The study "Didactical Disciplinary Literacy in Mathematics: Making Meaning From Textbooks" in the International Journal of Research in Undergraduate Mathematics Education investigated a new concept—didactical disciplinary literacy—by comparing the way five undergraduate calculus students read sections of their mathematics textbook with the way five uninitiated faculty read the same textbook. The authors identify four literacy practices that they attribute to didactical disciplinary literacy—framing the text as a product of authors, referring to instructional purpose, attending to teaching-related structures in the text, and invoking authority in teaching and learning. The first three practices emphasize interrogating the text in order to reveal its intended purpose, while the final practice involves thinking about whether the authors have chosen the best method for presenting the material. The students and lecturers engaged in each of these practices to different extents and in different ways. Here, it seems the professional identity of the lecturers enabled them to more readily notice the educational objectives of the texts, which in turn helped them to both understand the material and think about alternative ways to present the material. Students, on the other hand, were less likely to notice the educational cues, taking the text at face value rather than thinking about the educational choices of the authors.
The five faculty members were from the physics, chemistry, biology, computer science and economics departments. The five students were reading a calculus course as part of their regular undergraduate degree program. Three of the students were from physics, while the other two student participants were reading architecture and economics. All of the students had been using the textbook regularly in class. Each week as part of their regular calculus course, the students were asked to read a section of the textbook and either write a summary, add annotations or ask and answer questions with their classmates about the reading. Thus, the students already had plenty of practice reading the textbook in order to learn new mathematical concepts before the start of the study. For the study, two new topics in the textbook were selected. Neither students nor faculty reported that they had prior knowledge of these calculus topics, so both groups were reading the textbook in order to learn. Both faculty and students participated in individual one-hour sessions where they read the selected section of the textbook, solved a number of problems and finally discussed their understanding of the area.
What makes this research different than earlier work on disciplinary literacy is the focus on educational rather than disciplinary texts. The authors suggest that there is a separate skill over and above disciplinary literacy (see below) that we could focus on developing and that this would potentially lead to our students having far greater access to the content of the educational texts they meet.
Comment: In recent years a good deal of research into student learning at university level has been framed in terms of literacy in one form or another (see an earlier article in Swedish on the subject of literacy here). It has even been argued that we could describe the overarching goal of university teaching as the production of disciplinary literate graduates—but what exactly does that mean? I thought it might be interesting to discuss some of these literacy approaches as a way of reflecting on our role as university teachers.
There are many different uses of the term literacy. In its most basic sense, literacy refers to the ability to read and write. However, literacy often occurs with other terms—as is the case here with the modifiers didactical and disciplinary. For example, a simple google search results in biological, historical, engineering, musical, medical, economic, computer, psychological and cultural literacies. The list could probably become quite long. The problem is that when the term literacy is used in this way it can be difficult to know whether the authors are simply referring to reading and writing in that particular area or—as is more often the case—they are using the term as a metaphor for a range of skills that need to be developed.
For example, in the case of scientific literacy it has been pointed out that we have two forms—fundamental scientific literacy which refers to reading and writing science (as in the article above) and derived scientific literacy which, unlike the article above, refers to a wider set of scientific skills (Norris & Phillips, 2003). This derived form is much more prevalent in the literature, but has been shown to mean very different things to different people. Roberts (2007) suggests two different visions of derived scientific literacy; one which deals with being able to actually do science within the academy, and another that refers to being able to use the products of science in society. Clearly, these are quite different things—one stresses the developing role as an academic, whilst the other puts the emphasis on future use in society. Priest (2013) then suggests a third type: critical scientific literacy which she claims is what we need to be able to critique the uses of science in society. In these times of fake news and climate change denial, such critical literacy has taken on a new importance.
So, the first question to ask when we see the term literacy is whether it just means reading and writing (as in the reviewed text), or does it refer to a whole range of skills? The next question for university lecturers is which type(s) of literacy do we want our students to develop? It is tempting to simply say “All of them!” but with limited time available to us it seems logical to ponder which facets of disciplinary literacy a particular student group need the most. A course in statistics for medical students will have quite different literacy goals than an introductory course in statistics for mathematicians. The latter group will need to be able to “do” statistics, whilst the former may only need to be able to understand what the statistics are telling them.
In summary, I believe there is much to be gained from the educational research literature that takes a literacy approach to learning. The work raises a number of questions about educational practice. In particular, it helps us to think about our teaching and learning in terms of a set of skills we might want a student group to develop and to reflect on where these skills will be needed.
References
Norris, S. P., & Phillips, L. M. (2003). How literacy in its fundamental sense is central to scientific literacy. Science Education, 87(2), 224-240.
Priest, S. (2013). Critical science literacy: What citizens and journalists need to know to make sense of science. Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society, 33(5-6), 138-145.
Roberts, D. (2007). Scientific literacy/science literacy: Threats and opportunities. In S. K. Abell & N. G. Lederman (Eds.), Handbook of research on science education (pp. 729-780). Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Text: John Airey, Department of Teaching and Learning
Keywords: disciplinary literacy, expert/novice comparison, undergraduate mathematics, reading textbooks, critical literacy
