Abstract
The global pandemic has revealed a number of inequalities in education for students in Michigan, USA. Teachers were tasked with a sudden shift to online instruction as school closures across the state (and globe) forced education to operate in virtual classrooms. Given the continued need for online learning, it is necessary to examine the perspectives and experiences of teachers who worked throughout the school closures of spring 2020 and to identify ways to better support both teachers and students as they navigate virtual learning. The purpose of this exploratory qualitative study was to investigate K-12 teachers’ experiences shifting their classrooms online and their overall perspectives on the use of digital literacies as a central part of student learning. Reported in this paper are the survey results from 389 teachers’ perceptions of their effectiveness during the Covid-19 pandemic during the semester spring of 2020. Additionally, a randomly selected a subset of 12 elementary and 13 secondary teachers’ semi-structured interviews were analyzed. Unsurprisingly, teachers reported many challenges meeting their students’ needs as they transitioned to online learning. Findings revealed students who lacked access to reliable Internet and digital devices. Even when access was not an issue, students lacked the necessary digital literacy skills to navigate their online education. Teachers reported many challenges associated with online learning, particularly those related to student engagement, communication, and shifting pedagogies online. Therefore, there is a need for schools and curricula to include operational digital literacy skills earlier in formal education settings, and to prioritize these skills even when face-to-face instruction resumes.
The global pandemic has revealed a number of inequalities in education for students in Michigan, USA. Teachers were tasked with a sudden shift to online instruction as school closures across the state (and globe) forced education to operate in virtual classrooms.
Given the continued need for online learning, it is necessary to examine the perspectives and experiences of teachers who worked throughout the school closures of spring 2020 and to identify ways to better support both teachers and students as they navigate virtual learning.
Early reports of teachers’ experiences of teaching through the pandemic highlight a host of challenges of online learning. Page (2020) reported that 83% of 505 surveyed teachers across the USA were having a harder time doing their job. Teachers’ workloads intensified as they transitioned teaching content and materials online, while also learning to competently navigate the necessary software and online learning platforms (Allen et al., 2020; Kong, 2020; König et al., 2020; Page, 2020). Part of this intensification stemmed from pedagogical challenges as teachers adapted familiar teaching methods to a new medium and the varying levels and needs of students (Shamir-Inbal & Blau, 2021). Insufficient training also hindered teachers’ ability to effectively transition to online learning (Huang et al., 2020; Shamir-Inbal & Blau, 2021). And finally, communication between schools and homes was difficult (Midcalf & Boatwright, 2020).
Research abounds on the effectiveness of distance learning, instructional approaches, and learning outcomes in online settings in higher education (e.g. Ko & Rossen, 2004; Leu et al., 2017; Nilson & Goodson, 2017; Pytash & O’Byrne, 2014). Despite a push for more virtual learning opportunities at the K-12 level, there is a lack of systematic research into online learning for K-12 education (Barbour & Harrison, 2016; Cavanaugh et al., 2009). Less is known about how teachers have been prepared to teach in virtual learning environments (Barbour & Harrison, 2016; Hinck et al., 2010; Kennedy & Archambault, 2012).
The purpose of this exploratory qualitative study was to investigate K-12 teachers’ experiences shifting their classrooms online and their overall perspectives on the use of digital literacies as a central part of student learning. Through survey and semi-structured interview data, we sought to identify teachers’ perceptions of their effectiveness in providing literacy instruction via virtual learning. Unsurprisingly, teachers reported many challenges meeting their students’ needs as they transitioned to online learning.
TPACK and digital literacy
This study draws from the Technological, Pedagogical, and Content Knowledge (TPACK) framework (Mishra & Koehler, 2006), which contends that teachers require technological pedagogical content knowledge to effectively integrate technology into classroom practice. Built on Shulman’s (1986), Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK), seven domains make up the TPACK framework: content knowledge (CK); pedagogical knowledge (PK); technological knowledge (TK); pedagogical content knowledge (PCK); technological content knowledge (TCK); technological pedagogical knowledge (TPK); and technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPCK) (Joo et al., 2018). However, this framework is not intended to translate solely to technological knowledge, but to a more sophisticated understanding of technological pedagogical content knowledge (Saubern et al., 2020).
