The A Sino-American Comparison On Data Literacy Education For Elementary And Middle School Teachers

Nowadays,data has become a valuable resource for transforming teaching and learning.As a result,increased expectations have been placed on teachers’ professional competencies.Teachers need to be data literate to adapt to the changes in education.In this context,data literacy education for primary and secondary school teachers has been launched in China and America.Effective data literacy education for primary and secondary school teachers requires the pluralistic participation of multiple subjects.It is of theoretical and practical significance to explore and compare the multiple participation in data literacy education for teachers in China and the United States through the literature,comparative and policy text analysis methods.Through combing,data literacy education for primary and secondary school teachers in the United States can be divided into four phases: initiative emergence period,initial exploration period,comprehensive development period,and normative improvement period,while in China can be divided into three phases: rough planning period,initial focus period,and active exploration period.The participation in the United States are the federal government,state governments,educational professional organizations,universities,primary and secondary schools,and enterprises.In China,there are central government,local governments,universities,primary and secondary schools.These participating subjects have carried out rich practices that aimed at improving the data literacy of teachers.A comparison of data literacy education for teachers in China and the U.S.reveals that:(1)There are similarities in the motivations for the participation of each subject in both countries: for the government,the development motivation is to cater to the national big data development strategy;for universities,the motivation is to increase the quality of teacher education;for primary and secondary schools,the motivation is to improve teachers’ ability to use data-driven teaching to meet the needs of precision teaching and personalized learning;For companies,the motivation is to promote and improve their own technologies and products.Unlike in China,however,the motivation for U.S.state government participation includes federal funding,and the motivation for U.S.education professional organizations is to promote the movement to professionalize teaching and learning.(2)The roles in data literacy education are similar in both countries: local governments act as“implementers”,universities are “knowledge transferors”,primary and secondary schools are “environment shapers”,and businesses are important actors.The role of local governments as “implementers”,universities as “knowledge transferors”,primary and secondary schools as “environment shapers”,and enterprises as important “resource supplementers”.Although the roles of multiple participants are similar in both countries,the focus is different.In America,the role of education professional organizations is that of “active facilitators” and they playing an important role.(3)The actors’ participation routes in China and the the U.S.are comparable in that both nations have built an integrated pattern of pre-service schooling and post-service training,as well as a diverse training model that combines online and offline learning.Both countries attach importance to the construction of database and data analysis tools and resources.The difference between the two countries is that in terms of policy direction,the United States is more precision,while we have a strategic view.Secondly,in terms of financial support,the U.S.has targeted investment while China has holistic investment.Thirdly,in the process of on-the-job training,the U.S.focuses on problem orientation,while China emphasizes knowledge orientation.Finally,data literacy education for teachers in China and the U.S.has achieved include a certain degree of synergy between the strengths of each,which provides a personalized path for teachers to improve their own data literacy.Through the joint efforts of multiple participants,teachers’ data awareness,data analysis and decision-making abilities have progressed.And the challenges are: firstly,teachers’ data ethics education has been neglected to some extent in both countries.Secondly,the U.S.states are not sufficiently enforcing the federal government’s policies.Thirdly,the term “data literacy” has yet to make its way into educational discourse.Based on the above analysis,data literacy education for teachers is a broad systemic project that requires to establish a complete support system in order to produce significant results.In the following areas,China should construct a data literacy education development pattern for teachers:(1)Formalising “data literacy” in education policy discourse;(2)establish a coherent and practical pattern for cultivating data literacy for teaching in universities;(3)create a campus environment for data-driven teaching and learning in primary and secondary schools;(4)improve the cooperation mechanism involving multiple actors from government,schools and enterprises;(5)fully exploiting the advocacy and promotional role of educational social organisations.