ABSTRACT
Smartphone- and tablet-based learning systems are often posited as solutions for closing early literacy gaps between rural and urban regions in emerging economies. These systems are often developed based on experiences with students in urban contexts, limiting their success rates with children from rural areas who have had little to no prior exposure to technology. To explore how such technologies are used in different learning contexts, we deployed an early literacy learning application in school and home settings in a rural village in Tanzania. We use Rogoff's theory of instructional models to understand and describe the interaction between learners, adults, and peers. We found that in the presence of a school teacher, the instructional model was primarily "adult-run" where information was almost entirely disseminated by the teacher, while in home settings, the instructional model was similar to a "community-of-learners" model where children collaborate with other peers and adults to achieve their learning goals. We use these instructional models to surface six themes of support and scaffolding that were expressed differently across settings, and discuss the benefits and drawbacks of the instructional models observed in providing support across these themes.
- Margarita Azmitia. 1996. Peer interactive minds: Developmental, theoretical, and methodological issues. Interactive minds: Life-span perspectives on the social foundation of cognition: 133--162.Google Scholar
- Abhijit V. Banerjee, Shawn Cole, Esther Duflo, and Leigh Linden. 2007. Remedying education: Evidence from two randomized experiments in India. The Quarterly Journal of Economics 122, 3: 1235--1264.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Cynthia Breazeal, Robin Morris, Stephanie Gottwald, Tinsley Galyean, and Maryanne Wolf. 2016. Mobile devices for early literacy intervention and research with global reach. In Proceedings of the Third (2016) ACM Conference on Learning@ Scale, 11--20. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Juliet Corbin and Anselm Strauss. 2008. Basics of qualitative research: Techniques and procedures for developing grounded theory. Thousand Oaks.Google Scholar
- Pierre Dillenbourg and Patrick Jermann. 2010. Technology for classroom orchestration. In New science of learning. Springer, 525--552.Google Scholar
- Marcus Duveskog, Carolina Islas Sedano, and Erkki Sutinen. 2010. Working for my dreams-A Tanzanian OLPC experience. In IST-Africa, 2010, 1--10.Google Scholar
- Rosie Flewitt, David Messer, and Natalia Kucirkova. 2015. New directions for early literacy in a digital age: The iPad. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy 15, 3: 289--310.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Sharon Nelson-Le Gall. 1985. Chapter 2: Help-Seeking Behavior in Learning. Review of research in education 12, 1: 55--90.Google Scholar
- Charles R. Greenwood. 1996. Research on the practices and behavior of effective teachers at the Juniper Gardens Children's Project: Implications for the education of diverse learners. Research on classroom ecologies: 39--67.Google Scholar
- Willard W. Hartup. 1992. Having Friends, Making Friends, and Keeping Friends: Relationships as Educational Contexts. ERIC Digest.Google Scholar
- Kenneth Holstein, Bruce M. McLaren, and Vincent Aleven. 2017. Intelligent tutors as teachers' aides: exploring teacher needs for real-time analytics in blended classrooms. In Proceedings of the Seventh International Learning Analytics & Knowledge Conference, 257--266. Google ScholarDigital Library
- John A. Hostetler and Gertrude Enders Huntington. 1971. Children in Amish Society: Socialization and Community Education. Case Studies in Education and Culture Series.Google Scholar
- Anuj Kumar, Anuj Tewari, Geeta Shroff, Deepti Chittamuru, Matthew Kam, and John Canny. 2010. An exploratory study of unsupervised mobile learning in rural India. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 743--752. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Jerry Lipka and Barbara Adams. 2004. Culturally Based Math Education as a Way to Improve Alaska Native Students' Math Performance. Appalachian Collaborative Center for Learning.Google Scholar
- Marlaine E. Lockheed and Adriaan M. Verspoor. 1991. Improving primary education in developing countries. Oxford University Press for World Bank.Google Scholar
- Sharan B Merriam and Sharan B Merriam. 2009. Qualitative research: a guide to design and implementation. Jossey-Bass, San Francisco.Google Scholar
