REFLECTION of the GAME PLAN

     As I look back on the seven weeks of this course, the Problem-Based Learning lessons and activities using various sources of technology and software, and through the collaboration of my Walden colleagues, I have learned a great deal from the assignments and the close communication with my Walden peers.  I collected a multitude of ideas, webpages, software ideas, and some new technology pieces – some of which I have already began to use. 

     My goals within my GAME PLAN have made overall progress; although more progress has been made with certain goals, while others are still in the “at work” process.  Even with my progress that I have made, there is still room for improvement.  I believe this happens with time and experience.  Time has definitely been my huge obstacle with achieving all of my goals; however, I do not realistically believe all of our goals can be met in a seven week period. 

     My first goal was to collaborate with students, peers, parents and community members using digital tools and resources to support student success and innovation.  I was successful with finally getting a math class website up and running for both myself and the math co-teacher.  We have used this website to provide homework help such as sample problems and breaking the problems down step by step for the students to follow.  We have had some communication from parents and several students, although due to a large percentage of students and their parent/s or guardian not having the Internet at home, the communication is limited.  I would like to continue using this website for informational purposes to let those that do read the website know when upcoming tests or quizzes will be, placing study guides into the webpage for those that may not have this, notes for students that missed the class and for parents/guardians as well.  For the future, I really wish to get our students involved in more digital story telling.  I feel this will be a project that can be fun for the students participating but it is also an artifact of what each of the students has learned with a particular concept.  It is also a way to have outsiders view the students’ learning and demonstration of that learning in a unique way that the “audience” (such as parents, grandparents, and other family members) probably never had the opportunity to participate in due to age and the era in which they were in school. 

     My second goal has been to improve and enhance my own competencies with being able to engineer and utilize more real-world, engaging lessons and activities that incorporate technology.  Progress is being made with this.  We have used several real-world scenarios that engage the students, collaboratively and with the usage of technology to make the learning meaningful and relevant, having the groups of students use critical thinking skills, communicate with their fellow group members, work together to find a solution or solutions to their “real-world” problem.  This is allowing our students to become more of the leaders in their own learning versus the activity or lesson being more of a teacher-centered scenario which we all too often are guilty of using in the classroom.  I wish to continue to strive in finding, creating and using more real-world activities and lessons where the students are collaborating, using technology (that fits and ties in nicely with the lesson) and pushing for the students to become more self-reliant along with using the aid of their team members to problem solve.  I want these type of activities to definitely be meaningful, productive, more engaging than the typical independent work sheets and above all, I wish to see each student to take more ownership of their own learning and feeling successful and good about themselves for having worked with a group as a team, communicating and discovering for themselves the possible ways of figuring out the problem or a set of problems with the teacher and co-teacher doing more monitoring and guiding when necessary.

WEEK 4 GAME PLAN progress

     I feel that I have made some progress in both of my goal areas; although, I am not to the point I would like to be.  I attribute this mainly to the fact, time has been limited for me this past school week.  We have had the entire Thanksgiving week off, but I am still trying to play catch-up with my job and the documentation that needs to be updated.  I look at it as, we do the best we can do with the time we have and I sincerely haven’t had an enormous amount of time to make any major “dents” with my goals this past week. 

     I was able to set up my Google Voice account and get it up and rolling.  I have only had one opportunity to use it but that was to contact a teacher.  My webpage has not been set up as of yet and to be frank, it probably will not be set up by the end of this upcoming school week due to IEP amendments for the modified version of the state-mandated testing coming up. 

     I was able to get my feet in the water with one of the STEM collaborative simulation activities on the last day of school.  We used the portable computer lab.  There were some obstacles involved with this activity, but some of that I contribute to our first time using this “virtual website” and secondly, the kids were not very in tune with listening and following our directions.  As always, our first period was the most engaged and on track; it is the second period that tends to ignore directions.  So, as a result, part of the class is on track and doing as they are supposed to be doing, while those not listening are far behind which takes away from our being able to help those that have been making a valiant effort because we are having to catch the other students up.  Thankfully, this was just a trial run.  When we return on Monday, the students will be working through the various steps in creating their own city park.  If the kids are attentive to the instructions, and they use the hints resources within this virtual park development, most should be able to have their entire park created by Wednesday of next week.  I am excited about this activity; mostly due in part to the fact that this is the first real math “virtual experience” or simulation of a real-world scenario that I have been exposed to.  This virtual park creation activity calls for the students to recollect previous background knowledge such as the formula for area of a rectangle, the volume formula, among other previous concepts that we have covered.  One thing I might want to discuss with my co-teacher, perhaps over the weekend, is her thoughts on allowing students to work with one partner to communicate amongst one another, problem solve, work as a team and critically think through what it is they are try to obtain for the various sections of their city park development. 

