Discipline-Specific Writing and Assessment

I don't know if we're supposed to go in any certain order on these blog posts-I haven't before, but I guess I'll start on this one.

In this post I'm talking about discipline-specific writing and assessment.  This will be a little harder for me because I didn't actually take many courses in my discipline in secondary education, so I can't draw on a lot of personal experience.  I'll start by going over the classes I did take.  In middle school (or jr. high- I don't know what the difference is, if any) I took the shop class that everyone was required to take and I didn't get much out of it.  The curriculum consisted of a bunch of projects that we did at our own pace, each was supposed to teach us a different principle.  We would start by picking a folder and going to the corresponding station.  I remember that most of the stuff was missing for most of the projects and I didn't get much out of it- the best one was one on the expansion of metals where we had different metal rods held in place with a gauge on top then each rod was heated and we could compare how much each metal would expand.  Each project had a couple confusing questions at the end we had to answer (maybe they were confusing because most of the stuff was gone so you couldn't really complete the project).  This kind of ruined shop for me.  another time in middle school I took another shop class and it was mainly woodworking, which isn't my favorite, but what made it worse was that I fractured both of my wrists so I had a cast on each hand/arm and I was pretty well useless and just watched other kids do most of the main project for me.  I don't remember any writing in this class.  In high school I decided not to take any shop classes because of previous experiences, and I was busy with AP classes like chemistry, physics and calculus.  I did take multimedia design and production classes as well as a class called computer commercial art.  I enjoyed these classes and learned many skills and became proficient in quite a few programs, especially Photoshop (as I side note: I do wedding announcements for cheap, so if you or some one you know is getting married let me know).  We didn't really do any writing in these classes that I can remember, just created things on the computer.  That's pretty much it for the classes I took in my content area.

The classes I took didn't include much writing. In the first shop class our grade was based solely on the number of projects we completed, the second was the way the project looked-if the stool was crooked then we got a lower grade.  In the multimedia and commercial art classes we did different projects that had to contain certain elements such as a 3D model that incorporated a hand drawn/painted piece.  These were more enjoyable because unlike the other classes that would be included in my content area there were loose guidelines that we had to follow to show that we understood what we had been going over, but we could do it any way we wanted.  These types of projects also let us learn more by trying new things instead of following a set of written plans and getting the exact same thing as everyone else.

As a teacher I like the idea of letting students choose their own projects.  Letting them choose helps them become more interested so they learn more.  I also am planning on having them include more writing than I did. I think it would be good for them to do research on the topics of their choice and prepare a presentation on it to give to the class.  I also think that follow-up is important; I would include this by having them write about what they did and what they learned and what they would do differently next time.  This helps them reflect and understand better.

Digital Literacy

Post for SCED 4200.
The topic of digital literacy is an important one in my discipline.  In fact, our national standards are called the Standards for Technological Literacy (STL).  The goal of technology education classes is to help students become more technologically literate-this includes, but is not limited to digital literacy.  I would say that overall I am fairly digitally literate.  I use the internet daily, usually for school related work, but also frequently for personal use.  I am also able to build repair, and troubleshoot computers, setup TVs and audio systems and setup home networks.  I find that I am able to pick up on most computer programs with relative ease.

There are some technologies that I am not as familiar with, for example my phone has no internet access- I've never used a smart phone or Ipad simply because I would rather be paying for more important things like food, rent and tuition.  I am confident though that I would pick up these things quickly. Two other popular technologies that I don't use are texting and facebook.  An occasional text message would be convenient for me, but not worth an extra $20 per month; and I don't see the point of having an entire conversation through text messaging when a phone call would suffice, I really don't have that much to say anyways.  I don't have a facebook account mainly because I don't really have anything that I need to share with everyone.   I think the idea of reconnecting with people you have lost contact with is great, but it doesn't seem that facebook really used for that any more.  Even dentists and grocery stores have facebook and twitter accounts - Why would I want to be friends with Smith's food and drug or want to know what my friend ate for breakfast and how many hours are literally wasted daily on facebook and twitter?


Most of the online texts that I read are instructions for class assignments or things that I am researching for a class.  When I'm using online texts for personal reasons I am usually checking emails (many of which are also school related) or reading news articles.  Other times I'm just looking for information out of curiosity of for a personal project, for example recently I was researching specs on different electric motors.  When teaching I'm planning on having my students do research online to find answers to questions that they might have.  I think it is important to teach students to find information rather than just telling them-it's a good skill to have.  one digital technology that I am really impressed with is Google Docs.  I think that it's a great tool for collaborative work and when I have my students do groups projects I would like to require them to use Google Docs and have them share it with me so they can collaborate and I can monitor their progress.  Using Google Docs could even be a lesson in class.