Reflection of Supporting Information Literacy and Online Inquiry

I found this course based on new literacy skills and online inquiry to be extremely relevant to my professional life. On a regular basis in my classroom I found myself considering ways to implement what I was learning with my classmates at Walden University. There were several areas that were quite enlightening to me. One idea in particular is the need for me to model ethical practices with my students. When we have lecture and discussion I frequently use PowerPoint presentations. I regularly find information and graphics from the internet. I am now going to be vigilant about citing the sources for my pictures, videos, and information. As the world changes, it should be second nature (especially for teachers) to cite information – we should expect to see it always!

A second area that I feel enlightened about is the need to teach new literacy skills in a methodical and strategic way. The project we completed throughout the course was an exemplary demonstration of these practices. We should explicitly teach the skills and practice them! I intend to have my students engage in a research project similar to the one we completed at least once (or ongoing) throughout each semester. Broken down the way we did it made it very manageable and not overwhelming while teaching both content as well as 21st century skills – especially synthesizing and evaluating!

One professional development goal for me is to continue to practice these skills with the methods we were presented – using the various tools with my students. I only experienced a few of them with my project and I would like to try more of them in the classroom. I will also share these tools and methods with my colleagues in my department and building through professional development sessions during our regularly scheduled times. We can greatly improve our skills as well as our students through increased attention to and exposure to these strategies and tools.