Reflection

Assessing for Learning Reflection

            Throughout this course, I have been challenged, intrigued, enlightened, and thoroughly educated about the importance of differentiated instruction (DI) in the classroom.  The role of DI in the classroom is an integral part of the learning process and challenges teachers to educate and reach every diverse student in order to achieve a set of attainable goals (Laureate, 2009b).  This course has taught me to truly think outside of the box to reach all of the diverse learners in the classroom because as educators, we owe it to our students to provide the best possible learning environment.  Furthermore, I have learned that technology is a great asset to differentiated instruction.  Using technology is a great motivator for students to do or try something different.  It caters to a variety of learning styles in the classroom and utilizing technology is an excellent resource that needs to be part of the lesson planning process (Laureate, 2009b).  Because of this course, I now realize the significance and importance of integrating technology into the classroom and as a result, I feel that I have much work to do this summer to plan and integrate differentiated instruction in my classroom.

            First of all, I realize that immediate changes need to happen in my own classroom.  I am fortunate that the summer is right around the corner because I will use this time to figure out how differentiated instruction will work in my classroom.  One aspect I know that needs to change is truly knowing my students.  I realize that part of differentiated instruction is being able to identify student interests and learning styles as well as creating a learning environment that is inviting and accepting to all students.  This will definitely increase the productivity of the teacher/student relationship and also connect students with other students, which is vital to differentiated instruction (Laureate, 2009a).  Although I will not know until prior to the beginning of the fall semester which students are in my class, I can definitely use this time to create and edit student learning profiles and interest surveys.  Teachers need to accept student diversity in the classroom and see it as a positive.  We can structure the learning environment for finding appropriate learning zones for students, flexible grouping of students together based on interests, learning needs, or learning profiles, and finding different supports and varied methods of instruction that strengthens the relationship between teachers and students and students with other students (Laureate, 2009b).   

            Secondly, I need to find ways to offer a variety of choices of assessment that integrates technology.  This will engage students, motivate them, and challenge them to learn to their own ability while giving the freedom of choice to decide their own course of learning and education (Rose & Meyer, 2002).Teachers need to realize the changing dynamics and demographics of our classrooms and find new ways to reach all children from the gifted all the way to severe learning disabilities.  The use of technology is one way to bridge the gap and offer the needed challenge for gifted students while assisting low level learners that need another medium of information (Bray, Brown, & Green, 2004).  With all of the resources discussed and exchanged with my fellow colleagues during this course, I am extremely confident to provide my students with a variety of options in order for them to choose what the best fit is for them.

            Finally, I need to focus every portion of my curriculum to include some kind of technological component.  Differentiated instruction challenges students to find their interests, passions, and utilize them to figure out how they learn best.  Not only does this give students a chance to meet the needs of a variety of students, but DI also allows for greater accountability and responsibility for their own learning (Davidson, 2011).  I have come to the conclusion that education needs to be an opportunity for students to showcase what they have learned and what they know.  I realize that students are bright, and I need to give them more opportunities to engage in technology and the course content.  In fact, I need to let my students make their own choices about their education.  I will be there to guide them and offer choices for how to display their knowledge, but I want my students to want to learn.  Integrating technology with differentiated instruction is one way to accomplish this.  I realize the road is challenging, but I simply need to step aside and allow my students to make choices and learn on their own.

            In close, this course and this program has definitely revitalized my views on the education profession.  I believe that I have the tools and knowledge to implement differentiated instruction into my classroom along with combining the use of technology in order to facilitate learning in the classroom.  I realize that I need to accept the diversity in learning styles and abilities to find methods of instruction that reaches all of the needs of my students.  Technology is a great way to motivate students, keep things fresh in the classroom, and allow students to showcase their knowledge while utilizing their own talents, abilities, and interests.  This has been a long journey, and although I am sad to see it come to an end, I firmly believe that I will become a better educator because of it.

