"Fueling a Third Paradigm of Education" (Blog 2)

It was intriguing to see the various paradigms of education from Pavlik's perspective. He discusses how technology is central for the third paradigm of education in how it fuels student engagement. He states that "learning becomes fluid and boundary spanning and interconnected" (115). Instead of students receiving all of the information from the teacher but rather they can bring their own experiences, learn from each other, or use various forms of multimodal methods to learn. I thought it was key that Pavlik noted that the third paradigm is not about mastering the subject, instead it is compelling students to be critical thinkers and to become innovative.

Although I did not necessarily see the third paradigm (3P) activated when I was in high school, but based on what I have seen on social media from what teachers have posted about their lessons I am seeing many classrooms pushing towards the 3P. However, this is mainly in urban areas but I would love to see more funding pushed in rural districts so that they can too have their students using these different learning approaches. Even even in rural areas, it is important to note that just because of the lack of funding does not mean that they are illiterate but there are other different types of literacy practices that students use (Thomas & Antero 95). For example, I have seen how students in the summer program that I have worked with are very visual learners and so they work well with lessons that involved art such as drawing, painting, or crafts. So, if I wanted to incorporate that into digital literacy I could create a lesson that revolves around visual communication such as ads making and digital print design.

As teachers, it is easy to fall into the trap of using technology just for its basic uses that is no different than if it was not used at all. Thomas and Garcia states that teachers should use technology in the classroom to "push new methods of engagement" rather than just using it just for the sake of having it in the classroom (95). For example, I remember in my 12th grade pre-Calc class that there were just pile of iPads that sat there in the corner of the room never being used in our class. I think maybe my teacher did not know how to incorporate the Ipads in the classroom into our class that might have helped me understand pre-Calc even more.

In the article, “Adventures with Texts and Beyond,” Page discusses how students should not just read a text but should interact with it, especially challenging ones. In her classroom she mentioned how she made her students read everything from television commercials and slogans, immersing her kids with various types of literacy. Just like in the article "Like Reading", it displayed that students are constantly interacting with different types of literacies outside of the classroom. Teachers should not be afraid to incorporate those in the classroom so that it can help enhance what they are learning to a different level. This is also shown in the article “Bridging Gaps and Preserving Memories through Oral History Research and Writing” in how students used technology to help enhance what they are learning and using different types of literacies to help create their project based learning (PBL) project.

Work Cited:

Dayton-Wood, A., Hammonds, L., Matherson, L., & Tollison, L. (2012). “Bridging Gaps and Preserving Memories through Oral History Research and Writing”. The English Journal, 101(4), pp.77-82, pp.129-133

Strickland, James. "Just the FAQs: An Alternative to Teaching the Research Paper." The English Journal, Vol. 94, No. 1, Re-Forming Writing Instruction (Sep., 2004),pp. 23-28

Thomas, P.L & Garcia, Antero. "Adventures with Text and Beyond: "Like Reading" and Literacy Challenges in a Digital Age."The English Journal, Vol. 101, No. 6 (July 2012), pp. 93-96

Thomas, P.L & Melissa A. Page. "Adventures with Text and Beyond: Popular Culture: The New Literacy Challenge for English Teachers" The English Journal, Vol. 102, No. 2 (November 2012), pp. 129-133

Pavlik, John. V "Fueling a Third Paradigm of Education: The Pedagogical Implications of Digital, Social, and Mobile Media." 2015