Teachers' digital text competences
Submitted by:
Kristian B Kjellström
Abstract:
Teachers face new challenges in keeping their language classrooms updated with emerging digital texts and new digital text tools. This creates new possibilities for teacher differentiation within learner groups, which in turn require new teacher competences. In my ongoing PhD-study, year 4¬¬–¬¬¬6 teachers' digital text competences are explored in relation to their in-class differentiation to accommodate students varying needs. The purpose of the study is to contribute to the development of a local theory addressing theoretical development and providing practical implications for teachers. The overarching educational design approach (McKenney & Reeves, 2019) includes an initial descriptive study consisting of a literature review and a Delphi-inspired sub-study. The method inspired by the Delphi Technique (Green, 2014) meant finding teachers with self-reported experience and success in using digital text tools for differentiation as respondents. The teachers were given iterative surveys examining their perception of the competences in play and teaching strategies used while differentiating. The preliminary results indicate that teachers’ choices of adaptions and differentiation are affected by the different aspects of their digital text competences while still highly dependent on schools’ digital infrastructure and basic technological skills. The descriptive results will inform later classroom interventions and teacher collaborations. Currently the theoretical frameworks used are Tomlinson’s (2014) theories of differentiated instruction and the seven aspects of teachers' professional digital competence identified by Skantz-Åberg et al. (2022).
During the pre-conference I would like to discuss the educational design approach and the potential for generating local theory with practical implications for teachers. Further, I would like to discuss the concept of digital text competence and how it could be defined.
Keywords
Delphi Technique, Differentiation, Professional Digital Competence, EDR
References
Green, R. A. (2014). The Delphi Technique in Educational Research. SAGE Open, 4(2).
McKenney, S., & Reeves, T. C. (2019). Conducting educational design research. (2 ed.). New York: Routledge.
Skantz-Åberg, E., Lantz-Andersson, A., Lundin, M., & Williams, P. (2022). Teachers’ professional digital competence: an overview of conceptualisations in the literature. Cogent Education, 9(1).
Tomlinson, C. A. (2014). The differentiated classroom responding to the needs of all learners (2 ed.). ASCD.