The Challenges of Hyperreading : Supporting Student Success

The Challenges of Hyperreading: Supporting Student Success

73% of college age students use the internet more than the library to conduct research; 9% use the library more (Jones, 2003).

The World Wide Web has over 60 million servers hosting more than 11.5 billion indexed pages (Gulli and Signorini, 2005).

“The paradox of interactive media is that being a user-control medium the learner expects to have control, and yet the learner does not know enough to be given full control” (Laurillard , 1998, p. 231).

Welcome and IntroductionsAccording to the Rand Reading Study Group we must “design and teach students to use flexible learning environments that customize the text, activity, and sociocultural context in relation to goals and individual learners’ needs and preferences” (Snow, 2001, p. 301)

Purpose: To present information regarding the unique aspects of the hyperreading process and to share emerging ideas about how to support students engaged with this challenging work.

Presenters: Joseph EveringReading Lab Supervisor, LaGuardia Community College, Doctoral Student, Literacy, Fordham UniversityMichelle AmosAdjunct Professor, Communication Skills, LaGuardia Community College,Doctoral Candidate, Adult Learning and Leadership, Teachers College

Thanks for sharing your time with us this morning. We hope that our efforts to synthesize current research and move towards developing best practices will help your efforts to serve students!

Our Context—LaGuardia CC• Open-enrollment public institution in Long Island City, Queens, New York. • Majority of LGCC students are international students.

– In fall 2010, LGCC enrolled 17,087 students. – 129 different native languages and 152 different home countries.– White students are 11% of the student body. – 54% were born outside of the United States. Students from South America constitute

24% of the student population, and students from Asia constitute 22% of the population.

– 75% of entering students fail one or more of the placement exams. In the 2008-2009 graduating class, 58% of graduates began their coursework in a basic skills course.

• During the 2012-2013 academic year, the Strategic Plan included items promoting the use of technology to enrich courses and improve teaching. – 1.4.1: goal of increasing the percentage of online/hybrid sections by 70% – 1.4.2: goal of “uniform and consistent course design practices” and institutional

support for online instruction.

Our Context—Developmental Readers• The National Association of Developmental Education (NADE, 1995) has defined

developmental education as characterized by “a theoretical foundation in developmental psychology and learning theory…sensitive and responsive to the individual differences and special needs among learners.” National Center for Education Statistics figure of 3.8 million college students—30% of all higher education students. – Enrollment of 60% of newly-enrolled community college students an increase from

the 2000 statistic of 42% (Bailey and Cho, 2010, Issue Brief on Developmental Education in Community College, prepared for The White House Summit on Community College).

• Many college students’ lives are mediated by literacy practices and technologies that re qualitatively different from what they were ten years ago (Wilber, 2008).

• Learners who struggle in the “more constrained world of print” lack the fluency and critical reading strategies that are required to read effectively online (Leu and Kinzer, 2000; Eagleton, Guinee, & Langlais, 2003).

• Discomfort with technological resources creates two mindsets: – insider group who were raised with technologies as an integrated part of their lives– outsider group who are relative newcomers, and who are often “acutely aware of

digital technologies, and who often have to consciously and carefully learn how to use new digital technologies.” (Wilber, 2008, p. 572)

Our Context—English Language Learners

• Digital communication has impacted the acculturation of immigrant populations and they may “maintain greater linguistic and cultural ties to their countries of origin” (Curry, 2004, p. 51).

• Seventeen students, seven different home languages, six additional languages spoken, six have less than five years English instruction

Email Social Media

AIM Skype Cell Phone (talk)

Cell Phone(text)

You-tube

Blogs StreamVideoTV

Internet Research

Internet News

ebooks

Frequent Users (more than four times per week)

85%

80%

75%

35%

100%

80%

60%

50%

75%

65%

80%

15%

More than half communication in English*

29%

34%

41%

0%**

17%

47%

29%

29%

12%

71%

29%

15%

Had never used the technology

0%

6%

6%

41%

0%

6%

0%

12%

6%

0%

0%

34%

*Students who are non-native speakers **Includes two students who “never” use English

Students encounter a wide range of vocabulary when carrying out an inquiry task on the Internet. • search-result listings• URLs with embedded words, acronyms and

abbreviations signaling the topic and type of• site vocabulary about structural and

interaction elements• content words within the text and related

media. • Hyperlinked words with meaning within the

text AND meaning in relation to its destination (Dalton and Proctor, 2008).

What is hyperreading?

• Our definition: – the complex mix of critical reading and information

literacy used for selecting, reading, and synthesizing multiple online texts for a generative academic purpose (drawing from Burbules, 1998).

