NETs and AASLs

Just as reading is woven into every strand of a students' education, so should the skills related to digital literacy. In our Humanities team TOG, for example, we decided to focus on developing student skills in reading non-fiction. We found, through data and observation, that our students often had difficulty identifying key information, limiting their comprehension of non-fiction texts.

In our student-led conferences Grade 6 core teachers are together. My math and science counterpart and I shared many of the same insights into student progress/future growth because the skills we discussed were not limited to our specific curricular area; they run through the curricula of each subject area.

The NETs and AASLs are similar. The standards they set out cannot become the responsibility of a specific department or grade level. They need to be interwoven not because they are specific skills but because they are means of expression of ideas and tools for analysis. We cannot compartmentalize expression of ideas as the responsibility of any particular teacher.

As a starting point for discussion, however, the question of who's job it should be does not seem to be a good starting point for discussion. We are all doing this already. The issue for all of is how we effectively teach those standards.