I have to admit that this week I have not taken nearly enough steps towards meeting my the goals in my GAME plan. I have gotten information about online communities from my peers in this class, as well as from my professor. I will need to spend some time looking over these in order to benefit from them.
I believe that I need to modify my plan by not just relying on my administration to point me in the direction of community connections. I need to find these connections and make them myself. Once I make the connections I will, of course, need to get them approved by my administration team, and hopefully this will help them see all that is out there to assist us in bettering our students learning environments.
This week I have learned that things don't necessarily come easy when it comes to technology. Not everyone is willing to learn new things and take the steps needed to improve themselves in a way that can help our students. While technology may be a great way to assist our students, many people are not willing to take the time and energy to learn the technology themselves.
The only questions that have arisen so far are how to find online learning communities and really how to benefit from them. I need to spend more time looking into these and seeing all they can really do for me.
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Continuation of My GAME Plan
Sorry this is late..Baby Brain struck and I didn't post in time!!!!
This week I am reviewing my GAME plan. It is something I will do repeatedly over the next few weeks in this class and I look forward to bettering my self in the process.
In order to carry out my plan, I will need several things. The first of these is the support of the staff and administration at my school. Nothing can be done if help from these two sources cannot be received. I need people who are open minded and willing to accept the challenges that face us with technology. I hope to be able to find these colleagues and have already received a lot of support from my administration.
The additional information that I will need in order to complete my plan is about our community relations at a school and county level. I need to find out who our community partners are and who I can go to for help. I also need to find out the best ways to present and share my material and lessons with the community. To do this, like I said in the plan, I will need to sit with my administration and discuss my options.
So far, I do not feel that I have been able to take many steps in reaching my goal. One thing I did do was talk to my principal about technology in lessons and how I believed that students should think outside the box. She was so happy about this that she came to observe my students and I one day in the lab and brought a state representative with her. This was a HUGE step for me, as along with him came the Atlanta Journal Constitution, a large paper in Atlanta, and a photographer. Perhaps with this "press", my ideas will seem more valid and be more widely accepted by the people I teach and work with.
This week I am reviewing my GAME plan. It is something I will do repeatedly over the next few weeks in this class and I look forward to bettering my self in the process.
In order to carry out my plan, I will need several things. The first of these is the support of the staff and administration at my school. Nothing can be done if help from these two sources cannot be received. I need people who are open minded and willing to accept the challenges that face us with technology. I hope to be able to find these colleagues and have already received a lot of support from my administration.
The additional information that I will need in order to complete my plan is about our community relations at a school and county level. I need to find out who our community partners are and who I can go to for help. I also need to find out the best ways to present and share my material and lessons with the community. To do this, like I said in the plan, I will need to sit with my administration and discuss my options.
So far, I do not feel that I have been able to take many steps in reaching my goal. One thing I did do was talk to my principal about technology in lessons and how I believed that students should think outside the box. She was so happy about this that she came to observe my students and I one day in the lab and brought a state representative with her. This was a HUGE step for me, as along with him came the Atlanta Journal Constitution, a large paper in Atlanta, and a photographer. Perhaps with this "press", my ideas will seem more valid and be more widely accepted by the people I teach and work with.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
My GAME Plan
G-My goal is to strengthen two areas of the NETS-T. These two areas are “Model Digital Age Work and Learning” and “Engage is Professional Growth and Leadership”. With the first area, my main focus needs to be, and always has needed to be, “collaborate with students, peers, parents, and community members using digital tools and resources to support student success and innovation”. I feel that I communicate well with students and parents by basic email or phone calls but other than that, I lack any digital tools as well as lacking as communication at all with the community. The other area that my goal would be to strengthen is to engage in professional growth and leadership. This standard states that you “participate in local and global learning communities to explore creative applications of technology to improve student learning”. While I personally would like to do this, I find it hard to find peers that would like to explore these applications with me. I need to find a way to change this.
A-The action I would take to meet the first goal is to find meet with my administration to discuss what local community members could or should be contacted. I would like to explore my options about what would be the best way to connect with the community, parents and students all at the same time. I think the best way to do this would be with an online newsletter. This can easily be created and sent out to all the members of the community that I would like to communicate with. A newsletter could be created on a blog, which would allow for feedback.
