Goals:
1) Facilitate and Inspire Student Learning and Creativity
Teachers use their knowledge of subject matter, teaching and learning, and technology to facilitate experiences that advance student learning, creativity, and innovation in both face-to-face and virtual environments. Teachers:
a. promote, support, and model creative and innovative thinking and inventiveness
2) Design and Develop Digital-Age Learning Experiences and Assessments
Teachers design, develop, and evaluate authentic learning experiences and assessments incorporating contemporary tools and resources to maximize content learning in context and to develop the knowledge, skills, and attitudes identified in the NETS•S. Teachers:
d. provide students with multiple and varied formative and summative assessments aligned with content and technology standards and use resulting data to inform learning and teaching.
Action:
Part of my goals for this particular class are to improve my own creative thinking in order to model this in the classroom and provide my students with relative content assessments and projects while using technology. In order to complete these two goals, I will have to utilize the resources available to me to strengthen my own technological skills by finding new ways to create meaningful and relative, content projects using technology. By the end of this eight week course, I would like to have a series (a minimum of five solid resources) of resources bookmarked on my computer that will help me create solid lessons and projects.
Monitor:
Obviously, this is going to be an ongoing project, but I feel that in order to complete these two goals, I will have to work on this course every day, even if it is only for fifteen minutes. Although the world is busy, I feel it necessary for me to maintain a high level of organization in order to complete my goals. I must remain focused on the goals, and if need be, alter either my goals or my plan of action, depending on the scenario. I will begin to write check lists and to do lists to make sure that I am completing the steps to conquer this goal.
Evaluation and Extend:
One of the struggles that I foresee having with completing these goals is simply time management. I will have to budget my time accordingly and focus on the task at hand on a daily basis.
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Michael,
ReplyDeleteAuthentic learning environments that incorporate technology develop critical and creative thinking for both teachers and students (Laureate Education, Inc., 2010). Your goal of strengthening your own creative thinking skills in order to inform your students is a great place to begin. By taking small steps and trying new activities, your minimum of five resources should not be difficult to attain. There are so many new and exciting bits of technology to incorporate into lessons, but the real trick is to become an expert at a few so that your students can really get into deeper thinking.
Also, your students might be more of a resource than you think. Part of your action plan could include involving your students and together you can explore the resources you have available. Giving students the opportunity to use technology and possibly even teaching you how to use it leads to better results because they are taking the lead and find value in what they are doing (Prensky, 2008). This might also help with the time restraints. In order for you to turn the lights on for your students and continue to build on their prior knowledge, perhaps they can begin by turning some lights on for you! I look forward to working with you through this course in the coming weeks as I too want to facilitate and inspire creative thinking through digital-age learning experiences.
Connie
6th Gr. SS/LA
Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2010). Program 2: Promoting creative thinking with technology. [DVD]. Integrating technology across the content areas. Baltimore,
MD.
Prensky, M. (2008). Turning on the lights. Educational Leadership, 65(6), 40-45.
Michael,
ReplyDeleteYou know, you make a good point that I really know but usually don’t think about myself. I could be far more effective in bringing things to life for my students if I myself become masterful at using the technology. Using more technology in our classes and in our lessons will develop more creative thinking (Laureate Education, Inc., 2010). If we want our students to use the technology and to be creative and critical thinkers, we ourselves have to do so. It’s rather sad, but I know teachers who say their goal is to develop their students to be creative thinkers and self-developing learners, yet every time someone tries to introduce them to a new technology or a new way of doing things, they balk saying they would rather keep doing things the same old way using the same old methods and the same old tools. It just seems a contradiction to me.
