The Struggle Is Real: Teachers' Experiences With Recruiting Critical Digital Literacy to Their Practices

Abstract

Digital environments offer opportunities and spaces for students to engage in critical literacy practices. This necessitates a teacher's critical understanding of the social structures at work in online environments while instructing students. In this chapter, findings are presented from a mixed-methods study of four practicing teachers who characterized themselves as having strong personal and pedagogical knowledge of critical digital literacies (CDL) and claimed to recruit that knowledge to their classroom practices. Data analysis of teacher surveys, lesson plans, classroom observations and interviews pointed to several obstacles the teachers faced with incorporating critical dimensions into their students' technology use. The obstacles include: school/district technology restrictions; a lack of in depth understanding of CDL, and limited modeling and opportunities during teacher education and teacher development programs to build and recruit CDL to their practices. Implications for teacher education and development and suggestions for future research are presented.