Visually Representing Data and Information

I think that data is becoming more relevant and important than it ever has been.  Many schools are shifting into data walls and data notebooks/binders to represent how their students are growing and learning throughout the year.  I think that is a great way to visually show the students how far they have come.  Throughout my experience I have not been in a school that places too much of an importance on visually representing data for the students to use.  It has all been for the teachers' use.

I think that these schools have missed out on an opportunity for students to take ownership in their growth as a learner and take pride in seeing how far they have come.  It is a lot of work and sometimes I think it focuses on numbers too much, but I believe that it is becoming more prevalent in today's world to see how you have grown and what you need to work on.  It is also nice to have the parents look at this data to see what they can work on with their child.  This is a goal for me, to try and incorporate using visually represented data in parts of my classroom so students can see their growth year long.

Data represented visually is nice, because I think it is universally appealing for all learners.  It creates the information and shows the reader in a quick and easy way.  I love infographics because I can pick out the important information very quickly and it gives me an idea of what information it wants to get across.

Effective Searching Skills in the 21st Century

Technology is making huge leaps and bounds and is taking over children's lives everywhere.  Many of my students have access to their own phone or a computer at their house.  With this ease of accessibility, comes a responsibility.  We need to teach these students how to go online safely and efficiently.  I know that when I am searching the internet, I can find way too much information, most of which is not relevant or could even be not appropriate for some students.  

Now when I read all about these strategies, I was just thinking about how much time it would take to effectively teach these students how to search the internet safely and correctly.  We as teachers, already have so much to do, and now with technology being such a part of student's daily lives, we have to add those things in too.  I think though, that in the long run, teaching students how to effectively use technology, such as searching the internet, they will become better citizens and it will in turn make our life this year a little bit easier during research projects and technology time.  

I know that in the future, I will be teaching my students the specific strategies on how to research efficiently, using the Boolean search tools as well and utilizing the advanced search options.  I think I will focus a lot of my time on show them how to pinpoint their searches using quotation marks, the words "and" and "or" as well as the plus sign.  I think this well help me save some of the headache of teaching them how to research and search correctly at the same time.  Also, I think this will set them up for success for the future as technology is not going anywhere. 

Incorporating Literacy in All Content Areas

Teachers can do a variety of different things to incorporate literacy in all subject areas. Literacy is used in all of the subjects and is big part of the world we live in now.  In the 21st century classroom, teachers can easily implement literacy in their classrooms because access to technology is much more popular.  Some of the ways that I have included literacy in all content areas are from interactive notebooks, Project Based Learning, and Problem Based Learning.

Interactive notebooks have students cut and glue in their notebooks and fill out notes, so connecting reading and writing within all subjects.One example is to provide interactive notebooks in subjects such as science, social studies, and math.  I have started doing this the past year or two and it has worked very well in my classroom.  I love using these notebooks and I have found that my students love the hands on activities that it supplies and learn a lot from those notebooks.

Project Based Learning and Problem Based Learning is something that I also do to help connect literacy within all the subject areas.  These are really exciting ways to get the kids involved in their learning.  Problem Based Learning focuses on the problem that is not usually easily solved and figuring out ways to solve that problem.  Project Based Learning is focuses on the outcome, or having them create something to show their learning.  The students love learning this way since it is more hands on, and the teacher becomes more of the facilitator, rather than up at the front and lecturing.  It is a more organic way to learning and I think that this is where most teachers should be heading in many of their lessons.