References:

Bray, M., Brown, A., & Green, T. (2004). Technology and the Diverse Learner: A Guide to           Classroom Practice. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

Davidson, L. (2011). What Parents Need to Know About Differentiated Instruction. Hub Pages.             Retrieved April 6, 2011, from     hubpages.com/hub/What_Parents_Need_to_Know_About_Differentiated_Instruction

Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2009a). Program 7: Introduction to          differentiated instruction. [DVD]. Reaching and engaging all learners through technology. Baltimore, MD.

Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2009b). Program 8: What is differentiated           instruction?. [DVD]. Reaching and engaging all learners through technology. Baltimore,            MD.

Rose, D., & Meyer, A. (2002). Teaching every student in the digital age: Universal design for       learning. Retrieved from http://www.cast.org/teachingeverystudent/ideas/tes/

Reflecting on the GAME Plan Part 1

Throughout this eight week course, I must say that I have learned a great deal about how to implement and utilize technology in my classroom while learning how to create meaningful projects that address content standards.  The next step is taking what I have learned to create lessons and projects that my students will be responsible for doing in the upcoming semester.  Although I wish the timing of this class would have been at a different time because of my focus on finishing grading, creating final exams, and planning review sessions for my students.  I feel that my time could have been better managed to focus on my GAME plan goals, but life happens.

At the beginning of the course, I set two goals for myself.  First, I wanted to facilitate and inspire student learning and creativity by utilizing what I have learned from this course to promote, support, and model creative and innovative thinking through technology.  Part of this goal will be achieved when the dynamic of the classroom changes.  For example, no matter what the lesson, teachers and educators have to change the perspective of education.  In order to achieve this, teachers must be able to facilitate self-directed learning where students want to learn.  By creating meaningful and content based projects while utilizing technology, this can hopefully be achieved.  We have to continue to set goals for our own education and also teach goal-setting to our students as well (Cennamo, Ross, & Ertmer, 2009).

However, all educators know that there are other students that contain these creative skills, talents, and abilities and perhaps might not know what they are or know and might not care.  But, creative thinking in the classroom truly defines ownership when it comes to learning in the classroom.  Students learn about themselves and the process of learning rather than just from the content (Laureate, 2010a).  Creative learners think outside of the box, formulate problem solving skills, and find ways to display their knowledge while using a variety of technology, such as the use of music, film, video, music, or any type of art (Laureate, 2010).  This relates to the classroom simply because this type of learner needs an outlet to express what they have learned and usually do so in a manner that is very unique and creative.

The use of technology in the classroom is huge.  Since I began this Master’s Program, I was always interested in finding ways to become a better teacher in the classroom and integrating technology is definitely a step in the right direction.  Integrating technology in the classroom is important because it promotes authentic learning (Cennamo, Ross, & Ertmer, 2009).  By giving students a choice of how to display their information for a project, technology is almost always being used.  Whether they are creating a blog, a wiki, social networking, using technological devices such as smart phones or lap tops, students will also be more inclined to complete the project if there is an element of technology simply because they will find it more appealing to their individual learning style (Cennamo, Ross, & Ertmer, 2009).  Students could also find other uses of technology to help teachers integrate the content or communicate with students all contributing to the education process.

My second goal for my GAME Plan is similar to my first goal but focuses more on creating assessments and projects, utilizing technology, and integrating solid content into the learning for my students.  The content of any project is the most important.  What do we want our students to learn?  This is the plan of action or the goals we want to create for our students, which coincides with the curriculum and the standards (Cennamo, Ross, & Ertmer, 2009).  By utilizing creativity and combining that with technology and the content, the project will be a success and may have more of an impact on the learning of a student.  For instance, a student will take the content of the research and find ways to creatively display those ideas.  Again, this allows students to learn 21^st century skills, an opportunity to share their creativity, and find success in the classroom by learning the content.  Although I feel that I have done a great deal of work to achieve this goal, this is going to be an ongoing process.   

