I believe that I am making satisfying progress on my Game Plan. I have been working hard as a professional to improve my skills and knowledge base. This has included an abundance of reading material, staying after for meetings, taking classes online, and just generally attempting to think like a professional. My biggest struggle over the past 3 years has been transitioning from college student to adult. Most of my friends are younger and weekends can be rough on me if I let them. However, I've been making progress with acting more professionally and responsibly.
My lesson plans almost all include some sort of technology now. Being a Tech Ed teacher, this comes fairly easy to me. I've been attempting lately to do two things with my lessons. The first is to attempt to add even more tech to each lesson. This I have been struggling with to an extent. Some of the lessons I have tried have flopped for various reasons. Others I have really liked and will use in the future. Secondly I have been trying to switch from paper tests to more active tests where my students have to perform a task. Students tend to like these tests more than more than the traditional style of test, and most do better.
I have the resources I need. I'm trying to meet my goals and become a better teacher every day that I enter the classroom.
Saturday, November 28, 2009
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Carry Out my plans
Since my goal is to improve in the following...
2. Design and Develop Digital-Age Learning Experiences and Assessments
5. Engage in Professional Growth and Leadership
I will need to requisition certain information and materials.
Firstly, in order to develop digital age lesson plans I will need updated equipment for my classroom. Technology goes out of date so very quickly in schools. Its so hard to stay at the front of the curve. In order to offer my students genuinely useful digital opportunities I will need my computers to be up to date. I will need my yearly equipment replaced quickly and efficiently and at the same time I will need the opportunity to request new pieces of technology for my students. I have already dealt with procuring new computers for my lab and replacing parts for my kits. I have been in talks about procuring new software programs that will target my student's needs and give them an opportunity for advancement.
To develop myself in the second area I will need constant exposure to professionals. I will need to place myself in groups and meetings where I am expected to grow and take part in a learning community. It is not enough to plateau in education. One must be constantly striving to improve. Another thing I may need is funds to continue classes and learning at a higher level. My district pays for some but not all of my higher level education. Im already here at Walden learning and improving my skill set.
2. Design and Develop Digital-Age Learning Experiences and Assessments
5. Engage in Professional Growth and Leadership
I will need to requisition certain information and materials.
Firstly, in order to develop digital age lesson plans I will need updated equipment for my classroom. Technology goes out of date so very quickly in schools. Its so hard to stay at the front of the curve. In order to offer my students genuinely useful digital opportunities I will need my computers to be up to date. I will need my yearly equipment replaced quickly and efficiently and at the same time I will need the opportunity to request new pieces of technology for my students. I have already dealt with procuring new computers for my lab and replacing parts for my kits. I have been in talks about procuring new software programs that will target my student's needs and give them an opportunity for advancement.
To develop myself in the second area I will need constant exposure to professionals. I will need to place myself in groups and meetings where I am expected to grow and take part in a learning community. It is not enough to plateau in education. One must be constantly striving to improve. Another thing I may need is funds to continue classes and learning at a higher level. My district pays for some but not all of my higher level education. Im already here at Walden learning and improving my skill set.
Thursday, November 12, 2009
GAME Plan
While going over the NETS-T standards I was able to narrow it down to two that I felt I wanted to include in my game-plan. They are as follows...
2. Design and Develop Digital-Age Learning Experiences and Assessments
5. Engage in Professional Growth and Leadership
I would like to continue working to engage my students with Digital age learning experience while at the same time continuing my professional development. In order to reach these goals I plan on working to develop at least one new digital age experience a week in my lesson plans. I would like to have my team leader review this lesson and perhaps request feedback from it as well. I would like to add things like wiki's and multimedia presentations to my existing lessons. I feel this will strengthen my classroom and the learning opportunities that my students have. I am targeting the second goal by continuing my education at Walden. I am also participating in a variety of collegial groups at my school discussing technology and the magnet program. I feel that by surrounding myself with colleagues who are interested in further developing their teaching skills I will move mine along as well.
To assess and extend my learning I believe I will look to my students. They are the ones who determine whether or not I am a successful teacher. Their skills and abilities determine how well I am doing. I will assess my students not only to determine my personal effectiveness but also to determine my next area of growth.
2. Design and Develop Digital-Age Learning Experiences and Assessments
5. Engage in Professional Growth and Leadership
I would like to continue working to engage my students with Digital age learning experience while at the same time continuing my professional development. In order to reach these goals I plan on working to develop at least one new digital age experience a week in my lesson plans. I would like to have my team leader review this lesson and perhaps request feedback from it as well. I would like to add things like wiki's and multimedia presentations to my existing lessons. I feel this will strengthen my classroom and the learning opportunities that my students have. I am targeting the second goal by continuing my education at Walden. I am also participating in a variety of collegial groups at my school discussing technology and the magnet program. I feel that by surrounding myself with colleagues who are interested in further developing their teaching skills I will move mine along as well.
To assess and extend my learning I believe I will look to my students. They are the ones who determine whether or not I am a successful teacher. Their skills and abilities determine how well I am doing. I will assess my students not only to determine my personal effectiveness but also to determine my next area of growth.
Monday, October 26, 2009
Reflection
My course experience has opened my eyes to a new way to approach lesson planning in my classroom. So often I felt locked into the curriculum that was provided me by the Project Lead the Way company. I felt I had to present the lessons in the way they were given to me in as straightforward a manner as possible. The learning objectives that they provided were clearly the most important, and what I should be focused on in any lesson.
