Political Activism Through Immersivity: Technology-Assisted Curricula and K–12 Students' Digital Citizenship

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Abstract

This paper investigates whether immersive technology-assisted curricula improve teacher perceptions of elementary students’ moral engagement with social issues, and capacity for collaborative dialogue and activism to understand causes of inequality. Our study is derived from a technology-assisted intervention encouraging civic reasoning about social justice issues. Four teachers taught three units to 87 students, based on immigration, Native Americans and food-security. Each subsequent unit was developed to be more immersive based on student/teacher feedback. We use a coding scheme to qualitatively compare data from interviews conducted after the first and third units. Results depict higher frequency of teacher reports of students’ awareness of socio-moral issues, tendency for constructive dialogue, and usage of digital functionalities to learn in the immersive food-security unit.

Authors

• Shantanu Tilak, The Ohio State University

• Michael Glassman, The Ohio State University

• Tzu-Jung Lin, The Ohio State University

• Ziye Wen, The Ohio State University

• Adriana I. Martinez Calvit, The Ohio State University

• Kimiko Ching, The Ohio State University