Robin Jocius | University of Texas at Arlington (original) (raw)
Papers by Robin Jocius
Contemporary Issues in Teacher Education, 2021
This article describes the Infusing Computing project, a 4-year study designed to support middle ... more This article describes the Infusing Computing project, a 4-year study designed to support middle and high school teachers in infusing computational thinking (CT) into their disciplinary teaching. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, weeklong workshops held in summer 2020 were shifted to a virtual format and utilized emerging technology tools, synchronous and asynchronous sessions, explicit collaborative scaffolds, networking, and digital badging. Specifically, this study examined the experiences of English language arts (ELA) teachers (14 middle school, 13 high school) who participated in the virtual Infusing Computing workshops. Findings demonstrated that ELA teachers were able to leverage learning successfully from virtual PD to infuse CT into existing curricula, although teachers differed in the ways that they appropriated and adapted pedagogical tools for CT infusion.
The Journal of Educational Research, 2020
This paper explores the integration of interdisciplinary, standards-based making in elementary cl... more This paper explores the integration of interdisciplinary, standards-based making in elementary classrooms through an investigation of teachers' navigation of contradictions between traditional academic practices and the playful, imaginative, and collaborative design thinking that characterizes making. Empirical findings are reported from a three-year, NSF-funded research project that involved the integration of standards-based Mobile Maker Kits into 15 elementary schools within a suburban-rural Southern school district. Drawing on a framework that recognizes making and formal learning as interactive activity systems, this qualitative study illustrates how teachers experienced and resolved contradictions as they integrated the kits into their classrooms. We conclude by discussing how integrating standards-based making provides opportunities for transformative learning that allows students and teachers to engage in creative production, design thinking, and experimentation.
In 2018 and 2019, Infusing Computing offered face-to-face summer PD workshops to support middle a... more In 2018 and 2019, Infusing Computing offered face-to-face summer PD workshops to support middle and high school teachers in integrating computational thinking into their classrooms through week-long summer PD workshops and academic-year support. Due to COVID-19, 151 teachers attended the Summer 2020 PD workshops in a week-long virtual conference format. In this paper, we describe Virtual Pivot: Infusing Computing, which employed emerging technology tools, pre-PD training, synchronous and asynchronous sessions, Snap! pair programming, live support, and live networking. Drawing on findings from participant interviews and post-PD surveys, we argue that three categories of changes (digital tools, formats, and supports for teacher engagement and collaboration) were effective in increasing participants' selfefficacy in teaching CT, supporting collaboration, and enabling participants to design CT-infused content-area lessons. We conclude by discussing how elements of this virtual PD can be replicated to increase teacher and student access to CT practices in middle and high school classrooms.
Educational Technology & Society, 2021
Despite increasing attention to the potential benefits of infusing computational thinking into co... more Despite increasing attention to the potential benefits of infusing computational thinking into content area classrooms, more research is needed to examine how teachers integrate disciplinary content and CT as part of their pedagogical practices. This study traces how middle and high school teachers (n = 24) drew on their existing knowledge and their experiences in a STEM professional development program to infuse CT into their teaching. Our work is grounded in theories of TPACK and TPACK-CT, which leverage teachers' knowledge of technology for computational thinking (CT), CT as a disciplinary pedagogical practice, and STEM content knowledge. Findings identify three key pedagogical supports that teachers utilized and transformed as they taught CT-infused lessons (articulating a key purpose for CT infusion, scaffolding, and collaborative contexts), as well as barriers that caused teachers to adapt or abandon their lessons. Implications include suggestions for future research on CT infusion into secondary classrooms, as well as broader recommendations to support teachers in applying STEM professional development content to classroom practice.
