Literacy and Curriculum Projects

Literacy Presentation

Curriculum Presentation

In my Literacy in Middle and High School class, I was tasked to create a presentation that details what literacy in the digital age looks like in the classroom. Similarly, in my Curriculum in Middle and High School class, I created a presentation about the educational philosophy of Humanism and how it applied into my classroom. 

I think that these projects connect most closely with the pillar of the Education Department’s Mission Statement that states, “Our graduates are creative and integrative educators.” This pillar outlines that graduates of the education department are able to create content that can be adapted to utilize a multitude of technologies, while also allowing students to achieve their greatest potential. Literacy in today’s age is all about ensuring that students are able to create and interpret multimodal content ranging from photos and videos to bias in the classroom. This closely links to the Mission Statement because teaching literacy requires the ability to adapt and evolve content to incorporate technology and media that is relevant to the current time. The pillar of the Mission Statement also requires graduates to “support students’ achievement of rigorous academic standards” and “help their students gain self-knowledge and assume responsibility for their own learning.” In other words, educators must place the student at the center of his or her learning experience. This is an extremely Humanist perspective, because Humanists believe that education should be student-centered and students should be in charge of their own learning. Through researching Humanism and considering a new definition of Literacy, I believe that I have laid the groundwork to become a creative and integrative educator. 

I believe that Literacy and Curriculum are deeply connected, especially after researching for these two projects. In a broad sense, it is important to design a curriculum in every content area that allows students to learn the necessary literacy skills that are needed for the rest of their lives. In relation to these two projects specifically, I have learned that it is important to focus on the individual students when teaching literacy skills. Without being able to connect with the material being taught, especially when it comes to teaching literacy skills, students will not learn as effectively. In this way, it is important to create content around literacy that is designed with the specific student or students in mind, so they are able to reach their highest potential.

Over the course of the two projects, I have really learned a lot about digital literacy, Humanism, and myself as an educator. By considering Literacy in today’s technological age, I was able to develop a new perspective on teaching Literacy; Being literate is not solely about being able to read and write, but a way to navigate a series of multimodal platforms in the world. As an English major, I often do not consider alternative definitions of Literacy, and yet this project has allowed me to explore other ways in which Literacy may be applied to my content area. Similarly, through researching Humanism, I have had the opportunity to dive into my own personal beliefs as an educator. While I did not know the actual term for Humanism, my beliefs have aligned with the Humanists for a very long time. I am excited to learn even more about the Humanist philosophy so I can create a classroom environment that places the student at the center of all content. I will continue to find more ways to incorporate the Humanist perspective into the instruction in my classroom, so I can truly focus on the betterment of my students.