Reflecting on the GAME plan

Throughout the last few weeks, I have focused my unit plan on creating a lesson around teaching my students the importance of understanding decimals in an attempt to teach my fourth grade students how to count money and understand the value of money. Most adults would think that I am probably targeting an area that fourth graders should already know about. However, at my school, students live in extreme poverty. 98% of our students receive free or reduced lunch. Earlier this school year, I came to the realization that there is a major problem with my students living in the situation they are living in. I had students in my fourth grade class struggling to tell me how many quarters makes 25 cents, 50 cents, and even 75 cents. This is due to the fact that my students rarely handle money. The majority of the students don’t see their parents with money or paying for groceries with money, instead they are used to seeing an EBT card being used. As a result, I decided to target this area to give these students an understanding of money, decimals, and grocery shopping to teach kids that money is another way to purchase groceries.  Throughout the GAME plan I realized that this unit plan is one that will really teach students a life- long skill, a skill necessary to survival because they must learn how to purchase foods in order to create meals. The GAME plan provides an opportunity to get the students on the right foot in an effort to show them that having money is important not only for groceries but for bills and other things necessary in life.

In thinking about my unit idea, it would be good to get parental support although this is a very difficult task at my school. Parental support is few and far between, but to get parents involved to help their child understand money would be a good thing. It would be nice to work to get parents to give their children an opportunity to help count money when it is available to that our students have access and an understanding of money. This would be something that I could send a parent newsletter home about during the unit in an effort to give students additional practice at home with counting money and manipulating it. It would also be good to get parents involved in their child’s education.

Understanding that math is important to everyday life is important. Teaching students this at an early age is vital if students are to get off on the right foot and understand the value of a dollar and how it is necessary for many things in life.

Project Based Assessing and the GAME plan

As I take time to look at the standards which I am planning to use to strengthen myself as a teacher, I think about my GAME plan and exactly I what I will do to carry it out and ensure that it is a success. I have been taking a lot of time to reflect on what I have done over the past school year. With the year ending in just a week and a half, I have from now until August to plan my methods of teaching and make changes to ensure that my goals are met for next year when it comes to my GAME plan.

The two standards I want to work on go hand in hand. I would like to design or adapt relevant learning experiences that incorporate digital tools and resources to promote student learning and creativity and design and develop digital-age learning experiences and assessments.  At this point, my principal and grade level team are discussing exactly what the plan is as far as instruction is concerned for next year. I may be teaching all subject areas like I have been or we may block and I will be responsible for math.  Until I know what I am doing for sure I do not know exactly what I will be doing for my GAME plan and have not planned specifics yet. However, I would like to incorporate more digital tools such as wikis, blogs, Voice Thread, podcasts, Jing, and concept mapping through websites such as Spider scribe to create more project based assessments. There are many tutorials available online which explain how to use the digital tools which is very helpful because they are easily accessible and students would be able to refer back to them at any time if they were to forget or have questions about how to do something. I am hoping that I will be responsible for teaching math because I would like to create projects which would enable my students to learn math in a real world context such as a career which may use fractions a lot or a career where multiplication is used daily. Creating projects which students can do requiring them to apply mathematical skills and concepts would be a great hands on approach to learning the material and seeing the relevance of math. Students can be creative and come up with a role playing scenarios where mathematics must be used to solve a problem and it can be recorded using audio and video to be presented to the class. There is a wide variety that can be done and the wheels are turning in my mind. I just have to know what I am responsible for teaching next year so I can go ahead and start planning for sure some things that my students will be doing.

I really would like to go away from the paper and pencil based assessments especially in math and do more projects based assessments because I truly believe that if students learn a concept and are given the opportunity to be hands on and apply what they have learned to create something, than they will remember it more.  Does anyone have any suggestions on maybe a project I can have my fourth graders do in math?