Despite the increasing attention to infusing CT into middle and high school content area classroo... more Despite the increasing attention to infusing CT into middle and high school content area classrooms, there is a lack of information about the most effective practices and models to support teachers in their efforts to integrate disciplinary content and CT principles. To address this need, this paper proposes the Code, Connect and Create (3C) professional development (PD) model, which was designed to support middle and high school content area teachers in infusing computational thinking into their classrooms. To evaluate the model, we analyzed quantitative and qualitative data collected from Infusing Computing PD workshops designed for in-service science, math, English language arts, and social studies teachers located in two Southeastern states. Drawing on findings from our analysis of teacher-created learning segments, surveys, and interviews, we argue that the 3C professional development model supported shifts in teacher understandings of the role of computational thinking in content area classrooms, as well as their self-efficacy and beliefs regarding CT integration into disciplinary content. We conclude by offering implications for the use of this model to increase teacher and student access to computational thinking practices in middle and high school classrooms.
Language Arts, 2020
This article describes the CLICK model, which aims to support students' multimodal composing prac... more This article describes the CLICK model, which aims to support students' multimodal composing practices through balancing explicit scaffolding with opportunities to exercise creative freedom. was unsuccessful, at least for this particular group of third graders. For Ellie, the iMovie trailer templates offered valuable support-she was able to select from a curated set of design options (e.g., music clips, fonts, backgrounds, and colors), which provided enough flexibility and freedom for her to feel a sense of ownership over her composition. Jes-sica, by contrast, was constrained by the limitations of the template, which restricted her ability to use multiple video clips to tell the story she had imagined. As I reflected on students' wildly different reactions to both the digital book trailer task and the iMovie trailer tool, I found myself fascinated by one question: How can educators interested in multi-modal composing balance explicit scaffolding with creative freedom to support students with different composing identities and preferences? This article describes the CLICK model, which aims to cultivate students' multimodal composing processes through five scaffolding principles: (1) collaboration; (2) loops; (3) incremental composing ; (4) critique; and (5) knowledge of mul-timodal composing processes. First, I describe the history of multimodal meaning-making, as well as the promise and peril of providing explicit scaffolding for multimodal composing activities. Then, I illustrate how I developed, tested, and refined the CLICK model during Project ONEE, a study of grade 3 students' multimodal composing I love it. This was my favorite thing we've ever done this year. I really like that we could choose our pictures and music and backgrounds to think about how Via [character from the novel Wonder] felt and how she might want to show who she is.-Ellie, grade 3 It looks just like everybody else did theirs. I wanted to have like the video clips in there, but the program wouldn't let me. The sound wouldn't work and the music had to play.. .. It's all busted.-Jessica, grade 3 Ellie and Jessica's words illustrate the promise and peril of explicit scaffolding for multimodal composing in academic environments-and the difficulty of developing structured multimodal composing experiences that account for students' unique composing needs. As part of a project focus-ing on third graders' understanding of selected texts featuring characters with disabilities or differences, Ellie, Jessica, and their classmates were tasked with developing digital book trailers based on the novel Wonder (Palacio, 2012). The initial goal of using the highly scaffolded iMovie trailer templates, which provide pre-selected graphics and fonts, sto-ryboarding support, and step-by-step instructions, was to support students as they learned to navigate different technological tools, modes, and ideas. However, it quickly became clear that a universal approach to scaffolding multimodal composing
This qualitative study explores the ways in which artifacts, spaces, and structures became entang... more This qualitative study explores the ways in which artifacts, spaces, and structures became entangled as two fifth-grade students collaboratively composed multimodal responses to literature (e.g., videos and PowerPoints). Data sources included video and audio recordings of classroom interactions, students' multimodal compositions, artifacts from the composing process, screen recordings, in-process and final student interviews, surveys, and instructional artifacts. Through an integrated analysis of students' collaborative composing processes and products, this study traces the material, personal, and interactional resources that students navigate as they compose—and presents a description of how students take on a variety of interactional roles in the creation of their joint work. The findings of this study can be used to shape our understanding of young adolescents' collaborative multimodal composing practices for academic purposes.
