Monitoring My GAME Plan

Information and Resources I have Found

I have been finding some very useful information and resources. Thanks to my colleagues and fellow Walden students I have found some very useful web sites for videos. The web sites I have been using, regentsprep.org and jmap.org have continued to provide valuable videos for students. I have also checked out SchooTube and Discover Education that one of the fellow students, Caitlin has recommended. Unfortunately, Discovery Education required a subscription. Khanacademy.org has a lot of great videos on it as well. I have all of these posted to our class web page. For given topics, I do pick out videos that I believe are the best and then recommend those to my students.  

Modifying My Plan

I have modified my action plan since I first started thinking about it. I have condensed my goals. I am trying to go with the mentality that less is more. I do not want to try and implement too much with my students and overwhelm them. I want to try and stick with just using the tutorial videos for now. Once I have met my goals for this plan, I will work on implementing more.

What I have Learned

What I have learned so far is that forming a GAME plan, making goals and evaluating those goals takes a lot of time. Implementing the actions and then reflecting on actions to see if your goals have been met is most beneficial. Reflection does require time and it is not something that just takes place. I have also learned that communication is an important tool as well. Communicating with colleagues helps a great deal. Colleagues are able to give different perspectives on why something went the way it do or why a particular lesson did not work.

Questions That Have Arisen

Questions that have arisen are am I given students enough time to view the videos and take adequate notes? Instead of giving the students a half a period (20 minutes), maybe the students need a full class period (40 minutes) to take adequate notes and ask questions that arise.  

Reviewing my GAME Plan

One of my fellow students suggested focusing on one goal (activity) at a time. I think this is a good idea to ultimately reach my goal and not do too much. Sometimes, less is more. I am going to focus on using computer tutorials and videos inside and outside of the classroom.

To carry out my GAME plan, the resources I will need will consist of my colleagues, and computers via the computer room, the classroom, and/or at home. My colleagues are going to be a big asset to reach my goals. They will help give me an outsider’s opinion about what I am doing in the classroom and whether using the tutorials are ultimately benefiting my students. Through my own research and resources my colleagues have used, I will make a list of the best possible videos for tutorials. This is aid in reinforcement of lesson for students who are struggling or absent. I can also use tutorials to introduce a lesson or reinforce a topic before a new lesson.

Additional information may consist of what my students know and already know. I need to ask myself, are my students progressing and benefiting from the video tutorials or do I need to do just as much instruction and reinforcement with or without the tutorials. I also need to consider how I incorporate them into my lessons. I am tight on time now and I need to implement them without losing a lot of time in the classroom.

So far I have been able to talk to my colleague about some of the resources they use and if they know where I could find videos. I have searched through Jefferson Math Project (jamp.org) to see what type of videos each topic has. I think this website would be valuable because I already have a link to the website on Edmodo, where I have class websites set up. I can post links to the videos every day when I post the homework to reinforce what we did in class. This will be great for all students that are absent.

Any additional ideas or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Developing My Personal GAME Plan

Setting goals for strengthening my confidence and proficiency is my first priority. I plan to strengthen my confidence and proficiency in facilitating and inspiring student learning and creativity and designing digital-age learning experiences and assessments. One of my goals is to learn more about computer tutorials and how I could use them to increase critical thinking skills. Another goal is to learn more about web-conferencing tools and explore ways to incorporate them in the classroom. Questions that I should be thinking about accomplish my goals for both personal and student plans are what do I want to know or be able to do? What do I already know? How will I know if I have been successful? What do my students need to know? What do my students already know that can help them? How will I know if my students have been successful? (Cennamo, Ross, & Ertmer, 2009)

The actions that I will take will be to establish computer tutorials that my students can follow. For algebra, there are videos explaining every topic on jmap.com. Khanacademy is a website that also has over 3,000 videos spanning from arithmetic to physics. An action for learning about web-conferencing is to find what is available for conducting meetings. I could use Edmodo for class discussion. Discussion can be one-to-one or whole group. I could incorporate web blogs and Skype to host meetings and discussion as well. Questions that will help me take action to meet my goals will be what information do I need to meet my goals? What learning strategies will I use? What resources are needed? What content information do my students need? What instructional strategies will I use? What resources do my students need? (Cennamo, Ross, & Ertmer, 2009)

Reviewing the software’s will help monitor my progress. Creating a check list, possibly of the questions that I have mentioned above will ensure that I am progressing and meeting my goals. From deciding what I already know and need as well as what my students already know and need will help guide me toward strengthening my confidence and proficiency in facilitating and inspiring student learning and creativity. This will also help my design digital-age learning experiences and assessments. Other questions to consider are am I finding the information I need? What patterns are emerging from the information? Do I need to modify my action plan? Are my students understanding the information and mastering skills? What patterns are emerging from student’s performance? Should I modify my lesson and unit plan? (Cennamo, Ross, & Ertmer, 2009)

I will evaluate and extend my learning through discussing my goals and strategies with my colleagues. We will discuss ways to increase student learning and creativity. Once I have decided on the best approach and implemented them in the classroom, discussing my results with my colleagues is also a great way to evaluate and extend my learning toward my goals. My colleagues will help give me an outsider’s perspective on how to strengthen my activities or other options as to how to implement them to get the best results. Questions to discuss with my colleagues could be have I met my learning goals? Should I modify my learning goals or strategies? What will I do differently in the future? Did my lesson work? Should I modify the goals, assessment, or my instructional strategies? What should I differently in the future? (Cennamo, Ross, & Ertmer, 2009)

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.