1.           Am I finding the information and resources I need?  For this past week and the upcoming week, I am pleased with the website that was introduced to me.  This is the first website I have EVER found that incorporates technology in a useful, productive manner and it is filled with various “simulation” or “virtual, real-world” scenarios that require our students to retrieve information they have previously worked with.  This particular development of the student’s own city park does require prior knowledge of formulas and steps to find – for example – the amount of truckloads of mulch that will be needed to cover the playground.  They are provided with certain lengths, widths, depth, etc.; however, in most of the steps for creating the park, one or two measurements are missing and must be determined before one can lay down mulch or place benches and tables where needed.   In order to determine how to find those missing measurements much of this activity will require various levels of cognitive skills- some not so difficult; however, others require some serious, critical thinking.

     My second goal – collaborating with the parents, students, peers, and community using digital tools and resources is not at the point I would like it to be.  I do have the necessary resources and “directions” on how to set up my webpage; however, I simply have not had the time.  I must be honest.  Here lately, I feel overwhelmed by work, Walden, the portfolio (which I will end up having a stroke, nervous breakdown, or a heart attack due to the portfolio which I am honestly having nightmares over), the loss of a dear family member and life in general.  I am not one to “sugar-coat” and tell people what they want to hear… I have become more and more-due to experience- of a straight shooter.  I am speaking the truth when I express the time is a definite issue for me right now and until these amendments and IEPs have been completed. 

2.            I do not feel I need to modify anything at this point.  I do feel that our activity that involves using technology in a real-world scenario activity is a great lesson and the www.Stemcollaborative.org website has some terrific ways to incorporate technology into real world scenarios not only for math but for science, vocational teachers and some engineering-focused courses.

     In my opinion, there is no need for me to modify or change my action plan for the collaboration with parents, etc. using digital tools and technology.  This will be something I need to address towards the end of this upcoming school week and do my best to have my website up and running.

3.           What have I learned?  Great question.  Actually, I have learned #1- it is in my best interest to have gone through whatever activity that incorporates technology prior the unveiling of this activity to the kids. No brainer, right?  Well, unfortunately, I did not do that for the trial run this past Friday.  I could have been of greater assistance to many more students during first period had I played around with the activity prior.  I would have known the “ends-and-outs” of the activity and what each section of my park development was asking for.  Luckily, I have sense gone through the entire park development lesson and successfully created my own.  By this, I will be able to be more efficient with guiding and assisting more students that I was able to do this past Friday. 

    Regarding using digital tools and resources to collaborate with parents, students, peers, and the community, I should have acted on this the day I received the directions from the technology guru at our school or better yet, just allowed him to have set it up for me as he had said he was willing to do.  Lesson learned!  If someone offers assistance especially with setting up something to do with technology, I had better take him/her up on it ASAP!

4.       What new questions have arisen?  The question I have is really directed towards my peers and colleagues in this Walden course.  By no means am I intending this in a sarcastic - My question is, “ how is everyone manipulating their time in such a productive manner to where they are able to get the weekly Walden work done, work a 40 plus hour a week teaching job, coach (if applicable), try to fit in time to attempt to make sense of the portfolio directions (roughly 75 pages worth) which in my opinion are not direct nor straight forward, have time to spend with family or have a social life, etc.?”  This is a very serious question and I would really appreciate any feedback from any of my fellow Walden colleagues.  Back in my day of elementary, middle and high school there were not any testing for people with various disabilities- for example: cognitive delays slow processing skills, learning disabilities, etc.  My point of this is it seems to take me two to three times longer to get my thoughts together and to type them out for my assignments. I just wonder if I might have the slow process delay deficit and/or the cognitive delay when it comes to reading and writing.   I have no problems with understanding and quickly being able to master most math and science problems such as physics and chemistry; along with biology, anatomy and physiology material.  However, I truly struggle with writing and specifically with making sense of the portfolio directions.  I am just overwhelmed the number of pages of directions and information I had to print off for the portfolio transition 3 portions.

Any ideas, suggestion, comments, etc. regarding my question on how one juggles all of this and still has time for a bit of fun and 8 hours of sleep, PLEASE do not hesitate to share.  Thank you for reading.

