Monitoring my GAME Plan Progess

Our grade level meets every Wednesday afternoon to talk about ways to strengthen our teaching and enhance our students learning.  We spent some time this past week discussing ways that we can incorrporate more technology into our classrooms.  We all agreed that our students need to be taking more assessments on their student responders to give us immediate feedback on their content knowledge.  By doing this, we will know if the majority of the students understand what they have been taught as well as which students need more help in that given content area.  We decided to begin using their responders to take their weekly Theme Skills Test both on paper and responders to make sure they are transfering their answers correctly.  The students did an outstanding job this past week in doing so.  I need to allow for more time when giving these tests until the students become more familiar with the process.  I quickly learned that many of the students had a high level of understanding on Noting Details in a story.  The results were immediate so I utilized my parent volunteer that same day to work with the small group of students that did not do well on the assessment.  After the small group instruction, I felt confident that all of my students understood how to pick out details in a story.  I am now motivated to continue this form of assessment in more subject areas with my students.  I will continue to have a mini lesson planned for parent volunteers to help the students that struggle on the given content. 

Carrying Out My GAME Plan

After taking a few minutes to review my game plan, I need to incorporate more technology into my daily lesson planning.  I will begin talking with my grade level colleagues, during our weekly planning meetings, on what content areas we should begin to focus on.  We will need to create the exams through our Accel Test program which allows the students to take tests on their responders.  This will give both the students and myself immediate feedback.  I will know which students need more instruction and which students understand the content having been taught.  Up to now, I have considered approaching my colleagues with beginning in reading comprehension.  To get an accurate measure, I believe we should begin having them take the both both ways, on paper and responders.  This will show us if the students are struggling with the content or just inputting their answers onto responders.

Pesonal GAME Plan

Goal 1:  The first personal goal that I would like to set for myself is to strengthen my confidence and proficiency in designing and developing digital-age learning experiences and assessments.  Considering this is our student’s future, it is essential that I introduce the basics early in their learning experience.  First graders can adapt easily considering just about everything being taught is new.  It can be tough to teach a dog old tricks, but puppies only know what they learn from experience.  Like first graders, I do not have to change their way of thinking or even change their thought processing.  I can easily mold them into using technology and engaging them through this modern form of learning.  Considering that technology is changing so rapidly, it is important to teach them the basics at a young age so they can later adapt to changes taking place at the same time.  We have student responders in our classroom that the students are able to take tests with rather than using a paper and pencil to bubble in answers.  I will begin giving my students more of these types of assessments.  It will take time for the students to adjust to this new form of technology but I feel the results will be worth it.  I can monitor their progress by comparing their paper assessment to their digital assessment results.
Goal 2:  Another goal that I would like to set for myself is to engage in professional growth and leadership.  I am learning a vast amount to techniques in using technology in the classroom that I would like to share with my colleagues to encourage them to try the same in their own classrooms.  The students are more engaged and excited about learning when technology is available to them during assignments.  I would also like to attend additional workshops that would encourage the use of technology to enhance the learning for my students.  I would like to see my students become digital learners to help prepare them for their future.

Reflection

As I reflect back on the past 7 weeks, this course has opened my eyes to the plethora of technology that is available at our fingertips to bring lessons to life for our students.  When we originally created our personal learning theories, I realized now that technology was not at the top of my list.  I have always believed that technology adds to any lesson and the students retain much more content when technology is being used, but I have to admit that it was not embedded into majority of my lesson plans.  Now that I look into future lessons, I am finding myself searching for another way to present the lesson using technology.  The students are much more engaged and thrive on looking deeper into the lesson with the availability of additional information being so easy.

I will immediately begin embedding more technology into my classroom lessons.  My students are much more engaged in the learning when I present the lessons containing technology.  I have been searching for a way for the students written stories to come to live.  When my students have completed a story in Writers Workshop, I will have them take a photograph of each illustration using our classroom digital camera.  I will then upload those photographs onto VoiceThread so the students can record their voice, using a microphone, so they can read aloud their own story.  Students will have the ability to comment on others work as well as parents.  I believe that doing this will give much more meaning to their writing as well as give the students an opportunity to share their work with others.  Another way I plan to integrate more technology immediately is to allow the students to use the document camera in the classroom.  Up through this point, I have used the document camera as a teaching tool rather than a learning tool.  I now want to allow the students to place their own work under the camera to explain their own thinking.  For example, in math, a document camera can be used to show their thinking and steps on how they have solved an equation and the steps used to reach their answer.

I have a few long term goals that I would like to add to my long term goals for my first grade students.  First, I am going to add a link onto our class website that displays the many websites we visit in class and in the computer lab.  This would give my students the opportunity to continue the use of these sites at home.  Also, it would benefit my students to learn how to search the web for our class website and much more.  Another long term goal I want to adapt in my classroom would be creating computer partners to work on class projects together.  The projects could be simple enough for a 6 year old, yet challenging enough to have to work collaboratively.    First graders are very self-centered so having to agree on things when working on a project will be a challenge as well as an important life lesson.

VoiceThread - Tattling

www.voicethread.com/share/2163889/

There is a lot of tattle tailing going on both at home and at school.  Children have a difficult time figuring out how to problem solve on their own.  They immediately point their finger at the other child and run away to tell an adult nearby.  We need to make sure our children and students have a clear understanding on what is a tattle.  There are many situations that can be solved independently.  Other situations, such as something that could be harmful or dangerous, need to be brought to an adult’s attention. 

Connectivism and Social Learning in Practice

Cooperative learning has such an incredible tie to social learning.  When students are engaged in a social learning activity, such a creating a project together, teaching each other after researching a specific topic, or even studying with one another, social learning gives students the opportunity to share their insights with their peers.  This is a positive experience for students and allows time for sharing thoughts and agreeing on a single idea when working in groups.  Using technology to present an assignment allows for more student engagement.  The students have adapted technology skills through the accessibility of technology at their student’s fingertips.  I often find that my students are able to walk me through any troubleshooting due to their exposure.  They have a natural ability to work with peers while clicking the mouse at the same time.  Students prefer and are much more engaged through a visual presentation verses reading a chapter in their textbooks. 

Cognitivism in Practice

The brain works in wonderful ways as long as we trigger our student’s interests and allow time for a greater understanding.  The cognitive learning theory states that the importance of learning new information is the ability of retaining the content into long term memory. 

One instructional strategy that enhances learning is cues, questions, and advance organizers.  Cues can be used to direct students in the correct path.  This is an imperative time to bring realia into the lesson to allow English language learners the opportunity to advance.  Questioning throughout the lesson offers safety for students.  Questioning also could spark student’s interest in wanting to research the content further.  Advance organizers are used to organize the material into categories through technology or the old fashioned paper/pencil.  Teachers have a plethora of online assistance in creating organizers appropriate for their students and subject area. 

Another instructional strategy used is summarizing and note taking.  Summarizing helps students to retell the information in their own words and focuses on the big picture.  This can be done verbally or written.  You will see summarizing is necessary in all grade levels.  Students need to be taught how to filter out the unnecessary material to find the main idea.  Note taking can be done in bullet form, outlines, sentences, or even pictures.  Students need to learn a variety of ways to note taking to find what works best for these personal needs.  By doing so, students will more likely gain long term memory with the information being taught.

Reference

Pitler, H., Hubbell, E. R., Kuhn, M., & Malenoski, K. (2007). Using technology with classroom instruction that works. Denver, Co: Mid-Continental Research for Education and Learning.