Module 5 B Reflection

This module has helped me think about self-directed learners and the role of differentiation in the following ways…


Self- directed learners are individuals that like to have the information they need to complete an assignment and given free reign to complete the assignment without help other than that of the instructions and or rubrics and checklists. I have many of these students who come to my classroom weekly; they simply want to know what is expected and then take the project and run with it on their own. I also have some students who need steady reminders to stay on task and to make sure that they have the required information included in their project. Every student has a different style of learning and it is our job as teachers to reach all of the students.

The role of differentiation is very important because all of the students being taught will be different. Some students will be gifted and want to be challenged more than the other students or they will find the material boring and become disinterested. There will be some students will be special needs and require a little more attention and or modifications and accommodations to be able to perform the tasks the other children are performing. I do not have any of these students as I teach in a private school and we are not funded as public schools to be required to make accommodations. We do have a program (LEAP) for students with learning disabilities as well as students who are gifted but it is limited to ADHD, ADD, reading help, more so like tutoring and additional one on one time. It is also important to be as helpful as possible to those with a language barrier. There are products that can help them to better be able to perform in the classroom. We do have several ESL students but again being a private school we do not offer special classes for them though they do have access to the LEAP program as mentioned above. I have found they are like sponges and seem to catch on really quickly especially the younger ones!

Module 5 Reflection

This module has helped me think about student centered assessment in the following ways:


Student centered assessment is a great way to got the students in the classroom involved. If you can give the children a purpose for doing something they are more likely to "buy into it" and get excited about what they are doing. This will allow them to be more hands on and involved with their learning. The e Reader had a great recommendation for students as they assess to: Ask three questions, make two comments, and provide one suggestion. When students are involved in assessment they start to feel control over their learning and see themselves as successful capable learners. It is imperative to get students involved in the process. I teach elementary technology and we have projects based off of materials they are learning in the classroom so though I have a rubric we tend to share our projects and not necessarily give "peer feedback". I think this is something I am going to work on involving the students more.

The e Reader does mention that effective assessment requires careful planning and implementation. I know that I put a lot of time into assessing projects that my students do and obviously with that comes lots of planning. I really thing my students especially the upper elementary would love to be able to have more involvement in "grading" their projects. I like the idea of peer sharing that was first mentioned in this section of the e Reader. I could easily use the rubrics, checklist etc that I have already created and involve my students with that process more. I would ideally like to work into them helping create the rubric at the beginning so they know from the start what is expected and they have a hand in deciding what all has to be included. The more involved the students are the better!

Module 4 Reflection

1. How can the creation of a student sample help me clarify my unit expectations and improve my instructional design? 
2. How can I ensure students will achieve the learning objectives when creating their student projects?
   The creation of a student sample can greatly help me clarify my unit expectation and improve my instructional design. It enables me to to decide if the project requirements are appropriate for my students. It is also a great way to determine if the resources are readily available as well as tells me what content needs to be included into my lessons. It is ideal to know exactly what you want your students to know and know how you are going to have them demonstrate that they do indeed know the content. If I were to just create a project with instructions this is what needs to be included and maybe it not hit my objectives and I am teaching to the objectives there is a minor disconnect that the students are very likely to not know the answers because it was not covered throughout the unit. It is vital that the objectives match/ meet your requirements for the project itself. You want to be able to assess that the students do indeed know what you set out in the beginning for them to know. A way to ensure that the learning objectives are met by students when they create the project is to provide them with a checklist or a rubric so they know exactly what topics or information is being looked for. The whole idea is for students to demonstrate their knowledge of the content and objectives you have set forth in the unit plan and subsequently covered in lessons throughout the unit.
   
   
   I personally chose to have my students create a brochure to explain their knowledge of the solar system, stars, the moon, the sun and our earth. I created a checklist to ensure that all topics were included into the project.
   
   

Module 2 Reflection

This module has helped me think about using standards, CFQ's or formative assessment in the following ways:

I see teachers using standards all the time being the elementary technology coordinator at our school and working with tech integration as well as projects in the technology classroom. I find that being in a private school though there is much more freedom in teaching standards. I was hired a year and a half ago and when I met with my mentor about lessons etc the one thing that I was told is "just make sure you look on ALEX and hit those standards. you can hit them however you want just so you cover them in some form or fashion." I look at what we are working towards here at my school and think yes we have freedom but so many teachers before this year did very little formative assessment. We still do not do as much as we probably should but we have in math moved to a combined numerical and standards based math grading system. This has had a huge impact on our kids. Those that got it when it was first presented or knew it before being taught it can now advance on and be pushed while those that struggle can go back and keep covering until they do get it. I feel like if we did more formative assessment in other subjects and maybe even standards based grading we could better gauge what our students know and what they don't know sooner. Those that have struggled have done significantly better because they aren't being "left behind".

