Course 6714I3 Reflection

In the past in my building at school, I have heard a lot about differentiated instruction. I had my idea of differentiated instruction, and had my initial thought of how to implement it in my classroom. From this course, I began to get a different and more educated idea of what differentiated instruction really is, and why we must use differentiated instruction if we want to reach all our students. So how will I begin to implement these new strategies in my classroom this year? I plan to look back at the websites and resources that dealt with the Universal Design for Learning, and from these principles, try to make sure I hit different strategies to reach the different types of learning styles for the students in my classes. To me the UDL will be a great guide or checklist to see if I am differentiating my instruction in my lessons to reach the all my students and give them all a fair and equal shot in gaining an education. If I make a checklist myself from the UDL to look at while I am creating new lessons, and while I am looking at lessons that I have already creating that I will be teaching, I will be able to make sure that I have added the elements necessary to get all of my students involved in the lesson. Technology will serve as a big part of this, because much of the new technologies that are available to teachers to use to teach their students in the classroom are differentiated and has a little something for all different types of learners. These activities also grab the attention of our students, and this is a major factor when it comes to our students effort in the lesson. When we get our students attention and motivate them to learn, than we have a chance to get them to learn the things that we need them to. The major way to get their attention and motivate them is to teach them using the learning styles they prefer and by teaching them by relating things to their interests. These are the things that I hope to improve on this year. I hope to avoid the same pitfalls that I have fell into in the past where I do what is easier, instead of what needs to be done, and I must put the work in to improve my lessons so I am not alienating the other students in my class, and I give all my students an equal opportunity at an education.

EDUC-6713I-5 Integrating Technology Across the Content Areas Course Reflection

For this course we were to come up with our own GAME plan. Each week we did different work to work on our GAME plans and evaluate our own progress. In my own personal GAME plan, I wanted to inspire student learning and creativity by designing and developing digital learning experiences to use in the classroom. To this I came up with my set of goals so I could make these improvements and changes in my classroom next year. The more I began to research, the more I had to modify my plan. As I began to do my research, I began to talk to many of my colleagues, especially in my department, and many of them actually began helping me come up with lesson ideas and ideas of digital tools to use in the lessons. Many of the other teachers in my department decided that they also would like to implement these types of lessons in their classes next year as well, and we all began researching and bouncing ideas off each other, and we eventually began to slowly make progress in this area. Now that school is out, I have had more time to take these ideas and build on them, and am moving toward being able to use these types of lessons next year. To me the implementation of these lessons will be a major move for me in my educational instruction. The more I begin to use these types of activities, the more creative I will become myself when it comes to creating lessons that challenge my students knowledge and creativity. I feel that these will be the types of lessons that motivate my students to learn our content knowledge. By doing these types of lessons, my students will be exposed to real life situations that will benefit them when they are out of school. I am hoping that the skills that I teach my student swill be skills that that they will use for the rest of their lives. This will be more beneficial to them than memorizing facts on things they will never use again in their lives. Also, I am hoping that these types of lessons will increase student participation in the classroom, and this should make my classes more productive to my students.

NETS-T and NETS-S

When looking at at the ISTE's site and looking at the National Educational Technology Standards for teachers and students, on could clearly see how both are related. They have the standards that each students should know by time they leave school, and they then have standards of things that teachers need to be implementing in their classrooms to get their students to practice the 21st century skills they will need when they enter the real world. The teacher standards are the guidelines for what each teacher should use to engage their students. What is mapped out for them is plan for them to look at when developing lessons and assessing student learning. The students guidelines go hand in hand with this. Teachers could look at the student guidelines and see if their students can master these standards, and if not, the teacher needs to make accommodations to lessons to help their students improve in these area. Students can also use their guidelines as a assessment tool to grade their performance in these areas, and to see what areas they need improvement in. If I were to use the GAME plan process, I would use it very similar to the way it was used in our course. I would have my students look at the National Educational Technology Standards for students, and I would have them select two indicators that they felt they needed to make improvements in. I would have to tally up the results to see what areas I need to focus more on in my classroom, and then I would have my students follow the GAME plan to come up with their own plan to meet these indicators. We would start out by writing goals, and try to come up with ways to accomplish these goals, and then at the end of the semester, we would re-evaluate our GAME plan, and try to make the adjustments as needed to reach our goals, much like we have been doing in this class. Students could then get an idea of the technology standards that they need to master, and they could get some practice with coming up with a GAME plan. I feel that my students could benefit a lot from coming up with some goals and tracking these goals to see if they accomplished what they set out to.