This study situates young adolescents’ multimodal composing practices within two figured worlds—s... more This study situates young adolescents’ multimodal composing practices within two figured worlds—school and creative multimodal production. In a microanalysis of two focal students’ multimodal processes and products, I trace how pedagogical, interactional, and semiotic resources both reified and challenged students’ developing identities as multimodal composers. This research illustrates the necessity of critical perspectives on the design and implementation of multimodal composing activities for academic purposes.
Representational logic cannot account for the entanglements of all that matters in making new med... more Representational logic cannot account for the entanglements of all that matters in making new media: feeling bodies, vibrant matter, feeling bodies and vibrant matter all moving and at different rates. In the currently shifting communicative landscape, where mobile technologies are the primary means for youths’ digital production, all this movement, all this moving matter, is integral to generating fuller, more (than) human expressions of youths’ new media making. This article therefore develops a non-representational theory of new media making through an intra-action analysis of five adolescents making a digital book trailer while moving within and across three locations. As guiding poststructural methodology, intra-action analysis attuned the authors to moments when bodies-materials-place became perceptibly entangled in the drawing of boundaries and exclusions. Analysis expresses how emergent (re)shapings of boundaries and exclusions across production settings were concurrent with a process of privileging text-based/media-based ideas and thereby various students’ becoming agencies and capacities to act as new media makers. The article concludes arguing that poststructural attention to literacy in the making matters as an ethical imperative for researchers and educators. Literacy in the making enacts boundaries and exclusions that participate in ongoing discursive-material practices, which have potential to produce histories differently in as yet unimagined futures.
This piece explores the possibilities (and complexities) of multimodal composition, using example... more This piece explores the possibilities (and complexities) of multimodal composition, using examples from a project in which fifth-grade students used digital media to create unexpected stories about their communities.
Reading Teacher, Oct 1, 2014
Literacy Research, Practice and Evaluation, 2013
The Reading Teacher, 2013
Journal of Media Literacy Education, 2013
Contemporary Issues in Teacher Education, 2021
This article describes the Infusing Computing project, a 4-year study designed to support middle ... more This article describes the Infusing Computing project, a 4-year study designed to support middle and high school teachers in infusing computational thinking (CT) into their disciplinary teaching. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, weeklong workshops held in summer 2020 were shifted to a virtual format and utilized emerging technology tools, synchronous and asynchronous sessions, explicit collaborative scaffolds, networking, and digital badging. Specifically, this study examined the experiences of English language arts (ELA) teachers (14 middle school, 13 high school) who participated in the virtual Infusing Computing workshops. Findings demonstrated that ELA teachers were able to leverage learning successfully from virtual PD to infuse CT into existing curricula, although teachers differed in the ways that they appropriated and adapted pedagogical tools for CT infusion.
The Journal of Educational Research, 2020
This paper explores the integration of interdisciplinary, standards-based making in elementary cl... more This paper explores the integration of interdisciplinary, standards-based making in elementary classrooms through an investigation of teachers' navigation of contradictions between traditional academic practices and the playful, imaginative, and collaborative design thinking that characterizes making. Empirical findings are reported from a three-year, NSF-funded research project that involved the integration of standards-based Mobile Maker Kits into 15 elementary schools within a suburban-rural Southern school district. Drawing on a framework that recognizes making and formal learning as interactive activity systems, this qualitative study illustrates how teachers experienced and resolved contradictions as they integrated the kits into their classrooms. We conclude by discussing how integrating standards-based making provides opportunities for transformative learning that allows students and teachers to engage in creative production, design thinking, and experimentation.