Reflecting on the GAME Plan Part 2

What I have learned from this course is the simple fact that all teachers trying to implement and utilize technology in the classroom are all in the same boat. We are like sponges trying to soak up all of this information and learn as much as possible because we all want to become better educators. While I have set goals for myself, I feel that they are going to be ongoing goals that will always be a work in progress. For instance, I have learned that using Nings, blogs, wikis, and other technologies in the classroom will take time to implement. I first have to master the skills necessary in order to be able to teach these skills to my students. Furthermore, change in the classroom is a necessary component of utilizing these new technologies in the classroom. For instance, by the beginning of the second semester, I want to have all of my classroom lectures recorded as podcasts. It seems that every student nowadays has an iPod or some sort of MP3 player, and I would like to utilize this technology by providing my students with an opportunity to go back and review the class lecture/discussion in case they missed something or because they might have been absent (The Consortium for School Networking, 2006). Because of this course, I now have the confidence and the education to make this goal a reality in my classroom.

Finally, there are several changes that I will definitely make in the beginning of the second semester in terms of integrating technology in the classroom. First of all, I will make it a goal of mine to assign a project with every unit we are studying in class. In these projects, they will be standard based and utilize some type of technology. In the past, I have not done this for my World History students because I felt that the projects I assigned were not rich enough in content. This class has taught me how to develop meaningful lesson plans, projects, and assessments in order to promote critical thinking, self-directed learning, and creativity while still focusing on the content standards. I will also use technology on a daily basis in all of my classes. Whether it is creating a short digital story to introduce a topic, using video clips found online, or simply referring to something on my blog, I will make technology part of my daily routine. I will encourage students to use technology whenever possible in my classroom, even if that means using their cell phones that have Internet access. I want to create an environment that encourages the use of technology but also strive to teach content rich material at the same time.

In close, I feel this course has definitely opened my eyes to the endless possibilities of technology in the classroom. Through constant collaboration with colleagues, I feel that I have a great start to truly change the dynamic of my classroom that focuses on utilizing technology to increase student learning in my classes. Also, I feel that my classes in the future will have students engaged in the material by using their own creativity and self-directed learning to think outside of the box and engage in their own personal educational journey.

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.

Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2010a). Program One: Promoting
self-directed learning with technology. Integrating technology across the content areas. Baltimore, MD.

The Consortium for School Networking. (2006, August). Hot technologies for education: What’s happening now and later? Middle Ground, 9(4), 12–15.

Using the GAME Plan

Throughout the last couple of weeks, I have noticed that I have not had the opportunity to really reflect and take measures to achieve my goals.  I, like all teachers during this time, have been focusing on final exams, finishing old grading, and planning review sessions with my students.  So as you can see, I have not had that much time to reflect on my goals or work towards achieving them.

All in all, I must say that I have come along way in addressing my goals of finding new projects and new technologies to incorporate into my classroom.  Throughout various resources from this course, discussing ideas with colleagues and peers, and simply through trying out some of the things that I have read and viewed during the video resources, I feel that I have a great deal of work ahead of me.  Let's face it.  There really is no such thing as time off for teachers.  Even during our breaks, we are continually looking for ways to improve our classrooms.  That's the professionalism in all of us, and we owe it to our students to find ways to become better educators.

For the upcoming semester, I realize that many of the ideas that I have will take valuable class time to explain because these will be new skills for many students.  Although similar to teaching a new concept in the classroom, by implementing technology, these new concepts will also require new technological skills.  For instance, teaching to the standards for World War I using basic and traditional methods of direct instruction will also require the teaching of these technological skills.  I have ideas about using digital storytelling in my classroom and in order for students to succeed in grasping the content, they will have to learn the content and the skills necessary to complete the projects using newly learned technological skills.  Though this may seem to be a challenge, it is a necessary evil considering that many of these skills are needed by today's 21st century students.

I have much work to do, but I am confident that I will achieve my goals and achieve success.

Revising The GAME Plan

This week has definitely been a struggle for me.  Not only am I wrapping up the first semester, trying to complete some long overdue grading, and working to complete my final exams, but I am also wrapping up my government students' first service learning project.  I must admit, I have not slept much this week, and I think I am getting sick.  No matter, I will push through as many educators do on a daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly basis.