• It is not:– E-reading– Browsing– Facebook

Prior Experience, Context, and Reading

“Comprehension occurs at the intersection of the reader, the text, and the activity, all within a distinct sociocultural setting” (Dalton and Proctor, 2008, p. 320).

• Experiential Learning Theory—Boud, Cohen, and Walker (1983)

Need for Hyperreading Skills—Cognitive Challenges

• Visual elements on the Web have a much more extensive function than mere text illustration…in these media must be given as much attention as text and should not merely be viewed as supporting the text…the technical possibilities of the Web also make manipulation of images very simple. (Kuiper and Volman, 2008)

• Web context is not structured in a linear and hierarchical way, but in such a way that texts, opinions, and ideas that are interlinked. (Kuiper and Volman, 2011)

• “Websites often have multiple goals, layered and overlapping, overt and covert, in ways not typical of print” (Dalton and Proctor, 2008, p. 298).

• As Harada (2001) rightly pointed out, “The sophistication, complexity and specificity of information obtained through electronic resources frequently exceed the comprehension levels of the students as well as their needs” (p. 3).

• “We cannot expect students to rely on new literacies when they have never been taught the relevant knowledge, skills, or attitudes” (Kuiper and Volman, 2008, p. 262).

Need for Hyperreading-Challenges

• Two Tasks: comprehension of content and negotiation of websites (Sandberg, 2013)

• Digital Divide– Access

• Level/ mode– Purpose– Skills

• Eye Tracking- F- Patterns

Need for Hyperreading—Common Core Expectations

Integration of Knowledge and Ideas • CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.R.7 Integrate and evaluate content presented in diverse media and formats,

including visually and quantitatively, as well as in words.Research to Build and Present Knowledge • CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.W.7 Conduct short as well as more sustained research projects based on

focused questions, demonstrating understanding of the subject under investigation.• CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.W.8 Gather relevant information from multiple print and digital sources, assess

the credibility and accuracy of each source, and integrate the information while avoiding plagiarism.• CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.W.9 Draw evidence from literary or informational texts to support analysis,

reflection, and research.Comprehension and Collaboration • CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.SL.1 Prepare for and participate effectively in a range of conversations and

collaborations with diverse partners, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly and persuasively.

• CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.SL.2 Integrate and evaluate information presented in diverse media and formats, including visually, quantitatively, and orally.

• CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.SL.3 Evaluate a speaker’s point of view, reasoning, and use of evidence and rhetoric.

http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy/CCRA/R/7/

http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy/CCRA/W/7/



http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy/CCRA/SL/1/



Need for Hyperreading- CRLA

(Angus and Greenbaum, 2003)• Adult learners have a right to instruction

that:– Integrates technology and promotes information

competence• Adult learners have a right to materials that:– Are relevant, current, and multi-disciplinary– Reflect a variety of media, genres, and cultures

The Hyperreading ProcessAmos Proposal 1

Hyperreading Stage (from Leu and Zawilinski, 2007, p. 2)

Reader Actions

Developing Important Questions

Analysis of prompt/assignment Keyword Search development

Locating Information Selection of pages from search results Selection of relevant hyperlinks

Critically Analyzing Information

Identifying authors, biases, and relevance of information

Synthesizing Information Integrating information from diverse sites Integrating information in diverse forms

Communicating Information

Generative tasks online or in print to repurpose information to fit prompt/assignment/reader needs

Experiential Learning Prior Knowledge Technology Content Skills and Strategies Organizing Structures Prior Experiences

and Life History

Rosenblatt’s Transactional Theory Stance Development (1978)

Sandberg’s Tasks of Branching Literacy (2011)

See also Kuiper, Volman, and Terwel (2005); Mayer (2001);Eschet-Alkali and Amichai-Hamburger (2004)

Comprehension occurs at the intersection of the reader, the text, and the activity, all within a distinct sociocultural setting. (Dalton and Proctor, 2008, p. 320)

Hyperreading Versus Linear ReadingPrint Text Digital Text Strategies Needed for

Scaffolded Digital Reading

Word Recognition and Fluency determine text choice

TTS mitigates limits—listening comprehension may be better indicator of level

How to vary use of TTS , including level/frequency of use and speed

Vocabulary is strongest predictor of comprehension

Glossaries, multimedia, and online search support comp.

Constant updating of skills to accommodate evolving tools

Prior knowledge of content and text structures predict comprehension

Content knowledge can be filled in with online supports—web structure knowledge more important

Non-linear, fluid text creates greater need for self-regulation and (re) orientation

(Meta) Cognitive strategies may be included in text prompts, summaries, etc.