For the second goal, I would need to think a little bit harder. My school does not really foster local or global learning communities, so the first thing I would need to do is to find these. While Walden has been a good source for this as of yet, this will change when I graduate. I would also like to find a community that my peers and students can visit as well in order to keep them up to date with all the new things technology has to offer.
M-The M in the GAME plan stands for monitoring. I’ll need to “monitor whether I (you) am making sufficient progress towards my goals and reflect on whether the strategies I have chosen are working” ( Cennamo, Ross, Ertmer, 2009). This, at the moment, is a little hard for me to figure out, at least for my second goal. The first goal is easy to monitor. I can create the class blog and keep track of how many people I send it to and who gets it, as well as who responds to my postings. The second goal could be a little harder to manage, especially now that I do not even know where to start in finding learning communities that will help with creative applications. I know that, for now, I can continue to use my Walden community as a place to learn new things and can easily measure my growth here. I can see how many new ideas and technologies I implement and how useful they are to my students. In the future I can do this with the new things I find.
E-Evaluation of these goals should be fairly easy. Have I implemented the new technology I have learned? (goal 2) Have I connected through technology with people in the community? (goal 1) I plan to see, through this class, if evaluating these goals is really as easy as it seems. I sure hope so!
I really do hope to follow through with this GAME plan. I also plan to present the idea of even having a GAME plan to my principal. We’re going through a rough transition right now and have some sort of plan could really help us get to our final product. While the GAME plan in the course is all technology related, I can see that it could be easily modified to meet the needs of our school and later pull in the technology aspects of it.
Cennamo, K., Ross, J. & Ertmer, P. (2010). Technology integration for meaningful classroom use: A standards-based approach. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.
National Education Standards for Teachers (NETS-T) located at http://www.iste.org/Content/NavigationMenu/NETS/ForTeachers/2008Standards/NETS_T_Standards_Final.pdf.
A-The action I would take to meet the first goal is to find meet with my administration to discuss what local community members could or should be contacted. I would like to explore my options about what would be the best way to connect with the community, parents and students all at the same time. I think the best way to do this would be with an online newsletter. This can easily be created and sent out to all the members of the community that I would like to communicate with. A newsletter could be created on a blog, which would allow for feedback.
For the second goal, I would need to think a little bit harder. My school does not really foster local or global learning communities, so the first thing I would need to do is to find these. While Walden has been a good source for this as of yet, this will change when I graduate. I would also like to find a community that my peers and students can visit as well in order to keep them up to date with all the new things technology has to offer.
M-The M in the GAME plan stands for monitoring. I’ll need to “monitor whether I (you) am making sufficient progress towards my goals and reflect on whether the strategies I have chosen are working” ( Cennamo, Ross, Ertmer, 2009). This, at the moment, is a little hard for me to figure out, at least for my second goal. The first goal is easy to monitor. I can create the class blog and keep track of how many people I send it to and who gets it, as well as who responds to my postings. The second goal could be a little harder to manage, especially now that I do not even know where to start in finding learning communities that will help with creative applications. I know that, for now, I can continue to use my Walden community as a place to learn new things and can easily measure my growth here. I can see how many new ideas and technologies I implement and how useful they are to my students. In the future I can do this with the new things I find.
E-Evaluation of these goals should be fairly easy. Have I implemented the new technology I have learned? (goal 2) Have I connected through technology with people in the community? (goal 1) I plan to see, through this class, if evaluating these goals is really as easy as it seems. I sure hope so!
I really do hope to follow through with this GAME plan. I also plan to present the idea of even having a GAME plan to my principal. We’re going through a rough transition right now and have some sort of plan could really help us get to our final product. While the GAME plan in the course is all technology related, I can see that it could be easily modified to meet the needs of our school and later pull in the technology aspects of it.
Cennamo, K., Ross, J. & Ertmer, P. (2010). Technology integration for meaningful classroom use: A standards-based approach. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.
