As I reflect on the past eight weeks of this course, I have noticed some changes in my classroom. Firstly, my students have started the process of making their own GAME plan goals for the trimester and are responding well to following those goals. I had the students make goals for academic, behavioral, and technology goals. I overheard a student checking her goals with a friend during morning warm-up the other day. It will be interesting to see if the enthusiasm continues through the trimester until March. We will check back with them often and 'remind' ourselves of what we are shooting for.
The second area that I notice a change is the new integrating tools that I have found over the course of this class. I am excited to 'play' with digital story telling and bring it into the current curriculum as a way of allowing students to process their learning and present it to others. The way of thinking when I stand a the front of my room has also changed, as I ask myself, "Who is collecting and presenting the information, me or the students?"
Time will tell how these new tools will work for me and my students. I am guessing that they will enhance my teaching and my students learning!
-Melissa
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
GAME plans for students
This fall, the staff in our building was given a list of technology skills that would help us be effective and efficient. All staff was to go through the list and decide where we feel competent, proficient, or not in my bag of tricks. The list included everything from opening a Word file to creating and maintaining our own website. The list was a survey to be used to create our technology goal of the year, a staff development requirement.
In this master's program, we were asked to find another area of technology standards to create a goal and GAME plan to work on throughout the course. The plan that we have reflected back on in the last two months. Checking back and checking progress,as well as making adjustments along the way.
Bringing the skill of the making goals and reflecting back on them into the classroom, is a new goal to add to my list. As we have started a new trimester this week at school, it seemed like a perfect time to make new goals. I had my students make four spots on a piece of paper, creating spots for two academic goals, a behavior goal, and an open goal to be used for any area including technology. The final goal is the important one in this case. The students had to think about what we are doing in our technology class and where they would like to improve their skills. For example, several students have goals to improve their creativity in the projects that we are making, to go above and beyond the typical files. Some students added keyboarding skills to their goal.
In the next few months, we will look back on the plans that we have made to meet our goal and check to see if our goals are reasonable and reachable. Some adjustments will need to be made, but with monitoring we should be able to keep on the track of the original goals. So off we head in the direction of growing and learning!
Melissa
In this master's program, we were asked to find another area of technology standards to create a goal and GAME plan to work on throughout the course. The plan that we have reflected back on in the last two months. Checking back and checking progress,as well as making adjustments along the way.
Bringing the skill of the making goals and reflecting back on them into the classroom, is a new goal to add to my list. As we have started a new trimester this week at school, it seemed like a perfect time to make new goals. I had my students make four spots on a piece of paper, creating spots for two academic goals, a behavior goal, and an open goal to be used for any area including technology. The final goal is the important one in this case. The students had to think about what we are doing in our technology class and where they would like to improve their skills. For example, several students have goals to improve their creativity in the projects that we are making, to go above and beyond the typical files. Some students added keyboarding skills to their goal.
In the next few months, we will look back on the plans that we have made to meet our goal and check to see if our goals are reasonable and reachable. Some adjustments will need to be made, but with monitoring we should be able to keep on the track of the original goals. So off we head in the direction of growing and learning!
Melissa
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Goal growth and adjustment
On we go with the adventure of making a GAME plan and working toward completion. I have continued to search for real-world activities that fit into my curriculum without too much or too little for my students. So far, I have learned that there are a lot of resources available, but the time that it takes to sort through, try out, and make usable the good sources is overwhelming and daunting. I have decided to take this on one piece at a time and devote thirty to forty-five minutes a week to finding and analyzing sources for upcoming units. That may be a lofty goal considering the time of the year that is upon us, but it is a start.
Based on NETS-T goals for teachers in the digital age, I am looking toward a goal that takes my current GAME plan of bringing real world problems to the classroom and connects it with building assessments to evaluate learning. As these new problem based learning situations are integrated, the assessments that are currently in place may not fit, or may need to be adjusted to evaluate the learning. This new goal will probably be slowly worked toward as each piece is added to the curriculum.
This process has been interesting for me on the other side of the fence as a student, but has just reiterated how important goal making is and how valuable of a tool it can be if used correctly. I am heading back to my classroom to have my students build goals for the new trimester that started today and organize a way for us to ensure that we look back often at the progress of these goals. I also would like to stick a flexibility piece into my students’ goals so they can adjust and grow with their goals.
-Melissa
Based on NETS-T goals for teachers in the digital age, I am looking toward a goal that takes my current GAME plan of bringing real world problems to the classroom and connects it with building assessments to evaluate learning. As these new problem based learning situations are integrated, the assessments that are currently in place may not fit, or may need to be adjusted to evaluate the learning. This new goal will probably be slowly worked toward as each piece is added to the curriculum.
This process has been interesting for me on the other side of the fence as a student, but has just reiterated how important goal making is and how valuable of a tool it can be if used correctly. I am heading back to my classroom to have my students build goals for the new trimester that started today and organize a way for us to ensure that we look back often at the progress of these goals. I also would like to stick a flexibility piece into my students’ goals so they can adjust and grow with their goals.
-Melissa
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Looking into space
As I have started to teach a unit about space that I have taught several times before, I would like to redesign the unit to include more real world problems that my students can relate to. The students need to be able to share differences in the planets, talk about revolution and rotation and the changes they cause, and the moon's relationship with Earth. One area that I have explored to help my students relate is to investigate which planet would be the next best place for us to create a civilization.
In my search for supplemental activities, I have found that the information online varies greatly when it comes to measurements and information due to the problem of making accurate measurements. This is an obstacle when sending students online to find information. I will have to search and direct students toward certain sites to help them get accurate information. For example, I have been using the NASA website due to the fact that it seems to be up-to-date with newest findings.
One question that I have that I will be working on is continuing to facilitate the project while ensuring that students are finding accurate information and recording it correctly. One area that may get in the way is the difference in measurement styles, such as miles and kilometers. During class we will have to discuss the differences and why the two types are used in the same measurement.
Well, I am off to bring more real-life problems to help my students understand an abstract subject of space and the vastness of what we are talking about. As we started talking about planets for the first time today, the students were asked which planet was the largest in the solar system and a student replied that Earth was the biggest. We have a lot to learn about space, so off on our adventure we go.
In my search for supplemental activities, I have found that the information online varies greatly when it comes to measurements and information due to the problem of making accurate measurements. This is an obstacle when sending students online to find information. I will have to search and direct students toward certain sites to help them get accurate information. For example, I have been using the NASA website due to the fact that it seems to be up-to-date with newest findings.
One question that I have that I will be working on is continuing to facilitate the project while ensuring that students are finding accurate information and recording it correctly. One area that may get in the way is the difference in measurement styles, such as miles and kilometers. During class we will have to discuss the differences and why the two types are used in the same measurement.
Well, I am off to bring more real-life problems to help my students understand an abstract subject of space and the vastness of what we are talking about. As we started talking about planets for the first time today, the students were asked which planet was the largest in the solar system and a student replied that Earth was the biggest. We have a lot to learn about space, so off on our adventure we go.
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