Music Education
Multiliteracies
What have I learned these past weeks?
In this first section of the course, we learned about the foundations of multiliteracies by looking at what we refer to when we talk about multiliteracies, digital literacies and a critical literacy approach. It is something fluid, adaptable and evolving with society. The beauty behind multiliteracy is that it is a great balance of multimodal texts, changing technologies, and diverse social and cultural contexts. These are all things that are characteristic of the 21st century. It is necessary to grow and adapt to teach in ways that work in this modern context. I’ve learned about the importance of using multiple modes of learning and moving past our traditional types of Western literacy as well as the importance of being critical about the type of ‘literature’ we are sharing with the class. Asking questions like: Who is represented? Who benefits? Whose voice is left out? I’ve learned about the difference between critical thinking and critical literacy (one is looking at the content and meaning of a text, the other is looking at the context, motivations, and effects of a text on the world around it. In our readings, Cope and Kalantzis referenced Riley with the idea that the act of analyzing knowledge through a critical literacy lens is practice for students to “see and respond to instances of injustice, expand the identities that they might take up, and participate in communities in service of social change.” (Riley, 2015, p. 413). I love this idea! It is one more reason I want to include critical literacy in my classroom. Finally, I’m now learning that teaching pedagogically rather than instructionally shifts the concept of teaching as one that simply passes on knowledge to one that fosters moral and ethical awareness of the knowledge learned. This means that students will discover truth rather than me passing on truth to them.
How do I understand the topics?
I understand the topics through being exposed to the ideas and concepts in our voicethreads, SynchEd talks, readings, and other additional video or reading material. This is the approach I personally take to understanding the topics: I prefer to have the topics are introduced to me in the VoiceThread lectures. I then watch any additional video material. This way I get a more specific idea of the topic and how our professor is approaching it. This helps me when I go to do the reading. I can better navigate, understand and apply the reading because I already have a framework and understanding of the topic. The reading then fleshes out my understanding of the topic to make it a much more full and deep understanding.
What concepts or perspectives inform and inspire my teaching?
My own upbringing has given me a set of perspectives which inspire and inform my teaching.
Firstly I am from a small town. That has instilled deeply the concept of community and the importance of being known and belonging to a group of people. My community was also not very diverse, which has made me realize how important it is to experience people different from yourself, to foster open-mindedness. In teaching, this can be done in the context of a ‘classroom community’. I believe very strongly that each student should feel welcome and included and that their diverse personalities, cultures, etc. simply make our community a more interesting, well-rounded, and positive community.
Secondly, My parents fostered learning in me from a young age. They helped build in me this concept of experiencing life and being a ‘well-rounded’ person. They encouraged me to try new things and ‘get out of my comfort zone’. While they pushed me, they were also always present and supporting me in all my endeavors. I would like to transfer this type of parenting into a teaching style where my students are encouraged to be brave and try new things while I am as present and supportive as I can be.
Finally, and most importantly, I am a Christian and my faith is foundational for my life and beliefs. My faith has established this concept in me: that there is truth we can all discover for ourselves and that life needs to be balanced between the pursuit of this truth and love. It is necessary to care and show love to others always. If the balance is off between truth and love, then either there is too much concern in being right (and not caring about others) or too much concern in showing love to everyone (without being well-informed or critically minded). In other words, I believe that both the heads and hearts of students should be taught.
How does multiliteracies pedagogy inform in-person, hybrid, or online learning?
In-person learning is informed by multiliteracy pedagogy by the teacher using multiple different modes to share knowledge, by the teacher inviting community members and other cultural leaders to share learning in their forms of communication, by being able to foster ongoing critical literacy discussions.
Online learning is informed by multiliteracy pedagogy by the teacher utilising multiple forms of media that can be found online (videos, articles, social media, podcasts, websites, etc.) for instruction and assessment. Also, the teacher could encourage students to discover new modes of literature on their own as well. In online learning, there is so much opportunity for teaching students how to find new media online, how to be critically literate in finding this new media, and how to do it safely.
