LitEd. Literacy in Teacher Education A study of literacy events related to narratives

Project summary

That current understandings of disciplinary literacy are not sufficient to foster students’ disciplinary literacy presents a notable challenge. The main goal in the LitEd project is to investigate approaches for strengthening disciplinary literacy in Norwegian teacher education. The project will investigate how working on literacy events related to narratives during preservice teachers’ practicum may expand the preservice teachers’ understanding and application of disciplinary literacy. LitEd will address disciplinary literacy in the four school subjects Mathematics, Norwegian, English and Religious Education (RE) and in close collaboration with the field of practice (three collaborating schools). The main research question is: How can preservice teachers’ understandings and applications of disciplinary literacy in the four school subjects Mathematics, Norwegian, English and Religious Education (RE) change through collaboration with practice teachers and teacher educators during their practicum?

 

Previous research has to a large degree focused only on specific aspects of literacy training while ignoring others. For example, studies look at either reading or writing literacies or are restricted to the students’ proficiency levels without taking classroom contexts sufficiently into account. LitEd will be the first study to combine these perspectives in an investigation of disciplinary literacy within teacher education. Furthermore, choosing narratives as a common line of inquiry will allow us to compare disciplinary practices across school subjects in a way that has never been done before.

 

Data collection: During the spring term practicum in 2022, qualitative data from literacy events conducted by Master’s students were collected. Interventions were carried out in all four school subjects (Norwegian, English, mathematics, and religious education). In total four school classes (two 7^th grade, one 6^th grade, one 9^th  and one 10^th grade) at three schools, seven practice teachers and fourteen preservice teachers participated in these interventions.

The data collected so far consists of 17 hours of sound and/or video recordings of lessons and other teaching related activities such as discussions between preservice teachers and practice teachers on planning, implementing and evaluating literacy events were also recorded. The data also includes written materials such as preservice teachers’ lesson plans, course requirements, and pupils’ texts as well as assessments of them.    

Findings: