Digital College Readiness: Supporting Productive Struggles Toward Equitable Development of College-Level Digital Literacies

• In Event: Marriott Roundtable Session 64
  In Roundtable Session: Leveraging and Promoting the Use of Technology in Higher Education

Abstract

Assumptions regarding when and how students acquire critical digital literacies contribute to fragmented PK-16 instruction. Underserved populations are especially vulnerable to digital literacy gaps as they transition to college. Using a multi-case study approach within a new literacies conceptual framework, multiple sources of data (survey, interview, course syllabi, and student artifacts) collected from purposefully selected Early College High School graduate participants supported a converging line of inquiry. Emerging patterns suggested digital college readiness as advanced levels of digital proficiencies that support productive struggle in digitally mediated college contexts. Implications include continued effort to problematize assumptions about student levels of digital literacies proficiencies and to move toward participatory learning that leverages student comfort with technologies to support productive academic struggles.

Author

• Rachelle K. Furness, St. Phillip's College