Throughout the course, I think the most striking revelation that I had about teaching new literacy skills is that as much as we think our students (who have grown up with technology at their fingertips) know how to navigate technologies well, they really do not. Despite how much access our students may have to computers and the Internet, they still need a lot of training in reading and analyzing the information they find. In fact, literacy skills that were taught in the past do not suffice for them. It is necessary that new literacy skills are taught in schools as well as traditional ones for students to be successful now.
Going forward, I would like to incorporate more lessons where I focus on new literacy skills. Prior to engaging in an activity that involves technology, I plan to do a lesson that focuses in on how to appropriately locate and evaluate resources. The knowledge gained in this course will give me the tools to teach students the “how” in locating valuable resources.
I would like to seek out professional development opportunities (workshops) so I can grow as far as teaching literacy skills. I think it would be beneficial to attend workshops on inquiry based design. I could also seek out professionals within my own district for this. I know that one of the supervisors has everyone in his department use inquiry-based lesson planning. I am going to seek him out and see if he has any materials I can use.
Posts
