Multimodal teaching and assessment in the digital classrooms in upper secondary school – exploring the possibilities to support teachers’ professional competence
Submitted by:
Anna-Lena Godhe
Abstract:
An ongoing study, with the aim to develop teachers’ professional competence regarding teaching and assessment of digital, multimodal meaning-making, is presented and discussed in this presentation. The goal of the project is to develop models for teaching and assessment practice in which digital, multimodal meaning-making is explicitly linked to learning outcomes and curricula and used as a resource for teaching and learning.
In the study, teachers and researchers meet regularly in workshops with the aim to illuminate established meaning making-making practices and teachers’ understanding of multimodal texts and how they work with, and assess them, in the classroom, but also to develop these teaching practices. Teachers are educated for and used to instruct and asses verbal language (Godhe, 2013; Öman & Sofkova Hashemi, 2015). The presence of multiple semiotic systems in the representation of meaning requires an understanding of the semiotic and digital potential of texts moving beyond literacy strategies for print texts (Kress & van Leeuwen, 1996/2006; Serafini, 2012). In the workshops, teachers and researchers work together to understand and try out different models that explicitly focus on multimodal meaning-making (e.g. Bearne, 2009). Multimodal and digital aspects of meaning-making are discussed and addressed explicitly in regard to teaching goals and curricula in order to develop a common knowledge and concepts. This metalanguage is needed to be able to talk about and describe contemporary meaning-making and its possibilities, as well as difficulties and dilemmas. In-between workshops the teachers try out the models in their classrooms and in the following workshop they are able to exchange ideas and lessons learned based on their classroom experience in order to refine how the models could be used in their teaching.
The presentation discusses preliminary findings from the study focusing on which aspects of multimodal teaching and assessment that appears to be most problematic for the teachers to adopt in the classrooms. In what ways did the development of a common metalanguage contribute to the teachers understanding and competence in teaching and assessing multimodal meaning-making? Moreover, to what extent and how the models that have been tried out were helpful in developing the teaching and assessment practices in the classrooms will be discussed.
References;
Bearne, E. (2009). Multimodality, literacy and texts: Developing a discourse. Journal of Early
Childhood Literacy, 9(2), 156-187.
Godhe, Anna-Lena (2013). Tensions and Contradictions When Creating a Multimodal Text as a School Task in Mother Tounge Education. Nordic Journal of Digital Literacy. 8(4), 208-224.
Kress, G., & van Leeuwen, T. (1996/2006). Reading images: The grammar of visual design. London: Routledge.
Serafini, F. (2012). Expanding the four resources model: Reading visual and multi-modal texts. An International Journal, 7(2), 150-164. doi:10.1080/1554480X.2012.656347
Öman, A., & Sofkova Hashemi, S. (2015). Design and redesign of a multimodal classroom task – Implications for teaching and learning. Journal of Information Technology Education: Research, 14, 139-159.
Anna-Lena Godhe, University of Gothenburg, anna-lena.godhe@gu.se
Sylvana Sofkova Hashemi, University of Gothenburg, sylvana.sofkova.hashemi@gu.se