Readers engage with digital texts differently than with print text. Students have difficulties transitioning from reading informal social media and blog-style content to educational texts. This session will provide instructors with new skills, technology tools, and knowledge to improve students’ abilities to make meaning from abstract and technical non-fiction texts.
Why should higher education educators know practical strategies and effective tech tools that encourage deeply engaged reading practices? What do students need to succeed with the ubiquitous digital resources in today's educational settings? Why does a deliberate approach matter to the instructor that does not teach reading or literacy content? Read on and find out.
If you do a Google search for the total number of Google searches performed in one second, you will find many answers that range in the tens of thousands. You would need to read several articles to find a reliable answer. Regardless of the exact answer, you can draw one instant conclusion. Folks with access to digital text read a lot of it. More importantly, the literature clearly shows that folks read digital text differently than they read print text. These reading behaviors matters to educators because we increasingly use digital resources for their accessibility, recency, and relevance. Gone are the days when all instructors used a single seminal textbook. The challenge in this paradigm is that our students have difficulties transitioning from the informal readings of social media, blog-style content, and narrative-heavy personal accounts to the expository digital resources in their K-12 and higher education coursework.
As a matter of necessity, instructors are continuously adapting to a tech-driven world. However, they need to distinguish between the bells and whistles of ed-tech with what Michael Fullan calls the practice of "leveraging digital" to enhance learning. Fullan tells us that learning design needs to answer two questions in his book, Deep Learning. First, how can "digital" be leveraged to facilitate, amplify, and accelerate learning as student-driven learning is cultivated? And second, what transformative learning opportunities do "digital" provide that cannot be met with traditional approaches?
Additionally, instructors are creating more resources for their students than ever before. They need to be aware of their role as a learning designer and employ strategies to increase student learning. Instructors are familiar with the visual chaos of the internet but may not know how it impacts reading. Julie Coiro from the University of Rhode Island (2015) stresses that there is a difference between the "rapid reading-to-locate" that we do when we skim websites and the "deeper processes of meaning construction." If instructors need students to engage deeply, they need to be intentional in their instructional design. By adopting this focus, instructors can make decisions that "calm down" what readers see and help them focus. Instructors can also coach students to look for text features such as headings, subheadings, and sidebars to help students navigate the text.
Additionally, when not creating their own resources, instructors know that Open Educational Resources (OERs) have made learning more accessible and equitable in many educational environments. Too often, disadvantaged students need the cost savings of OERs to continue their studies. Instructors need to identify the standard challenging features of digital OER and learn tools to mitigate them. Instructors are familiar with the density and complexity of some learning resources. If instructors need students to engage deeply with these complex texts, they need to use tools that make the content more accessible for all students and enable students to interact with and manage the text. By adopting the mindset of an information curator, they can make decisions that can help them focus on meaningful content and enable critical "meaning-making." Instructors can also coach students to take ownership of their learning with tools and strategies to organize the texts they are required to read.
Interactivity
The individuals participating in this session will have four planned table talk reflections:
- Personal and student "print text" reading behaviors
- Digital text reading patterns
- Accessible document design
- OER selection criteria
The participants will be given access to a resource document and encouraged to access and explore the digital tools discussed during the session. Motivated participants using their laptops will be encouraged to have a "hands-on experience" of 2 Google Chrome extensions, one web-based document annotation tool, and 1 Google Doc Add-on designed to increase comprehension of digital text. Motivated participants will also employ two additional strategies for increasing deep reading and text engagement.
We will also crowd source. Participants will be invited to share their best practices, tools, and strategies.
Takeaways
The individuals participating in this session will analyze literacy and brain research and plan instructional strategies to improve students' success in engaging with, processing, and reflecting on informational texts. The participants will identify the different purposes and processes readers use when interacting with print and digital texts. The participants will also explore accessibility concerns for delivering digital texts that permit all students to interact with those texts.
The participants will explore open-source technology tools to improve students' abilities to make meaning from abstract, technical, and hierarchically organized texts in all content areas. The participants will be able to convert websites into manageable, distraction-free, and printable PDFs using free Chrome extensions.
The participants will identify web-based educational technology tools that make complex texts more accessible to comprehend, analyze, and evaluate. The participants will be able to annotate PDFs efficiently organize meaningful highlighting of digital texts using web-based tools and Google Doc add-ons.