BASELINE CASE STUDY C:

Perceptions of Learner/Teacher Digital Literacy Skills: Views from the Other Side

October 2011

Background overview

As part of this project we wanted to find out what skills are needed by 21^st century teachers and what skills are needed by 21^st century learners. To do this we felt we should start by asking our teachers and learners what skills they felt were important for the others to have. For example we asked students what skills they felt their teachers needed or ‘what skills their teachers lacked’ and the same question was asked vice versa from teachers about their learners.

Initial findings from staff and student feedback showed that they both had concerns about each others abilities. Students had concerns about their teachers use or lack of up to date knowledge of technologies, and teachers feared that although their students used technology they did not apply these skills effectively to an educational setting or when finding or using information for educational processes.

Responses from FE learners were:

Responses from teachers and study centre assistants were:

Discussion of Findings

Most concerns raised by teachers were related to the processes of applying technology academically, most especially regarding finding and using information for education and how poor they see these skills in FE.

They reflect the perception of low level student skills, skim reading, impatience for answers, copy paste etc that suggests some very shallow learning methods or learner experiences using the net for finding and learning from information. This could be indicative of either their concerns in this area with spoon feeding identified or it could also indicate their frustrations when turning their students to the net assuming they know what they are doing.

The teaching staff also mention the intrusion of social activities such as using mobile phones or Facebook when students should be working, clearly this intrusion is an area of frustration or seen as a distraction to learning or even a barrier that they feel needs to be overcome.

It seems the teachers battle the Learning with the distraction of social activities in the online arena, almost akin to having the playground in the classroom.

When learners were asked “What digital skills they lack” this resulted in responses relating to traditional skills of reading writing and finding quality learning content. Overall they see little wrong in their digital skills.

Students realise they under utilise the potential learning on offer through books as their lack of skills in this area are highlighted in many of the responses. They also seem to be aware of what the internet is taking away in learning skills.

It seems then that learners are fully aware of their lack of use of the more traditional methods in their learning and this could be due to their heavy reliance on using the web or influence of growing up with digital tools. It could also indicate that they are being turned to using the net because teachers assume this is what they want or what they will do anyway.

Perhaps a reliance on the use the internet to research points to a need to push students towards a broader reading requirement when sourcing and using information. It also maybe that student’s are not being given the support to practice self led learning due to the confined skills they have to work with?

Learners have a strong perception that their teachers don’t have the skills or know-how to use digital technologies or understand their world as teenagers/young learners today. In Particular those technologies used in the classroom or for learning activities where students seem to identify the potential for a more engaging learning experience. Students also see themselves as comfortable using online methods where as they perceive teachers as not engaged with it.

An interesting anecdote is they believe that staff don’t have “Computer skills and using Google” possibly indicating that they feel the teaching staff don’t know how to use Google. Interestingly they also mention that “assumptions- assume students know what they're going to do they just say use the internet as a resource”. Here they indicate that staff send them to Google but don’t know it themselves. This could offer an interesting interplay of ideas that indicates staff are turning students to Google assuming they know, but yet staff don’t know either. With these assumptions and staff maybe not knowing about Google themselves it maybe little wonder why students use is only surface level, they are possibly getting no structured support when using it, resulting in teachers complaining that these skills are weak. This is definitely an area to investigate as these weaknesses on both sides could be responsible for the surface level use of Google and using skim reading techniques. In no other area would teachers made such broad assumptions when planning learning experiences for students.

An interesting interpretation is that maybe that teacher’s are sometimes exceeding the skills expectations of their groups, inhibiting the learning process. In that case it maybe it is teachers are the ones reliant on Google thinking they are reliably assuming they are giving students a technology tool they know and want to use; and believe it is a place they think students can and want to find information from.

This study certainly identified a range of ideas and themes that could be further investigated in this project to get a more detailed account of key perceptions and the roots from which they grow.