I really want to push for more standards based grading and think we will be seeing more subjects added into this as we go along each year. There was a lot of kick back to this because it is "more work". I think if you are following your standards and teaching those standards the only difference and maybe more work is that you are providing differentiated instruction and are engaging more students because they aren't frustrated or bored. I really want there to be an emphasis on concepts using twenty first century skill and higher order thinking. We are able to assess throughout the unit because we are having checks to see if they are "mastering", "progressing" or "not mastering" the standards.

I think one place we , as my school, can improve on as well as myself doing projects in my technology class is to really put the curriculum framing questions out there for the students. We want to promote interest , relevance and understanding. We tend to give them more of the content questions and objectives but nothing as a real hook to spark that initial interest, to get them excited about it and thinking about it before hand.

Module 1 Reflection

This module has made me think about my role as an instructional designer in the following ways....

How can I get my elementary teachers to buy into designing a unit based on a project for students to complete.  The kicker that turns many off to the idea is that it requires more work on the front end of preparing every little detail of the project/ unit.  Students need to have a very clear direction that defines expectations responsibly, process and timeline. However, they do not realize that they will be freeing themselves to guide during the actual learning process and it then requires little planning. I noted the quote "Essentially, what takes longer to prepare, pays off in learning outcome" from the eReader.  I find that my biggest struggle is getting the teachers to buy into it because who wants to create new and plan so much on the front end when they can just use the same lesson plans they have used for the past ten years. It is kind of sad to be honest but it is a fact that we at my current school are facing. We are working to implement new things to try and push the buy in and have more teachers doing project based learning.

Teachers who have taught for many years are very teacher centered in their instruction and with project based we need to be student centered. We have to present the students with "important questions that tie to content standards and higher order thinking and real world contexts". The eReader also states that technology should be used to support learning. We are not a 1:1 elementary school but each classroom has devices in their rooms for their students to share. A huge struggle is for the teacher not to use the device as a "babysitter" so to speak and implement good quality projects and activities to support the students learning. How can I use professional development times to really push student centered learning and using devices for meaningful activities/ projects. I have done many sessions on various apps how they work and how they can be used in the classroom but there are still teachers who give their students an iPad and they solely play games. The principal knows who does it and has all but said do not do it but we are in a private school setting and that varies drastically from a public school setting.

Reflection is critical: What are ways that I can have my teachers reflect? The reading suggests to blog your journey. Maybe we can create a blog that teachers can all make posts and share with fellow teachers. We used a blog over the summer to reflect on a book that teachers had to read over the summer. There would be a writing prompt and everyone would make a comment then comment on smoething someone else shared. This was our first time doing this and I have to say it went over MUCH better than I had anticipated. There was very little drawback or grumbling so maybe this is something we can implement again in a different way.

How can I help teachers design and implement projects? I think at my school the issue isn't designing them (minus those who are still using lesson plans from ten years ago) it is more in the actual implementation of the project that we run into issues then it didn't go as planned so therefore they give up and do not even want to attempt to do it again. I noted a quote from the text that states "Many teachers need to accept that they are not the experts of everything and that their students may know more, especially when it comes to technology". We have a new "maker space" for our elementary students and I find that this is the best place to put teachers with their students and they start to realize "Wow, I really don't know the answer to how this works or how to make it work". They are then able to side by side work with the student to try and solve the problem at hand. I think having this room has been an eye opening experience for a couple of my teachers. It allows them to tell their students you know I really just do not know but lets try and work through it together. I think that side by side learning and learning from the students is a driving force in trying to get teachers to dabble with project based learning.

A big focus our school is pushing right now is meta-cognition and really pushing the students to "think about thinking".   We need to work on allowing students to use "logical thinking, creativity, collaboration and communication". The implementation of our maker space allows the students to do these things but I really want it to be pushed in the classroom as well. I think everyone does a good job with collaboration and communication because putting kids in a group and letting them discuss something can almost fill that role. The major thing lacking is allowing the kids to be creative and requiring them to think logically. We have to many worksheets and memorization activities. How can I work to eliminate so many of the worksheets and memorization activities?

All quotes were taken from the Intel Education eReader.