At the beginning
of this course, I developed two distinct GAME plans that would help me to meet NETS-T
technology standards. My first goal centered around my development of an
authentic learning experience that I created for this class. My second goal was
devoted to my joining of the Professional Development Committee at my school
and all of the outcomes of participation in this. Because of the time frame of
this course, I was unable to completely finish taking action on either of my
goals. However, progress was made toward each of them.
For
my first goal, the development of the “Weather-Wise” authentic learning
experience, I was able to create most of the necessary components. During the
past weeks, I created five client profiles, explaining their specific vacation
requests. I also developed the project explanation flipchart and the rubric
that I will use to assess my students’ work. At this point, I only need to
finish creating the custom Google search engine that my students will need to
use in order to conduct their research. Once this has been completed, my lesson
will be ready for implementation. I plan to put this into action later this
fall, once my students have reached their unit on meteorology in science. At this
point, I do not see any alterations that need to be made to my GAME plan, and I
hope to continue moving through the action, monitoring, and evaluation steps.
My
second goal centered on me joining my school’s Professional Development
Committee. Over the past two months, I have applied for and been appointed to
this committee. I have also attended a summer planning meeting with my co-committee
members. At this meeting, we discussed our goals for the upcoming year,
including conducting a technology survey, attending a workshop on global
collaboration, and piloting an “online classroom” platform. In my GAME plan, I
specified that I would be creating an online portfolio throughout my
participation on this committee. At this point, I have only gotten so far as to
create a folder in which I have saved various documents, links, and resources
related to the topics mentioned at our meeting. At this point, I would like to
edit my GAME plan for this standard and specify that my new goal is to take the
time to create this digital portfolio. I do not want too much time to pass
before I organize these resources in a manner that makes them usable.
Overall,
I have enjoyed using the GAME plan to set goals, actions, and plans for
monitoring and evaluating my progress. This has been especially helpful because
it has taken the act of setting goals a step further than I normally would have
done. In planning ahead and making considerations about the actions I will take
to meet a goal, the ways I will monitor my progress, and the methods I will use
to evaluate myself, I feel as though I set myself up for success. Formulating a
goal is easy. However, I have seen within this activity that it is in the
defining of the last three components that has the greatest impact for a
successful outcome. This is a concept
that I intend to carry into my future instructional practices. I also hope to
incorporate this type of planning into my students’ educational experiences. I
believe that in creating a GAME plan, a student will develop a realistic,
attainable strategy for meeting goals. Ultimately, this is a lesson that can
serve my students well beyond my classroom, and it can lead to their
development of an approach that can assist them in meeting their goals
lifelong.
Within
this course, I was given an opportunity to develop a technology-rich mini unit
for my science content area. I look forward to implementing it in my classroom this
fall. As a content area teacher, I have always felt it was important to
incorporate technology into my instruction. In fact, this is what led me to
entering the Walden program. The new school year begins in just a few short
weeks, and as it does, I hope to take some of the ideas that I garnered in this
class and implement them into my classroom.
I enjoyed learning
more about problem-based learning, and I now understand how it, specifically,
can be implemented into a content area. The act of creating a lesson that did
just that took a bit of the mystery out of the process, and it helped me to
internalize the difference between problem-based learning and project-based
learning, a confusion with which I admittedly entered this class. As an avid
user of social networking, it was interesting to consider its applications
within the classroom setting. I look forward to incorporating wikis more into
my instruction. Finally, in learning about digital storytelling, I was
introduced to a powerful alternative to the typical Powerpoint presentation. I
plan to edit a few of my lesson in which students normally would have used
Powerpoint, or some other presentation software, in order to present what they
have learned. This year, I would like to have students create digital stories
to help show their understanding of content and incorporate various forms of
media. According to Cennamo, Ross, and Ertmer (2009), “…both educators and
business and industry leaders have increasingly stressed the importance of
developing students’ creative and critical thinking skills” (p. 23).
Implementation of the GAME plan strategy, problem-based learning, social
networking, and digital storytelling into a content area classroom will
certainly help any student to develop their creative and critical thinking
skills and prepare them for their futures.
References:
Cennamo,
K., Ross, J. & Ertmer, P. (2009). Technology integration for meaningful
classroom use: A standards-based approach. (Laureate Education, Inc., Custom
ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.