However, in this course I was presented with a myriad of literacy skills that I realized my students were lacking. I was shown that my students needed more than just the technology objectives presented by my curriculum. I could do so much more in a lesson where students build a house than just simply have them build the house. I could teach my students how to research online. I could teach them how to choose good websites from bad. I could teach them how to synthesize data and present it in a clear and effective manner. All the while my students would be learning about construction technologies while also developing their literacy skills.
I have learned so much from this course. I have truly learned how to integrate literacy skills into my every day lessons. This will influence and change every facet of my instruction. My students will benefit and my lesson planning will benefit. Even the lessons that don’t go well will be more effective because they target multiple areas. In the future I want to fully integrate these skills into each and every project I have my students complete. I want them to have to opportunity not only to create in my class but also to develop. So often I get lost in the project when I need to be thinking about the process. These literacy skills will help me keep focus on what’s truly important in every lesson.
However, in this course I was presented with a myriad of literacy skills that I realized my students were lacking. I was shown that my students needed more than just the technology objectives presented by my curriculum. I could do so much more in a lesson where students build a house than just simply have them build the house. I could teach my students how to research online. I could teach them how to choose good websites from bad. I could teach them how to synthesize data and present it in a clear and effective manner. All the while my students would be learning about construction technologies while also developing their literacy skills.
I have learned so much from this course. I have truly learned how to integrate literacy skills into my every day lessons. This will influence and change every facet of my instruction. My students will benefit and my lesson planning will benefit. Even the lessons that don’t go well will be more effective because they target multiple areas. In the future I want to fully integrate these skills into each and every project I have my students complete. I want them to have to opportunity not only to create in my class but also to develop. So often I get lost in the project when I need to be thinking about the process. These literacy skills will help me keep focus on what’s truly important in every lesson.
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Reflection
This course has been a rough one for me. I have been away at my parents for much of the summer and only check my course work two times a week. However, I believe I have managed to take a few important things from this class.
I want to say that I made modifications to my personal learning theory, and I'm sure that I have, but nothing that would directly contradict my first application. I now place a little more value on constructivist learning theory. I want my students to construct their knowledge in my classroom. They can do this through project based learning activities, and through group projects. Things like summarizing/note taking and cooperative learning have influenced how I will plan and manage my lessons. (Pitler, Hubbell, Kuhn, Malenoski, 2007)
As of right now, I have no immediate changes to make. It's summertime and there are no students! Seriously though, I want to build in more group activities for my classes that can handle them. My other classes I want to work with so that we progress towards being able to handle group learning activities. I want to focus instruction based on project completion so that my students can explore and freely construct their own meaning. I plan on switching my lesson plans so that they incorporate more of each of these things.
I suppose the above are both my immediate and my long term goals. Technology in the classroom is an important concept, but its even more important to understand how the technology is affecting students. I think that this is the key to a successful, technologically integrated, classroom.
References
Pitler, H., Hubbell, E., Kuhn, M., & Malenoski, K. (2007). Using technology with classroom
instruction that works. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.
I want to say that I made modifications to my personal learning theory, and I'm sure that I have, but nothing that would directly contradict my first application. I now place a little more value on constructivist learning theory. I want my students to construct their knowledge in my classroom. They can do this through project based learning activities, and through group projects. Things like summarizing/note taking and cooperative learning have influenced how I will plan and manage my lessons. (Pitler, Hubbell, Kuhn, Malenoski, 2007)
As of right now, I have no immediate changes to make. It's summertime and there are no students! Seriously though, I want to build in more group activities for my classes that can handle them. My other classes I want to work with so that we progress towards being able to handle group learning activities. I want to focus instruction based on project completion so that my students can explore and freely construct their own meaning. I plan on switching my lesson plans so that they incorporate more of each of these things.
I suppose the above are both my immediate and my long term goals. Technology in the classroom is an important concept, but its even more important to understand how the technology is affecting students. I think that this is the key to a successful, technologically integrated, classroom.
References
Pitler, H., Hubbell, E., Kuhn, M., & Malenoski, K. (2007). Using technology with classroom
instruction that works. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.
Thursday, June 4, 2009
Social Learning theories
The instructional strategies discussed this week were relatively easy to connect to social learning theory. Social learning theory is the belief that students learn by interacting and observing others through a variety of different situations. This can be observed in very young students as they imitate an older sibling or in older students as they observe a behavior or action and attempt to implement it themselves. Our very classrooms are social learning platforms where students observe and learn from their interaction with us.
The learning resources and strategies mentioned this week all came back to the same idea. Students need to interact with each other in order to construct and develop meaning. The different strategies included students developing projects together, or creating voicethreads, or even playing games together through their computers. All of these things promote interaction with course material which is what we should strive for in a strong social learning environment. Student interaction will foster strong development as long as it is focused and on task.
In my classroom sometimes it can be difficult to allow my students to work in groups. It really depends on what the class can handle. I've found that when I can manage to do focused group work in a class my students learn more. For some classes I've had this is simply not an option. Most classes I plan in group instruction and projects. I usually have one or two a year where I simply cannot trust the students with any equipment so they miss out.
The learning resources and strategies mentioned this week all came back to the same idea. Students need to interact with each other in order to construct and develop meaning. The different strategies included students developing projects together, or creating voicethreads, or even playing games together through their computers. All of these things promote interaction with course material which is what we should strive for in a strong social learning environment. Student interaction will foster strong development as long as it is focused and on task.
In my classroom sometimes it can be difficult to allow my students to work in groups. It really depends on what the class can handle. I've found that when I can manage to do focused group work in a class my students learn more. For some classes I've had this is simply not an option. Most classes I plan in group instruction and projects. I usually have one or two a year where I simply cannot trust the students with any equipment so they miss out.
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
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