Final Reflection - Supporting Information Literacy and Online Inquiry in the Classroom

Final Reflection

As this most recent course comes to an end I begin to reflect and try to incorporate all that I have learned into my classes. Naturally, this can be a daunting task considering the vast amount of information we were faced with in this, and other courses, here at Walden University. With all the important and interesting concepts it is difficult to process and identify the most significant concepts.

Perhaps the most striking revelation about the 21st Century Literacy Skills I found the most noteworthy was the vast amount of skills necessary for our students to be competitive in a world-wide work force. In the past, our students were only responsible for reading, listening, and remembering. With today’s technology and world-wide work force, our students must be capable of advanced problem solution, technological and self motivation skills.

With this new skill set that is becoming mandatory for our students my classes are evolving from this traditional teaching method to allowing my students to explore their own solutions. I am moving from spoon feeding my information to forcing, or allowing, my students to find their own information and developing the necessary skills to do so. With this new teaching method I am faced with a new problem of internet safety and accuracy. So it compounds this problem of moving from the traditional teaching method by introducing the need to teach an entirely new skill set which includes internet responsibility and safety.

My main goal for the near future is to advance my knowledge with more in depth study of the use of technologies in the classroom and teaching internet safety and fact checking. I have already signed up for a professional development seminar that deals specifically with the topic of technology integration. The seminar is an eight, eight hour session program that deals with many of the same concepts that this class has discussed. I hope to gain a deeper understanding of the material covered during this course, to have more hands on application activities, and find ways to use the technology I have available to me as a teacher. I am certain that this will expand my knowledge to help me create better ways to assist my students. As a teacher my ultimate goal is my student’s success.

I hope you have enjoyed my blog. As always I appreciate your input, please feel free to leave a comment.