Hybrid learning is informed by multiliteracy pedagogy by the teaching using multiple different modes to teach as well as encouraging the students to find their own modes of literature online. There would both be a lot of opportunity for critical literacy discussions as well as individual critical literacy in the students’ own personal research.
It is so evident, especially now through Covid-19, that the world is changing and people are changing how they communicate knowledge. Therefore, “these changes literacy teaching and learning would have to change as well” (Cope & Kalantzis, 2009, p. 165).
Digital Literacy Resource
How has your understanding of multiliteracies shifted from the beginning of the term?
Initially, my understanding was that multiliteracies was mainly about language, and mainly reading and writing. While I still believe that, at its core, multiliteracies is about language, it encapsulates so very much more than simple reading and writing. It encapsulates different ways of knowing and being and provides room for students to express their ways of knowing and being in a way that works for them, not limited to traditional ways of sharing knowledge. Near the beginning of the semester, after I had grasped this, I still was just thinking about new forms of media. So including photos, videos, podcasts, websites, etc. into the classroom on top of the traditional books and academic written texts. But after learning more in this semester about how a multiliteracy pedagogical approach shapes the way your classroom is set up, the power dynamics in the class, the way assessment is done, encouraging critical analysis, etc. I have realized it is so much more encompassing than simply using a variety of forms of media. As Jacobs says, “...it is not enough to provide opportunities for youths to engage in multiliteracies; assessment of multiliteracies must also be meaningfully integrated into instruction.” (Jacobs, 2013) It is about permeating your entire classroom and instruction with multiliteracies in order to let the students shape their learning and structuring it in a way that adheres to their needs, their ways of knowing and being.
List examples of multiliteracies pedagogy in action during your alternative field experience and practicum.
In my alternative field experience, I worked as a program supervisor at a camping program. Because of public health guidelines around Covid-19, we weren’t able to run in-person camps. The camping program’s board members considered many options, but we landed on what we called our ‘Curbside Camps’. Curbside: because they were packages where our campers & families drove through to pick them up ‘curbside’-style. Camp: because we condensed our normal camp programming into activities, crafts, and chapel lessons, into 5 themed ‘camps’. Our top concerns: keeping the spirit of camp alive for our campers, being inclusive to all types of accessibility in homes, training our staff to be creative and adaptable leaders. We had to adapt to new ways of doing camp. We took an approach where we made activity pages, engaging crafts, games and crafts, and supplemented them with YouTube videos. It was our way of showing the campers that we were doing the activities right alongside them.
I look at this as an example of the pedagogy of multiliteracies because we had to adapt to the needs of our students and try to make the activities accessible to those from all levels of the socio-economic spectrum while using new and non-traditional ways of communicating.
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In practicum, I was in a Grade 8 extended French class in a French Immersion school. Here is a list of ways we incorporated a multiliteracy pedagogy in the classroom instruction:
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In French, we acted out our French readings as a class.
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Also in French, we asked the students to write their own ending to the story and to use video to film themselves telling the ending. This would help them practice oral speaking in French.
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In Math, we used a lot of inspiring videos from Stanford University’s Youcubed program to inspire the class to be resilient and to foster a love of Math. Also, it encouraged them to try new strategies that were multi-modal.
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In Geography, we studied demographics and did an activity using an interactive demographic clock found on Statistic Canada’s website.
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For their culminating activity in Geography, students had to design a poster/infographic that would inform the school community about how London Ontario is a sustainable community and ways that it can work towards being more sustainable.
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References
Cope, B., & Kalantzis, M. (2009) Multiliteracies. New Literacies, New Learning, Pedagogies: An International Journal, 4(3), 164-195.
Brown, A., & Begoray, D. (2017) Using a Graphic Novel Project to Engage Indigenous Youth in Critical Literacies. Language and Literacy: 19(3), 35-55.
Image: ​"Is This Story Share-Worthy? Flowchart." Newseum, NewseumEd
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Jacobs, G. (2013). Designing Assessments: A multiliteracies approach. Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy. 56(8).
Post Peer Evaluation
After reading my peer evaluations, I was pleased to receive such positive feedback about my website. I have learned about what has worked and what I could have improved on. These small changes have been made and I reflected on the questions they asked me. They were very helpful.