As a means of understanding and defining ‘technological pedagogical knowledge’, we turned to Kumpulainen et al.’s (2020) model of digital literacy. Their model extends Green’s (1988) three-dimensional model of literacy (see also Colvert, 2015; Marsh, 2016). According to Kumpulainen et al., digital literacy encompasses four intersecting dimensions: operational, cultural, critical, and creative. The operational dimension encompasses the ability to decode and encode digital and multimedia texts from various tools and create meaning from them. The cultural dimension emphasizes literacies as cultural practices, which include different modes as cultural signs for communication and meaning-making. The critical dimension requires critical engagement with digital and multimodal texts and interrogates these texts by asking questions about power, intended audience, and so forth. The final dimension, creative, refers to the ‘novel and transformative ways of interacting, communicating and meaning-making with digital technologies for personal, relational and/or collective ends’ (p. 5).
Teachers’ perspective of online instruction
Research has shown that TPACK is positively related to teachers’ perceptions of self-efficacy, intention to use technology, and perceived usefulness of technology in instruction (Alsofyani et al., 2012; Joo et al., 2018; Sahin et al., 2013; Valtonen et al., 2020). However, others have expressed concern that more attention has been paid to ‘exploring, critiquing and validating the structure of the TPACK diagram’ (Saubern et al., 2020, p. 1) than to the initial intention of TPACK, which was to better understand effective instruction using technology (Brantley-Dias & Ertmer, 2013; Graham, 2011; Saubern et al., 2020).
K-12 teachers’ perspectives of online teaching have been characterized in the literature as ‘alienating’. Hawkins et al. (2012), for example, noted three types of disconnection: disconnection from students; disconnection from the notion of teaching; and disconnection from fellow teachers. Teachers struggled to gage students’ understanding of content and material without physical responses and felt their roles as teachers had shifted to that of mere graders. They missed the small, interactive moments common in brick and mortar schools that did not exist in an asynchronous format. And, while the characteristics and behaviors of good face-to-face teaching were similar for virtual teachers (Davis et al., 2007), online teaching requires new teacher roles, responsibilities, and instructional strategies that few teachers are adequately trained in (Barbour & Harrison, 2016; Hawkins et al., 2012; Kennedy & Archambault, 2012; Murphy & Rodríguez-Manzanares, 2008). Too often, instructional uses of technology are provided in an isolated course, something that has been shown to be ineffective (Angeli et al., 2016). Professional development and peer-networks are limited in online teaching (Hawkins et al., 2012) and therefore teachers are left isolated in their roles.
While TPACK has been shown to support teachers’ self-efficacy in using technology in the classroom, the most efficient way to develop TPACK is to have teachers actively engage in the design of technology-enhanced learning environments (Koehler et al., 2007). Yet, few teachers have experience doing this. According to the U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics (2019), data for the 2015 to 2016 school year shows 57% of secondary schools offered at least one course fully online, yet, only 12.8% of middle schools and 3% of elementary schools did so. Most recent statistics showed seven online programs in Michigan, the state in which this study took place (U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, 2019). Therefore, while 20 years of scholarship has investigated online learning in K-12 settings, there is little evidence that many teachers had experience working in that setting before the COVID-19 pandemic.
Issues of equity
Access to reliable Internet and digital tools has been an ongoing concern (Banister & Fischer, 2010; Huffman, 2018; Lohnes-Watulak et al., 2011), and issues of equity have been exacerbated by the global pandemic. Scholars have theorized two levels of the digital divide: one level is access to resources and the second level is the ability to effectively use digital technology (Hohlfeld et al., 2008; Van Dijk, 2006). Rowsell et al. (2017) referred to individuals as ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’ (p. 157). While the former have access and use digital technology, acquiring digital literacy skills, the latter are unable to access and use digital technology and have fewer opportunities to develop digital literacy skills. Dolan (2016) used the categories of ‘cans’ and ‘can-nots’ to distinguish those with the requisite digital literacy skills to both access and use digital technology and those who could not.
