Pretest Design

RQ1: Can offering word and free lists generated from a UFT-CWE DL-PD, be subsequently used in the same workshop to improve the production of Zoom Breakout group Padlet artifacts?

Although grounded theory is the foundation of my research, there are opportunities for more quantitative analysis. Specifically, gathering data from word lists and free lists with a consensus analysis if time permits, can aid in gauging participants’ familiarity with digital tools. Word and free lists allow us to discover the vocabulary each member has about digital literacy, which which can help us reach closer to our goal: meaningful interaction with digital tools that can enhance our andragogies.

Revision #1: Either in the Chapter meeting prior to, or in the first hour of the DL-PD, a word or free list is generated. In its first iteration, all members receive the list, as it will be likely that the instructional delivery design will need some streamlining. In subsequent iterations of the DL-PD, the workshop can be split into a control (no list) and experimental (gets the list) groups, determined randomly or by a quasi-experimental method.

Instructional Delivery

As is often the case in first iterations of an instructional design, ours was very didactic. The DL-PDs opened with modeling of use of digital tools for curriculum development, instructional delivery, assessment, etc., followed by group breakouts. The results have not been good so far.

RQ2: How can online groups collaboratively produce assessable digital literacy artifacts?

Group participants often focus on completing a group task, rather than learning from it. Designing a successful DL-PD group activity should therefore include considering what kind of accountable talking is necessary to complete the task, encouraging cooperation, and the group should reach a shared understanding of the purpose of the activity. The instructional design must create projects that create opportunities for each group member to make unique contributions indispensable for the group’s success. It follows that assessing a successful DL-PD must include evaluating interactions.

In our situation, there is a wide spectrum of learning environments our members teach at (churches, libraries, schools), worker career paths (nursing, construction trades, ESL, office), and demographics (youth, immigrants, returning convicts, homeless, nontraditional vocations). We are rife with “weak ties,” which are conducive to acquiring new understandings.

Revision #2: In each of our DL-PDs next year, we should seek to take advantage of our vibrant tapestry of weak ties. Nurse practitioners, sharing with journeymen, sharing with office workers should lead to more successful DL-PDs. Whatever objectives are determined for a given DL-PD, its delivery should include some activity, like our last DL-PD’s Padlet, that offers very clear instructions (Lowes, 2014) on how to create shared meanings about digital literacy among group participants. One example could be a photo elicitation similar to my DL-PD model, where my Zoom students took a picture of a green technology in their home

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RQ#3: How can meaningful interactions be evaluated in a professional development workshop?

This part of the DL-PD remains cold and dark to me. My plumbings so far:

• From an instrumentalist perspective on digital literacy, training UFT-CWE members to draw on their smart phones, and posting their drawings to a Padlet for photo elicitation could serve “weak ties” objectives similar to the ones served by the word and free lists described supra. An opportunity to design a very clear rubric and assessment heuristics for an activity that will further a fundamental human competence.
• How to gather data during instructional delivery is important context when assessing group work. Group conversations can easily be recorded, transcribed and AI summarized by otter.ai, after all privacy matters are resolved. Developing a coding protocol that targets group communication about delineated objectives for the DL-PD, e.g., digital standards that apply to a lesson plan.
• The Post Training Satisfaction Survey needs a complete overhaul. Too much “cheerleading” in the responses.

Implementing these revisions will first require a meeting between me, my Chapter Leader, and perhaps one or two other UFT-CWE members savvy with LMS management. At the meeting we should reach agreement on “global” design parameters that all subsequent DL-PDs will align to, e.g. “weak ties” activities. Each DL-PD will be rolled out at least twice, the first time with every group getting the results of a “weak ties” activity, subsequent iterations with a treatment. Producing clear instructions for groups to create collaborative content is the next step.

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My autoethnography prompts:

• a consultative situation,
• a collaborative inquiry,
• affording opportunities for authentic assessments, .

What it is I am studying was much rarer before COVID. I used to teach trades math within a “social ontogeny” suddenly severed when Zoom boxes decapitated our “hands on” instruction. Teaching apprentices online is a new learning experience for us, requiring discovering relevant methods, rather than describing methods already well documented in the literature, . Direct observation works best with professional development workshops. . A grounded theory approach seems to me to be the best choice of research method for our workshops.¹

Unit of Analysis

Collaborative groups of workforce instructors serving NYC union members, choosing, of their own volition, to join a Saturday afternoon UFT Consortium of Worker Education Chapter Digital Literacy Professional Development workshop, e.g., . Six were offered in 2023.

Situation

“Our workshops” means I am not a detached observer: I am a participant, embodied within our Chapter’s goal of mastering andragogic digital literacy skills. Unlike the East LA PREP project we read about in class that suffered implementation issues, we already joined six Saturday afternoons towards constructing sustainable, resilient UFT-CWE DL-PDs. Our chapter already valorized a lot of trust and commitment, relevant for many research parameters, infra.

triangulation

No samplings will gathered, as there is only so much you can do in a four hour PD. For similar reasons, “triangulation” is not practicable proximate to my situation.

problematic

The “natural attitude” about digital literacy is instrumental—clicking quicker, swiping screens sequencially, down a checklist. I am more interested in deploying digital literacy towards furthering workforce development, analogous to the migration of mechanical library searches towards information literacy, which focuses on teaching students to critically engage with information collaboratively. How to measure and assess these deeper understandings is what I am trying to get at when designing UFT-CWE DL-PD workshops.

For example, if and when we apply a treatment to a DL-PD next year, the most simple being randomly splitting DL-PD participants into experimental and control groups, Hawthorne and John Henry effects will be minimal, because we are all UFT-CWE members. Further, the results from any UFT-CWE DL-PD treatment would be reported out first, and perhaps only to, UFT-CWE members, due to our command and control of our LMS. So everyone in the UFT-CWE will benefit from a treatment, regardless of whether in fact they receive it.

I believe the effects from the following biases will also be minimal: history, maturation, floor and ceiling, instrumentation, statistical regression, mortality, school, class, artificiality, and reactivity.

On the other end, teacher effects definitely occur, as the Post Training Satisfaction Survey gives higher ratings to the last DL-PD than I did. Testing effects may occur, as Revision #1 infra includes something like a pretest, the word or free list. If groups are chosen from a quasi-experimental method, then selection bias could occur. Lack of internal validity is possible, as we are trying to discover appropriate methods in our situation.

Nonrepresentativeness is more problematic. Professional development of worker instructors is a tiny niche in the world of education. It is precisely my choice of grounded theory that makes generalization, by definition, unlikely.

¹ I received feedback from my professor that, “action research,” is more accurate vernacular to describe my travails. [Ed. 12/31/23]

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