My GAME Plan for NETS-T

         As far as my GAME plan goes for increasing my confidence and proficiency in a few indicators in the NETS-T I have found that many of the indicators where I am lacking have to do with professional development. This makes sense to me for two reasons. First, I have not had a lot of time for professional development outside the normal work hours of teaching because I have been taking master’s classes since February 2011. The second reason is that I do not teach nor live near a big school district that can offer many technological professional development workshops. The nearest school districts big enough to offer valuable workshops is either two or four hours away and our district does not have the budget to send teacher’s across the state. The indicators that I find myself struggling with the most are part of the “Engage in Professional Growth and Leadership category".

"Teachers continuously improve their professional practice, model lifelong learning, and exhibit leadership in their school and professional community by promoting and demonstrating the effective use of digital tools and resources". "Teachers:

a.	participate in local and global learning communities to explore creative applications of technology to improve student learning.
b.	exhibit leadership by demonstrating a vision of technology infusion, participating in shared decision making and community building, and developing the leadership and technology skills of others.
c.	evaluate and reflect on current research and professional practice on a regular basis to make effective use of existing and emerging digital tools and resources in support of student learning.”                                              International Society for Technology in Education. (2007)

         As far as my goals go for each of these indicators I want to make sure that when I have completed my master’s classes I go back to some of my favorite integrating technology in the classroom blogs and follow them so that I can stay up to date with what other teachers are doing. It seems like when I have been in these classes and have been asked to visit blogs or explore other technology programs I get very little time to discover them until I am being asked to move on to another strategy or program. It is a little overwhelming, so that is why I plan on researching various technological tools like virtual field trips, blogs and wikis to help my students this year.  When it comes to exhibiting leadership and helping the technology skills of others I want to share the results of my inquiry research project with my school staff so that they may learn new skills to use in the classroom. My third goal goes along with professional development and staying up to date with new research that is out there on technology and its’ uses in the classroom. If I am not able to travel to professional development workshops then I would like to use my own time to read articles about new technologies and how I could incorporate them into my classroom.  

        I plan on monitoring my progress by keeping a checklist on my computer screen that reminds me constantly while I am on the computer to search for new technologies and strategies to help me in my classroom. It will also remind me to check my blog and add to my blog so that I do not lose followers. The checklist will also include topics I am interested in learning more about and possible dates of professional development opportunities nearer to my area.

         One of the best ways for me to learn and really retain information is to repeat it. I plan on evaluating and extending my learning by posting the new information I gather on technology and other sources that help my teaching on my personal blog. I will encourage friends of mine in my district, along with the teachers in my building to follow my blog so that they may learn a quick tip or two. By posting it on my blog I have repeated the information and made it even clearer in my own head. It is also a great way for me to keep track of my learning by always having a copy of it on the Internet. Sometimes it is impossible to meet up and discuss issues we are having in our classrooms and ask for help from our peers, but by having my information, both successes and struggles, I can not only help my peers, but hopefully also help them with some of their issues.

Reference 

International Society for Technology in Education. (2007). National Educational Technology

Standards for Students. Retrieved on January 10, 2012 from the International Society for Technology in Education website:

http://www.iste.org/standards/nets-for-students/nets-student-standards-2007.aspx

Final Reflection

As far as my personal theory or model of how students learn I said at the beginning of the class I firmly believe in repetition, collaboration and adapting lessons to meet the different learning styles. I feel this class helped strengthen the methods and strategies that I use to meet the needs of all my students. It also helped me discover new methods, and definitely new technologies that will help me meet all students’ needs.  Reading and reflecting on the new strategies and how to integrate them with technology really helped me see how the learning theories, strategies and technology all work together so that I could start producing lessons with all three of these components included (Pitler, Hubbell, Kuhn & Malenoski, 2007). Before, I would think of these three components as separate and producing different results, but now I can see how they all work hand in hand with each other. I also was able to see what a big part the social learning theory has to do with my personal learning theory because I believe collaboration is such a strong influence on how a student learns (Laureate Education, Inc., 2011). 