These categories are important in a school context, as Rowsell et al. (2017) argued students with ‘limited to no Internet and screen access, no technology or screen use, and no way of keeping up with other students in the class’ (p. 157) become removed from the curriculum. L. Wood and Howley (2012) found that when students do not understand the purpose of using digital technology, they are less motivated than their peers to build digital literacy skills. This holds true when students do not recognize a connection between school-based digital technology use and out-of-school digital technology use (Lohnes-Watulak et al., 2011).
Schools have a role in minimizing the effects of the digital divide by creating opportunities for students with less access to digital technology. Adhikari et al. (2017), theorized that digital technology could either create opportunities for marginalized populations, or exacerbate existing inequalities. Blagg et al. (2020) also described how the lack of digital technology and Internet connection negatively impacted students in relation to their abilities to access educational opportunities online. Students without necessary digital literacy skills found themselves at a disadvantage in their educational attainment and therefore future earning potential. Van Deursen and Van Dijk (2011) also described how a certain segment of students continued to be ‘excluded from all the benefits the Internet has to offer’, including economic opportunities (p. 908).
Ritzhaupt et al. (2013) identified the digital divide as impacting the inequality of student achievement. For example, a skills gap exists when students with fewer digital literacy skills struggle to apply for job opportunities online and attend to the many digitized aspects of daily life (i.e. online banking). The researchers argued that if ‘individuals do not have access, they have less opportunity to use these tools for their personal empowerment’ (p. 300). Huffman (2018) explained that in education, digital technology assisted students in completing homework, doing research, and aiding students who needed accommodations. English language learners could increase language proficiency and the use of digital technology, ‘provid[ed] students the necessary training for a global job market’ (p. 239).
Teacher role
Teachers have an important role in the overall success of digital technology initiatives. Teachers themselves need to be trained not only in how to operate digital hardware and software programs but need time developing effective pedagogies that use digital technology (Banister & Fischer, 2010). Huffman (2018) reported 91% of teachers surveyed had access to computers in their classrooms, yet, only 20% of teachers felt they had enough digital technology training to use it in their classrooms. Braverman (2016) suggested teachers who actively avoid digital technology in the classroom may exacerbate the disparity between haves and have nots (Rowsell et al., 2017) and leave some students without opportunities to develop digital literacy skills. Students from homes with fewer digital resources and fewer opportunities to access digital technology could instead turn to classrooms to support their acquisition of digital literacy as they gain digital knowledge from their teachers and peers (Dunn & Sweeney, 2018; McGlynn-Stewart et al., 2017; Verhallen & Bus, 2010).
Therefore, teachers must also be digitally literate and confident in order to lead their students. Teacher innovation can be a tool used to increase technology use and increase digital literacy in classrooms (Hargittai et al., 2010). In order to do this, school districts need to move away from one-off professional development opportunities and provide ongoing teacher support (Banister & Reinhart, 2011; Botzakis, 2015; Huffman, 2018; Rowsell et al., 2017). For example, Roberts-Holmes (2014) described an early childhood center’s initiative to embed digital technology into a play-based learning environment. Rather than minimally training teachers, the center hired an ICT consultant to work alongside teachers as they developed stronger digital literacy skills and pedagogies. Roberts-Holmes found that teachers developed confidence trying new strategies because they were supported if something went wrong. Working with the consultant also helped teachers talk through ideas with an expert before attempting in the classroom.
In sum, scholars have theorized two levels of the digital divide. The first is access to digital technology. Once access has been addressed, the development of digital literacy skills can begin. However, simply accessing digital devices does not equate with the development of digital literacy. Students need support and authentic learning opportunities with digital devices to transfer access into digital competence. Teachers also need to feel supported and confident with their digital literacy skills in order to effectively use digital technology in the classroom.