National Education Standards for Teachers (NETS-T) located at http://www.iste.org/Content/NavigationMenu/NETS/ForTeachers/2008Standards/NETS_T_Standards_Final.pdf.
Friday, October 30, 2009
Class Reflection
This class has taught me a lot about myself as a teacher. We need to do more then teach our students the material that needs to be learned. This does not create life long learners, it just creates momentary learners. Our students need to be taught how to learn without just being given the information. A revelation that I have had while in this class is that it is my job to do more then just teach my students Social Studies, it is to teach students how to truly learn. Basic facts including dates, names, and locations cannot do much for students in their future. Never do students move into real life and need to know who the founder of Judaism is or what the capital of Eritrea is. What our students do need to know is how to find this information for scholarly sources and present. Another part of my revelation is that there are so many good ways to do this! We can do web searches, questioning lessons and even group projects that will aid our students in becoming the kind of learners that can search deeply for answers.
The knowledge I have gained in this class will help me greatly in the future. It has already cemented my beliefs that students do not learn from the "sit and get" theory of teaching. As easy as it is sometimes for teachers to take the lead with learning and teaching, we need to make sure that our STUDENTS are the ones who can really do this. They need to be able to learn by themselves, to teach themselves through research and studies. No longer can I just give out worksheets and expect students to find the information in their textbooks. Now I need to have the students come up with exploratory questions with me and work through the process of finding the locations of these answers. In the past, the textbook was the end all. All information was taught from there. I see now that this needs to change. So many neat and interesting and even fun resources exist that will allow the students to learn so much more then just the book.
One major goal I have had through out my course work at Walden, continuing into this class, is my use of technology in the classroom. This class has molded that goal a little, changing it in a good way. Not only should technology be used in my classroom, but it should really be used by students more then the teachers. My professional goal for this class would be that I would like my students to learn how to use the Internet and how to evaluate the materials and websites presented there. Our resources in this class say that students must be able to use websites that are scholarly and good sources of information. To find out if they are the previous listed, students must evaluate the creator of the information, as well as the authenticity of the websites. If, as a class, we could include this information in even one lesson, students would be able to take more steps in the future to analyze the websites they choose to use.
Eagleton, M. B., & Dobler, E. (2007). Reading the web: Strategies for internet inquiry. New York: The Guilford Press.
The knowledge I have gained in this class will help me greatly in the future. It has already cemented my beliefs that students do not learn from the "sit and get" theory of teaching. As easy as it is sometimes for teachers to take the lead with learning and teaching, we need to make sure that our STUDENTS are the ones who can really do this. They need to be able to learn by themselves, to teach themselves through research and studies. No longer can I just give out worksheets and expect students to find the information in their textbooks. Now I need to have the students come up with exploratory questions with me and work through the process of finding the locations of these answers. In the past, the textbook was the end all. All information was taught from there. I see now that this needs to change. So many neat and interesting and even fun resources exist that will allow the students to learn so much more then just the book.
One major goal I have had through out my course work at Walden, continuing into this class, is my use of technology in the classroom. This class has molded that goal a little, changing it in a good way. Not only should technology be used in my classroom, but it should really be used by students more then the teachers. My professional goal for this class would be that I would like my students to learn how to use the Internet and how to evaluate the materials and websites presented there. Our resources in this class say that students must be able to use websites that are scholarly and good sources of information. To find out if they are the previous listed, students must evaluate the creator of the information, as well as the authenticity of the websites. If, as a class, we could include this information in even one lesson, students would be able to take more steps in the future to analyze the websites they choose to use.
Eagleton, M. B., & Dobler, E. (2007). Reading the web: Strategies for internet inquiry. New York: The Guilford Press.
