I can say that I have taken baby steps to carry out my GAME plan. For example, I started a class discussion board as a test run. I only did this with two groups of students (grade 7) and we only tried it out for one topic, but I think it was important to do this to become familiarized with the process. I realized through this how much work it is to moderate student comments/posts.
I also already have a website, which includes a lot of the information that I would like to include on my blog to keep students AND parents in the know. I think I will have to find out how many of my parents/students actually view the website to stay abreast of happenings in the classroom.
Finally, I have recently participated in a professional development opportunity to try to promote technology. As part of a recent state mandate, I have volunteered to be part of my school's professional development committee. The people I am working with on this committee and I will use data collected to determine next year's professional development plan for our staff. We will be working on this throughout the next couple of months. I will be trying to provide more technology opportunities for my colleagues, if possible.
I do not plan on modifying my plan, as I still feel the goals I have set are worthy and attainable!
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Carrying out my GAME plan
To carry out my GAME plan effectively, I will need a site to host my blog. My district has already setup wordpress for everyone if we would like to use that. I think it would be a good place to start as our technology department would be able to provide support if I run into problems. I would also need information on effective uses of classroom blogs. Perhaps someone has done a research study on this already? It would certainly be beneficial for me to read up on this, or even talk to colleagues who already have blogs implemented and see what strategies they use. Video would be another great way for me to achieve my goals- I could find video tutorials on making a classroom blog, uses for a blog, or videos on the topics that I would like to attend workshops for. I have already explored the blogs of some other colleagues to see what types of things they are doing with them. I am going to try to also contact district supervisors to see if they could recommend blogs of teachers in the district who I may not know.
Thursday, January 14, 2010
My GAME plan
The first standard that I do not feel completely confident in is, “3b. collaborate with students, peers, parents, and community members using digital tools and resources to support student success and innovation”. In order to improve how I feel about this standard, I think I would like to experiment with a class blog. Because I have several different levels (Italian 5, 6, 7, and 8), I think I would start small and practice with just one level until I become more comfortable. The blog would include things like a class calendar to show upcoming assignments, links to websites for practice, a question of the day that relates to the topic we are studying, and maybe a cultural fact of the day, etc. Although I already have a site, I think a blog would allow for students to communicate with each other and collaborate more. My only concern with a blog is that I would have to moderate comments, and it would take up a lot of time to do so with over 100 students. I would also include a link to student grades on the blog. Parents and students could use it to check overall averages, missing assignments, etc. I would monitor my progress by the participation in the class blog. Over time, if the percentage of students who participate in the blog increases, I would think that the blog is a successful one, assisting in improving student success. In order to extend my learning, I would like to spend some time on other classroom blogs to find more ideas or ways to improve the one I create.
Next, I know I need work with the standard, “5a. participate in local and global learning communities to explore creative applications of technology to improve student learning.” My goals to strengthen this indicator include attending more workshops or professional development opportunities where I can share ideas with colleagues on implementation of technology. I can request release time from my administrators, or suggest topics for them to teach us about during professional development days in-district. Once I attend these meetings, I will make it a goal to implement one new thing learned in my own classes. After implementing these new strategies, I will observe how effective they are with my students, and adjust/modify my lesson from there.
Next, I know I need work with the standard, “5a. participate in local and global learning communities to explore creative applications of technology to improve student learning.” My goals to strengthen this indicator include attending more workshops or professional development opportunities where I can share ideas with colleagues on implementation of technology. I can request release time from my administrators, or suggest topics for them to teach us about during professional development days in-district. Once I attend these meetings, I will make it a goal to implement one new thing learned in my own classes. After implementing these new strategies, I will observe how effective they are with my students, and adjust/modify my lesson from there.
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Reflection: EDUC 6721
Throughout the course, I think the most striking revelation that I had about teaching new literacy skills is that as much as we think our students (who have grown up with technology at their fingertips) know how to navigate technologies well, they really do not. Despite how much access our students may have to computers and the Internet, they still need a lot of training in reading and analyzing the information they find. In fact, literacy skills that were taught in the past do not suffice for them. It is necessary that new literacy skills are taught in schools as well as traditional ones for students to be successful now.
