Integrating Content, Language Instruction, and Digital Literacy

• In Event: Digital Literacy in Adult Education

Abstract

Objectives: CILIA-T stands for Content-Integrated Language Instruction for Adults with Technology Support. Funded by the Institute for Education Sciences, this five-year project will build and pilot a standards-aligned, 16-module curriculum designed for intermediate-level adult English learners to broaden their academic vocabulary, morphological analyses skills, and critical thinking application while engaging U.S. history and civics content through a thematic lens. Students will also build and practice digital literacy skills using this resource, which will be teachable in person and via hybrid and remote delivery models.
Theoretical framework: Despite their very different backgrounds, learners in English classes share the common goal of developing their language skills as a means to understand complex information on topics in order to increase their educational,employment, and citizenship opportunities. Thus, effective EL instruction programs need to integrate rigorous academic content with language instruction. Strong reading comprehension is built on strong background knowledge, vocabulary and higher-order thinking skills (Ahmed, 2016; Cromley and Azevedo, 2007) CILIA-T focuses on developing all three of these domains as couched within history and civics topics. All of these activities are supported by technology. Hence the goal of the very first module of the curriculum is to develop basic digital skills. In the remaining 15 history/civics modules, the goal is to interweave digital activities, thus building digital skills throughout the course.
Curriculum Development and Materials: Experienced adult educators in civics, U.S. history, English language instruction and digital literacy, many currently teaching in adult education settings, are collaborating on developing the modules. The project team also interviewed educators in various roles in adult education in MN and GA to gather their ideas for pros and cons that go into selecting digital resources.
As we will present during the symposium, each module has the following activities: Activating existing background knowledge; reading and reviewing an anchor text; practicing vocabulary and morphological analyses using the text as a framework; applying what is learned to other contexts by asking “big questions”. Each of those components are enhanced by using technological tools (such as Flipgrid, Quizlet, Whasapp, Google. This enables more effective coverage of content while giving the learners multiple opportunities to practice and progressively build their digital skills. In designing the digital literacy skills roadmap for the CILIA-T curriculum team considered three factors; current digital literacy frameworks, the digital literacy tools that will be used throughout the curriculum, and the foundational digital literary skills we identified as necessary for learners to effectively engage with the digital tools. Teacher interviews also provided guidance on what will help them adopt technology. We will provide curriculum samples.

Significance: We believe that our project can be a template for others to integrate digital literacy skills into core instructional content to help learners develop strong digital literacy competencies and digital resilience.

Authors

• Erin Cary, University of Minnesota - Duluth
  Presenting Author

• Aydin Durgunoglu, University of Minnesota - Duluth
  Non-Presenting Author

• Leah Hauge, Literacy Minnesota
  Non-Presenting Author

• Theresa Sladek
  Non-Presenting Author

• Daphne Greenberg, Georgia State University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Elizabeth Tighe, Georgia State University
  Non-Presenting Author