Methodology
This study investigated the experiences of PK-12 teachers during the COVID-19 pandemic related to their ability to meet the needs of diverse learners through distance and online education. Given the unprecedented nature of teaching in a pandemic, an exploratory qualitative design was chosen. Qualitative research provides insight into the emic perspective, in other words, the insider perspective, as a means of understanding a lived experience (Onwuegbuzie & Mallette, 2021). We sought to understand the experiences of teaching as they navigated a swift shift to virtual teaching during the onset of COVID-19. Reported in this paper are the survey results from 389 teachers’ perceptions of their effectiveness during the Covid-19 pandemic during the semester spring of 2020. An online survey was distributed to elementary and secondary teachers across the state of Michigan. We randomly selected a subset of 12 elementary and 13 secondary interviews for analysis from the larger group of survey respondents who volunteered for semi-structured interviews.
The following research questions informed the data analysis for this article:
What were teachers’ experiences when asked to move instruction to virtual formats?
How did teachers perceive digital literacy and its effect on equitable literacy instruction?
Participants
Three hundred eighty-nine teachers across the state of Michigan school districts responded anonymously to the survey. Demographic data revealed 64% of respondents were secondary school teachers. Years of teaching experience ranged from 6 to 25-years, with 82% of respondents having a decade or more experience. The 25 interviews represent 12 elementary and 13 secondary teachers (grades 7–12), which included subject areas English language arts, science, physical education, mathematics, and special education. The identities are confidential. Elementary teachers were coded E1-12 and secondary teachers were coded S1-13 for reporting purposes.
Data collection
Survey
The online survey consisted of 21 questions that probed teachers’ instructional experiences while transitioning to virtual teaching during the spring of 2020. Qualtrics survey tool was used because it allows for university-wide collaboration, online-only interaction, and basic data analysis. Survey questions included demographic information about the respondents (i.e. years of teaching experience, subject-area specialties) and their school districts (i.e. diversity of the school, socioeconomic status); as well, questions related to how much instructional coaching they received during the Covid-19 pandemic to enact effective virtual teaching. The full list of survey questions is displayed in Table 1. Items 6 to 20 were answered using a five-point Likert scale with the following descriptors to describe teachers’ perceptions of their ability to meet their students’ needs in the virtual learning format: strongly disagree, somewhat disagree, neither agree nor disagree, somewhat agree, and strongly agree.
Online survey questions.
Semi-structured interviews
Survey respondents answered a yes/no response question with an opportunity to offer contact information if they chose to participate in a follow-up semi-structured interview. Interviews consisted of 30-min telephone interviews. Ten initial questions were asked that directly related to survey questions (e.g. please elaborate on your response to the survey question that referenced students’ needs. Explain your response to your student needs being met or not being met) and 11 questions that focused exclusively on teachers’ perceptions about their students’ access to digital technology and students’ digital literacy skills. The interview also examined these teachers’ perceptions of their own digital literacy skills and how this impacted their online instructional effectiveness.
Data analysis
The survey instrument was analyzed using the Qualtrics statistical analysis software. Closed-ended questions were tallied and converted to percentages. The open-ended responses were coded using the research questions (i.e. how did the digital divide impact secondary level literacy education during COVID-19 and online learning). The semi-structured interviews were transcribed by research assistants and initial codes were developed in collaboration with the authors (Creswell & Poth, 2018). These initial codes were then collapsed into larger categories and were analyzed for patterns and themes (Glaser & Strauss, 1967). Transcriptions were also analyzed using analytic codes developed from the literature. For example, transcriptions were analyzed for examples of ‘operational digital literacy’ as defined by Kumpulainen et al. (2020). Table 2 provides an example of interview data analysis. Finally, two rounds of inter-rater reliability were performed, each round by a different author, to establish a consensus in coding.
Semi-structured data analysis.
Findings
Findings are reported in two sections: teachers’ perceptions of their online instructional efficacy and teachers’ perceptions of students’ use of digital literacy skills to achieve learning outcomes based on grade-level standards.
Teachers’ perceptions of their virtual instruction
Teacher preparedness
In general, there was a divide between teachers’ feelings of confidence about transitioning to instruction online. 48% of teachers reported feeling capable of making the transition. S9 elaborated by providing a glowing review of her transition, ‘My team was amazing, we worked together and made a common schedule so students could see their weekly schedule in one document. My administrator was very supportive’. Others indicated disappointment with the overall process, and said they had ‘No literacy instruction, did not know how to conduct online instruction because there was no blueprint or model’ (E3) and another struggled with, ‘Accountability with engagement, lack of parental support, lack of admin support, and [our] admin does not have the skills to coach teachers’ (S4).