WEEK 3 GAME PLAN BLOG

     I could not have been any luckier this week.  One of the standards I am making a full-throttle effort in discovering and allowing for our math classes to use more authentic, real-world activities along with the usage of technology – this is Standard 2 which calls for designing and developing digital age learning experiences for my math class.  Fortunately, the eighth grade math department had a STEM workshop on Monday.  We were to search for some authentic, real-world application problems where the students are using technology and some form of a real-world application activity to solve for some multi-stage problems through collaboration with two other team members.  Monday was my lucky day; I definitely should have played the lottery.  In a matter of minutes, we discovered just the ideal website: www.Stemcollaborative.org .  Within that this website, we found a link called math by design.  Within this website there are multitudes of math related authentic, real-world problems that involve the computer, the website, possibly the TIiNSpires, and/or a scientific calculator.  This particular activity we have chosen for the students to do is designing a park using various formulas throughout the development of their own park.  I was too excited that this website just appeared several minutes after we had started probing for ideas.  This particular activity involves a group of three students per team.  The real-world activity will definitely call for effective communication skills, working together as a team to solve both multi step problems (some of that requiring the students to think critically) during the entire development of each groups’ park and what their park consist of along with the measurements in square feet, the volume of water within their pond, the amount of dirt and mulch that will be necessary for various areas of this park.  Granted, we the teachers will have to model and guide the students through various portions of their creation.  Although, we are asking each group to communicate among one another, try to solve the dilemma amongst themselves, and if necessary make use of the of the hint link that is provided within their park diagram.  This particular activity takes the group through each stage or task, and it provides the students with prompts they will need to know and use and this particular authentic activity provides the groups with hints on what formulas they will need if they do not know what formulas are necessary.  My intentions are to allow the student to work on this activity until Friday.  Even though it is bad timing, they will have to come back the Monday after Thanksgiving to develop a presentation and/or illustration sharing with the class by use of Voice Thread, digital video recording, pictures, the website and the final development of the park and any other technology component the students feel would add some uniqueness to their presentation as long as the technology is approved by myself or Mrs. McDeermond. At the end of each group’s presentations, I would like feedback via open-ended questions that require the students to give some thought to the positives and the negatives of this authentic activity.  As I had mentioned in my first GAME Plan post, I would like to incorporate one of these type of real-world, technology-based activities once every six weeks.  As time goes by, incorporate these type of activities into our learning of content on a once a month basis.  The collaboration among the 8^th grade math teachers has already started off on a very positive note and all involved in our STEM collaboration assured me that they would be more than happy to listen to my ideas, provide feedback, provide possible resources to look into, and communicate any questionable concerns they might have.  They have offered to meet with me once every week and a half to discuss these types of authentic activities.

     For the next standard I wish to become more confident with and use on a consistent basis is the communication between parents, me, fellow colleagues, my students, and the community members. Once again, during this STEM training workshop among the eighth grade math teachers, I was able to learn a good deal through this one math teacher that is VERY technology oriented and super savvy with the latest and greatest in technology and its effective usage in the math classroom.  He introduced me to Google Voice (just today as a matter of fact).  Once this is set up, one can make phone calls to any parent through your iPad and the beauty of it is that it does not show your cell phone number that was initially used during the set-up process.  Therefore, I no longer will receive phone calls from parents at all, but especially not late at night.  I had several occurrences last year from one parent that would NEVER answer her phone during the day.  Although, anywhere between ten p.m. and close to two a.m., this parent would call from the number I had called and left a message on.  I can put my mind at ease that my phone will not be disbursed through the caller id; therefore, parents can call the number that Google Voice has set up as the number you call from.  This guy is a master mind.  I feel as if, I just need to hang out with him in order to discover the great possibilities and limitations to usage of technology and software as a means of staying in touch with parents.  Honestly, I have not started to create my webpage that will be open and accessible for all parents, students, fellow colleagues and community members to use just yet.  Tonight, my intentions are to create this Google Voice account and get it up and running.  I am hopeful that by Friday, I can have a basic teacher webpage set up and ready for lines of communication between myself and all other pertinent individuals involved in the community’s education of students and as an opportunity to get a glimpse at the current events and future events that my math class will be involved in.   I do intend on using Skype as a way to video myself talking and/or presenting various information, ideas, suggestions, upcoming homework assignments, upcoming quiz and tests, etc.

Please feel free to offer suggestions, ideas, constructive criticism and the like.  This is one HUGE way we all can learn together and share information and resources.