- Sugata Mitra, Ritu Dangwal, Shiffon Chatterjee, Swati Jha, Ravinder S. Bisht, and Preeti Kapur. 2005. Acquisition of computing literacy on shared public computers: Children and the" hole in the wall". Australasian Journal of Educational Technology 21, 3.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Nancy Modiano. 1973. Indian education in the Chiapas highlands. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.Google Scholar
- Aidan Mulkeen. 2005. Teachers for rural schools: A challenge for Africa. Africa region World Bank. Washington, DC: World Bank.Google Scholar
- Joe D. Nichols and Raymond B. Miller. 1994. Cooperative learning and student motivation. Contemporary Educational Psychology 19, 2: 167--178.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Judy M. Parr and Michael AR Townsend. 2002. Environments, processes, and mechanisms in peer learning. International journal of educational research 37, 5: 403--423.Google Scholar
- Roy D. Pea. 1993. Practices of distributed intelligence and designs for education. Distributed cognitions: Psychological and educational considerations 11: 47--87.Google Scholar
- Roy D. Pea. 2004. The social and technological dimensions of scaffolding and related theoretical concepts for learning, education, and human activity. The journal of the learning sciences 13, 3: 423--451.Google Scholar
- Tony Read. 2015. Where have all the textbooks gone?: Toward sustainable provision of teaching and learning materials in Sub-Saharan Africa. World Bank Publications.Google Scholar
- Barbara Rogoff. 1994. Developing understanding of the idea of communities of learners. Mind, culture, and activity 1, 4: 209--229.Google Scholar
- Barbara Rogoff, Ruth Paradise, Rebeca Mejía Arauz, Maricela Correa-Chávez, and Cathy Angelillo. 2003. Firsthand learning through intent participation. Annual review of psychology 54, 1: 175--203.Google Scholar
- Rod D. Roscoe and Michelene TH Chi. 2008. Tutor learning: The role of explaining and responding to questions. Instructional Science 36, 4: 321--350.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Sandra J. Stone and James F. Christie. 1996. Collaborative literacy learning during sociodramatic play in a multiage (K-2) primary classroom. Journal of Research in Childhood Education 10, 2: 123--133.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Ema Ushioda. 1996. Learner autonomy 5: The role of motivation. Authentik.Google Scholar
- Kathryn R. Wentzel. 1998. Social relationships and motivation in middle school: The role of parents, teachers, and peers. Journal of educational psychology 90, 2: 202.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Kathryn R. Wentzel. 1999. Social-motivational processes and interpersonal relationships: Implications for understanding motivation at school. Journal of educational psychology 91, 1: 76.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Kathryn R. Wentzel. 2002. Are effective teachers like good parents? Teaching styles and student adjustment in early adolescence. Child development 73, 1: 287--301.Google Scholar
- Yanhong Zhang. 2006. Urban-rural literacy gaps in Sub-Saharan Africa: The roles of socioeconomic status and school quality. Comparative Education Review 50, 4: 581--602.Google ScholarCross Ref
Index Terms
- Designing Appropriate Learning Technologies for School vs Home Settings in Tanzanian Rural Villages
Recommendations
Learning from african classroom pedagogy to increase student engagement in education technologies
COMPASS '19: Proceedings of the 2nd ACM SIGCAS Conference on Computing and Sustainable SocietiesTablet-based educational technologies provide a supplement to traditional classroom-based early literacy education, especially in regions with limited schooling resources. Prior work has probed how children generally interact with and learn from these ...
Teacher Perspectives on Peer-Peer Collaboration and Education Technologies in Rural Tanzanian Classrooms
COMPASS '21: Proceedings of the 4th ACM SIGCAS Conference on Computing and Sustainable SocietiesTeachers’ perspectives are critical for understanding classroom culture. They create and enforce rules in classrooms and are responsible for educating students using methods that they perceive to be most effective. Therefore, creating supplementary ...
Technologies and levels of learning: a Gregory Bateson perspective
Some educators take the view that instructional technology may be an end in itself rather than a means to a greater conception of education. However, like any other educational practice, the use of instructional technology will be most effective when it ...
Comments