Despite the mixed confidence levels, teachers did not feel they were prepared to adequately teach all their students. Only 14% of teachers surveyed agreed that they had adequate instructional coaching to meet the needs of diverse learners in a virtual setting. Diverse learners included English language learners, students with learning difficulties, racially and ethnically diverse students. Most shared that meeting diverse learners’ needs is challenging in healthy times, so they felt this was an even greater challenge in the spring of 2020. More than half of the teachers (62%) felt unprepared to teach racially and ethnically diverse students in a new format. When asked during the semi-structured interview, E8 admitted ‘Teaching from a distance made it very difficult to have a normal impact on any student, let alone low-income students’. One survey respondent wished they had received ‘more diverse learning options. Much better training of online resources and virtual interaction devices’ (E12).
Teachers’ challenges
Teachers surveyed and interviewed for the study identified a number of challenges in implementing online learning. Overwhelmingly teachers reported challenges motivating and engaging students in learning but also described communication challenges and an inability to transfer face-to-face pedagogies to online formats.
Student motivation and engagement
By and large, the greatest challenges teachers identified were lack of engagement and decreased student motivation. When asked in the survey, only 12% of respondents agreed that student engagement increased in an online format. One survey respondent felt they needed ‘ideas to increase student participation’ (E2). All interview participants described challenges motivating their students in online learning and each participant described students who simply stopped attending virtual classes. As described earlier, some of these challenges stemmed from students’ lack of digital literacy skills and the little support they had to troubleshoot issues, which led students to give up. S9 described students who began class but would turn the video camera off, or students would be ‘goofy’ and distract the class, which ‘seemed like little things but they distracted the rest of the class so quickly and it is hard to regain their attention on a screen’. Therefore, as S9 lamented, ‘Holding 500 students accountable and being able to check in on them was nearly impossible’.
E5 said, ‘The lack of student participation and how to get them to come to the Zoom or view videos was a struggle’. E7 struggled to achieve high levels of student engagement online and described, ‘Students who would normally be engaged during class, were less engaged during distance learning. They were more easily discouraged due to technology when they didn’t have me with them to help with their minor hang-ups’. Like E7, another had difficulty holding students accountable and felt math and number literacy was harder to teach online because, it required a lot of independent thinking and problem solving without being able to address challenges as they came up. I couldn’t stop a student at the point of a mistake in a math problem and coach them through it to improve their math literacy. I had to look at their end results and try to find the errors (E11).
Interestingly, a secondary teacher suggested the long hours of onscreen learning was one reason students disengaged, stating, I don’t think [lack of motivation] was because they had a lack of technology access, like a device. I think it was because my district had students do 3 to 4 hours of online work each day and they were exhausted and overwhelmed. It was just too much (S13).
Communication
Teachers shared the difficulties they experienced trying to maintain regular communication practices in online learning. E3 identified digital technology as ‘a communication barrier for many’. S7 described their plan as ‘I tried to maintain open communication, continue working together, and, using everything I knew to help students succeed’; however, acknowledged this plan had varying levels of success. They planned and used ‘phones, computers, texting, Facebook Messenger, and pretty much anything we could find to connect with kids and families’ (S7). One sent individual emails and messages to students and used the Remind app as a method of checking in with students (E9), and explained, ‘It was the closest thing to personal contact I could have during distance learning’. Yet, as S4 pointed out ‘Because I teach PE and that is a specials class, it is not realistic to reach out to all 500 families’.
In general, schools had support staff whose role was to reach out to students and families and maintain communication, but that did not necessarily mean teachers did not also reach out, as E2 described, There were a couple of kids I could not get a hold of on the phone the first 2-3 weeks. So, I went to their house, handed them a math workbook and a paper packet, and then gave them the information to get a Chromebook. One of them already had a Chromebook I didn’t know about, and I gave them information to have them Zoom with me.