One of the biggest immediate adjustments I will make to my instructional practice regarding technology integration after completing this course is I will be online looking for more resources to use in my classroom or to help my teaching partners. I am very excited to get more resources for the interactive whiteboard as well.  One of the technology tools that I would like to use with my students is the virtual field trip. My students come from low socioeconomic families and their ability to get out and travel to places very far away is very limited. This makes my job of bringing the outside world in to the classroom that much more important. With a virtual field trip I do not have to worry about permission slips, kids being absent or even finding the money for the field trip. With technology improving more and more each day the field trips that are available online will only get better as well. The other technology tool that I am excited to use is the concept map. The concept map not only goes hand in hand with the virtual field trip, but it also helps get the students exposed to organizing their thinking and learning on the computer. There are so many complex concepts in science and social studies that can easily understood when they are laid out in an organized fashion. For my three major science units of ecosystems, land and water and motion and design I plan on finding virtual field trips that accompany them and concept maps to help the students follow their learning. My repertoire of instructional skills as a result of this course has expanded quite a bit now. More importantly I now know that the instructional strategies that I already feel comfortable with can be integrated with technology easily and efficiently.  I think using the basic instructional strategies that all teachers should know and master is very important, but with today’s changing technological advances it is also very important for teachers to prepare their students for the technology filled world.

            One of my long term goals is I would like to make sure that I use my interactive whiteboard at least once a week to show something to my students or to work with my students. The second part of this goal is to make sure that once a week I allow the students to use the whiteboard on their own. As the months go on in the school year I would like to increase the time I use and the time my students use the whiteboard each week. I plan on taking more time looking up resources that I can use the whiteboard with and fitting them into my lessons. I will add a spot in my lesson plans to fill in an activity each day for using the whiteboard to help achieve my goal.

My other long term goal is finding or even creating my own virtual field trips. I would like to link them all to my science units because I know that I have a big responsibility to bring the outside world in to my classroom for my students. I know that virtual field trips are still pretty new so I am thinking that it would be helpful and even fun if I was to make my own virtual field trips.

References

Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2011). Program eight: Social learning theories [Video webcast]. Bridging learning theory, instruction and technology. Retrieved from http://laureate.ecollege.com/ec/crs/default.learn?CourseID=5700267&CPURL=laureate.ecollege.com&Survey=1&47=2594577&ClientNodeID=984650&coursenav=0&bhcp=1

Pitler, H., Hubbell, E., Kuhn, M., & Malenoski, K. (2007). Using technology with classroom

instruction that works. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

Voice Thread

http://voicethread.com/share/2303214/

Connectivism and Social Learning in Practice

After reading the chapter in Using Technology with Classroom Instruction that Works book I discovered some great examples to use in my science classroom when it comes to grouping, but also found many ways in which, “Cooperative Learning” shares common themes with the social learning theory (Pitler, Hubbell, Kuhn & Malenoski, 2007).

Dr. Orey discusses the strategy called “Jigsaw” where students are randomly grouped for a cooperative learning experience (Laureate Education, Inc., 2011).  In the chapter on cooperative learning one of the generalizations states, “Organizing groups based on ability levels should be done sparingly” and with the strategy of jigsaw this helps alleviate the ability grouping each time (Pitler et al., 2007).  Another generalization states, “Cooperative learning groups should be rather small in size,” this is important to the social learning theory because with this theory the students each need to have a say and feel like they are involved with creating the artifact (Pitler et al., 2007). When groups get too big there are more opportunities for students’ voices to get lost and students lose the benefit of working with others. One way in which I use cooperative learning and also tap into the social learning theory is with expert groups in my classroom.  We have four kids in each of our six table groups. I call each of the number ones back separately, all the number twos, all the number threes and finally all the number fours. Each number gets taught by me about a certain subject. In this unit I am doing right now it is ecosystems. My number ones come back and learn about pond ecosystems, number twos about river ecosystems, number threes about the steppe ecosystem and number fours become an expert on the Blue Mountain ecosystem. These students then go back and teach the rest of their group members. Finally, as a class we all come together and I randomly pick students to give me an answer that will fill in the table I have up on the wall. I can call on any student and they get points for a right answer to fill in the table so this makes it so everyone at the table is held accountable. This strategy is very useful because all my students are ELL and they really need that practice to just use the English language. It is also beneficial for the students because they get to interact with each other and they can ask their “expert” if they have questions on the topic.           

