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.
Jason,
ReplyDeleteIt sounds as though your GAME plan is well thought through. I would caution you, however, not to try to do too much. Learning one new technological tool and finding how to integrate it effectively is a good goal in and of itself. I have learned from experience that trying to add too many new things at once is not really effective in the long run. I like your ideas about computer tutorials, online discussions, and web-conferencing. The discussions and conferences could lend to communicating with people from anywhere in the world. Good ideas!
Fred responds to Jason –
ReplyDeleteI really like the idea of using computer tutorials for math. It seems like they allow students to work at personalized pace and can allow stronger students to move and not get bored. As I am sure you are aware, they aren’t as effective without teacher guidance and it is apparent you have addressed this in your GAME Plan from all of your questions.
I am very interested in why you chose video conferencing for your subject matter. Back in November my students participated in a competition via Skype conferencing because we couldn’t make it to the actually event. They did win third place without even being there, but I think they could have taken second or even first if they were present at the actual venue. Video conferencing was very challenging and I look forward to seeing how you make it work for math.
Good luck with your well-written GAME Plan!!
Fred
You have a very good game plan here. I like the fact that you are thinking about web conferencing. there are so many opportunities with web conferencing and how it can be used in your classroom. I had a project that i did with my jr high students and we web conferenced with another school to go over the project and the results. It is a great opportunity for students to get experiences that they normally would not get. Also it gives students experience which might help them in the workforce later. It is good that you came up with goals and questions to ask which would allow you to reach your goals.
ReplyDeleteIt is very crucial that you discuss with you colleagues because not only will they provide another view to you situations but they will offer advice to help you with any problems you may run into. having a game plan is a crucial part having a successful game plan. I make sure that i have a plan before moving forward in my classroom. You are so right in saying that you colleagues with help strengthen your situations and how the project goes by giving valuable feedback.
Jason,
ReplyDeleteYou have a chosen two really great goals for yourself. One of the problems I always face in my own classroom is trying to figure out how I can revisit and reteach students a topic. I often find myself feeling very uncreative and not knowing how to approach or explain the topic or skill any differently than I did the first time. Tutorials and conferencing will definitely offer you the opportunity to reteach in a different way if you chose to use it in that way.
I also wanted to make a few suggestions towards helping you in your GAME plan. I am not sure how advanced your students are regarding technology (if they are anything like mine, they are below average, but hopefully not). However, you can have students create their own tutorials on various topics and skills to teach others. The advanced students especially might be able to do this right away, but it could also serve as an end product to a unit of study. Once you have used the technology in your classroom and students have seen it modeled, it can really help students to have to teach and explain the information to someone else. Resources that I have used for tutorials in the past are YouTube (for myself, as my district blocks this site while I am at school) and SchoolTube, which often offers really great lessons or videos from other students, classes, or teachers. I am lucky enough to have access to Discovery Education streaming at my school, but this is a paid resource.
Another way that you can monitor your progress is by surveying your students. Often, I think a video or a tutorial has solved my problems only to find out that the majority of the class was lost after watching it. You could quickly survey students with a quiz or some type of questionairre in order to guide your choices. Finally, I think it is a great idea to share your resources and discoveries with your colleagues after you have determined whether it was all successful or not, it's also great to use your colleagues before you choose your strategies. Allow them to guide and suggest different resources that they have used in the past. Perhaps you could even work with a teacher from a higher grade or an advanced placement class about creating and providing tutorials for your students about particular topics.
Hopefully you have found some of these suggestions helpful. Good luck moving forward in your GAME plan!
Caitlin Ward
Hi Jason,
ReplyDeleteI would also like to learn how to develop and use tutorials. As a result of increasing technology, learning is becoming more and more self- directed. I think it would also be excellent for the students to have a sort of interactive instruction web tool. With this option the instruction can also be differentiated. Students work at their own pace, and move on when the have mastered the skill. Often we teach things in class that our students forget hours later when they are at home doing homework. I have sometimes wanted to help students after school hours. However, most of the students at my school are bussed and their parents have nobody to pick their child up after school hours. Public transportation is not an option at my location. When doing after school tutoring web conferencing seems to be an excellent way to solve the transportation problem. It should also be very helpful when students have to be absent. I am familiar with Khanacademy. However I am not familiar with edmodo and jmap.com. I would like to know more. Finding the time to review software is a challenge. During the summer I usually spend a lot of time exploring new software and websites. It is very difficult to do during the school year. Do you have any suggestion for how I can work it in?
Karen
Ms. Williams,
ReplyDeleteThank you for the comment and I will caution on trying not to do too much. I understand sometimes less is more.
Fred,
I chose video conferencing just because I think it is an interesting way to communicate with students from other schools, states, or even countries. This is important for our students because they need to branch out and see that there is more to education than just what happens in our town. I think that is great that you were able to participate via Skype.
Caitlin,
My students are fairly good with technology for the most part, maybe average, but the only problem with students creating their own tutorials is time. I am so tight on time now that I don’t have much time to branch out from the current curriculum. Thank you for your suggestion thought, I like the idea. I like the idea of surveys, too. It allows me to get the students honest opinions.
Kay,
Edmodo is just a class web page that you can create. On there you can make quizzes, post homework and post grades. You can also link with teachers from other schools. Jmap.org stands for Jefferson Math Project. It is a data base for old New York State regent’s exams and it breaks down by topic or subject. You can get worksheets, tutorials or lessons.