Friday, October 2, 2009
Evaluating a Website
For this class we had to evaluate a website. I choose a website entitled "Britian for Americans". Below find the link to my screencast. I really enjoyed doing this assignment and using both Jing and Screentoaster to record my thoughts and screen movements. Enjoy!
http://screencast.com/t/jJnZo2iVy535
http://screencast.com/t/jJnZo2iVy535
Saturday, August 15, 2009
Research Scenarios
Education is one of the careers that is ever changing. Times change, people change, technology changes and because of this, education needs to change. Teachers need to keep up with the times and in order to do this, they must learn. In order to learn and change, research needs to be done to make education better. It is imperative that when this research is done, it is done in a fair ethical way that does not effect the students, but only effects the way we run our classrooms. In this class we have learned about several different ways to conduct ethical research. Below are four scenarios. In each one, I will identify the form of research I think best fits the scenario and explain my reasoning.
Scenario 1: Ten students are available for in-depth interviews. Participants will be selected based on their involvement with the peer mediation program. They will be observed over three weeks. Analysis will attempt to determine issues concerning peer mediation.
I believe that this fits into the qualitative method of research. Qualitative research looks at the words of students and conducts research that way. This scenario calls for in-depth interviews that aid the researcher in finding results. Phenomenology is used, as it is the study of lived experiences, which is clearly what is being used to collect data in this scenario.
Scenario 2: Two classrooms of students are selected. There are 30 students in each class; each group will have similar demographics—age, sex, race, socio-economic background, etc. Classes will be randomly divided into two groups of 15 students. Of these two groups, one randomly selected group will get training on peer mediation and the other group will not. Thus in each classroom there will be one group that is trained in peer mediation and one that is not. Analysis will occur on which groups have the fewest office referrals.
I believe that this scenario fits best into the quantitative research method, and deeper into this method, into the experimental method. Students are split into both a control group and an experimental group. These groups are not formed for any reason in particular and are quite random. They receive different interventions which provide different results in the end.
Scenario 3: A school counselor is interested in knowing how student attitudes affect the value of peer mediation to decrease the number of office referrals that are being filed for inappropriate interactions.
This scenario, I believe, fits into the mixed method of research. I believe this because while the research calls for no manipulation or control groups, and for the subjects to be observed in their natural environments (quantitative), the number of referrals is also looked at (qualitative). The connection between the number of referrals and the students attitudes fits perfectly into the correlation method, which finds a connection between pieces of data.
Scenario 4: Peer mediation has become widely used in many schools. The feelings of those involved in the process are little known—either from those doing the mediation or those receiving it. The ZASK-R Acceptance Preference Survey will be given as pre- and post-tests to 40 students participating in mediation. Follow-up interviews will be conducted on a bi-monthly basis.
This last scenario, in my mind, also fits into the mixed method category. It is quantitative due to the formal testing, but qualitative due to the face to face interviews. Both the true numbers, and the students opinions and feelings are addressed and taken into account in this scenario.
It is very important to use the best research method possible when working with children. It is our job to keep them safe and their privacy needs to be our priority. Another thing we need to strive for is true results. As I have learned in this class, research results can be swayed to be the way you wish for them to be. This makes the research totally invalid. We need to use proper research methods to ensure correct results. It is up to us as teachers to do the best for our students and work with the data to run more effective and engaging classrooms.
McMillan, J. H., & Schumacher, S. (2008). Research in education: Evidence-based inquiry (Laureate custom edition). Boston: Pearson
Scenario 1: Ten students are available for in-depth interviews. Participants will be selected based on their involvement with the peer mediation program. They will be observed over three weeks. Analysis will attempt to determine issues concerning peer mediation.
I believe that this fits into the qualitative method of research. Qualitative research looks at the words of students and conducts research that way. This scenario calls for in-depth interviews that aid the researcher in finding results. Phenomenology is used, as it is the study of lived experiences, which is clearly what is being used to collect data in this scenario.
Scenario 2: Two classrooms of students are selected. There are 30 students in each class; each group will have similar demographics—age, sex, race, socio-economic background, etc. Classes will be randomly divided into two groups of 15 students. Of these two groups, one randomly selected group will get training on peer mediation and the other group will not. Thus in each classroom there will be one group that is trained in peer mediation and one that is not. Analysis will occur on which groups have the fewest office referrals.
I believe that this scenario fits best into the quantitative research method, and deeper into this method, into the experimental method. Students are split into both a control group and an experimental group. These groups are not formed for any reason in particular and are quite random. They receive different interventions which provide different results in the end.