As I review my GAME plan, I am continuing to work towards achieving my goals.  One thing I have realized this week and is something that I am always struggling with is the notion that organization reduces stress.  With a million things going on at once, it seems difficult for me to prioritize and focus on achieving one thing at a time.  Again, part of my GAME plan is to find ways to organize myself, which in the end will make me a better educator.  Also, I am finding ways to branch out and make connections in order to find meaningful, project based assessments in my class.  Through various resources, I have learned about Nings.  This interesting social networking tool can provide a daily exposure to technology for my students.  Hopefully this is something that I will continue to gain experience with and one day implement into my classroom. 

As for now, I really do not see setting more goals for right now.  I want to continue to utilize the resources I have learned, gain experience in using these technologies, and find appropriate ways to implement them into my classroom.  The resources for this course have helped tremendously by giving me examples of technologies to use for project based assessment, social, and educational networking.  However, part of my problem is instead of focusing on simply one concept, I tend to want to try and work on all of them.  I need to understand this is a learning process and like my students, I need to take the time to master the concepts in order to fully understand how and if these technologies will fit in my classroom. 

I think I will take a week off to focus on finishing up the first semester.  Although I have so much to do, I am sure that I will continue to contemplate and think of ways to achieve these goals.

Evaluating Progress

I realize this is late, but the work still needs to be done.  I have found myself in a position currently that has really opened up my eyes as to how to achieve my goals.  First of all, I feel that educators, as one of my colleagues pointed out, need to listen to their students' ideas.  I must say that I have learned a great deal from my students but until this past week, it never dawned on me to use their input for my own problem solving and goal achieving.  First of all, my first goal was to create new, content rich, project based assessments while implementing technology.  Since this was our first week back from Thanksgiving, I realized that we have much to be thankful for.  Sometimes the most insignificant thing to us could mean the world to somebody else.  This is why my government students are currently working on a service learning project that is devoted to using technology and students' ideas.  On our campus, my students and I are currently planning a letter writing campaign by sending personal notes and letters to our soldiers in harm's way.  Through Operation Gratitude (http://www.opgratitude.com/), my students will be collecting letters to soldiers written by our students and staff.  Students will have to find ways to promote the event (creating digital images and flyers), use problem solving and critical thinking skills, presentation, and technology (create PowerPoint or Movie) for the presentation.  For the most part, this is a student driven assignment, and I am just trying to find ways to assess my students.  They are required to have daily blog posts, attendance will be figured in some way, student presentations, and a final reflection post.  I am still looking for ways to improve this, but this is the first time I have implemented anything like this in my class. 

Monitoring the GAME Plan

As I reflect upon my goals for this week, I must say that I am a little behind.  I guess my excuse is that I have a week off to finally catch up on my sleep and all of my grading that I have put off until this point.  No matter, I will answer the following questions to the best of my ability.

For the most part, I have had a good start on finding some resources available that I can utilize in my classroom.  Since I am on break, I do have an opportunity to email some of my colleagues and pick their brains for technological resources they utilize in the classroom.  Also, I have received some good ideas and information by collaborating with my colleagues in this class.

Secondly, I do not think I need to modify my plan of action, but I do need to spend more time on my goals and the necessary actions to complete them.  This modification could come further down the road, but for now, I need to just simply put some more time and effort into coming up with reasonable resources to use in my classroom.

Thirdly, I have learned that many of my colleagues are in the same boat as me.  Many are trying to figure out ways to really improve the use of technology within their own classrooms for the benefit of their students.  Again, I think that I simply need to spend more time on "picking" the brains of my colleagues to develop reasonable technological resources that can be used in my own classroom.

Finally, I do not have any new questions as of right now simply because I have not done a ton of work on completing these goals.  I realize that this is the point of this class, and I will be honest, I need to do a better job of finding resources to use in my classroom.

I am open to any suggestions that you might have and will welcome your ideas with an open mind.  Thanks.