Week 6 Revising my GAME plan

This week we are to look back at our original GAME plans, and revise them. So I looked back at what I have learned so far. My original goals were to become better at facilitating and inspiring student learning experiences and creativity, and to design and develop digital age learning experiences and assessments. The first thing that I did was look at my lessons, and try to develop some new lessons where I could incorporate some digital age learning that would challenge my students creativity. So I began to collaborate with some of my colleagues in my department about what types of problem based learning activities they do in their classes. Some did mock trials, and others explored problems in the community. I then began to look at their lessons, and began to get some ideas of ways to add these lessons into the units that I have already developed. This still was hard since I had never developed these types of activities before. But there are some really creative people in my department, and in a department meeting I asked for help developing the lesson, and I got many ideas from the group that I would not have gotten by myself. This got the ball rolling. I then wanted to design some digital age learning experiences that could go along with either this project, or some of the units that I teach. Some of my colleagues were able to help me with this, but for the most part I had to do the majority of my research on my own. I decided to focus on podcasts and video conferencing/distance learning. Here is where I have to make new goals. I want to begin using podcasts in my class when school starts next year. To have my students use this next year, I will have to teach them the ins and outs of podcasts. I am currently exploring this for myself. After I teach my students how to make and use podcasts, then we can use them with our content. So I must continue to work to be able to teach myself and all my students how to do podcasts. The second thing that I need to do is to continue to try and learn how to use distance learning in my class next year. I have a friend who also teaches history in another high school, and would like to come up with a distance learning activity that we could do with their class. But I am currently not sure how we would do this, let alone have any idea on the lesson or topic of the learning activity. So I will have to talk to my technology department and see what our options are, and try to come up with how we will do the activity. After that is decided, we can begin to work on the lesson itself. Now that I have narrowed down what I have to do, I must continue to work to implement these tools into my classroom this year.

Evaluating My GAME Plan

This week we were supposed to evaluate our GAME plan. I first looked back at what I originally wanted to accomplish in my GAME plan. I wanted to make improvements in the first two standards, Facilitate and Inspire Student learning and Creativity, and Design and Develop Digital-Age Learning Experiences and Assessments. To do this, I new that I needed to come up with lessons that would challenge my students and inspire them to learn by using their creativity, and I needed to do research to be able to develop lessons using digital tools that would give my students digital age learning experiences. First I began to collaborate with other teachers in my department to see what types of 21st century skills were being used by the other teachers that teach in the same area as I do. I found so great projects and mock trials that I would like to incorporate into my classes in the future. I then began to talk about what technology or digital tools they were using in their classes, and I told them the ones that I wanted to learn more about, podcasts, and video conferencing and distance learning. I asked if there were any other teachers who were interested in learning how to implement these into their classes as well. What I found out was that multiple teachers were interested, and a couple of us began to do research on these tools. Since we have limited time because it is the end of the school year, it has helped to have more than one person doing the research to hopefully be able to use these tools in class next year. We have all been discussing how to use some of these tools, and we have been talking about how we could use some of these tools in our lessons. I feel the thing that we still need to do is talk to the technology department at our school. They have been busy changing our schools grading system and email, so as they get more time, we can discuss with them the steps we need to take to use these digital tools in class next year, and how we could use video conferencing and distance learning. I feel I have got the ball rolling and have gotten others involved, but it will be all for nothing if we do not continue to research and and find a way to use these in our classes next year. This will be when my real evaluation will be done.