It is important to acknowledge, however, that not all communication was lacking. One secondary teacher offered telephone or Zoom meetings to students and most students participated, all but two of my students at least twice. Some students I spoke with and Zoomed several times. A few students who took me up on the ‘I’m available any time for any question’ zoomed with me several times a week (S9).
Inability to transfer face-to-face pedagogies to online formats
Teachers reported that many typical teaching practices did not transition to online learning. When surveyed about interactive read alouds and modeling comprehension strategies, only 32% of teachers indicated they had transferred these strategies online. S1admitted, Teaching students with cognitive impairments or low reading levels proved to be difficult. I worked to help them improve their literacy skills, as I always do, but this was far more difficult to do virtually. Digital literacy skills presented entirely new challenges.
S1 elaborated that, having a number of students to work with, adapting pedagogies was difficult, ‘to help our students read and comprehend when we are not with them. High School students with a 3rd-grade reading level, left on their own to read is just cruel’. Therefore, the speed at which lessons were typically covered slowed and teachers found it difficult to ascertain where students were and whether they were ready to move forward in lessons.
E5 echoed this sentiment and said, ‘I had to slow down and scale back my lessons during this distance learning period . . . I was not able to move as quickly as I would have if I was in the classroom’. E10 noticed the opposite, My lessons went so fast with just me talking on Screencast. I had to consider questions students may have. I think Zooming with the students who could make it was more effective so they could respond, ask questions (a lot of students have similar questions), and give examples that they and others can relate to.
S4 felt that when physical education lessons transferred to online, students could still do activities in front of a screen. However, it was ‘. . .evaluating their skill sets and providing grades and things like that was near impossible’. Also, assessment became a greater challenge, I was also not able to utilize formative assessments as well or as often as I could in the classroom, which negatively impacted my instruction. I couldn’t read students who I couldn’t see. It was also hard to tell if their struggles were due to math, motivation, or technology (S10).
Teachers modified instruction by slowing down and designing multi-step projects. S2 relied on active conversations because students were less likely to complete a worksheet because students were ‘more successful when we worked through things together versus us having them utilize technology on their own’.
Despite challenges, teachers shared many successful strategies they used during virtual learning to engage their students. Teachers were creative and responsive to students as they arranged personal telephone calls, video conferencing meetings, or even going to the students’ houses with paper packages. Although awkward at first, as noted by E3, pre-recording and videoing themselves teaching content and skills ensured students could access materials at their convenience. E5 designed classes that included the entire family that were successful and ‘it was fun to see families working out together on our Google Meet!’. Ultimately, as S11 noted, finding ways to personalize instruction and communication proved the most effective way to increase student engagement. Although teachers found themselves managing new needs that were, oftentimes, more intense, frequently changing, and required a greater time commitment, it was worth it because ‘it met the needs of each learner’ (S1).
Teachers’ perceptions of student access and digital literacy skills
A large number of survey and interview participants worked in a school district that provided a device for students to use at home. One school district even provided hot spots for families in need, but these had to be requested. Importantly, however, as S9 explained, ‘having their devices from school didn’t mean they [students] were online’. All participants stated reliable Internet access was critical and often problematic. When survey respondents were asked to share ideas about what support they needed to meet the literacy needs of their students in online/distance education formats, two respondents identified the need for access and described ‘basic needs like students having access to even Internet makes a difference’ and ‘more access to devices and support at home. Parent support too’. Even though S4’s district was one-to-one with devices, students had them during distance learning, the low SES students were still left out as they had no Internet. In another’s reflection, ‘probably 20% of my students lacked access to technology and reliable Internet which made connecting with them near impossible’ (E7).
Beyond Internet connectivity, teachers also reported the need for students to have access to literacy materials in their homes. To improve literacy outcomes, three elementary teachers surveyed explicitly addressed the need for books in homes. For example, one teacher stated, ‘[students] need books at home, including textbooks and other resource books, besides books at their reading level’ (E8), another indicated the need to have ‘multiple text selections or a place to get free texts’ (E9). S2 (secondary special education teacher) emphasized financial support and explained that ‘if students were able to have the materials we have at school, they could manipulate objects, read books, and draw pictures, etc. With students unable to access the manipulatives because they don’t have these things at home, it has been challenging’. Another echoed that sentiment, ‘Math students seem to really prefer having a hard copy and that doesn’t happen when you’re doing 100% virtual learning without textbooks’ (S13).
