Monitoring Your GAME Plan Progress

My goals for my GAME plan are to improve on all aspects of standard two, design and develop digital age learning experiences and assessments and standard three, model digital age learning of the National Education Standards for teachers.  This week I am monitoring and reflecting on if what I am doing is working for me and if I am learning what I need to (Laureate Education, Inc., 2009) in order to accomplish my GAME plan.  I am finding lots of information and resources to use in my classes for webquests and tutorials.  I even received many resources from my fellow colleagues at Walden University.  What I am lacking in is time to thoroughly evaluate each of these resources.  It is input overload at this point.  I held discussions with my students this past week and asked them if they thought they were learning from the computer webquests and tutorials that I have given them in the past.  What they shared with me was that they actually liked learning that way better than me lecturing while they take notes. 

I do not think I need to modify my action plan thus far.  Right now things seem to be on track for me to accomplish my goals.  I made an appointment with our schools technology advisor next week so he can teach me about using spreadsheets and a wiki in the classroom for the project-based technology-learning piece I want to add to a lesson where students will collaborate together. 

My fellow biology colleagues and I have not had a chance to go over the data from our 15-question assessment we gave to our students yet due to the short week this week.  So I don’t have the information about our best practices yet. 

The only new question that has arisen for me is am I going to have enough time to carry out this plan of mine by the end of this semester?  Finding time to meet with all of the people I need to meet with in order to carry out my plan has been a challenge because we all have different planning periods and schedules. 

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). (2009). Integrating    technology across the content areas. Baltimore, MD: Author.

National Education Standards for Teachers :  http://www.iste.org/docs/pdfs/nets-t-standards.pdf?sfvrsn=2

Carrying Out my GAME Plan

Last week for my graduate class I reviewed the National Education Standards for Teachers.   I decided that I needed to improve on all aspects of standard two; design and develop digital age learning experiences and assessments.  Some of the learning experiences that I particularly wanted to improve on are my webquests and computer-based tutorials that I give my students.  In order to improve these I will need my course text and will need to spend time finding reliable resources on the Internet.  I also want to add a project-based technology-learning piece into my lessons where students would collaborate with a wiki.  I have only worked with a wiki one time for a graduate class I took. I will need to make an appointment with our technology specialist and have him help me create a wiki for the class.  It would be great to hear how Walden colleagues have used Wiki’s in their classes.  My fellow biology colleagues and I have created a 15-question assessment to be used with student response systems.   Each of us is going to give it to all of our classes.  The data will go directly into performance matters, which is our school districts digital tool for collecting data on students.  We are going to compare the data and determine what best practices are working with the student population at our school.    We will collaborate and discuss what each of us is doing that works and does not work and determine the best practices we should use during our PLC time in the week. 

I also need to improve on all aspects of standard three; model digital age work and learning.  An example of why I need to improve on this is the fact that I don’t have any experience with a wiki.  I also need to improve my knowledge in how to use spreadsheets in class.  In order to increase my knowledge in digital age work and learning I need to meet regularly with my technology specialist to keep up to date with new technologies.  I can also sign up for any classes offered through my school district.  I need to model “life-long learning” and continue to go to classes that will teach me new technologies. 

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.

International Society for Technology in Education. (2011). Nets for teachers. Retrieved from http://www.iste.org/standards/nets-for-teachers.aspx

Developing My Personal GAME Plan

This post is for a graduate course I am taking called Integrating Technology Across the Content Areas.  My content area is high school biology.  This week we examined the National Education Standards for Teachers and set goals to improve on at least two of the five indicators.  Quite honestly, I think I could improve on all five of the indicators.  I think I am better at standard one, which is facilitate and inspire student learning and creativity, standard four, which is promote and model digital citizenship and responsibility and standard five, which is engage in professional growth and leadership.  The two standards I really need to improve on the most are standard two, which is design and develop digital age learning experiences and assessments and standard three, which is model digital age work and learning.  After reading the resources this week, I realized that these two standards are the ones I really need to work on. 

Improving on these indicators is part of my GAME plan (Cennamo et. al., 2009, p. 3) for this course.  GAME represents setting goals, taking action, monitoring my progress, and evaluating my progress.  I have been incorporating computer-based tutorials and webquests into my lessons for the past couple of years.  I came to realize this week that I have been going about this incorrectly.    I learned that tutorials provide a complete lesson that includes presenting information, providing practice, and evaluating student learning (Cennamo et. al., 2009, p. 53).  I don’t think the tutorials I include in my lessons include all three of these parts.  I also learned that webquests include an introduction that motivates students, an outcome of the lesson, steps for the students, information on how the students will be evaluated and a reflection activity for students.  I came to realize that all of my webquests do not cover each of these components either.  Hence, I need to work on standard two and develop better digital age learning experiences and assessments.  There are still many technological resources I need to learn to use myself so I will feel confident in integrating technology effectively into my lessons (Laureate Education, Inc., 2009).  Hence, I need to work on standard three model digital age work and learning. 

In order to achieve these goals I need to revamp my lessons and make sure I am including all the correct parts to the technology pieces I include in my lessons.  I also need to really pay attention and make sure my students are learning from this technology integration.  I will also start asking my students’ opinion on if they think they are learning from these exercises.  Since I teach several honors classes and I have a good rapport with them I think they will give me an honest answer about their learning.  I will monitor my progress on these goals by reflecting each week on what I have changed and included in my lessons as far as technology goes for standard two and I will try to learn at least one new technology to incorporate each month for standard three.  I will evaluate and extend my learning by testing myself and incorporating what I learn into my lessons and teaching what I learn to other teachers during professional development days.  The science curriculum specialist in my county has been asking me to share what I learn during these days and it is a great way to extend what I am learning.  My main concern is for my students, I don’t want them to feel like they are “powering down” (Prensky, 2008, p. 42) when they walk into my classroom.  

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). (2009). Integrating    technology across the  

     content areas. Baltimore, MD: Author.

National Education Standards for Teachers :  http://www.iste.org/docs/pdfs/nets-t-standards.pdf?sfvrsn=2

Prensky, M. (2008). Turning on the lights. Educational Leadership, 65(6), 40–45.