Reflection

Throughout my most recent grad school course, Reaching & Engaging All Learners Through Technology, we have been participating in on-line groups to discuss resources we have found and how we plan to use them. My group consists of 4 people, although only 3 were active for most of the course, and we used FaceBook to post, share, and discuss our resources and thoughts. I found this immensely helpful and look forward to continuing to stay in contact with these colleagues after we have completed our class. I plan to use many of the resources we discussed, including several to help me create surveys at the beginning of the year to get to know my students. Every teacher should know how technology can be used to foster students' success (Bray, Brown, & Green , 2004. Knowing the students on an individual basis and knowing their interests will make it easier to address their needs. I also plan to use a site I found called bubbl (www.bubbl.us). This is a site for brainstorming and creating concept maps and I think the students will find it much more interesting than doing the same assignment on paper. I also plan to use a game called Cell Craft (http://www.maxgames.com/play/cellcraft.html) to give my students a different way to learn the parts of the cell. I think this will appeal to most students since it is formatted as a video game, but is teaching them vocabulary and definitions as they play.

I plan to make several immediate adjustments to my teaching as a result of my learning throughout this course. I now understand DI and UDL much better and realize what an important role they play in the classroom. I plan to use the UDL guidelines to help over come barriers that are present in my current curriculum (Center for Applied Special Technology, 2009). UDL can help me create lessons that meet the needs of all of my students and give each of them every opportunity for success. I also plan to differentiate my lessons by keeping the main ideas the same, but allowing for different levels of complexity (Laureate, 2009a). This will allow all students to learn the required material, but at their own pace. I would also like to integrate as much technology as possible into my lessons. Most students find using technology engaging and will often be more likely to complete assignments that involve some type of technology, rather than just typical book work. Technology use is important to students and has become an expectation of both parents and future employers (Laureate, 2009b). I plan to immediately begin using more technology in my lessons, even if I have to start out small and build in more as I go along.

As an educator, it is my responsibility to ensure that students acquire all the skills necessary to succeed when they are done with school. I feel like this course helped me get one step closer to ensuring that I am meeting all of my students' needs.

References:

Bray, M., Brown, A., & Green, T.D. (2004). Technology and the diverse learner: A guide to classroom practice. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press

Center for Applied Special Technology. (2009). UDL guidelines, version 1.0. Retrieved from http://www.udlcenter.org/aboutudl/udlguidelines

Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2009a). Differentiating instructional elements. Reaching and engaging all learners through technology. Baltimore: Author.

Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2009b). Managing the differentiated classroom. Reaching and engaging all learners through technology. Baltimore: Author

www.bubbl.us Retrieved on October 30, 2010

http://www.maxgames.com/play/cellcraft.html Retrieved on October 30, 2010

Relection

As our course draws to a close, I find myself reflecting on everything we have done in the last 8 weeks. Once again, they have flown by and I am amazed at how much I have gained in such a short period of time. At the beginning of the course, I had never even heard of the NET-S standards or GAME plans. Now, discussing them seems only natural.

While I still have work to do with my GAME plan, I think it has come a long way since I first developed it.

My first goal is to learn what type learning styles/preferences my students have. I have made the most progress with this goal. I have developed a survey that I will administer at the beginning of the new school year. I have discussed some of the questions with my colleagues and will continue to refine them over the summer. I look forward to trying this in the fall. It will be a learning experience for my students and myself. I am sure after I administer and review the survey I will again revise it for the following year. I see this as an ongoing project that will continue to evolve as I grow and acquire more experience.

My second goal is to develop learner-centered lessons that incorporate a variety of technologies. I began by choosing a few topics that I think will easily lend themselves to these types of lessons. I have begun developing lesson plans to work with in the fall and I see this as a goal that I will continue to work towards for some time.

I found the creation and development of a GAME plan very useful. I plan to teach the GAME plan to my students and have them use it throughout the year. I think it will be beneficial for them to be able to see what their goals are and how they are going to work towards them. It is important for them to understand that they can change and adjust their goals as they are working towards them and using a GAME plan makes this easy to do while still keeping in mind what they are working towards.

I have a lot of changes in mind for the upcoming year, including the surveys, new student-centered lesson plans, and the use of student GAME plans. It will be a busy summer getting everything ready and an even busier year enacting it all, but I am looking forward to it. I can't wait to see how the changes will impact my students and our classroom environment.