In order to really take these expert groups and turn them into a real cooperative learning experience I could create a rubric for the students to grade themselves at the end of the unit. The rubric, like it states in Using Technology with Classroom Instruction that Works, would have to include how the students felt they worked as a team (Pitler et al., 2007). This would rubric would really help keep the students focused on how they were being graded, what was expected of them and how to be a successful member of a team, a very important 21^st century skill.

Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2011). Program eight: Social learning theories [Video webcast]. Bridging learning theory, instruction and technology. Retrieved from http://laureate.ecollege.com/ec/crs/default.learn?CourseID=5700267&CPURL=laureate.ecollege.com&Survey=1&47=2594577&ClientNodeID=984650&coursenav=0&bhcp=1

Pitler, H., Hubbell, E., Kuhn, M., & Malenoski, K. (2007). Using technology with classroom

instruction that works. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

Constructivism in Practice

After reading the chapter in Using Technology with Classroom Instruction that Works book I discovered some great examples to use in my science classroom, but also found many ways in which, “Generating and Testing Hypotheses” share common themes with the constructivism theory (Pitler, Hubbell, Kuhn and Malenoski, 2007).

            There are many kinds of generating and testing hypotheses, but the one that stuck out to me most of all was the experimental inquiry section because I am 5^th grade teacher solely responsible for teaching all the students the science curriculum.  My days are filled with science phenomenon explanations and inquiry tasks. Many students struggle not with the questioning and hypothesis part of inquiry, but with the conclusion writing section and pairing it with their data.  One way in which the book talks about producing data tables and graphs is by using spreadsheet software, like Excel (Pitler, Hubbell, Kuhn and Malenoski, 2007).  One of the biggest projects that my students will prepare this year is a science board for our school’s science fair. This idea of creating a science board goes along perfectly with the constructivism model that says students need to create an artifact (Laureate Education, Inc., 2011). Our school’s science fair will also be part of the Super Science Symposium that our PTA puts on towards the end of the year. At this event we have volunteers from the community come in for a night to go over different science concepts with all of our students and their families. One of the ideas that I have for this year is to have the 5^th grade students present their science boards to other students and their families as part of the final project requirements. This way, students will not only create an artifact, but also have to talk about it and answer questions about it to other students and their families. These science boards will contain printouts and graphs that the students make on the computer based on their results and data. In this one project students have learned many valuable lessons about creating and showcasing their knowledge in an organized manner.

References

Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2011). Program seven: Constructionist and constructivist learning theories [Video webcast]. Bridging learning theory, instruction and technology. Retrieved from http://laureate.ecollege.com/ec/crs/default.learn?CourseID=5700267&CPURL=laureate.ecollege.com&Survey=1&47=2594577&ClientNodeID=984650&coursenav=0&bhcp=1

Pitler, H., Hubbell, E., Kuhn, M., & Malenoski, K. (2007). Using technology with classroom

instruction that works. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

Cognitivism in Practice

After reviewing the chapters in Using Technology with Classroom Instruction that Works book I was able to see how “Cues, Questions, and Advance Organizers” and “Summarizing and Note Taking” share common themes with the cognitivism theory (Pitler, Hubbell, Kuhn and Malenoski, 2007).

            As far as the, “Cues, Questions, and Advance Organizers” chapter goes it is clear to see that the concept mapping tool would be perfect to help students organize their thoughts and thinking (Pitler, Hubbell, Kuhn and Malenoski, 2007). As Pitler, Hubbell, Kuhn and Malenoski state, “Advance organizers are structures that teachers provide to students before a learning activity to help them classify and make sense of the content they’ll encounter” (2007). This made me think back to my idea of having one big concept map that I had created for planning purposes and cutting it up into the different bubbles so that my students, at the beginning of a unit, could work as a group to put the concept map back together in a way that made sense to them. For example, in my concept map on ecosystems I used the terms herbivores, omnivores and carnivores so it would be good for me as a teacher to see which students knew those terms were connected. The cognitive theory is all about how we as learners take in information and organize it in our brains. A concept map is just a visual aid showing what is in our brains.