These may be embedded to prompt strategy use

Knowledge of resources, (self) motivation to use these

Affect/Stance/Orientation based on topic/genre/author

Multimedia, social, interactivity, hyperlinks also

Adaptability to fluid environments

Adapted from Dalton and Proctor, 2008, p. 305-306

Hyperreading Versus Linear Reading

Hartman, Morsink, Zheng (2010)• Reading comprehension as interaction of

elements- reader, text, author, task, context (Coiro)

• Linear (Offline)- simple interactions• Hyper (Online)- evolving, multilayered,

dynamic interactions

Supporting Readers—Instructional ScaffoldingBy varying features and supports in the digital environment, it is possible to scaffold learners…so that learners continue to operate within their zone of proximal development with an optimal mix of challenge and support (Vygotsky, 1978).

Understanding Learner Characteristics• Learner Profiles—Concept Connectors, Video Viewers, and Sequential Studiers (MacGregor, 1999)• Self Efficacy—increases navigational persistence (Murphy, 1988, Tsai and Tsai, 2003)• Prior Knowledge

– Technological knowledge more influential than content, especially with flexibility in non-linear navigation (Gerdes, 1997)

– With print “learners with greater pre-existing knowledge about a topic generally understand and remember more than those with more limited prior knowledge” (Chi and Ceci, 1987).

– More knowledgeable users within a domain tend to focus on specific topics within a system (Carmel, Crawford, & Chen, 1987), explore topics in greater depth (Chen & Ford, 1998), and move more nonlinearly through the information space (Eveland & Dunwoody, 1998).

– Less knowledgeable users navigate towards the bells and whistles of the system (Lawless & Kulikowich, 1996) rely on navigational aids (Barab, Bowdish, and Lawless, 1997) and get lost more easily.

– Cognitive Load—May create problems moving new information into long-term memory as they may not know what to store or have the working memory in which to hold it (Sandberg, 2013).

Supporting Readers—Instructional ScaffoldingStance

The attitude that a reader brings to the reading task:

• Transactional Theory of Reading: aesthetic or efferent stance (Rosenblatt, 1978, drawing from Dewey and Kolb)

• Deep attention is essential for coping with complex phenomena… hyper attention is useful for its flexibility in switching between different information streams, its quick grasp of gist of material, and its ability to move rapidly among and between different kinds of text (Hayles, 2010).

• At most colleges within the US, students’ use of technology for nonacademic reasons far outweigh their uses for academic reasons. (Wilber, 2008)

Supporting Readers—Instructional ScaffoldingStance

There is a “double life in terms of literacy practices and values” –A discrepancy between the literacy and technology practices required of college students for academic purposes in formal-education contexts, and the technology practices these same students pursue as part of their own interests and in their own time (Hawisher and Selfe, 2004, p. 661).

Help for students in focusing their reading stance• Lab use orientation

– Academic focus– Limits to social media access

• Discussion of Purpose• Prompt crafting

Supporting Readers—Instructional ScaffoldingSearching/Keywords

• School is a controlled space, and school texts developed by educational publishing companies after intensive state and district screening to eliminate anything remotely controversial are controlled…Web outside of school is not a controlled space…requiring that students learn to be critical consumers—to deconstruct messages, to identify bias, to ask whose voice is represented, whose is not, and to what end? (Dalton and Proctor, 2008, p. 300).

• In the absence of a learning goal, readers’ conceptualization of an information space and resulting navigational selections are less integrated than users operating under a specific goal (Lawless and Schrader, 2008, p. 284).

• Thus, teaching for choice and monitoring of goal accomplishment seems critically important for scaffolded digital reading and new literacies (Dalton and Proctor, 2008, p. 319).


• Prior Experience matters. Users with more search experience plan in their searching behavior while novices hardly are driven by what they see on screen at any given moment in time (Navarro-Prieto, Scaife, and Rogers, 1999).

• Students look for actual sentences on the screen that contained the answer to their task (Fidel, 1999).

• Students look for one source for all answers and were “easily disappointed when they were not able to find such an article” (Shenton and Dixon, 2003) .

• Students try to find a concrete answer instead of collecting information from which they could deduce an answer themselves (Bilal, 2001).


• Cromley and Azevedo (2008) – Three factors that impacted of questions upon the success of searches:

whether wording in the question was an exact match to the search or if it required a synonym, the complexity of the information needed, and the “plausibility of distracters” within the question.

