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My
GAME Plan Reflection
As I continue
on with my professional career, I understand the importance of using assessment
data to drive my instructional practices. This is something that I did not do
very well early on in my career. However, with the implementation of No Child
Left Behind, high stakes testing, and now our district’s new teacher evaluation
system which bases part of my evaluation on students’ test scores, I know I
must continue to improve in that area. With those thoughts in mind, I focused
my first GAME Plan goal on using technology to track student progress:
Goal:
To utilize technology to track student progress
on summative assessments to help students pinpoint areas of mastery and
improvement.
NETS-T
#1
2d.
Provide students with multiple and varied formative and summative assessments
aligned with content and technology standards, and use resulting data to inform
learning and teaching.
There are two factors that made it difficult to
assess whether or not this goal was achieved. First, being on sabbatical has
been quite challenging in that it can be difficult to get other people to help
you follow through on certain tasks. At times, I have had to try to make things
happen from afar and that has been
somewhat frustrating. Also, the beginning of the school year is a very tough
time to track a lot of change as a result of a goal being implemented. With
various beginning of the year testing and back to school activities, students
are now just finally getting in to the swing of things. To date, students have
only completed one paragraph assignment and so more data is needed to track
progress over time. I am hoping that by November, students will have at least
three completed paragraph assignments with graded information logged on to
their spreadsheet. At that point, we should be able to do a better job of
figuring out areas of weakness.
Once we figure out areas of needed improvement,
I can see my students utilizing the GAME plan method to establish writing goals
for themselves. Each individual student could utilize a writing journal (either
online or in a notebook) and write a goal based on their areas of need (which
will be determined from logging rubric information into the spreadsheet). Then,
students could outline actions for accomplishing this goal, describe ways to
monitor their progress, and finally evaluate the effectiveness of the goal
after a month or two of instruction. Obviously, I think the GAME plan method
fits nicely into the writing curriculum because each student has such a vast
range of skills when it comes to their written work. By having students create
their own GAME plan to address writing weaknesses, I will be able to
differentiate instruction more appropriately. All of this can happen by
creating a simple spreadsheet, having students track their own progress to look
for data trends, and asking them to reflect on their strengths and needs to
define goals for future improvement.
My second goal was created due
to the amount of work that both my students and I complete on the Internet:
Goal #2:
To model appropriate use of citing references on
the Internet, and hold students accountable for using text, graphics, videos,
and other media from the Internet by adding a “Citing References” section to
their assignment rubrics.
NETS-T
#2
4a.
Advocate, model, and teach safe, legal, and ethical use of digital information
and technology, including respect for copyright, intellectual property, and the
appropriate documentation of sources.
The courses at Walden have taught me the need to
give credit to others for their work. As a teacher, I had already understood
the importance of this when conducting research and taught my students the
importance of this as well. However, I never considered that when using images,
movies, and other digital media found on the Internet, I was using someone
else’s work and also needed to properly credit the source. This was one of
those major ah ha moments, and I then
knew I had to do something to stress the importance of digital citizenship. The
International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) also has a list of Standards
for Students (2007). Of the six technology standards for students, Standard 5
is focus on the digital citizenship and having “students understand human,
cultural, and societal issues related to technology and practice legal and
ethical behavior” (p. 2).
I have already begun to model this digital
citizenship while creating presentations and other media formats for my
students by citing all graphic images that have been taken from the Internet
and used in the presentation. In EDUC 6712, Supporting Information Literacy and
online Inquiry in the Classroom, we learned the importance of modeling various
skills and concepts to students (Eagleton and Dobler, 2007). Modeling not only
provides students with examples of expectations, but it gives students a frame
of reference. Students are more likely to remember something if it is shown or
demonstrated to them rather than just having them read about it or put it in
the directions. Moving forward, this will continue to be a focus for both
teacher and student-made presentations.
One aspect of this particular goal that I may
consider revising is the use of NoodleTools.com. My students have been taught
this online tool from the moment they enter the middle school. They use it in
all of their classes, and it is helpful for them to create a bibliography or
reference list. While I understand that this is one of those technological
tools that help students complete certain parts of a project, I can’t help but
feel that students should be taught how to create reference lists on their own.
With NoodleTools.com, students simply copy and paste the information into the
site, and the program will create the reference list based on what was input. I
have found that students do not really understand how to create a reference
list by using this tool, and I feel like they need to know this skill in the
future. Therefore, I need to determine if I want to continue to use
NoodleTools.com for research projects. Also, if I stick with using it, do I
find a way to cite graphics/images with the program? All of these thoughts need
more consideration moving forward.
This course, like all other courses in Walden
has taught me the continued need to integrate technology into my instructional
practices. However, I do not need to use technology just to say I used
technology. I need to look at my curriculum content, standards, objectives, and
IEP goals and fine ways to use technology to address those points (Laureate
Education, Inc., 2009a). I think I have done a fairly good job with this and
find relevant activities that meet both student and curricular needs. The one
problem I have is I feel the need to implement everything I learn, but that is
just not possible. I need to stick to a few tools that work well for my instructional
practices but also allow students to select tools to create their projects.
In this class, I have learned a lot about
problem-based learning, online collaboration, and digital storytelling. For our
last three application assignments, I believe I have developed an engaging unit
focused on a problem-solution essay. Students must help come up with solutions
to a current problem we are facing in our school (equal technology access) and
write an essay proposing possible solutions. During the drafting process,
students will use a blog to write daily reflections about their writing process
while giving and receiving feedback from peers. The final step in the unit will
have the students create a digital story to share with other teachers,
students, and administrators asking for help in solving this problem.
Goal-setting is a critical component for not
only students to move forward in their educational careers, but also for
teachers to move forward in their professional careers. By continuing to
implement the GAME plan method in my professional endeavors, I will be able to
find ways to meet the needs of all the students in my classroom by
understanding how they learn best, what makes them tick, and how to get them to meet state and national standards
(Laureate Education, Inc., 2009b).
References
Eagleton, M. B.,
& Dobler, E. (2007). Reading the web: Strategies for Internet inquiry.
New York, NY: The Guilford Press.
International Society for Technology in
Education. (2007). ISTE standards students. Retrieved from http://www.iste.org/docs/pdfs/20-14_ISTE_Standards-S_PDF.pdf.
International Society for Technology in
Education. (2008). National education standards for teachers (NETS-T). Retrieved
from http://www.iste.org/standards/nets-for-teachers
Laureate
Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2009a). Integrating technology across
the content areas: Enriching content area learning experiences with technology,
part 1. Baltimore, MD: Author.
Laureate
Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2009b). Integrating technology across
the content areas: Promoting self-directed learning with technology.
Baltimore, MD: Author.
Mandy Derfler’s
Blog. (2014, September 8). EDUC 6713 – My personal game plan. Retrieved from http://mandyderfler4.blogspot.com/2014/09/educ-6713-my-personal-game-plan.html.
ReadWriteThink.org. (n.d.). Exploring
plagiarism, copyright, and paraphrasing. Retrieved from http://www.readwritethink.org/classroom-resources/lesson-plans/exploring-plagiarism-copyright-paraphrasing-1062.html?tab=4#tabs
Image References
Picture 1: http://leadershiptraq.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/reflection_28.jpg
Picture 2: http://www.bottlesurf.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/goals3.jpg
Picture 3: https://fisher.osu.edu/blogs/macc-admissions/files/job-reference-check.jpg
