Zarifah's 2nd written reflection

Reflection 2

The article “Young Adult Literature and Alternative Assessment Measures” by Melissa Comer, introduces a number of possible ICT (Information Communication Technology) strategies that can be use in the different disciplines. The different disciplines include middle school, high school, and university. According to Comer, she suggests that the purpose of assessment is not solely to grade and stratifies students rather; it is to inform the teacher as to what needs to be addressed in the classroom.

Personally, I found two of the strategies she suggests to be useful and applicable. The first being, “assessing students’ interests via an interest survey”, and the second being, the use of twitter. Through the use of a survey, teachers can get a general idea of the genre and titles of book that would interest students and from there include some of the books in their reading lists. Being able to contribute and getting their opinions considered in the selection of texts for the course would likely get students more involved. In a Secondary School context, I would introduce the idea of an online survey. Often, there is already a prescribe text lists hence; I would use the survey idea to introduce passages that are likely to be interesting to students’ for lessons on the Unseen.

As mentioned earlier, the idea of incorporating the use of twitter in students’ learning is an interesting idea and likely feasible. Comer suggested that students use twitter to tweet a summary that involves asking students to “share and discover what’s happening [in the novel or text]”. While this idea is applicable and beneficial in the sense that it forces students to look for main and important points due to twitter’s 140 character word limit, I would use Twitter differently should I conduct a lesson involving the use of ICT.  As will be explored in my essay assignment on the use of ICT in a literature class, and likely to be used in a Secondary School context, I would introduce the use of twitter in class as a form of reflection. Within a day of the lesson, students are to tweet at least one thing they have learnt and what they would want to know more of or about for the next lesson. Students are also encouraged to tweet questions about aspects of the lesson or novel that they do not understand. Fellow classmates would be encouraged to reply them. Hopefully, this would create a learning environment that engages everyone.

In conclusion, Comer’s suggestion of incorporating the use of ICT into the classroom is sound because technology has unarguably become part of our life, especially so for a 21^st century student. Tapping into ICT would likely benefit students’ learning as it is more relevant and as suggested by Comer, “It is their (adolescents’) world”.