References

ISTE. (2008). NETS for teachers: advancing digital age teaching. Retrieved on May 9, 2012 from: http://www.iste.org/Libraries/PDFs/NETS-T_Standards.sflb.ashx

Carrying Out My GAME Plan

Throughout the past week I have been thinking about how I could really carry out my GAME plan. My school district only has 15 days left before summer break so at this point it is too late in this year to start anything new since we are wrapping up the school year. For the last four years I have been responsible for teaching all subject areas to my students. However, with the upcoming school year, our principal and my team have discussed doing blocking which will change what I do. Although not set in stone yet, I will be responsible for teaching mathematics to all of the fourth grade students in my school. As a result, I am trying to think of ways that I could incorporate the use of digital tools more in the area of mathematics. When I think about this I think about using tools such as Voice Thread, wikis, blogs, and podcasts. With the upcoming school year and the new common core standards, I know that it is important to be more collaborative and hands on with the learning for common core. In an attempt to prepare for the upcoming year and my plans, I plan to find some workshops I can attend that will provide me with more professional development on digital tools and how to incorporate them into my classroom instruction. I also plan to think about projects I can have my students do incorporating the content they will learn into real world scenarios. It is important that students understand why math is important and how it is used every day in various scenarios. I can also have students maybe perform interviews with people in different careers and talk with them about how they use math. After the interviews are done my students can create a project using Voice Thread or podcasts to present their findings. It would also be beneficial to create classroom blog where students can assist one another and explain how to work math concepts.

At this point I am not 100% sure exactly what my GAME plan will be because I do not know what I will be teaching next year. If I am responsible for teaching every subject as it has been, than I can use more digital tools in having my students do more projects in the areas of reading, science, and social studies.

Do you have any suggestions on classroom projects that I can do using digital tools to teach math?

My GAME Plan

As I take time to look back over the last few years of teaching, I notice that there are many areas in which I can improve in hopes of one day becoming a distinguished teacher. I am currently in my fourth year of teaching and thoroughly enjoy what I do. With technology changing every day, pressures of state testing, and everything else, I sometimes tend to forget to take a step back and think about what I can do to change my styles of teaching in an effort to be more effective and help my students be more successful. The International Society for Technology in Education and National Education Standards offers great information about the standards that we as teachers should meet. When I look at these standards I notice that I am proficient in some whereas in others, I can definitely improve. The two that I think are my weakest include design or adapt relevant learning experiences that incorporate digital tools and resources to promote student learning and creativity and design and Develop Digital-Age Learning Experiences and Assessments.

In looking at the GAME plan introduced this week, I realize that I could easily work to become proficient in my weak areas. When it comes to designing and adapting relevant learning experiences that incorporates digital tools and resources to promote student learning and creativity, I think of projects that my students do every year. Most of the time students would complete projects using PowerPoint. However, in an effort to work on this standard, my goal is to introduce students to more digital tools that can be used to create projects. My action plan would be to incorporate more lesson plans that uses and teaches students various digital tools such as Voice Thread, wikis, blogs, and podcasts. If I can create lesson plans to incorporate these tools than my students will have some exposure to them and begin getting ideas on how they can use them in projects. I can monitor the projects by seeing how much more students are engaged when using technology as opposed to paper and pencil or the usual power point presentation. I can also look at the end result compared to what they have done in the past and evaluate the effectiveness of the use of digital tools.

To design and develop digital-age learning experiences and assessments, this standard somewhat ties into the one mentioned above. My plan is to assign more hands on projects that would allow my students to be more creative and show what they have learned more as opposed to taking a pencil and paper assessment to show what they know. It would be more beneficial if students could show their learning by creating a project. In addition, I can use other sources of technology and keep a blog with my students in which they will post answers to questions presented. In thinking about my action, I would post questions on a blog which students will answer. This will be one method of assessment to ensure that they can explain their thoughts and ideas. I will monitor student performance as well as their engagement in the activity. Evaluating will take place when I review and score their work. I can compare their assessment grades using technology to the standard way of assessing and see which is more effective.