Using the GAME Plan Process with Students

Now that I have gone through the process of using the GAME plan, I can see many advantages to using it with students. I would like to introduce the GAME plan format at the beginning of the year, so it will be something we can work with and develop throughout the year. The students will start by setting a goal for themselves for the class which they will post on our class blog. Throughout the year, they will reflect upon that goal. They can discuss if it is still the same, how they are progressing towards it, and any changes they have made to it. By the end of the year, they should have many posts, recording their thoughts and changes throughout the year. One of the most important things I hope they will get out of this assignment is the value of having goals. They should come to understand that it is okay to modify their goals or even change them completely, as long as they have a goal in mind.

Revising My GAME Plan

I am continuing towards my goal of creating student-centered lessons. I have decided to discuss this approach with some of my colleagues to gain their ideas and insights. If they have not used this type of lesson before, I will be interested to see if they become interested in trying it. Perhaps this will turn into something we can collaborate on together, or at least share ideas.

I am also still working with the surveys for student learning styles. It seems like each time I look at them I think of something to add or see something I want to change. I am glad I have the summer to work with them and continue to revise them, so I will be prepared and happy with them when school starts in the fall.

Evaluating My GAME Plan Progress

One of the main goals of my GAME plan is to get to know my students and their learning styles on an individual basis. Last week I developed the surveys I will use at the beginning of the year to help me towards this. This survey and my analysis of it are the key components in reaching this goal, so now that I have the survey ready, I can concentrate on what I will do with the information once I have it.

Thinking about this brought new questions to mind. Some students may have more than one learning style, if so, how should I group them? I know I probably will not be able to create every lesson to match every student's unique learning style. Should I put them into more broad groups, so I can develop some lessons that meet 2 or 3 broader style groups, while still having other lessons that address each individual learning style?

I have also progressed towards meeting my goal of creating learner-centered lessons, where the students pick a topic to do a more in depth study of. I have chosen a few units that I think would be good to start with, including the human body and ecology. I chose these to begin with because they are both large units and have a lot of sub-topics that the students could chose from for their study.

Oil Spill

As a biology teacher and nature lover, I just have to take a moment to vent...I am absolutely sickened by what is going on in the Gulf of Mexico/Louisiana. I am at a loss for words...

Click on the title to see some amazing (and depressing) pictures.

Monitoring My GAME Plan Progress

As I continue to progress towards implementing my GAME plan, I continue to think of new things and have come up with new questions to address.

In order to progress towards my goal of customizing and personalizing learning activities to address students' different learning styles, I have begun creating the surveys I will distribute at the beginning of the year. I have included questions about what they like to do with their free time, what types of class activities they have done in the past, included ones they both liked and disliked, and why. I also ask students what types of tests and projects they seem to score best on, and what types of tests they prefer to take and why.

In order to progress towards my second goal of incorporating learner-centered lessons with technology I have begun reviewing different topics within my content area to see which ones would be best for these types of lessons. I don't think it would be practical to try to do this type of lesson for every topic, as it is time consuming and I don't think we would be able to get through the whole curriculum. I also think it might be a little overwhelming for the students if we tried to do this for every topic, as it would be a lot of work in addition to the regular content they are responsible for.

Carrying Out My GAME Plan

There are several different resources and types of information I will need to carry out my GAME plan.

To address the indicator about customizing and personalizing learning activities, I will need to begin by performing surveys with my students. I will review the results and discuss them anonymously with my colleagues. I would like to get their insights into how to best address different learning styles and techniques they have used, without discussing specific students by name. Once I begin customizing lessons, I will need access to computers and a variety of software programs for student projects.

To address the indicator about addressing diverse needs through learner-centered strategies I will first need to be familiar with what types of learners each of my students are. I will also need to have a variety of topics for students to choose from when they are doing their in-depth studies. I will also need access to a variety of technologies, including computers with internet access and software programs for creating projects and recording equipment and software for creating videos or podcasts.

I am not able to really enact my GAME plan at this time because I do not have a full-time teaching position, I am substituting, which does not give me the opportunity to create my own lessons and plans.

Developing My Personal GAME Plan

After taking a look at the ISTE National Educational Technology Standards and Performance Indicators for Teachers (NETS T), I saw several categories that I felt confident in as well as several that I know I definitely need to work on.

The categories I feel confident with are:
-Engage students in exploring real-world issues and solving authentic problems using digital tools and resources.
-design or adapt relevant learning experiences that incorporate digital tools and resources to promote student learning and creativity.
-participate in local and global learning communities to explore creative applications of technology to improve student learning.

