Enriching Content Area Learning Experiences-Intgr Tech Across Content- Week2- July 8,2012

When reviewing the NETS-T standards and performance indicators, I was very pleased to see I already incorporate many of these into my classroom daily.  Many of the standards focus on the importance of teachers developing, designing and evaluating authentic learning experiences.  In my subject area of health education and physical education, I am very fortunate many of my learning experiences are authentic whether they are focusing on smoking, drug use, physical fitness, nutrition or family life education.  I feel the real life examples I am providing to my students are valuable lessons because the students can relate to the material because these are all areas of life they are currently experiencing or will in the near future.

To improve areas of weakness you need a GAME plan.  “The GAME plan enables you to customize your approach to a learning task, to develop relevant skills that are important to you, and prepares you for lifelong learning” (Cennamo, Ross, & Ertmer, 2009, p.3-4).

My first area of weakness that I need to improve on was collaborating with parents, students, peers and community members using digital tools and resources to support student success and innovation.  While I do post or place student work around my room, I do not feel I am letting the parents and the community know exactly what my students are achieving in the classroom.  My first goal would be to open the doors of my classroom and allow the parents of my students to see exactly what is taking place inside the classroom walls.  I do not want to rely solely on my students sharing with their parents what happens in the classroom, but take a leadership role in this idea and tell the parents exactly what we are doing myself.  The actions I want to take to reach my goal would be to produce a weekly or monthly newsletter.  This newsletter would consist of all the areas of study we have studied the past few weeks along with all different projects we accomplished or completed.  Along with placing the material in the newsletter I would also have a calendar section of the newsletter discussing important dates coming up.  These dates would include test dates, project due dates and homework assignments.  I would share this newsletter in two different formats.  The first format would be a hard copy the students would bring home with them and the second way would be posting the newsletter on my teacher created website.  My teacher created website would be a great way to keep the parents and community involved in my classroom because anyone can see the site and can download the newsletter if they choose.  I would monitor the progress or the affect of the newsletter by having parents sign into my website and also I would probably have more email interaction with my parents due to questions or concerns over the newsletter.

The second area of improvement I want to focus on is the participation in local and global learning communities to explore creative applications of technology to improve student learning.  My goal here would be to continue to open up opportunities for my students to become active learners.  I want to continue to move away from textbook and lecture lessons and more to technology driven lessons that incorporate other classrooms and other states around the country.  The actions needed for this improvement are to continue to take classes like this to learn more about technology and the tools available to teachers to make this possible.  Over the last few months taking various courses in this program I have learned about wikis, blogs, podcasts and many more tools that allow classrooms walls to be expanded (Cennamo et. al, 2009).  “Computer software could serve as a tutor, mind tool and as a support for conversation” (Cennamo, et. al, 2009, p. 79). I would monitor progress in this area but self reflection, asking myself to evaluate my lesson plans and ideas.  Have my students’ grades and interest in the class increased? Or have they decreased?  Evaluating whether the goal was achieved would take time.  Even before technology, teachers would create lessons for the first time thinking it was the best lesson in the world only to find out it had many problems and issues they never thought of.  The same can be said for technology, there will be days and lessons when the use of technology fails you and days when it’s makes the lesson go.  It will be a trial and error period.  The lessons that work, you can keep, and the lessons that fail you need to have adjustments made to them so the modifications help you reach your learning objectives.  “Although there are many ways that technology can be used to promote creative thinking skills among students in your classroom, it should be fairly clear from our discussion that simply using technology will not accomplish this goal” (Cennamo et. al, 2009, p. 79).

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.