In 2018 and 2019, Infusing Computing offered face-to-face summer PD workshops to support middle a... more In 2018 and 2019, Infusing Computing offered face-to-face summer PD workshops to support middle and high school teachers in integrating computational thinking into their classrooms through week-long summer PD workshops and academic-year support. Due to COVID-19, 151 teachers attended the Summer 2020 PD workshops in a week-long virtual conference format. In this paper, we describe Virtual Pivot: Infusing Computing, which employed emerging technology tools, pre-PD training, synchronous and asynchronous sessions, Snap! pair programming, live support, and live networking. Drawing on findings from participant interviews and post-PD surveys, we argue that three categories of changes (digital tools, formats, and supports for teacher engagement and collaboration) were effective in increasing participants' selfefficacy in teaching CT, supporting collaboration, and enabling participants to design CT-infused content-area lessons. We conclude by discussing how elements of this virtual PD can be replicated to increase teacher and student access to CT practices in middle and high school classrooms.
Educational Technology & Society, 2021
Despite increasing attention to the potential benefits of infusing computational thinking into co... more Despite increasing attention to the potential benefits of infusing computational thinking into content area classrooms, more research is needed to examine how teachers integrate disciplinary content and CT as part of their pedagogical practices. This study traces how middle and high school teachers (n = 24) drew on their existing knowledge and their experiences in a STEM professional development program to infuse CT into their teaching. Our work is grounded in theories of TPACK and TPACK-CT, which leverage teachers' knowledge of technology for computational thinking (CT), CT as a disciplinary pedagogical practice, and STEM content knowledge. Findings identify three key pedagogical supports that teachers utilized and transformed as they taught CT-infused lessons (articulating a key purpose for CT infusion, scaffolding, and collaborative contexts), as well as barriers that caused teachers to adapt or abandon their lessons. Implications include suggestions for future research on CT infusion into secondary classrooms, as well as broader recommendations to support teachers in applying STEM professional development content to classroom practice.
Despite the increasing attention to infusing CT into middle and high school content area classroo... more Despite the increasing attention to infusing CT into middle and high school content area classrooms, there is a lack of information about the most effective practices and models to support teachers in their efforts to integrate disciplinary content and CT principles. To address this need, this paper proposes the Code, Connect and Create (3C) professional development (PD) model, which was designed to support middle and high school content area teachers in infusing computational thinking into their classrooms. To evaluate the model, we analyzed quantitative and qualitative data collected from Infusing Computing PD workshops designed for in-service science, math, English language arts, and social studies teachers located in two Southeastern states. Drawing on findings from our analysis of teacher-created learning segments, surveys, and interviews, we argue that the 3C professional development model supported shifts in teacher understandings of the role of computational thinking in content area classrooms, as well as their self-efficacy and beliefs regarding CT integration into disciplinary content. We conclude by offering implications for the use of this model to increase teacher and student access to computational thinking practices in middle and high school classrooms.
Language Arts, 2020
This article describes the CLICK model, which aims to support students' multimodal composing prac... more This article describes the CLICK model, which aims to support students' multimodal composing practices through balancing explicit scaffolding with opportunities to exercise creative freedom. was unsuccessful, at least for this particular group of third graders. For Ellie, the iMovie trailer templates offered valuable support-she was able to select from a curated set of design options (e.g., music clips, fonts, backgrounds, and colors), which provided enough flexibility and freedom for her to feel a sense of ownership over her composition. Jes-sica, by contrast, was constrained by the limitations of the template, which restricted her ability to use multiple video clips to tell the story she had imagined. As I reflected on students' wildly different reactions to both the digital book trailer task and the iMovie trailer tool, I found myself fascinated by one question: How can educators interested in multi-modal composing balance explicit scaffolding with creative freedom to support students with different composing identities and preferences? This article describes the CLICK model, which aims to cultivate students' multimodal composing processes through five scaffolding principles: (1) collaboration; (2) loops; (3) incremental composing ; (4) critique; and (5) knowledge of mul-timodal composing processes. First, I describe the history of multimodal meaning-making, as well as the promise and peril of providing explicit scaffolding for multimodal composing activities. Then, I illustrate how I developed, tested, and refined the CLICK model during Project ONEE, a study of grade 3 students' multimodal composing I love it. This was my favorite thing we've ever done this year. I really like that we could choose our pictures and music and backgrounds to think about how Via [character from the novel Wonder] felt and how she might want to show who she is.