Exploring Teacher Roles and Pupil Outcomes in Technology-Rich Early Literacy Learning

Abstract

The present study focused on the involvement of Dutch kindergarten teachers in curriculum (design and) implementation of PictoPal activities in three different roles: executor-only, re-designer, and co-designer. PictoPal refers to ICT-rich on-and off-computer activities for early literacy. In the executor-only role, teachers were not involved in design, they implemented ready-made PictoPal activities in their classes. The re-designer and co-designer roles involved teams of teachers in a purposeful act of adjusting, respectively designing and implementing PictoPal. The aim of this study was to understand how teacher roles influence implementation of PictoPal and pupil learning outcomes. Case studies were used to examine each teacher role, and a cross-case analysis was undertaken to compare teacher roles with each other on a common set of measures: teacher perceptions about their role, curriculum practicality, and co-ownership; integration of on-and off-computer activities, and pupil learning. The data was gathered using interviews, checklists, and pre-and post-tests. The findings of this study showed that each teacher role (executor-only, re-designer, and co-designer) contributes significantly to the effectiveness of ICT-rich early literacy learning activities. Significant differences in integration of the on-and off-computer activities were found between the three teacher roles. Teachers as co-designers showed highest extent of integration. Across teacher roles, pupil learning outcomes were not straightforwardly related to the extent of integration. However, teachers as co-designers felt a sense of co-ownership towards PictoPal, which yielded high degrees of integration and willingness to extend implementation of PictoPal beyond the research context. Based on this study, it can be recommended that schools wishing to support early literacy development in kindergarten could responsibly choose to do so by engaging their teachers in collaborative design of ICT-rich activities. 1. BACKGROUND: A STUDY ABOUT TEACHER ROLES This study is concerned with three roles for teachers in enabling information and communications technology (ICT)-rich early literacy learning: executor-only, re-designer, co-designer. The executor-only role involved teachers in implementing ready-to-use ICT-rich early literacy activities. The re-designer role and the co-designer role each involved teachers in designing activities before implementing them. In the re-designer role, teachers collaboratively adapted ready-to-use activities and materials for their current curriculum. In the co-designer role, teachers collaboratively designed completely new learning activities and materials for their classes. The executor-only role requires teachers to invest time and effort in implementation, the re-and co-designer roles require teachers to invest their time and efforts in collaborative design as well as implementation.