            As far as the, “Summarizing and Note Taking” chapter goes I believe that students can not only gain a lot from just watching the virtual field trips, but also taking notes on the virtual field trip and taking note of information that stuck out at them. Pitler, Hubbell, Kuhn and Malenoski discuss how this strategy is, “enhancing students’ ability to synthesize information and distill it into a concise new form” (2007). This again goes hand in hand with the cognitive theory since it is asking the students to put the new information into an organized manner so that they better understand it and can access it better when needed. In the video on virtual field trips, the teacher used the virtual field trip of Ford’s Theatre to summarize and go over information the students had already learned about the assassination of Lincoln (Laureate Education, Inc., 2011).

            Both of these strategies along with concept mapping and virtual field trips provide students with many avenues to help organize their thinking and learning new information.

Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2011). Program six: Spotlight on technology: Virtual field trips [Video webcast]. Bridging learning theory, instruction and technology. Retrieved from http://laureate.ecollege.com/ec/crs/default.learn?CourseID=5700267&CPURL=laureate.ecollege.com&Survey=1&47=2594577&ClientNodeID=984650&coursenav=0&bhcp=1

Pitler, H., Hubbell, E., Kuhn, M., & Malenoski, K. (2007). Using technology with classroom instruction that works. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

Behaviorism In Practice

After reviewing the chapters in Using Technology with Classroom Instruction that Works book I found not only some great ideas to use in my own classroom, but also many ways in which, “Reinforcing Effort” and “Homework and Practice” share common themes with the behaviorist theory (Pitler, Hubbell, Kuhn and Malenoski, 2007).

            First, for “Reinforcing Effort” I really liked the idea of a student created rubric and spreadsheet to help keep track of the effort they gave on a particular unit. Then it even went as far as to compare the effort they gave each unit to the score they received on that unit’s assessment. I teach 5^th grade and I know how hard it can be to convince a student to just try and work hard to do their best. If they were able to see what a pay off putting more effort into their schoolwork could do to their grades I think a lot more of them would be easily convinced.  I believe that doing an activity like this goes along well with the behaviorist theory on reinforcement of behaviors that are favorable; in this case higher test scores. Most importantly is that this can be an intrinsic reinforcement because it was up to the student to grade how much effort they put into the unit and to compare that to their test score.

            As I was reading the chapter on, “Homework and Practice” I started to think about the generalization it listed, “If homework is assigned, it should be commented upon” (Pitler, Hubbell, Kuhn and Malenoski, 2007). This statement reminded me a lot of the behaviorist theory because if the homework was never graded, checked-off or commented on then the student would learn that there was no reinforcement or punishment for either getting the homework completed or not having it completed. Also going along with the behaviorist model is the, “drill and practice” part of a student learning (Laureate Education, Inc. 2011).  Pitler, Hubbell, Kuhn and Malenoski discuss the importance of students being able to learn a new skill, get guided practice and then have more individual time to really gain a full understanding of the new concept. With all the new technology coming out today students need to be able to use it properly. Even learning a new skill on the computer takes many repetitions to master. There is positive reinforcement involved since it creates a desired result for the user when they get the process right.

References

Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2011). Program three: Instructional theory vs. learning theory [Video webcast]. Bridging learning theory, instruction and technology. Retrieved from http://laureate.ecollege.com/ec/crs/default.learn?CourseID=5700267&CPURL=laureate.ecollege.com&Survey=1&47=2594577&ClientNodeID=984650&coursenav=0&bhcp=1

Pitler, H., Hubbell, E., Kuhn, M., & Malenoski, K. (2007). Using technology with classroom

instruction that works. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.