Monitoring my GAME plan

For this weeks blog, I am supposed to look back at my GAME plan, and I am supposed to begin to look at the steps that I have began to take to reach my GAME plan. So far I have begun to make progress working with other colleagues in my department (social studies) to talk about the types of activities they are doing in class that involve critical thinking and problem solving, and I have been talking to them about what types of digital tools they are using in class.. From them, I have came up with some ideas of different types of lessons that I would like to do in my class. My colleagues have given me some great ideas for lessons on different topics that I teach. Many of these lessons are very creative and have a lot of differentiated instruction in them. The best part about the lessons, is the 21st century skills that are involved in the lessons. The one thing that many of these lessons lacked was the use of technology or newer digital tools. Some of these lessons involved power point, and they were great lessons, but I would like to use some other digital tools in my lessons. I currently use power points in my class and know how to do them pretty well, so I would like to work on some new tools I need to learn. So I have narrowed the tools that I would like to explore to learn more about and possibly integrate into my classroom next year. The first thing that I have began to look at is video conferencing and distance learning. This sounds like something that my students would be into, and it sounds like an activity that could be very productive for my class. But I really do not know anything about it, so I am beginning my research to see what I would have to do to do this in my class. I will also have to contact my technology department to see what I would have to do to get this done. Another tool that I would like to use in my classroom next year is a podcast. I am currently talking to another teacher who would like to use pod casts in their class next year. I am currently trying to learn the ins and the outs of making pod casts. I have had one class where I had to make a podcast, and had never done it before. I got it done, and thought that it would be great to use in class, but I was not confident in my abilities with it, and I was not confident that I could teach my students how to use it. I am exploring this right now. I would like to talk to teachers who have used these tools in their classrooms, and see if they have any advice for me when it comes to how to incorporate these tools into my classroom, and things I need to look out for when doing these activities.

I myself feel that I am in the right direction researching these topics. I do feel that I have to take the time to try and get the technology department in my school more involved. Also, our school is getting a technology grant, and some of the teachers are going on professional development to learn how to integrate new technologies into the classroom. I will have to talk with them on these topics, and see if they will work with me to come up with ideas for these lessons, and if they have any knowledge they would want to pass on to me about these tools.

Carrying out my GAME plan

This week when reviewing my GAME plan, I looked at the things that I have to do to carry out my GAME plan. I looked at the goals that I set out, and tried to look at the resources that I need to carry out my plan, looked at the information that I will need to carry out my plan, and I began to think about the things that I have begun to do already to carry out my GAME plan. I think that I will have to first do a good amount of research to learn how to use some new technologies in the classroom. I will first have to decide the tools that I will want to use in the classroom. Once I have decided the tools I want to use, I am going to have to search on the Internet to figure out how to use the tools, and I am going to have to look for ways to use this tool in a lesson. More importantly, I will have to talk to the technology department in our school to figure out how to use this in my class, and then I will talk to other colleagues for ideas on how to use this tool in the classroom. Once I figure out the tools that I will use in class and how to use them, I will then have to talk to other colleagues to brainstorm ideas of lessons where I could use these new tools. More importantly, I would want to talk to colleagues who have done some inquiry based projects where they used problem solving skills in the lesson. By doing this, I feel that I will come up with enough ideas to be able to develop a lesson that will get my students to use the 21st century skills that will help them in the future. I feel that I have had problems developing these types of lessons in the past because I have never seen these types of activities in the past. Many of my fellow colleagues have began to use these types of activities in their classes, and many of them can help me game plan the lesson, and many of them can show me things to look out for and make suggestions to make my lesson work in my classroom. This is the major thing that I have done for my GAME plan so far. I have some really good teachers in my building, and many of them have shared ideas with me, or some teachers in my department have let me use their lessons in my class, and from doing these, I have finally been able to get an idea of how to run some of these 21st century skills lesson, and I have gotten ideas of lessons I would like to do in the future. I would like to have other teachers sit in on one of these lessons, or team teach with a teacher on one of these lessons, so I can get some instant feedback and evaluations on the lesson and make the adaptations necessary to make this lesson a success.