I look forward to working to incorporate more 21^st century tools into my classroom. I have already seen that students are more engaged when they are using technology. If I can teach them incorporating more digital tools and assess them using technology which they enjoy, than I think I will see better results.

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.

ISTE. (2008). NETS for teachers: advancing digital age teaching. Retrieved on May 9, 2012 from: http://www.iste.org/Libraries/PDFs/NETS-T_Standards.sflb.ashx

My Personal Theory of Learning

            I took time to read over my personal theory of learning which I wrote during the first week of this course and I was really amazed by how accurate my theory still is now that this class is coming to an end.  In the beginning of this course I had to really sit back and think about the approaches I take in my classroom and what theories I apply to my instruction. I never really took time to think about the actual theory before, however, this class really gives me a deeper understanding of the importance of using specific learning theories in an effort to ensure that all children are learning. After studying the various theories in more depth throughout this course I have come to realize that I am a teacher what really believes that cooperative learning, constructivism, and social learning is extremely important in enabling students to become successful citizens of the 21^st century. Throughout this course I have gained a much deeper understanding of the theoretical basis of each theory and its relevance to education.

            As far as making adjustments to my instructional practice, I really aim to use more technology in my instruction and make my classroom more students centered.  Integrating technology into my curriculum will keep students engaged in the content being taught and this is extremely important. I intend to being integrating and teaching students more technology as the year goes on. The first two instructional tools that I intend to incorporate are concept maps using Spider Scribe as well as Voice Thread. The concept maps will enable students to organize their thoughts which are extremely important to understanding information at a new level and aids in the visual aspect of what is being taught. I really like Voice Thread because it gives students an opportunity to really create something and be creative with their creation on VT. They have many different options they can use to create and make the VT their own.  These two technological tools will keep students engaged and allow them to use the internet to be constructive and build something of value to them. I have been taught various educational technologies that I can add to my repertoire to assist in the educational process. I have been given the tools to know what technology tools I can use to ensure that my students are building the knowledge needed to be prepared for their future.  I look forward to what my students will be able to do with the tools that I am able to now present them with.

            When I think about the future of my classroom and how I would like to incorporate more of what I am learning into my daily teaching I try to visualize what I want my students to accomplish and what I can do to ensure that they are learning.  Two long-term goals that I have for my students includes the environment of the classroom. I really want to work to let go of my control and make my classroom more student centered instead of teacher centered. I think that giving students an opportunity to take more ownership and responsibility for their own learning will give them more of a sense of pride and help them to learn the material on a new level. This is a long-term goal because it will take a lot of time to get accustomed to letting go and letting my kids do more whereas before I was always the one who was in charge. With the student centered approach, I also intend to assign more projects for my students to do which will give them an opportunity to work collaboratively with one another and use the constructivist approach to create various artifacts as part of their projects. This will require that students work together to ensure that they are successful. With projects students are able to use PowerPoints, concept maps, Voice Threads, Prezi, and numerous other technological tools to promote their learning. These two goals are long term because it will be a long process in teaching students how to work in groups and how to use the tools effectively. I will need to trust the students and be willing to turn the control of the classroom over to them. Although I am hesitant to do this, I am also excited because I know that my students will surprise me. I have high expectations for my students and I look forward to seeing the excitement and feelings of success they will experience when they complete a project. I believe that a student centered classroom with more technological resources will create a different environment where students will be eager to come in and learn.

Social learning is vital to a child's education in my opinion. Dr. Orey explains that students are able to build meaning and understanding from others as well as their environment. However, students cannot do this if we do not give them the opportunity to do so. As the teacher, it is extremely important that we are providing opportunities for students to work collaboratively with other students to construct something or even brainstorm ideas or to find a solution to a problem. Social learning gives students the opportunity to socialize and learn from their peers. Not only does this teach them socialization skills but it teaches them how to collaborate with one another and how to respect other peoples ideas and opinions. I like social learning opportunities because I am always amazed by what students can learn from one another.

