Terry Loerts | Redeemer's University (original) (raw)
Papers by Terry Loerts
Language and Literacy, 2024
This research focuses on one teacher’s lived experience as he contributes towards a broader under... more This research focuses on one teacher’s lived experience as he contributes towards a broader understanding of possibilities and constraints afforded by technologies, materials, and relationality during this recent shift in pandemic pedagogy. The pandemic drastically altered the way curriculum is enacted as there were shifts in the learning environment, the subject matter, and the way teachers and students engaged in literacy practices. To understand this shift, we explore: What are the participating teacher’s perceptions about how multiliteracies are utilized for classroom practice and pedagogy? How did this teacher’s pedagogy continue or change once the pandemic influenced curriculum enactment? This paper focuses on how one grade 6 teacher explored this pandemic pedagogical landscape in his classroom. This experience contributes to learning from the past, navigating the present, and continuing to shape the future of effective instruction in an elementary classroom.
The Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, Nov 26, 2023
Language and Literacy
This paper illustrates the findings from year three of a five-year research project where partici... more This paper illustrates the findings from year three of a five-year research project where participants were asked to multimodally re-conceptualize their understandings about content and disciplinary literacy practices from a mandatory Bachelor of Education literacy course. Data collection includes transcribed interviews, professor feedback, in-class conversations with peers, multimodal artefacts, and participant notes taken during a gallery walk. Findings show that life experiences, transmediation processes, peer group sharing, and facility with modes and media contributed to deep understanding about multiliteracies practices, course content, and assessment techniques. Findings reveal that learning opportunities transcend disciplines, space, and time while enriching identity formation.
Literacy Information and Computer Education Journal, 2015
This study follows teacher candidates through their first year of teaching, tracking their unders... more This study follows teacher candidates through their first year of teaching, tracking their understandings and implementations of multiliteracies pedagogy. The purpose of the study is to ask whether first year teachers implement what they are taught, or rely on previous or modeled experience when they enter the teaching profession. Our main research question explores if and why multimodal literacies are implemented in early teaching practice. New teachers were invited to participate by email, and their response provided consent. Upon responding, participants were supplied with a questionnaire. Using a lens of multiliteracies and multimodality, responses were analyzed using a Modified Constant Comparative Method. Indications in the data reveal difficulties and opportunities when applying multiliteracies pedagogy. The findings enhance limited research in this area. Perceived benefits for education are to inform pedagogy, create more equitable teaching and learning environments, and promote professional reflective practices. These enhance learning within a multiliteracies framework.
Multimodal literacy is underrepresented in the educational research literature. The goal of this ... more Multimodal literacy is underrepresented in the educational research literature. The goal of this qualitative case study was to provide insights into the place of multimodal literacy learning opportunities in the junior classroom literacy curriculum. The study aimed to document the students' literacy practices within these opportunities. It asked: What multimodal literacy learning opportunities does a grade six classroom afford? How do students engage in them? What enables and constrains these learning opportunities? This case study focused on four student participants and their teacher in a grade six classroom within Ontario, Canada, over the course of four months during language arts classes. Through participant observation, the prominent data collection method used was interviews. Captured observational data was done through the use of photographs and video. Artefacts were collected and analyzed for its content and curriculum documents and classroom resources that the teacher used in her instructional planning were examined. The documentation of the classroom context which included the collection of details about the class and classroom such as classroom layout, timetables, and student-teacher interactions also took place. Classroom curriculum literacy events were analyzed in relation to the study questions using a Modified Constant Comparison Method. The study found that multimodal literacy learning opportunities were most often enabled in the classroom curriculum when the students' knowledge and multimodal interests took primacy. A narrowed emphasis on print literacy constrained multimodal iii literacy learning opportunities. This narrowing was largely the effect of a provincial, standardized literacy assessment, standardized outcomes-based report cards, workshops, school-wide rubrics directed towards improving students' performance on the provincial assessment, and a lack of support for the teacher's acquisition of multimodal pedagogical knowledge. The study confirms and extends through illustrations of Canadian classroom curriculum literature related particularly to literacy assessment washback and students' literacy practices within classroom literacy curricula that are print-centric. It makes suggestions for how multimodal pedagogies might be included in classroom curricula so as to enhance students' multimodal literacy learning opportunities.