Regarding students’ lack of access, teachers described feelings of frustration for themselves, their students, and families because of perceived lower digital literacy skills. Teachers shared their experiences working with students who they felt did not have strong operational digital literacy skills (Kumpulainen et al., 2020). They described students who quickly disengaged, for example, E6 explained, ‘students who encountered any issues with technology tended to give up on the digital part or engaging in general. This put them at a major disadvantage’. Similarly, S4 identified three challenges when teaching online, which included motivation, digital literacy skills, and a lack of support for learning digital literacy skills in the home context. ‘Quitting was easier when they were not in the classroom’ (S4).
E9 shared that even though students were familiar with some of the digital technology and possessed some operational competency, they lacked ‘digital literacy skills at the independent level’. E4 described students struggling ‘with the basics. Their basic, simple, digital literacy skills were lacking. Even something like putting a picture into a Google slide was like a foreign concept to many’. The inability to effectively and independently use digital technology at the home had negative results for the student. E1 explained, ‘digital literacy skills definitely impacted students. It seemed like everything was too complex . . . this made it difficult for students to follow along, turn in assignments, take pictures of assignments, upload pictures or videos’. There were inconsistencies between teachers in how they used platforms and software for learning. ‘Some students had a hard time navigating the computers themselves, let alone Google classrooms and how Classroom was used so much differently by all teachers’ (S12).
The lack of operational digital literacy skills of students resulted in teachers adjusting expectations for certain learners and admitting not all students’ needs were met. When prompted in the survey, I felt my students’ needs were not met, 93% of teachers agreed with the statement. During the follow-up interview, E11 admitted that the majority of their literacy instructional practices online revolved solely around reading aloud. This teacher felt that digital technology created a barrier in the ability to move beyond reading aloud and building on students’ literacy skills in reading and writing. Further elaborating, ‘Students had no confidence in themselves in doing their work. They were unable to follow packet work . . . so that was really hard. We wasted a lot of time searching through teachers’ Google classrooms and it was exhausting’ (E11).
S4 shared that challenging some students too much resulted in them shutting down. In the classroom, those students can be redirected, however, online that is much more difficult. Therefore, for students who struggled with digital technology, teachers felt limited to literacy skill review rather than reaching for high leverage practices. One shared, ‘to be honest, we focused on not losing skills with some. We know not all kids increased their skill level’ (E6). However, not all digital technology use was perceived negatively, as E11 shared ‘for some kids with reading disabilities, technology was imperative for audiobooks or teacher readings’, yet there was a caveat to that, ‘for some students the technology piece was too stimulating and they were not able to be online with the hope to accomplish anything productive’.
In sum, reliable Internet connection is essential if students are to adequately and effectively learn in a virtual setting. Teachers felt students who lacked digital literacy skills at the time of school closures in Michigan put everyone at an instructional disadvantage. Even when students had Internet access, if they did not possess the requisite operational digital literacy skills, they had to develop those before they could begin to access their academic content. Teachers reported these students were unable to navigate digital technology well enough to effectively demonstrate proficiency, or even demonstrate what they did know. To paraphrase Adhikari et al. (2017), unless someone has the proper digital skills, they will not be capable of taking advantage of the benefits technology offers. For some, digital technology was a barrier that excluded them from their right to education. Without the requisite digital literacy skills, lack of access to participate in K-12 education amounts to lost learning opportunities. These findings echo the work of many scholars researching the socioeconomic status and reliable Internet as causes of the digital divide (e.g. Banister & Fischer, 2010; Huffman, 2018; Lohnes-Watulak et al., 2011; Rowsell et al., 2017).
