Can we use students’ digital literacy for religious literacy? Katie Clemmey Canterbury Christ Church University @katieclemmey katie.clemmey@canterbury.ac.uk

Consider the following extract from a classroom discussion in RE

Extract 1: Year 7 students discussing what tolerance is Paul - I think tolerance is accepting others opinion and making your point to them. Ava - I think tolerance is allowing people to hold different views from you if they are sensible. Sean - I think tolerance is being able to understand and work with other people’s points because I think that really sums it up. Paul – I agree with Ava too. Nancy – I’m not sure! This is hard.

Questions for discussion What can you see happening in this extract? Can you pinpoint some learning taking place? Where do you think the conversation might have gone from there? Do you think this is a familiar sort of exchange in classrooms?

What is happening? The students are talking parallel to each other, almost ‘talking alongside’ They often agree with each other without additional evaluation or comment Students ‘get away’ with being ‘stuck’ and don’t have to participate further They don’t ask each other questions or build on their ideas

Where did the conversation go? This is actually an extract from an online discussion that took place in an RE class The students continued their discussion for some time They started to ask each other questions They added examples to demonstrate their points They did evaluate e.g. ‘that’s a really good point!’

Is this familiar? We often use discussion in RE We give students BIG questions to answer But do we also: Take time to teach them the skills to discuss effectively, promoting ‘thinking aloud’? Give them enough time to discuss topics in depth? Capture their discussions as a part of our assessment strategies?

Do students learn when they discuss? This is what I am interested in?

My Project A PhD piece of research A case study of one class in one school Making use of Critical Religious Education (associated with Andrew Wright) within the classroom Using Neil Mercer’s ideas of Exploratory Talk within an RE setting Making use of online discussion software

My areas of interest Promoting RE that develops students’ religious literacy and informed responses to big questions Generating effective learning talk in RE Making use of online discussions

Critical Religious Education Associated with Andrew Wright Underpinned by a critical realist philosophy Aims to promote religious literacy as defined as ‘the ability to…reflect, communicate and act in an informed, intelligent and sensitive manner towards the phenomenon of religion’ (Wright, 1993) Outcome is ‘judgemental rationality’

This requires thinking but must surely also involve talking? CRE in practice One of the key features of Wright’s vision for learning within CRE is that students must encounter variation In order to come to their own informed responses they must be introduced to differing responses to their own Students may have a starting position but it is through variation that they come to develop, refine, reformulate or reconfirm this This requires thinking but must surely also involve talking?

Talk and Thinking Children, we now know, need to talk, and to experience a rich diet of spoken language, in order to think and to learn.....talk is the true foundation of learning’ (Alexander, 2008) ‘Some of the most creative thinking takes place when people are talking together’ (Mercer, 1995) When we talk with others we don’t just interact we ‘interthink’ (Littleton & Mercer, 2013)

Learning Talk Mercer identifies 3 ‘types’ of talk: disputational, cumulative and exploratory Features of exploratory talk: Seen less often; more sporadically Characterised by partners engaging critically with each others’ ideas Statements and suggestions are offered for joint consideration; these may be challenged and counter-challenged Alternative hypotheses are suggested Reasoning is more visible in the talk

Technology for Talk Talking online can provide ‘dialogic space’ for students to collectively explore ideas; silences can be just as important as talk in that they often precede a leap in thought (Wegerif, 2010) We need to establish ground rules just as for any other discussion scenario but online versions of exploratory talk are possible (Littleton & Mercer, 2013)

Edmodo The Edmodo homepage

Some examples in practice Take a look at some examples of online discussions within a year 7 class discussing ‘big questions’.

Your thoughts? Is learning happening in any of these discussions? What advantages might you see to this form of discussion within RE? What disadvantages might there also be? Would you consider using it?

Some of the Issues ‘Talk and collaboration (group work) are not inevitably useful’ (Mercer, 1995) Time needs to be invested in ‘learning to talk’ Teachers need to be technologically literate Students need to be trusted and trustworthy Schools can be resistant to the use of these technologies

Some of the Possibilities Students engaging with each other in a new medium that they access regularly Students engaging in productive dialogues with each other and with the teacher Students learning to think through talking Students taking learning conversations beyond the classroom Students using technology in an educational and mature way

Can we use students’ digital literacy for religious literacy? Katie Clemmey Canterbury Christ Church University @katieclemmey katie.clemmey@canterbury.ac.uk

References Alexander, R. J. (2008) Towards dialogic teaching: Rethinking classroom talk. Cambridge: Dialogos. Littleton, K. & Mercer, N. (2013) Interthinking: Putting talk to work. London: Routledge Mercer, N. (1995) The guided construction of knowledge: Talk amongst teachers and learners. Multilingual matters. Wegerif, R. (2010) Dialogue and teaching thinking with technology. Educational dialogues: Understanding and promoting productive interaction, 304. Wright, A. (1993) Religious education in the secondary school: Prospects for religious literacy. D. Fulton, published.