-Ellie, grade 3 It looks just like everybody else did theirs. I wanted to have like the video clips in there, but the program wouldn't let me. The sound wouldn't work and the music had to play.. .. It's all busted.-Jessica, grade 3 Ellie and Jessica's words illustrate the promise and peril of explicit scaffolding for multimodal composing in academic environments-and the difficulty of developing structured multimodal composing experiences that account for students' unique composing needs. As part of a project focus-ing on third graders' understanding of selected texts featuring characters with disabilities or differences, Ellie, Jessica, and their classmates were tasked with developing digital book trailers based on the novel Wonder (Palacio, 2012). The initial goal of using the highly scaffolded iMovie trailer templates, which provide pre-selected graphics and fonts, sto-ryboarding support, and step-by-step instructions, was to support students as they learned to navigate different technological tools, modes, and ideas. However, it quickly became clear that a universal approach to scaffolding multimodal composing
This qualitative study explores the ways in which artifacts, spaces, and structures became entang... more This qualitative study explores the ways in which artifacts, spaces, and structures became entangled as two fifth-grade students collaboratively composed multimodal responses to literature (e.g., videos and PowerPoints). Data sources included video and audio recordings of classroom interactions, students' multimodal compositions, artifacts from the composing process, screen recordings, in-process and final student interviews, surveys, and instructional artifacts. Through an integrated analysis of students' collaborative composing processes and products, this study traces the material, personal, and interactional resources that students navigate as they compose—and presents a description of how students take on a variety of interactional roles in the creation of their joint work. The findings of this study can be used to shape our understanding of young adolescents' collaborative multimodal composing practices for academic purposes.
This study situates young adolescents’ multimodal composing practices within two figured worlds—s... more This study situates young adolescents’ multimodal composing practices within two figured worlds—school and creative multimodal production. In a microanalysis of two focal students’ multimodal processes and products, I trace how pedagogical, interactional, and semiotic resources both reified and challenged students’ developing identities as multimodal composers. This research illustrates the necessity of critical perspectives on the design and implementation of multimodal composing activities for academic purposes.
Representational logic cannot account for the entanglements of all that matters in making new med... more Representational logic cannot account for the entanglements of all that matters in making new media: feeling bodies, vibrant matter, feeling bodies and vibrant matter all moving and at different rates. In the currently shifting communicative landscape, where mobile technologies are the primary means for youths’ digital production, all this movement, all this moving matter, is integral to generating fuller, more (than) human expressions of youths’ new media making. This article therefore develops a non-representational theory of new media making through an intra-action analysis of five adolescents making a digital book trailer while moving within and across three locations. As guiding poststructural methodology, intra-action analysis attuned the authors to moments when bodies-materials-place became perceptibly entangled in the drawing of boundaries and exclusions. Analysis expresses how emergent (re)shapings of boundaries and exclusions across production settings were concurrent with a process of privileging text-based/media-based ideas and thereby various students’ becoming agencies and capacities to act as new media makers. The article concludes arguing that poststructural attention to literacy in the making matters as an ethical imperative for researchers and educators. Literacy in the making enacts boundaries and exclusions that participate in ongoing discursive-material practices, which have potential to produce histories differently in as yet unimagined futures.
This piece explores the possibilities (and complexities) of multimodal composition, using example... more This piece explores the possibilities (and complexities) of multimodal composition, using examples from a project in which fifth-grade students used digital media to create unexpected stories about their communities.
Reading Teacher, Oct 1, 2014
Literacy Research, Practice and Evaluation, 2013
The Reading Teacher, 2013
Journal of Media Literacy Education, 2013