Reflecting on New Literacy in the 21st Century

Teaching new literacy skills to young minds of the 21st century is a task that cannot be overlooked by educators. In this digital world, children will continue to seek out the tools they need to be current with technology, but wouldn’t we as educators want to teach them technology skills that will ensure they know how to compete in the 21st century work force? We have an obligation to teach students how to collaborate with other individuals, create, inquire, and dig for meaning.

To become an educator that is capable of teaching these eager minds, I have to strive to teach students to think creatively and independently. My goal is to teach students problem solving skills so that they may become independent seekers. To accomplish this goal, I must challenge my students to “learn new strategies for managing new technologies as they emerge” (Eagleton and Dobler, 2007, p. 44). From this day forward, I will remember the importance of first modeling new content, then allowing students the opportunity for guided practice, and finally challenging students to independently apply their newly acquired knowledge. This process is called the “gradual release of responsibility for strategy instruction” (Eagleton and Dobler, 2007, p. 34). Giving students the skills to use the teacher as a guide is equally important; the teacher can provide guidance without releasing all of the information in full. I believe this teaching is important so that students do not rely on teachers always having the information. They can learn to question and think, searching for the answers to their own questions.

Another change I will implement into my classroom is the project based learning approach. Students learn best by doing, not just listening and watching. Sara Armstrong emphasizes the need for students to develop questions that truly intrigue them, so that they are motivated to discover (Laureate Education, 2009). It is best to have inquiry driven projects that are real world problems. Students can collaboratively work together to solve problems, finding research to answer their questions. I can provide a general topic that students can narrow their focus, create meaningful questions, collect valuable resources, effectively evaluate the reliability of the resources, and finally communicate the knowledge learned. Students become even more involved when they get to make decisions on the final product that will best communicate their findings (Eagleton and Dobler, 2007).

I will allow my students to have choices of blogs, wikis, digital storytelling, glogs, PhotoStory, podcasts, or other forms of multi-media and “expand the boundaries” (November, 2008, p. 79). I cannot forget to also allow my students time to reflect, which allows students to create meaning from their learning (Coiro, 2007). I desire for my students to develop a love for learning that explodes beyond my classroom!

References

Coiro, J. L . (2003). Rethinking comprehension strategies to better prepare students for critically evaluating content on the Internet. New England Reading Association Journal, 39(2), 29–34.

Eagleton, M. B., & Dobler, E. (2007). Reading the Web: Strategies for Internet inquiry. New York: The Guilford Press.

Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2009). Supporting Information Literacy and Online Inquiry in the Classroom. Baltimore: Author.

November, A. (2008). Web literacy for educators. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.