When looking at the National Education Standards for Teachers (NETS-T) I feel that I want to make improvements in the first two standards, Facilitate and Inspire Student learning and Creativity, and Design and Develop Digital-Age Learning Experiences and Assessments. I feel that I have a lot of knowledge in my subject matter, but I realize that I need to learn to use technology to advance my students learning. Once I do this, I will have to design and develop digital learning experiences. To be able to do this, I will have to do the research that is necessary to be able to incorporate these contemporary tools and resources to help improve my students learning of content knowledge. To do both of these, I must come up with my GAME plan to accomplish these goals. First I must set goals to accomplish both of these. I feel that I will be important for me to gain more knowledge of using contemporary tools in my classroom. So I feel that I must make a list of tools that I would like to possible use in my classroom, and then I must learn to use each of these tools. To do this I will do research on the Internet, and I will begin to work with the technology department in my school. This will help me learn to use these new tools in the classroom. Also, I am currently working with a football coach who I work with on a technology grant that we are getting at our school, and hopefully, this will help me learn the skills that I need to incorporate technology to make engaging lessons in the classroom. To monitor my progress, I would like to incorporate and use some technology in each one of my chapters that I teach. This is how I will monitor my use of these new technologies. This is where my evaluation will come from. I have learned in the past that I tried to incorporate some technology into my lessons, but I did not do enough research, and made some minor faults that hurt the lesson. I would never have thought of these problems had I not have done the activity. This is where I have made the most of my evaluations and improvements. This is where I hope to evaluate the work that I have done and come up with the adjustments that I need to to make improvements in my lessons. Once I learn these skills, I must then use my content knowledge skills and the new technology skills that I have learned to help student learning and creativity in face to face and virtual environments. To do this, I first must set the goal of incorporating these new activities and digital tools into my lessons, to help my students critical thinking and problems solving skills. To do this I will learn these knew skills and develop lessons to put them in place. To monitor this I will try to make at least one activity per chapter where I have an activity where my students do an inquiry based learning activity where they use problems solving skills in a real life situation. After this is done, I will evaluate the lessons and make the adaptations needed to the lessons to get my students to use the 21st century skills that will help them in the workforce in the future. These types of activities will help student motivation and hopefully it will keep my students actively engaged in lessons that will give them learning that they will remember forever.

6712 Course Reflection

When I look back at this course, the main thing that I took from it was how much has changed in education over a relatively short period of time. I looked at the definition of literacy when I went to school compared to the list of new literacies that we need to teach to our students in the future. There is a huge difference. So looking at this, how could we continue to teach the same way that we have in the past. Teachers must be willing to change to prepare our students for the future. This being said, do we just use some new media or technology to continue using the same methods we used in the past, or do we incorporate the use of teaching these new literacies to prepare our students for their lives outside of school. This course has opened my eyes to the skills that will be important to our students and our future students as they leave school. Many of these skills I had been ignoring in my classroom. We fall into a routine in our classrooms. We give our children structure so they know what is expected of them. But much of my classroom structure is repetitive, and I realize that many of my students are not using much researching skills, questioning skills, and problem solving skills in my class. These are the skills that will carry them the furthest in the future. This course has gotten me to begin to develop lessons that will foster these new literacies and give my students repetitions of these literacies that will give them valuable experience that will lead to the mastering of these skills. This will help my students in their jobs and every aspect of their life in the future.

A goal of mine in the future is to research or have some professional development on inquiry based instruction. I feel that inquiry based projects could be very beneficial to my students in the future. I currently have begun to come up with some inquiry based projects, but there are just some things that are still missing in these lessons. I have not used many of these types of lessons in the past, and I am trying to incorporate these into the classroom, but it is hard because I have not done these in the past. I have talked to some of the administration at our school and other teachers, and they have been talking about inquiry based instruction. This leads me to believe that our school will be doing some inquiry based instruction professional development next year during our in-service or early release days. This should lead to more of the teachers in my school experimenting with these types of lessons in the classroom. This should help the teachers collaborate on what they felt worked for them, what did not work, and some problems to look out for. By trying these lessons in my class and making my adjustments from things that I felt the lesson lacked, and by collaborating with my colleagues who are doing the same types of lessons, I hope to develop more inquiry projects that will get my students to use questioning, problem solving, and researching skills that will be important to them in the future. I feel that my students would love these types of lessons, and this should motivate them to work in my class. That would be very important to me, since currently, our students motivation is so low.