I understand your concerns about time management. I haven’t mentioned this in any of my discussion posts or blogs, but I have to think about this quite often myself. Of course, as I just admitted to being no expert on this, I would still suggest that you might want to consider making some of your first attempts at the introduction of technology-based assignments be more class projects, or at least groups. I think this might help you keep things more manageable for yourself until you feel more confident and in control. You might even find it helpful to allow students to take the lead in these assignments. First, it’s really beneficial for students to assume leadership roles in such assignments and projects because they will better be able to find ownership in the assignments as well a true value (Prensky, 2008). Secondly, having students lead out in assignments can only help with the time management. You might even pick up a tip or two from them.
Good luck with it all. I am sure you will get the results you’re looking for as you journey this course. I hope I am as successful with my own goals.
Wesley Rogers
HS English
References:
Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2010). Program 3: Enriching content area learning experiences with technology: part 1. [DVD]. Integrating technology across the content areas. Baltimore,
MD.
Prensky, M. (2008). Turning on the lights. Educational Leadership, 65(6), 40-45.
Dear Michael,
ReplyDeleteI love your heading for your blog. The first thing that I want to tell you is that I commend you on your reflective thinking. Sometimes it is hard to think about what the difficulties might be since we have not done the goal yet. Creative thinking is something that is very important for us as educators to have and to be able to understand how to teach it. Dr. Cennamo (2010) states that we need to have innovate thinkers for this 21st Century (Laureate Education, 2010). One of your actions stated was to find resources that will be helpful for you to teach creative thinking. I will also be looking for resources and will be looking on the ERIC database to see if there are any research-based activities that would help my goal of student learning with technology. I am sure that there would be some resources that would help you find possible ways to teach creative thinking. It will be interesting to follow your blog and see if you find more exciting things that involve technology to implement into your classroom.
I enjoyed reading your post!
Alisha
Language Arts Support
References
Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2010b). Program 2: Promoting creative thinking with technology. [DVD]. Integrating technology across the content areas. Baltimore, MD.
Connie-
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, thank you for the suggestions. I feel that I have done an ok job thus far of trying to implement authentic learning into my classroom and become somewhat proficient in some of these technological devices. Also, I highly agree that my students would be a wonderful addition and resource as for them to provide feedback of what they may be interested in doing. Utilizing technology does take patience and careful planning (Laureate, 2010). Teachers along with students will need to familiarize themselves with these new technologies in order to have the necessary skills to complete the assignment, or in our case, explain how to use the technology.
Thanks again for your ideas.
References:
Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2010). Program Three. Enriching content learning experiences with technology Integrating technology across the content areas, Part 1. Baltimore, MD.
Wesley-
ReplyDeleteThanks for your ideas. I greatly appreciate your knowledge and insight. I consider myself as an open person in terms of never being satisfied with my teaching, especially if there are technologies available to me and my students. I sometimes consider projects in my classroom that combine authentic instruction to create active learning where students will use their knowledge and success to experience life and perhaps change something in the world (Cennamo, Ross, & Ertmer, 2009). I highly agree that students need to take advantage of leadership opportunites and consider me as a facilitator of learning rather than a teacher. I have learned a great deal from my students already concerning new technology, and I hope to one day be able to incorporate a wide range and variety of technology based projects into my classes. Thanks for the ideas.
References:
Cennamo, K., Ross, J. & Ertmer, P. (2009). Technology Integration for Meaningful Classroom Use: A Standards-Based Approach. (Laureate Education, Inc., Custom ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.
Alisha-
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, I appreciate your thoughts. I agree that reflection is an important tool in the classroom for teachers. However, one issue is time. Granted it probably would not take that much time to complete, but with all of the commotion and sometimes hectic days, it is tough to find time. I ask my students to reflect on projects or assignments. Why shouldn't I? In fact, refletion is necessary to the educational process for students because they find out what they have learned, how they learned it, and will hopefully transfer that knowledge into an active or constructive understanding of the material (Cennamo, Ross & Ertmer, 2009). This is good advice, and I appreciate your comments.
References:
Cennamo, K., Ross, J. & Ertmer, P. (2009). Technology Integration for Meaningful Classroom Use: A Standards-Based Approach. (Laureate Education, Inc., Custom ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.