Multi Modal Learning

My second inquiry on Multi Modal Learning came from my DFI course at the beginning of the year. I have to admit I have struggled with this.  When I look back I'm not really sure I understood multi modal learning when on DFI, and decided to add audio to some  slides using Mote. This worked well until Mote said I needed to pay. 

If I could use a story from the Ready to Read with an audio I added that. In Term 2, I added Mote to a slide deck I made in Diffit for Matariki. Also in Term 2, we were looking at information reports in Writing so these were added to help my students find information.

I added Motes to these instructions for Writing Correct sentences.

Since teaching more digitally I have always used videos to help teach and reienfore a point especially in maths. I find someone else's voice often works better than mine.  Up until I was shown the Pillars of Practice for teaching reading in Term 3, I started to understand better.  My team leader, shared multimodal text selection slide and talked me through the multiple texts which really helped me focus when I made my multi-modal text. 

I created a guided reading plan with the help of my team leader using an article from the internet, a video and a written text around myths on the sun and the actual science.  I think my students have enjoyed using the different texts to link back to the focussing questions. I'm looking forward to creating more of these texts to help empower my students.

Multi- Modal Learning - research

 

Empowering English as an Additional Language students through digital multimodal composing

Melissa Barnes, Ekaterina Tour

First published: 23 April 2023 https://doi.org/10.1111/lit.12319Citations: 2

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/lit.12319

I chose this research article because it is about students for who English is a second language and this pertains to several of my students and “many come from disadvantaged backgrounds. Humanitarian entrants are usually from low socio-economic and educational backgrounds due to past histories and circumstances. “

They explained multimodal as “The New London Group (1996) identified five different modes of meaning-making: linguistic, visual, audio, gestural and spatial. When texts involve two or more modes, they are called ‘multimodal’ (Elola & Oskoz, 2017; “

The text continues on to say that students are empowered and given voice as students are interacting with different viewpoints and this can change their own viewpoint which then leads to change in their own behaviours. Multi-modal texts also allow for students to engage in discussion. 

The research focuses on the choices given in the multi-modal activities  in this case, lead to social justice but found that “research exploring digital multimodal composing from a critical literacy perspective is scarce.”  Also, the students were given the means to develop their own multimodal texts.

This paragraph containing the results is especially interesting when it talks about their home language, the value in the development of skills and that the reflection of interest and identities supported critical literacies.

“First, it was found that both the students and pre-service teachers valued the development of skills, knowledge and understandings associated with digital multimodal composing and its transferability to the everyday classroom, particularly given the students' limited previous exposure. Second, students enjoyed creative and free experimentation with a range of multimodal and multilingual resources to create digital texts reflecting their interests and identities, which, in turn, supported critical literacies. Finally, the students were positioned as knowledgeable and active meaning-makers through strategic scaffolding by the pre-service teachers and peer interaction in home language in the process of digital multimodal composing.”

The students liked how they could change the power dynamics of a classroom as being students who could help others. I see this in my class with students who are willing to assist others.

This reading has given me the understanding that multi-modal texts empower students especially when they have the choice in their follow-up activity and how the scaffolding is so important. It was a very interesting article that has given me food for thought.