I spent a considerable amount of time exploring the ISTE website. I also explored the individual standards for teachers. As I navigated through the site, I found that I was more comfortable with some of the standards than others. One of the indicators that I felt I would like to strengthen my confidence in was indicator 1b. I would like to be better able to engage students in exploring real-world issues and solving authentic problems using digital tools and resources. Not only to I want to be better able to do this, but i truly believ that it is so important. Children build meaning through experience and they value education more when they feel that it has purpose. Another indicator that I would like to strengthen my confidence in is indicator 3b. I would like to have my students collaborate with students, peers, parents, and community members using digital tools and resources to support student success and innovation. This is another area that I find is very important for fostering student learning, and an area that I would like to increase my skill level in. In order to better my abilities in these areas, I have begun to develop my personal GAME plan!
The first part of my GAME plan consists of the (G) or goals area and the (A) action area. I would like to begin by setting the goal for myself to strengthen my abilities in the areas of the two indicators described above, by taking the action of creating and teaching authentic lessons.
-In order to engage students in exploring real-world issues and authentic problems using digital tools and resources, I would like to design a lesson that allows students to explore and research different problems in our own community. For instance, littering, poverty, and student achievement would be appropriate issues for students to research. The action I would take when teaching the lesson would be to have students use the web to create and maintain a blog about the issue and to use the web to explore different websites that focus on the real-world problem as well as offer solutions that students can explore as well.
- In order to collaborate with students, peers, parents, and community members using digital tools and resources to support student success and innovation, I would again like to design a lesson closely related to the one above. Both lessons will help to strengthen my abilities in these areas. The actions that I would like to take would again be to teach these lessons. I would like students to take the information learned through their experiences and above and have them collaborate with classmates and myself to create a classroom webpage that will contain the information on a real-world problem as well as provide an opportunity for collaborating and communicating with others.
As I connect these two indicators that I feel I need to be better able to perform in, I now consider the (M) monitoring and (E) evaluating areas of my GAME plan! To be sure that I am monitoring my progress with engaging students in real-world issues and authentic problems, I will be sure to consistently implement this instructional strategy. I will focus on their level of participation and success and therefore reflect upon my instructional strategies and make any necessary changes! For the evaluating area I will extend student learning by having them continue to maintain the blog and work through multiple real-world issues. I will use my own observation of students as well as evaluating finished products to evaluate and modify my teaching. For increasing student collaboration with others using digital tools and resources, I would monitor my own progress by providing students with multiple opportunities to collaborate with not only other students but community members, myself, etc. I believe this will occur with the successful creation and maintenance of a classroom webpage that reflect our learning! Again, I will evaluate learning by extending these lessons into more than just a one-lesson, but a "way of life" in our classroom.
I still have a lot to consider with my GAME plan for learning and I hope that my own peers will assist me with any ideas and suggestions to foster better learning in my classroom!
Sarah Horner
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ReplyDeleteHi Sarah,
ReplyDeleteYour post is amazing! I too chose to look at indicator 3b. as a goal to strengthen. I find that i is extremely difficult to collaborate with parents more in our community as many of them do not have access to the internet. I find that we tend to do everything online at school and send it to those few parents who have access and then print off the inormation for everyone else.
What I am curious about is how we make all of this authentic and not making technology a part of a lesson for the sake of it. How will you ensure collaboration and all content is presented to students? This is the part that I struggle with on a daily basis the intertwining of the two.
I know for me consistency and keeping up with things is a challenge and these are areas I need to work on!
Minty
Hi Sarah,
ReplyDeleteI really like the idea of bringing community problems into the classroom to use as authentic instruction. Having the students blog about them will help them learn from each other...kind of like we do in our discussion boards. They could also create VoiceThreads like we did in that class a few months ago.
Do you know of any particular sites in which they could create a classroom website? I know I have my own classroom site. I wonder if there would be a way to link it all together.
Tonya
Sarah,
ReplyDeleteI really like your idea of using a blog in the classroom. I have a classroom blog, but I forget to use it. Sometimes the kids will ask if they can blog about a certain topic, and I feel so silly that I didn't think of that first! Thanks for the reminder!
Amy