EDUC-6712I-6 Reflection

The most striking revelation I had about teaching new literacy skills to my students was how many students are not familiar with their own research style and what best benefits them when researching topics on the internet or other sources. Students’ today just type in the information or question into a search engine and expect the answer to pop up directly. Through this exercise students were able to form a research style and develop strategies to help find answers to difficult topic questions as well as gather significant and resourceful information. This experience has given me the insight that many students’ need to be taught new literacy skills and research skills inside our classrooms to effectively develop their ability to successfully search, navigate, and use the Internet to fulfill a their needs or a requirement. Classrooms and schools often times do not focus enough attention on literacy in the 21^st century, instead relying heavily on traditional literacy skills. However, society demands an understanding of such resources like the Internet that we are doing a disservice to our youth if we are not fully equipping them with the needed skills to succeed in the 21^st century. I would like to further educate teachers within my district about the need for new literacy skills that incorporate the emphasis of digital learning. I believe a great time to introduce this need would be at our district wide Wednesday meetings that are held once a month. Talking to our Superintendent I could schedule a time to present the need for new literacy skills in our school and ways we can improve within our district. It would also be great to set up some professional development training somewhere throughout our area, where we could go and receive some professional development on 21^st century literacy skills and implement the strategies throughout our classrooms. This would hopefully push teachers to provide at least a little more institution of 21^st century literacy skills inside their classroom.