Scenario 3: A school counselor is interested in knowing how student attitudes affect the value of peer mediation to decrease the number of office referrals that are being filed for inappropriate interactions.
This scenario, I believe, fits into the mixed method of research. I believe this because while the research calls for no manipulation or control groups, and for the subjects to be observed in their natural environments (quantitative), the number of referrals is also looked at (qualitative). The connection between the number of referrals and the students attitudes fits perfectly into the correlation method, which finds a connection between pieces of data.
Scenario 4: Peer mediation has become widely used in many schools. The feelings of those involved in the process are little known—either from those doing the mediation or those receiving it. The ZASK-R Acceptance Preference Survey will be given as pre- and post-tests to 40 students participating in mediation. Follow-up interviews will be conducted on a bi-monthly basis.
This last scenario, in my mind, also fits into the mixed method category. It is quantitative due to the formal testing, but qualitative due to the face to face interviews. Both the true numbers, and the students opinions and feelings are addressed and taken into account in this scenario.
It is very important to use the best research method possible when working with children. It is our job to keep them safe and their privacy needs to be our priority. Another thing we need to strive for is true results. As I have learned in this class, research results can be swayed to be the way you wish for them to be. This makes the research totally invalid. We need to use proper research methods to ensure correct results. It is up to us as teachers to do the best for our students and work with the data to run more effective and engaging classrooms.
McMillan, J. H., & Schumacher, S. (2008). Research in education: Evidence-based inquiry (Laureate custom edition). Boston: Pearson
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Redefined Research Question
I have done some modification to my previous problem statement and really feel that it will continue to change as I continue to research the material. Through this weeks readings, I have learned that this question is quantitative. Quantitative research questions "use numbers, statistics, structure and control" (McMillan, Schumacher, 2006). This research question would be a bit qualitative because it looks at how the students react to the lessons (and all but one of the below questions are qualitative), but in end product would see to show what the GPAs of the students are and how these have changed. Deeper into the quantitative title, this question would fall into the "true experimental" type of research question. Students are split into different groups in order to get true results. This could easily be done in a middle school classroom by treating each academic period differently.
The questions I have come up with really got me thinking about ways to change my statement or even different ways to approach it. I look forward to learning more about this topic and feel that I will truly be able to use whatever results I find in my classroom.
My Problem Statement is as follows:
I plan to determine if Social Studies lessons taught to 7th grade social studies students with technology will increase student’s GPA more than those taught through basic teaching including lectures and book work.
1. What technology would work best to create lessons? (qualitative)
2. How effective is Power Point in teaching ideas? (qualitative)
3. How is GPA effected by different types of teaching? (quantative)
4. What benefits do lecture lessons hold? (qualitative)
5. What impact does not using a textbook have on a lesson? (qualitative)
6. How does a teachers level of comfort with technology impact their students scores after a lesson taught with technology? (qualitative)
7. How do students previous understanding of technology benefit them in a technology rich lesson? (qualitative)
McMillan, J. H., & Schumacher, S. (2008). Research in education: Evidence-based inquiry (Laureate custom edition). Boston: Pearson
The questions I have come up with really got me thinking about ways to change my statement or even different ways to approach it. I look forward to learning more about this topic and feel that I will truly be able to use whatever results I find in my classroom.
My Problem Statement is as follows:
I plan to determine if Social Studies lessons taught to 7th grade social studies students with technology will increase student’s GPA more than those taught through basic teaching including lectures and book work.
1. What technology would work best to create lessons? (qualitative)
2. How effective is Power Point in teaching ideas? (qualitative)
3. How is GPA effected by different types of teaching? (quantative)
4. What benefits do lecture lessons hold? (qualitative)
5. What impact does not using a textbook have on a lesson? (qualitative)
6. How does a teachers level of comfort with technology impact their students scores after a lesson taught with technology? (qualitative)
7. How do students previous understanding of technology benefit them in a technology rich lesson? (qualitative)
McMillan, J. H., & Schumacher, S. (2008). Research in education: Evidence-based inquiry (Laureate custom edition). Boston: Pearson
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