– Identification of a “key page” where the targeted information was available to students.

– Pre-identifying specific locations where information can be found scaffolds student efforts and provide assistance should students become frustrated.

– Limiting their research to a prescribed number of pages while developing students’ skills in effective search techniques.

– Scrolling was the most common technique, but this is not an accessible strategy for ELLs as their limited vocabulary and fluency can interfere with efficient scanning of material.


• Sox and Rubenstein-Avila (2009) – Provide simple, direct, step-by-step instructions that avoid

idiomatic expressions and phrasal verbs: graphic organizers to guide work efforts and organize information; multimedia features that are directly related to content; a brief description of linked websites; bilingual dictionaries; and definitions of key concepts.

• Webquests at LGCC

Supporting Readers—Instructional ScaffoldingPrompts: Supporting Keyword Selection

An effective prompt could include:Key questionPossible keywords for searchingSpecific framework for answer: what

elements are neededA highly scaffolded prompt might also include links to possible sites and an outline for the generative task

Supporting Readers—Instructional ScaffoldingCritical Reading

• The findings of research emphasize the need to teach students how to critically assess the reliability or value of the information they find on the Web by understanding not only its textual but also its nontextual features such as images, links, and interactivity. (Burbules, 1998; Burbules & Callister, 2000)

• “It’s not just point and click. It’s point, read, think, and click” (Tapscott, 1998, p. 63).

Supporting Readers—Instructional ScaffoldingCritical Reading

Students use inappropriate criteria to evaluate sites—equating quantity with quality. – In research on 543 college students’ use of the Internet for assigned

research papers. Students mainly skimmed online references and copies without evaluating the credibility (Burton and Chadwick, 2000, p. 568).

– Most students either do not look at the reliability and correctness of the information or use incorrect criteria in their assessment (Agosto, 2002).

– All results of a search engine are qualitatively good and a Web site with a great deal of text must be good (Lorenzen, 2001).

– Shenton and Dixon (2003) none of the nineteen 10th and 12th graders interviewed reported attempting to verify the accuracy of Web information in any way.

• Ellis and Pillai (2009) Suggest strategies to assist students in assessing source usefulness and validity by asking students to create a webography.

• Create a checklist of criteria—agreed on as a class—to use for evaluating research resources.

Supporting Readers—Instructional ScaffoldingMetacognition

• To be able to use the abundance of information properly, students must be capable of continually making decisions on their own needs for information. (Loveless, Devoogd and Bohlin (2001). P. 246

• Net provides freedom to derive a personal path, but adds a level of cognitive burden on learners. (Patterson, 2000).

• Readers have to question where they are, where they have been (so they can review/reread), and where they need to go (Chen, et al. , 2006).

Supporting Readers—Instructional ScaffoldingMetacognition

• Using metacognitive awareness inventory, Schwartz, Anderson, Hong, Howard, and McGee (2004) found a positive and significant correlation between metacognitive ability and successful navigational outcomes (p. 275).

• Henry (2006) Six-step method for sorting through this information based on print reading skills. Her method, SEARCH, asks students to “Set a purpose for searching; Employ effective search strategies; Analyze search-engine results; Read critically and synthesize information; Cite your sources; and How successful was your search?” (p. 618).

Supporting Readers—Instructional ScaffoldingDomain Structure and Cognitive Maps

• Navigational problems because unlike physical environments, the internet lacks useful physical landmarks. The notion of distance and scale in the physical world does not translate to the digital world, which also lacks stability and permanence. (Lawless and Schrader, 2008, p. 270)

• Individuals must acquire associations between different pieces of information in a flexible environment so that connections between disparate schemata can be formed…learners need to be able to explore a domain strategically from multiple perspectives, in order to study potential relationships (Wittgenstein, 1953, p. 278).

• View navigation as an active, constructive process. It is affected not only by learners’ internal knowledge structures, but also by the external constraints to fit the learning environment as well (Kozma, 1991, p. 269).

• Effective navigation through virtual environments also requires users to know where they are, where they need to go, how to get there, and when they have arrived (Whitaker, 1998, p. 269).


• “The nature of the support systems (site map/overview) has little bearing on declarative knowledge but has a significant influence on knowledge structures and deep contextual meaning” (Lawless and Schrader, 2008, p. 281).

• In a complex hypermedia system, site maps had a significant positive influence on performance, including search steps, efficiency, and task completion (Chou and Lin, 1998).

• Students showed a significant increase in navigational efficiency, using fewer steps, when using the hierarchal site structure (Zhang and Salvendy, 2001).