I never realized that I have been using the jigsaw approach as Dr. Orey explained in the video. For the past two years with my social studies lessons, students work in small groups of 3. Each week the groups remain the same as far as students are concerned. Students are presented with a social studies topic and a newspaper that is focused on our social studies curriculum. Since the newspaper has so much information and would take a tremendous amount of time to completely read, and there is one for every week, students cannot spend the whole week working on reading the whole newspaper to find answers to the worksheet that is provided. Instead, students work together to split the work up equally. Students each take their part, read it and study it, and reports back to the group teaching them the information in their section of the newspaper. Each students learns the material and becomes the teacher. Once all students have done their part in teaching the rest of their group, they each take the worksheet that accompanies the assignment and they complete it. They have the choice to either do the worksheet or work as a group to make a flyer, poster, or other tool to teach someone about the information they have learned. Students are currently working to create a blog in which they will report to the blog on a weekly basis about what they have learned. I never realized that I was using the jigsaw approach but I know now that is what I have been doing. My students love this opportunity to work together and although it requires them to do a lot of work, they are always very excited when Social Studies time comes around.

My voicethread is as follows and means alot since there is a recent impact of its relevance to not only myself but my school and community as a whole. Watch it and you will see what I am talking about. I hope you enjoy.

VoiceThread 

http://voicethread.com/share/2499038/

Constructivism

Over these last couple of weeks I have come to realize that my approach to teaching as well as the strategies and the activities that I use in my classroom offer my students with a wide variety of learning theories and information that I never really thought about in depth when it comes to what learning approach I take. Dr. Orey talks about how using the constructivist approach allows children to process knowledge in their own way. Each of our minds is unique and we understand things differently and we store that information in different ways in our mind. In the video resource this week, Dr. Orey spoke of how it is important to get students “involved in building stuff” “(Laureate Education, Inc., 2011) in an effort to teach in a constructivist approach. Without thinking about what approach I’ve been using, my classroom has a tremendous amount of opportunities where my students are learning in this way. I was very happy to hear Dr. Orey talk about how power point presentations are a wonderful tool to use to apply this learning theory. Over the last couple of weeks my students have been working in small groups of three to create a power point presentation in which they chose a rock and a mineral that they would research and later give a presentation on. This power point was the first exposure that my students have had with creating something using technology. Each group took time to present their presentations earlier this week. It was amazing to see just how in depth my students went in creating their presentations and how well they did considering they were learning how to use power point for the first time.

One huge project that I’ve done every year which does a wonderful job of giving students a opportunity to build something is the electricity unit. After students are taught about electricity, they work in groups to build simple circuits and later learn how to build parallel and series circuits. By the end of the unit students build their own houses out of cardboard boxes and completely power the house using various circuits that they build using batteries, light bulbs, and wires. Included are switches that will operate the lights. Every year, this experience is the most memorable for students because they enjoy the process required to build something that really gages their interest.

I think taking a constructivist approach to teaching is extremely important because makes students taken ownership of their own learning. Having students work in groups to build something and create something makes learning hands on and when students are hands on with their own learning, now only are they more involved and enjoy it more because they are able to do more but they also learn the material on a deeper level because they are more involved. Students are more likely to remember material they have learned if they have been interactive with it and they have been engaged with what they are learning. Taking a constructionist approach makes the learning environment geared more towards a student centered environment where the teacher acts more as a facilitator. I think that students enjoy learning more this way because it allows them to take ownership and they are able to interact with their peers much more.

References

Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2011). Program seven: Constructionist and constructivist learning theories [Video webcast]. Bridging learning theory, instruction and technology. Retrieved from http://laureate.ecollege.com/ec/crs/default.learn?CourseID=5700267&CPURL=laureate.ecollege.com&Survey=1&47=2594577&ClientNodeID=984650&coursenav=0&bhcp=1

Pitler H., Hubbell, E., Kuhn, M., & Malenoski, K. (2007). Using technology with       classroom instruction that works. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.