The Multimedia Memoir

In this case study, two teacher educators in literacy education examine preservice teachers’ (N = 20) Multimedia Memoirs, focusing specifically on their learning of multimodal writing processes during a language arts methods course. Data analyzed for this study includes a set of Multimedia Memoirs and written reflections. The researchers find that preservice teachers navigate between writing their memoirs traditionally and digitally by drawing on their knowledge and experiences with the writing process and with technology integration. Multimedia Memoirs and reflections demonstrate that preservice teachers’ knowledge about the writing process and the use of multimodality increases for their own writing and their future writing pedagogy. Implications for teacher education programs include a need to provide scaffolded digital writing instruction using a variety of genres.

Locating and Loving the Personal

In this chapter the author takes up the use of narrative inquiry within a secondary English language arts methods course. She focuses on two discrete moments that took place during one class session, where she and her students shared and discussed personal narratives. In particular, she explores the pedagogy that might be required to support a group of pre-service teachers’ work to become a connected knowing group, including the disruptive nature of vulnerability and risk taking.

Rubric to Determine a Quality Online Discussion Posting

When teachers integrate online discussions into courses, they are faced with the challenge of deciding how to evaluate the postings. This chapter discusses a study that used a discussion board rubric to evaluate online discussions. The study tested the reliability of the instrument (rubric) to assess the quality of the content of Web-based discourse. To obtain the rubric interrater reliability, researchers used the rubric to evaluate the discussion postings of preservice teachers’ enrolled in six different sections of an English language arts methods course. Six hundred sixty two (662) postings from 165 preservice teachers were analyzed using the rubric. The study utilized the scorings from six judges. When measured with Cronbach’s alpha intraclass coefficient, the findings indicated substantial agreement between judges in two of the four rubric criteria: evocative (.8742) and reference-resource (.8209). The other rubric criteria rumination (.7256) and storytelling (.5984) scored at the moderate and fair levels respectfully.

The Teachers They Are Becoming

The authors review all aspects of a Language Arts methods course for pre-service teachers, one which employs a multi-literacies pedagogy (The New London Group, 1996) and is taught at a laptop-based university. The course begins with a deliberate immersion into the complexities of multiple literacies, including digital literacy and critical literacy. The authors outline the course assignments, resources and instructional goals to determine how technology impacts pre-service teacher learning and intended future practice. The qualitative data sources include digital artifacts such as digital literacy stories, book talks that focus on social justice issues, and media literacy lessons. In addition, the researchers draw from cross-program data based on teacher candidate reflections and interviews. The data suggest that both the use of digital technology and a multi-literacies pedagogy can help pre-service teachers reflect on personal experiences to develop literacy teaching and learning practices that have transformative elements.