Conclusion
The pandemic brought multiple lockdowns and extended periods of online learning for K-12 students across the U.S. and globally. This study provides insight into the many challenges teachers experienced in a Midwestern US setting during the rush to transition to online learning in the spring of 2020. Our participants’ experiences highlight a continued need to better prepare teachers for digital classrooms and to further build teachers’ digital competence. Our findings echo Huffman (2018) – that only 20% of teachers felt they had adequate training in digital technology for their classrooms. In this study, of 389 participants, only 14% felt they had adequate training to meet the needs of their diverse learners in a digital setting. Hargittai et al. (2010) emphasized the importance of digitally literate teachers, and while our participants certainly developed skills on the spot in response to the swift shift to online learning, they did not always feel confident and, as a result, students’ needs were not always met.
The TPACK framework has provided a wealth of research to validate instruments and strengthen the theoretical constructs (Saubern et al., 2020); however, as Saubern et al. (2020) argued, more work needs to be done to understand what it means to possess and develop technological pedagogical content knowledge in classroom practice. As Luo et al. (2017) have pointed out, there is a need to merge content and pedagogy with technology within the coursework across teacher preparation rather than learning about technology skills in standalone technology courses, which does not lead to improved teaching and learning with technology (Angeli et al., 2016; Niess & Gillow-Wiles, 2017).
Research limitations
This research was exploratory and focused on teachers’ initial experiences of shifting to remote-only learning. While important to understand the immediate impact of this shift, it is a moment-in-time during an unprecedented event. Future research that re-examines these same teachers’ experiences in the years after 2020 could offer better insight into how teachers learned from this experience and developed stronger online pedagogies and digital competence.
Steps forward
While we did probe directly for our teachers’ technological experiences in teacher training, it appears our participant teachers have yet to intersect technology with their content knowledge and pedagogical knowledge. We echo Brantley-Dias and Ertmer (2013) and Saubern et al. (2020) in the need for greater attention to defining what teachers need in order to effectively use technology by ‘demonstrating first how technology transforms the strategies and representations teachers use to teach specific content’ (Brantley-Dias & Ertmer, 2013, p. 120) and then defining how technology impacts students’ abilities to learn and understand the content (Graham et al., 2009). The second component is particularly important if subsequent waves of the COVID-19 pandemic persist. Future research might examine how students experience online learning and probe their perspectives of remote learning during the pandemic. Other lines of scholarship might focus on which online instructional strategies increase student learning in comparison to those that are not effective.
Teachers’ abrupt transition to virtual instruction exposed many concerns related to educational and digital equity. Many students do not have access to reliable Internet, let alone access to the necessary digital devices for online education. Even when access is not an issue, the findings reported in this paper describe students who lacked the digital literacy skills to effectively engage and learn in an online environment. Community research initiatives may wish to focus on minimizing the constraints families face in obtaining reliable Internet and improving their access to digital technology. Schools play a role in addressing these constraints, such as the hotspots purchased by school districts for families and the digital technology lending libraries the teachers in this study reported; however, this responsibility should not rest solely on education.
In addition to access, schools and curricula need to begin emphasizing operational digital literacy skills earlier in students’ schooling. Students and teachers alike became incredibly frustrated with Internet, digital hardware, and software issues that arose while teaching and learning. Students who could not troubleshoot issues independently gave up and ceased learning. Increased digital literacy skills could minimize this. Calls for the inclusion of digital literacy in schools have been made for over a decade now (e.g. Calkins et al., 1998) and research exists that could provide a template for early integration of digital literacy development in kindergarten through grade 3 (e.g. Kontovourki & Tafa, 2020; Roberts-Holmes, 2014; Wohlwend, 2013; E. Wood et al., 2020). In addition to existing frameworks, digital technology mini-lessons could be incorporated into the early grades, as they face requirements to build foundational digital literacy skills.
While progressive uses of digital technology can be intimidating for teachers (e.g. Roberts-Holmes, 2014; Trültzsch-Wijnen et al., 2020), effective teacher-training programs and ongoing support can minimize teacher anxiety. Bach et al. (2018) pointed out that when families do not embrace digital technology, their children could be significantly disadvantaged in school. School districts could assist families by improving web pages and including ‘how to’ videos on a variety of topics, such as using school-based digital platforms, helpful online apps for different grade levels and subjects, and so forth. Possibly these experiences reported by teachers will reinforce this high priority for educational policymakers to create effective change and to direct additional resources toward equitable access to digital competence for all students.
