Will Bradley
Dr. Amy Hutchison was a K-12 teacher when high-speed internet and wireless technology began to boom.
Schools scrambled to procure the latest tech in hopes of improving learning and instruction, sometimes without an implementation plan.
“Laptops were coming into schools and teachers had no idea what to do,” she said. “There was no structure or intention, and that drove me crazy.”
The same hurdles exist today, even as coding activities and artificial intelligence software are implemented in schools. However, some schools and districts still lack the infrastructure and resources to support these initiatives, both for traditional learners and those who have learning or physical disabilities.
Hutchison has spent 20 years studying ways to remove these barriers to digital literacy and ensure students grow congruently with technology.
In August 2022, Hutchison was named the Fayard Endowed Chair in Literacy Education at The University of Alabama, a position established through a $2 million gift from Gary and Nancy Fayard.
Since arriving at UA, the National Science Foundation has awarded her two grants to help area youth improve their digital literacy skills and use them to read and write with technology. One grant includes a partnership with Arts ‘n Autism in Tuscaloosa to offer computer science education to their students. The other NSF-funded project aids in the research and development of Compose with AI, a platform to help young learners evaluate and vet AI-generated content for science-based writing.
Nancy Fayard, a graduate of the UA College of Education and former librarian, said she and Gary are eager to support initiatives that provide the “strongest learning foundation possible” for K-12 students.
Hutchison has a third NSF grant at UA that she transferred from her previous institution that involves 100 teachers and 2,500 students, some in Northern Virginia, learning print-based writing skills to use in coding. Hutchison has applied for additional funding to expand the study to include students and teachers in West Alabama.
“Because we live in the world that we do, it’s very uncommon that students are only doing print-based reading and writing,” Hutchison said. “And in the workforce, the use of digital tools for reading and writing is becoming much more common. So, there’s a new type of literacy, and my focus is on preparing students to be literate in a world constantly changed by technologies.”
Hutchison’s research projects are rooted in schools and anchored by strong community partnerships. Some aspects of her research can be done in lab space at the recently renovated UA Literacy Center, but the nature of Hutchison’s work requires consistent access to K-12 classrooms and buy-in from teachers and administrators, which she has found in West Alabama.
“Just being affiliated with UA has created so many new opportunities. For instance, when I wanted to work with Arts ‘n Autism, [the agreement] was done in a day. That’s usually a weeks-long process, sometimes much longer at my previous institutions.”
UA will further its aggressive stance in the race for top faculty like Dr. Hutchison by adding 75 new faculty endowments through The Rising Tide 2.0.
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