College of Education
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Item Techquity in the Classroom: Designing to Include Equity and Social Justice Impacts in Computing Lessons(2022) Coenraad, Merijke; Weintrop, David; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Technology is ubiquitous in modern society. It affects our daily activities and exists in every household and on every street corner. Yet, research has shown that both the process of creating technologies and the technologies themselves are biased. New technologies are based on datasets, algorithms, and designs that encode developer and data biases. As youth increasingly use technologies in their daily lives, experience the effects of technologies and algorithms, and learn to be technology creators, it is important for them to critically explore and understand the ways that technology introduces and perpetuates inequities. In this three-article dissertation, I present a design study on the development and implementation of materials specifically designed to teach about Threats to Techquity. Threats to Techquity are aspects of computing and technologies that cause or could cause inequalities, especially inequalities based on marginalized identities (e.g., inequalities due to race, immigration status, gender, sexual orientation, ability). To understand how to bring Techquity into the classroom, I partnered with youth and teachers using participatory design to develop the “Talking Techquity” curriculum for middle grades (5th through 8th grade) students. Findings from this work revealed: (1) youth initially named and identified examples of visible Threats to Techquity, but as they learned more about these threats, they uncovered and discussed invisible Threats to Techquity more frequently and identified these threats as topics to be taught to peers; (2) youth and teacher designers had similar instructional priorities and utilized similar pedagogical strategies when designing and critiquing learning experiences about online data collection and data use, but had contrasting ways of discussing examples and different learning goals; and (3) when implementing “Talking Techquity,” teachers who helped co-design the curriculum made adaptations to content and project requirements to provide more scaffolding and ensure students experienced success based on teachers’ perceptions of student needs and other factors. This research encourages researchers, curriculum designers, educators, and students themselves to consider how to teach and learn about the Threats to Techquity affecting youth’s daily lives and demonstrates how participatory design methods can help uncover key conceptualizations and instructional priorities that make this possible.Item A Case Study on A Cross-Context Asynchronous Online Writing Tutorial: The Mediated Learning Process for U.S.-Based Tutors and L2 Writers in Taiwan(2014) Chen, Pei-Jie; Martin-Beltran, Melinda; Curriculum and Instruction; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Giving students written feedback has been a common practice in L2 writing instruction. Written feedback has been widely studied in second language writing and acquisition research, yet many questions and disputes remain concerning its effectiveness (See Ferris, 2010). While most research on written feedback has adopted the cognitive psychological perspective focusing on its effectiveness (Hyland, 1998, 2000), this study aims at discovering the mediation, mutual growth and engagement between tutors and writers in an asynchronous online writing tutorial. In the tutorial, U.S.-based tutors (teacher candidates in a teacher education program) worked with L2 writers (graduate students) in Taiwan on their English academic writing course assignments (biodata and summary). Data sources included written comments by the teacher candidates, writer's drafts, uptake documents, interview transcripts, self-evaluations, and field observation notes. Oriented by speech act and Vygotskian theoretical framework and using discourse analysis, this qualitative case study identified 12 feedback acts under three categories (direct, indirect, and conversational Feedback Acts) among three focal dyads throughout the tutorial. Findings suggest that the three tutors used feedback acts strategically to guide the L2 writers, particularly using IFA and CFA as mediational tools to provide various metalinguistic explanations, give extended information, and asked thought-provoking questions to stimulate writers' thinking in the tutorial process along with the corrections, suggestions, or requests they made. As writers incorporated more than 70% of the feedback, they found the tutorial process beneficial for their revision and learning of English academic writing. Tutors also learned to accommodate writers' needs, providing feedback within their zone of proximal development and applying concept-based instruction and dynamic assessment. This study contributes to second language writing and learning research, revealing the complexity of tutor-writer interaction and feedback process and providing a window into how written feedback can foster communication and dialogues between tutors and writers. Close examination of discourse in the tutorial context offers insights into the mutual growth and engagement for the participating teacher candidates and L2 writers. This study also has implications for both L2 writing instructors and teacher educators who seek new ways to engage language learners and teacher candidates in their learning processes.