Going forward, I would like to incorporate more lessons where I focus on new literacy skills. Prior to engaging in an activity that involves technology, I plan to do a lesson that focuses in on how to appropriately locate and evaluate resources. The knowledge gained in this course will give me the tools to teach students the “how” in locating valuable resources.
I would like to seek out professional development opportunities (workshops) so I can grow as far as teaching literacy skills. I think it would be beneficial to attend workshops on inquiry based design. I could also seek out professionals within my own district for this. I know that one of the supervisors has everyone in his department use inquiry-based lesson planning. I am going to seek him out and see if he has any materials I can use.
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Reflection: Final Blog Post
Upon reflection of my "Personal Theory of Learning", I found that not too much about my thinking had changed. In my theory, I talked about the importance of creating a classroom environment where the student is exposed to a variety of learning acitvities to practice a skill and as much of the target language as possible. It was important to me to create a classroom setting that mimicked the country we were studying as far as the amount of the target language spoken. I think I would add to my theory the importance of having the students make connections throughout these lessons. It is important to connect student to student, student to text, student to teacher, and student to world. This will make the material studied more relevant.
I would like to immediately implement some of the ideas that I came up with throughout the course to my instructional practice. For example, I would like to use VoiceThread as part of a culminating assessment in one of my units. This will enhance my students' learning because they will be working collaboratively on a VoiceThread of their own then by extension, commenting on others' threads to critique, or ask questions. I would also immediately implement Quia.com to provide immediate feedback to students when they are practicing a skill. Finally, I would like to implement blogging in my class to extend the lesson outside of the classroom. Students could ask questions or discuss ideas after the lesson and this will hopefully solidify the content for them.
As far as the long-term goals are concerned, I hope to keep searching for new technologies, and try to modify my existing lessons to be more student-centered and to include technology. I plan to accomplish the former by joining in teacher discussion boards on the internet and also collaborating with the technology department in my school to keep abreast of new technology that can be implemented in my lessons. I hope to accomplish the latter little by little. Perhaps each month, I will choose a lesson and try to modify it to include one of the tools learned in this course or that I have found on my own to make the lesson more engaging.
I would like to immediately implement some of the ideas that I came up with throughout the course to my instructional practice. For example, I would like to use VoiceThread as part of a culminating assessment in one of my units. This will enhance my students' learning because they will be working collaboratively on a VoiceThread of their own then by extension, commenting on others' threads to critique, or ask questions. I would also immediately implement Quia.com to provide immediate feedback to students when they are practicing a skill. Finally, I would like to implement blogging in my class to extend the lesson outside of the classroom. Students could ask questions or discuss ideas after the lesson and this will hopefully solidify the content for them.
As far as the long-term goals are concerned, I hope to keep searching for new technologies, and try to modify my existing lessons to be more student-centered and to include technology. I plan to accomplish the former by joining in teacher discussion boards on the internet and also collaborating with the technology department in my school to keep abreast of new technology that can be implemented in my lessons. I hope to accomplish the latter little by little. Perhaps each month, I will choose a lesson and try to modify it to include one of the tools learned in this course or that I have found on my own to make the lesson more engaging.
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Cooperative Learning and Social Theories
Social learning theories believe in the following:
Cooperative learning strategies support social learning theories. In cooperative learning, students are involved in a social process. They interact with each other in groups to learn. Students can pick up something from someone else in their groups and add that to their knowledge pool (observing and imitating).
In multimedia projects, students in the cooperative learning group can divide up the work and, depending on each other, come together to make a whole final product. Each student masters a task and can then teach the rest of the group about what they researched in a jigsaw fashion. Again, knowledge here is social.
- people learn by observing and imitating
- reality is constructed through humans' activity: it does not exist until people create it
- learning is a social process
- knowledge can change when new knowledge is created (connectivism)
Cooperative learning strategies support social learning theories. In cooperative learning, students are involved in a social process. They interact with each other in groups to learn. Students can pick up something from someone else in their groups and add that to their knowledge pool (observing and imitating).
In multimedia projects, students in the cooperative learning group can divide up the work and, depending on each other, come together to make a whole final product. Each student masters a task and can then teach the rest of the group about what they researched in a jigsaw fashion. Again, knowledge here is social.
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