Abstract

Question - How can multi-modal instructional methods be used to increase student engagement in literacy?

Rationale - I have been teaching for four years and although I like using technology, I came to the realization that I wasn't using it to its full potential in the classroom. Most students are currently using technology regularly at home or have access to it at the library. In my previous school, we wanted to incorporate technology into the curriculum so we used a blog to interact with students; however, we found this wasn't fully utilized by the students and also wasn't particularly interesting. I acknowledge this was an attempt to embrace technology in the school, but feel it did not go far enough. As technology has progressed the students that are now in my class (third grade) are used to collaborating using Google docs, making websites on Weebly and using green screens. This thought on the use of technology also led me to think about the way I am using other teaching methods to teach Literacy. I always strived to be innovative but realized that I was teaching very traditionally using the white board and paper copies of work. This course made me question the way I was teaching Literacy and different ways I can use other teaching methods or strategies.

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Findings – During this Masters program I have found that using multi-modal instructional methods has led to an increase in student engagement. This has become evident across lots projects completed during this course. For example during our Project Based Instruction unit students were able to choose a range of technology tools to present their projects on the community around them. Students used Weebly, Vocaroo, Canva and Clip champ these projects provided an interesting way to work on Literacy. In another example for my Collaborative Action Research project I researched the impact of Literature circles on student engagement and comprehension skills. I used a Reading Attitude survey before and after using Literature circles and after the project, all the students felt more comfortable being asked questions by the teacher and also reading out loud.