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.