I do look forward to reading other educator’s blogs and their ideas. 

Thank you for reading!

GAME PLAN using technology in real-world math lessons

                                                            GAME PLAN

  Not only do we need to teach, model, direct and guide our students to becoming more confident and proficient with 21^st Century Learning Skills and the Technology incorporated into their learning, but it is essential that we learn, maintain and expand on our own technology skills.  If we are not “up to par” with our own proficiencies and strategies in integrating technology into the students’ learning process, how can we expect to teach our students what is necessary for these soon-to-be adults to thrive and become independent, productive citizens within our society?

        As I have reviewed and reflected upon  NETS-T, I must admit that I need to become more confident, proficient and have a stronger grasp on all of these standards myself.  However, for sake of what I feel will best aid my teaching, guidance, modeling, proficiencies and my own confidence with incorporating technology into learning opportunities for my students, I have set my goals to be focused on Standard Three B - To collaborate with students, peers, parents and community members using digital tools and resources to support student success and innovation and Standard two – Design and Develop Digital Age Learning Experiences and Assessments.

     For Standard two, I wish to improve and enhance my own competencies with being able to engineer and utilize more real-world, engaging lessons and activities that incorporate technology.  By the implementation of more authentic and engaging lessons and activities, it is my goal for the students to make more of a meaningful connection with their own learning and how math does in fact relate and tie in to real-world situations, jobs, and daily living within society.  My co-teacher and I currently use Computer-based tutorials once every three weeks; however, I would like to begin developing a real-world, authentic lesson that engages the students in real-world (math) problems incorporating various technology and software devices.  I would like to start incorporating more of these activities on a six week basis and end up doing one every month. 

     My action is to investigate and research different ideas using the internet.  I will be looking for 8^th grade math real-world, engaging activities and lessons that will allow for the student’s usage of various technology devices- those that are meaningful and will enrich the students’ learning.  I will do this research at least twice a week for a period of 45 minutes to an hour. Secondly, I wish to set aside a once a week period to discuss with fellow math teachers, to share the ideas I have found that pertain to standards and content and how we could use some of these activities that incorporate technology.  I am looking for and asking my fellow colleagues for their thoughts, ideas and suggestions during this "meeting time" as well. 

     I will monitor my own learning each time I am online researching for meaningful, real-world lessons and possible technology components that can enhance the lesson and the students' learning by writing in a journal my thoughts on ideas I found, possible technology that I could use in my lessons and also reflect on how these activities the incorporation of technology would work with the students I teach.  I will journal each week as meet with my fellow math teachers regarding my ideas, their thoughts, feelings and any additional ideas they might throw my way.  Lastly, as I incorporate each lesson that is a real world scenario with usage of technology, I will journal how things went: what was good, what did not go over so well, what might I do differently next time, and/or was the activity a success or a total bomb. 

     The second standard I wish to focus on is Standard 3-B: Collaborate with students, peers, parents and community members using digital tools and resources to support student success and innovations.  My goal is to establish open lines of communication by my developing a teacher website for myself.  This has never been mandatory in any of the school systems I have taught at, so I have always shied away from attempting to create a website of my own. The big payoff for me is that I am hoping for parents to become more involved via website communication regarding their child and to keep them informed as to what is currently taking place, what is approaching, and for them to have their child's assignment work, study guides and practice websites at the tip of their fingers.

     My action within this website is to keep the website updated daily in order to communicate with parents, students and fellow teachers what we are currently covering in the math class each day, what is upcoming in the classroom, have homework problems, study guides uploaded into my website for parents and students to retrieve if the student was or is going to be absent, some website addresses the students can use to practice on various math content and update the parents on upcoming real-world activities and an overview of the activity, the content that is being covered, and the technology that the students will be using during this lesson or activity.  

     To monitor myself and the usage of my website, I will journal weekly to keep myself focused on updating the website daily, am I receiving any feedback from parents, students, teachers or community members and if so, what does the feedback pertain to.  I will also send out a monthly four to five question survey to parents that utilize my website to get feedback.  Within the survey, I would want to know if I have kept the website updated and current and have they used the website to retrieve study guides, homework or to use some of the practice websites.

     My evaluation will be my overall reflection through my weekly journaling, the feedback I get from parents, students and/or fellow teachers regarding the effectiveness of my website and one final survey/questionnaire to the parents that did and/or did not use the website.

References:

International Society for Technology in Education. (2008). National education standards for teachers (NETS-T). Retrieved from http://www.iste.org/standards/nets-for-teachers