The categories I feel I need to work on include:
-customize and personalize learning activities to address students' diverse learning styles, working strategies, and abilities using digital tools and resources.
-address the diverse needs of all learners by using learner-centered strategies and providing equitable access to appropriate digital tools and resources.

In order to address the first indicator, I plan to begin at the beginning of the school year by getting to know my students learning styles and preferences. I would begin this by doing a survey and then observing over time what types of assignments each student performs best on. As I gain a better understanding of my students, I will design lessons that can be easily adapted to their different learning styles. The lessons will have choices for how they can be completed, depending on the student. I would like to have lessons that give the option of using different types of technology, so the students can use what interests them. For example, a research project may be completed using a poster, PowerPoint presentation, or podcast. Through the implementation of these technologies, I hope to engage students and increase their content understanding (Laureate, 2009).

The second indicator is a little more difficult for me to address. I would like to develop learner-centered lessons that incorporate different forms of technology. I will do this by allowing students some freedom in deciding certain topics that we cover in more depth than others. For example, during the ecology unit, I will allow them to pick the topic that most interests them to complete an in-depth research project on. They will still have to learn all of the material for the unit, but they will be able to pick which topic they would like to explore more and what types of technology they would like to use to achieve this. I will give ample class time, as well as be available after school, so everyone can have access to the technology they require, as well as giving passes to the computer lab or library during study halls.


References:

Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2009). Program four. Enriching content area learning experiences with technology part I. Integrating technology across the content areas. Baltimore: Author

National Education Standards for Teachers (NETS-T) located at http://www.iste.org/Content/NavigationMenu/NETS/ForTeachers/
2008Standards/NETS_T_Standards_Final.pdf

Reflection on Supporting Information Literacy & Online Inquiry in the Classroom

I can't believe another class is over! It always amazes me how fast eight weeks goes. In this class, Supporting Information Literacy and Online Inquiry in the Classroom, I learned a lot about teaching my students how to properly use the internet and I also realized how much I still have to learn. Technology is changing so fast, every time I think I am becoming literate in the new technologies, something new comes out. It is a never-ending learning process.

I think one of the most striking revelations I have had is about teaching students to properly evaluate sources they find on the internet. So many students seem to think that if it is on the internet, it must be true. They do not realize that anyone can put anything on the internet. It is my job, as their teacher, to instruct them on how to properly evaluate sources for reliability. I especially like the REAL Strategy (November, 2008), where students are taught to read the URL, examine the content, ask about the author and owner of the sight, and look at the links. These are four easy steps students can take to help authenticate a site they find.

This course has helped me to realize that even though our students may appear to be technology savvy, they often do not know the finer points of using the internet for research and other educational based projects. Knowing how to evaluate sources is a very important skill (Laureate, 2009). Realizing this has helped influence the way I will introduce my students to online research. I will begin instructing them on researching and evaluating websites, as well as online safety at the beginning of the year and we will continue this throughout the year. Students need to be exposed to these new literacies repeatedly and on a regular basis in order for them to become fluent in them. Their literacy skills must be able to continue growing as technology grows (Jukes, 2007).

One professional goal I would like to pursue is to become more technology and internet literate myself. In that way, I can better teach these skills to my students. I would like to take workshops on these topics, but because I am a substitute teacher, they are not really available to me. I think this is a goal I will have to pursue on my own, at least for now. I think my future classes at Walden will continue to help me in reaching this goal. I also plan to discuss these things with my colleagues. I know several that could give me some good tips and I am also friendly with the computer lab supervisor. She has already answered a lot of questions for me and I know she is a good source of information for all things pertaining to the internet. I also hope that when I get a full-time teaching position, my district will offer workshops on these skills.

This class me to realize how much I still have to learn about using technology in the classroom. I think many of us assume students know what they are doing when it comes to working online. We need to realize that although they are usually quite literate when it comes to MySpace and downloading music to their iPods, they are often quite illiterate when asked to do something research based. It is our responsibility to help them gain these critical, new literacy skills.



References:

Jukes, I. (2007). 21st century fluency skills: Attributes of a 21st century learner. Retrieved from http://www.committedsardine.com/handouts/twca/pdf

Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2009). Information literacy: Evaluating information. Baltimore: Author.

November, A. (2008). Web literacy for educators. Corwin Press. Thousand Oaks:CA