Blog #1: What is information literacy? What is your experience with the 4 components of instructional literacy - reflective practice, educational theory, teaching technologies, instructional design?
Information literacy is the ability to find, evaluate, obtain and use information that meets a particular need. Although I don't think this definition has changed over my lifetime, I do think the emphasis has shifted. When I was in high school and college, it could be very difficult to find information. There was no Google (which is so hard for my own students to comprehend), no online finding tools, databases, etc. I had to use a card catalog and search print sources, and often I came up empty handed. What I lacked in efficiency, however, I gained in quality assurance. Most of the sources I found were scholarly and from (at least we believed at the time) trustworthy sources. Today, we are bombarded with information from all sorts of sources, some biased, some inaccurate, some who publish with malicious intent. So, instead of spending most of our time on finding this information, I believe the focus of being informationally literate should be placed on the evaluation piece.
As a high school teacher, I have had experience with all four of the components of instructional literacy. I try to engage in Reflective Practice whenever I'm in a classroom. The ability to assess the learning as well the attitudes in the room as you teach takes a lot of practice. There is no more frustrating feeling than when you recognize your students just aren't getting what you are trying to teach. And so you sometimes have to adjust on the spot in order to help students understand or to increase their engagement. Sometimes it works, sometimes not. Educational Theory: research-based learning, instructional, and curriculum theory, is something that most teachers do not have time for in their daily teaching lives. This reality is unfortunate, as I believe teachers could gain a lot from the knowledge that researchers are sharing. I think most of us try to "keep up" by going to conferences and reading blogs and journals, but it is a problem that teachers are so overloaded they don't engage in this much. I think this is a place where school and academic librarians could really help. Often, their days are less structured and so they can, at times, spend more time looking at current research and share it with instructors. Keeping up with Teaching Technologies is another struggle for many classroom teachers. Taking graduate and professional development classes has helped introduce me to new technologies. Finally, Instructional Design is a method of integrating reflection, theory, and technology as you plan, deliver, and assess your lessons. Again, I try to do this as often as possible, but daily lesson planning can sometimes be spontaneous and based on factors that have nothing to do with good teaching and learning (e.g. time, space, administrative, and personal constraints).
Even though I have taught for 20+ years, actually, because I have taught for 20+ years, I am truly looking forward to this class. I think there is a danger that experienced teachers can sometimes get a bit...lazy, or at least wrapped up in routine. I know that much of what I do is intuitive, so it will be good to step back and look critically at my teaching skills to see if they are, in fact, best practices.
No comments:
Post a Comment