process of investigating teachers are encouraged to look with attentive eyes to see how much they can learn about a child from the smallest amount of evidence. Work samples, conversations, observations, home or community visits can all be used by the teacher as part of their investigation into student learning.

Example of activity: This example was adapted from the work of Moll et al. 'Funds of Knowledge for Teaching: Using a Qualitative Approach to Connect Homes and Classrooms' (2001).

Engaging

To 'engage' someone often means to interest, absorb or engross them, which works against the concept of the disengaged student. Teachers who are engaged with their profession create learning contexts that make connections to personal and critical aspects of knowledge to work with the hearts and the minds of their students. This process encourages teachers to link their understanding of their students with their knowledge of curriculum and plans for dynamic activities so that learning experiences match students' needs on both cognitive and emotional planes.

Figure 1. A group of student teachers was introduced to the lives of rural dairy farming students through an excursion to a local family dairy farm where they spent time learning about the daily routines the children engaged in as well as heard from the extended family members who had worked the farms for generations.

We have used the metaphor of the bucket and spade for this process to represent the hands on work necessary to become involved with teaching if it is to take into account the whole child. In the learning process of engaging teachers are encouraged to select texts with great teaching potential, as part of being an engaged teacher is knowing how to make learning an enriching experience. Annotated work samples, digital records and student feedback are some ways teachers can demonstrate the insights they have gained as they engaged students in learning.

Example of activity: A student writing about a cross-country race shows strong engagement with the task as he is a keen runner

Figure 2. Student text used during writing conference with comments recorded as student discussed text with teacher

Enacting

To enact is often meant to act out and it is this broader context, which is the core of the third learning process. Teachers who are enacting the learning process focus on authentic and purposeful learning both in and beyond the classroom to create links between who students are and what they are learning at school to address issues of social inclusion and diversity. This process encourages teachers to seek ways through which students can apply their literacy knowledge in meaningful and empowering ways within their own daily lives.

We have used a map as the metaphor for this process as it implies that you may need to go beyond the boundaries of the school that you already know and may need to navigate your way into the school community. In the learning process of enacting teachers are encouraged to locate their teaching in a broader sense of place to take account of local, state, national and international issues. Evidence that shows connections made to the local context will demonstrate how learning has been embedded through enacted teaching.

Example of activity: Teachers, pre-service teachers and students learning about their local community, sustainability and the environment.

Figure 3. The writing sample shows students inquiry learning about their environment and posing questions about what they are seeing to take back into the classroom and investigate further.

Reflecting

The term 'reflect' can mean to attest or demonstrate as in show or indicate; it can also mean to ponder or contemplate and think. Teachers who are reflectors demonstrate growth in their professional knowledge by revisiting the principles that underpin key learning opportunities and stepping back from their experience to look at it again from different perspectives. This process encourages teachers to focus on the full cycle of learning and identify changes that need to be made in planning, teaching and assessing to explore how change could occur in the next iteration.

We have used the metaphor of a mirror for this process, as we try to learn how to interpret what we see from different points of view. In the process of reflecting teachers are encouraged to continually question their interpretation of learning events so that they can perceive other possibilities. Journals, program notes, conversations with critical friends and photos of student activity are all useful ways of keeping note of the issues that need further attention.

Example of activity: Pre-service teacher reflects on the power of drama to support diverse learning needs.

Discussion

For the ease of discussion the four examples above show how each teacher or in some cases pre-service teacher was able to use one of the learning processes to support their teaching. We could discuss how the processes relate to each other but more importantly, the point to be made now is that that when ongoing professional learning is seen as a valid part of the teaching cycle, teachers benefit and so do their students. The four processes although presented here in a linear manner are not intended as lock step cycle and rather like the 4 roles of the literacy learner (Luke & Freebody, 1999) are intended as tools to take up and use as the teacher selects. As the stimulus for learning is increased, the learning context is enriched. For example, in order for teachers to gain knowledge about the households and social networks of their students, teachers must be willing to learn about the literacy practices of the homes and communities of their students and to observe and learn not simply about, but also from and with their students and the families of their students.

Figure 4. An ESL student who normally does not participate enthusiastically sat in the Hot Seat talking in role as Invisible Stanley (Brown,1996) and used the ideas gained from this experience later in his writing.

Most of the literature on funds of knowledge (Moll et al., 1992; Gonzalez et al., 1993; 2005) involves teachers working as ethnographers and conducting ethnographic fieldwork in their students' communities to better equip them to teach within the classroom. Cochran-Smith and Lytle note, 'more and more practitioners are now expected to be the gatherers and interpreters of school and classroom data as part of larger initiatives to improve school achievement' (p. 1). Our work positions the teachers as ethnographers in their classrooms, schools and communities and equips them to make meaningful links between the three.

The risk of this kind of approach could be that the teacher keeps their learning to themselves. However, the additional strength seen in the examples above is that the teachers make use of agentive pedagogy in their classrooms. That is, their pedagogic designs give their students insight and ownership of their own learning process. The 4 learning processes provide different ways for pre-service and in-service teachers and students to reflect on the ways they learn and challenge set patterns of pedagogy. When learning processes are made explicit research has shown that learning becomes more interactive, personalised and has greater impact (Comber & Kamler 2005). Hence the emphasis in this article has been on the importance of ongoing collaboration and dialogue with members of professional, school and classroom communities, as when this occurs outcomes are always better for the student.

Conclusion

In many of our schools there are demands on teachers to teach to improve test results. The 4 learning processes were conceptualised with a vision of teaching that mobilises the purpose of schooling to be far greater than just a sorting mechanism. The learning process tools are offered as a means through which pre-service and in-service teachers could develop a sense of themselves as 'practitioner as knower and agent for educational and social change' (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 2009, p. 37). Ultimately the 4 learning processes are designed in order to create teaching learning spaces in which both teacher and student are active participants. They work against the kind of social inequity represented in the 'pedagogy of poverty' to return power to the teacher and by extension also hand powerful learning tools over to the students who need it most.

References

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Alyson Simpson is Associate Professor at the Faculty of Education and Social Work at the University of Sydney. Her research projects in higher education and primary schools create connections between language, literature and literacy to examine the power of children's literature, designs for e-learning and concepts of visual literacy.

Simone White is Professor, Associate Dean and Head of School of Education at Monash University, Gippsland Campus. Her research projects focus on the key question of how to improve teacher education for diverse contexts. Simone is currently exploring how teacher education can better prepare teachers to be 'classroom, school and community ready