Journal of Visual Literacy
Multimodal literacy is underrepresented in the educational research literature.
Language and Literacy, 2024
This research focuses on one teacher’s lived experience as he contributes towards a broader under... more This research focuses on one teacher’s lived experience as he contributes towards a broader understanding of possibilities and constraints afforded by technologies, materials, and relationality during this recent shift in pandemic pedagogy. The pandemic drastically altered the way curriculum is enacted as there were shifts in the learning environment, the subject matter, and the way teachers and students engaged in literacy practices. To understand this shift, we explore: What are the participating teacher’s perceptions about how multiliteracies are utilized for classroom practice and pedagogy? How did this teacher’s pedagogy continue or change once the pandemic influenced curriculum enactment? This paper focuses on how one grade 6 teacher explored this pandemic pedagogical landscape in his classroom. This experience contributes to learning from the past, navigating the present, and continuing to shape the future of effective instruction in an elementary classroom.
The Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, Nov 26, 2023
Language and Literacy
This paper illustrates the findings from year three of a five-year research project where partici... more This paper illustrates the findings from year three of a five-year research project where participants were asked to multimodally re-conceptualize their understandings about content and disciplinary literacy practices from a mandatory Bachelor of Education literacy course. Data collection includes transcribed interviews, professor feedback, in-class conversations with peers, multimodal artefacts, and participant notes taken during a gallery walk. Findings show that life experiences, transmediation processes, peer group sharing, and facility with modes and media contributed to deep understanding about multiliteracies practices, course content, and assessment techniques. Findings reveal that learning opportunities transcend disciplines, space, and time while enriching identity formation.
Literacy Information and Computer Education Journal, 2015
This study follows teacher candidates through their first year of teaching, tracking their unders... more This study follows teacher candidates through their first year of teaching, tracking their understandings and implementations of multiliteracies pedagogy. The purpose of the study is to ask whether first year teachers implement what they are taught, or rely on previous or modeled experience when they enter the teaching profession. Our main research question explores if and why multimodal literacies are implemented in early teaching practice. New teachers were invited to participate by email, and their response provided consent. Upon responding, participants were supplied with a questionnaire. Using a lens of multiliteracies and multimodality, responses were analyzed using a Modified Constant Comparative Method. Indications in the data reveal difficulties and opportunities when applying multiliteracies pedagogy. The findings enhance limited research in this area. Perceived benefits for education are to inform pedagogy, create more equitable teaching and learning environments, and promote professional reflective practices. These enhance learning within a multiliteracies framework.
Multimodal literacy is underrepresented in the educational research literature. The goal of this ... more Multimodal literacy is underrepresented in the educational research literature. The goal of this qualitative case study was to provide insights into the place of multimodal literacy learning opportunities in the junior classroom literacy curriculum. The study aimed to document the students' literacy practices within these opportunities. It asked: What multimodal literacy learning opportunities does a grade six classroom afford? How do students engage in them? What enables and constrains these learning opportunities? This case study focused on four student participants and their teacher in a grade six classroom within Ontario, Canada, over the course of four months during language arts classes. Through participant observation, the prominent data collection method used was interviews. Captured observational data was done through the use of photographs and video. Artefacts were collected and analyzed for its content and curriculum documents and classroom resources that the teacher used in her instructional planning were examined. The documentation of the classroom context which included the collection of details about the class and classroom such as classroom layout, timetables, and student-teacher interactions also took place. Classroom curriculum literacy events were analyzed in relation to the study questions using a Modified Constant Comparison Method. The study found that multimodal literacy learning opportunities were most often enabled in the classroom curriculum when the students' knowledge and multimodal interests took primacy. A narrowed emphasis on print literacy constrained multimodal iii literacy learning opportunities. This narrowing was largely the effect of a provincial, standardized literacy assessment, standardized outcomes-based report cards, workshops, school-wide rubrics directed towards improving students' performance on the provincial assessment, and a lack of support for the teacher's acquisition of multimodal pedagogical knowledge. The study confirms and extends through illustrations of Canadian classroom curriculum literature related particularly to literacy assessment washback and students' literacy practices within classroom literacy curricula that are print-centric. It makes suggestions for how multimodal pedagogies might be included in classroom curricula so as to enhance students' multimodal literacy learning opportunities.
Journal of Visual Literacy
Multimodal literacy is underrepresented in the educational research literature.