• Significant Gap in Research• Recommendations:– Overviews are most helpful a the start of a reading

(Sandberg, 2013).– Explicitly teach site structure and features (site

maps, design structures, nodes, etc.)– Have students create a web page– Create graphic organizers that mirror commonly

used sites to link written product with screen layout

Technology Integration • Blanchard and Farstrup (2011) a continuum organized around

dimensions learning with technology and learning from technology– Within-classroom vs. outside-classroom

• Caverly, D. C., Peterson, C. L., Delaney, C. J., & Starks-Martin, G. A. (2009)– Technology Use- tool vs. tutor – Instructional Perspective– Cognitive task demands on reader

• The presence of the scaffold is contingent upon performance feedback, which is either provided by the system or the learner, or both (Dalton and Proctor, 2008, p. 316)

Supporting Readers—Technological Scaffolding

• “Most vocabulary supports require strategic knowledge about how things work on the Internet, and specifically, knowledge of tools and social resources which are in a state of flux and change. This type of knowledge is typically not taught in classrooms, and, in fact, teachers may have limited experience using these tools themselves” (Dalton and Proctor, 2008, p. 312).


• Proctor, Dalton, and Grisham (2007) – Vocabulary hyperlinks which included cognate instruction in Spanish. – Embedded instruction including strategy prompts, hints, and models, and a “coaching”

avatar to remind them of reading strategies that were taught in classroom instruction. – Students interacted with the text supports far more than required by instruction, using

the glossary feature most frequently, and ELLs used all features more than the EO students. Students with higher comprehension scores accessed the avatar features more regularly.

• Abedi (2009) – Embedded glossary had a significant positive impact for ELLs, mediating the challenges of

complex vocabulary in test questions. – ELL students would be better able to perform at their highest level when provided with

simplified questions or the means to better understand what content is being required in their response. While an embedded glossary would be ideal for this purpose, teachers could also modify items when composing assessments to maximize student success.


• Larson (2008) – students actively used the annotation features.– use of discussion boards prompted deeper consideration of content, as their

ideas were “more permanent”. • Bakar et al (2011).

– Bookmark, notations, and collaborative opportunities such as discussion boards – Easy to use as it approximated pen-and-paper notations – Helpful as it allowed them to access other students’ ideas to help clarify their

understanding– Built-in dictionary used widely as they did not have to disrupt reading to look up

unknown words – Track changes with Microsoft Word documents can approximate notations– Shared documents using Google docs could allow sharing to support

collaborative meaning-making. Discussion starters to help students frame and focus their ideas for collaborative reading efforts.


• Smythe and Neufield (2010)– Podcasts. – Students were actively engaged in multiple readings

of texts and open to peer feedback as they negotiated pronunciation, prosody, and word choice.

– Addition of a potential “real audience” into any instructional task motivates learners to rehearse and improve communication skills. This could include blogs and discussion boards in addition to podcasts.


• Pritchard (2008)– Students may over-use embedded translators, referring

to hyperlinked words nearly three times as frequently as would be anticipated by baseline vocabulary scores.

– Could interrupt reading flow and discourage use of context clues and other strategies.

– Advise students of a target number of word searches for a given document so that they learn how to use the resource strategically.


• There is an assumption often made by researchers that offloading word-recognition by using text-to-speech software will “free up” students’ cognitive capacity.

• Synchronized highlighting features of TTS have shown an increase in word recognition over time, an increase in decoding skills and fluency, such supports must be integrated and explained in instruction, “a student unused to making choices about accessing help might over or under access TTS, reducing the learning potential (Dalton and Proctor, 2008, p. 307).

Need for more research• “The new literacy practices of college-age students comprise a much

underresearched area” (Wilber, 2008, p. 553).• “Once we, as a research community, have a strong sense of what the

literacy practices of college students are, and the extent to which these practices constitute new literacies and in what ways, we can begin to better understand how to build fruitfully on young adults’ literacies in preparing them for a world of work and adult life that will no doubt be quite different than that of today” (Wilber, 2008, p. 576).

• “Innovation often takes place in the margins, be they cognitive, social, or linguistic, and it is driven by individuals who experience the world in more divergent ways and who are in greatest need of changes to the status.” (Meyer and Rose, 2005, p. 299).

• “Technology is seen as a prime mover and leverage point for making universal access and learning possible” (Dalton and Proctor, 2008, p. 302).

Questions? Ideas?

• Contact information:

• Michelle Amos: [email protected]• Joseph Evering: [email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

The Challenges of Hyperreading : Supporting Student Success

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