GAME Plan Monitoring

Monitoring GAME plan Progress

This week’s assignment for Walden required that I look at assessment techniques (Forced option format, opened ended response formula, performance based assessment and project based assessment) that would be useful for the content areas in which we teach. We also had to connect these assessments to the use of technology.

In order for students to perform well in the content area it is important to have the assessment format in mind as this is the guide for the teacher in directing the learning of the student. I have used each form of assessment, and probably used forced assessment and open ended response more than the others. I think however if I am preparing my students for the 21^st century that I really need to incorporate a lot more performance and project based assessment, especially in math. I think that the students do not see that in math there can be useful projects that can be applied to some of the content areas that they are learning. I see more applications of this in geometry than in algebra, but that is because I am just opening up to the possibilities.

My plans for the rest of this school year and especially during the summer months is to research and design more project and performance based learning activities for my algebra and geometry students as this is vital to for them to be able to succeed in the 21^st century.

Resources

Cennamo, K., Ross, J., & Ertmer, P. (2009). Technology integration for meaningful classroom use: A standards-based approach ( Laureate Education custom edition). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.

Carrying Out My GAME Plan

Our application activity this week for Walden made me do a lot of thinking about how I would need to design my lesson plans to incorporate technology. My GAME Plan is to be able to design or adapt relevant learning experiences that incorporate digital tools to promote student learning. I realize that to be able to do this I need the support of the school corporation. As it is, they have so many blocks and filters in place that when the students are given research to do even the sites that they would need to find worthwhile results are blocked. This causes frustration on the part of the student and me the teacher.

In order to make the learning experience a positive one, I would need first of all the approval of the department head for the project. I am not sure how other schools hierarchy is organized, but at our school we have to first go through our department head. If he likes the idea then he will convey the ideas to the principal. I believe that instead of talking that it would be more profitable to demonstrate the uses of the voice thread or wiki in advancing student learning capabilities. To do this I would have to demonstrate its usefulness by doing a demonstration and possibly using tools like screen capture and possibly hold the demonstration outside of school property as once there the filters would block my ability to carry out the demonstration effectively.

Once I can get the department head, principal and my peers in the math and science department on board maybe as a group we can begin to effect the changes needed to incorporate the new technologies into the curriculum. As it is demonstrated how to teach students safe internet practice and ethics they will be more inclined to be flexible with the accessibility of the websites and the use of different web tools. It may be a long fight, but with perseverance I am sure that everything will work out in the end.

My other goal is to demonstrate fluency in technology systems and the transfer of current knowledge to new technologies and situations. In order to do this I have recently began using the graphing tool with the overhead projector. This is very useful as I do not have graphing calculators for everyone and the students get to come up and input data into the calculator and observe the graph as it is projected on the screen. I have also gone ahead and set up my geometry, algebra 1 & 2 school web page with resources for all my students including power points, video tutors and online quizzes in the content area. At the moment the school web access is so slow and frustrating that I will have to terminate the idea of online quizzes and revert to paper pencil quiz, but I also notice that the students are not making use of the video tutor helps provided to them. I am very discouraged by this, but I think it is a lack of exposure on their part why they are not using this resource and can only hope that over time there will be an improvement in their response.

It would be nice to hear from any of my peers about how they got their students to be comfortable with using these additional resources provided online.

GAME Plan

Developing My Personal GAME Plan

The two indicators that I would select to strengthen my confidence and proficiency are:

· design or adapt relevant learning experiences that incorporate digital tools and resources to promote student learning and creativity

· demonstrate fluency in technology systems and the transfer of current knowledge to new technologies and situations.

Goals:

· Learn more about the digital tools out there like Google sketch pad, flicker, wikis, how to develop web quests, use of concept maps and other resources that I can use to enhance learning especially in math.

· Learn more about web conferencing tools and how to incorporate them into an educational context that would be beneficial to my students.

Actions:

· Explore web quests, concept maps and Google sketch pad to see how these tools can be incorporated into any of the algebra 1, algebra 2 or geometry topics that I teach.

· Investigate the options that are available for web conferences over the internet (podcasting, video, Skype, webinars,weebly) and ensure that these tools are also accessible on the school computers.

Monitor

· Identify the features that are available for web questing, concept mapping and using the Google sketch pad noting the advantages and disadvantages of using these web tools. Are they easy to use and do they have features that readily lend themselves to the teaching of mathematics.

· Identify the features that are available for using the web conferencing tools and list the advantages and disadvantages of using any one of these tools (video, podcasting, etc) in any of my algebra or geometry lessons.

Evaluate

· For this section I would have to seek the input of my peers for both indicators and have them asses with me the usefulness of both indicators in the math classroom.

· Suggest ways that any of the tools mentioned above can be incorporated into a math lesson and then evaluate its effectiveness by the students approach to the lesson and how much was learned from it.

In developing this GAME plan I was very unsure how to set it up as related to math. I welcome any input from my classmates that would help to make this GAME plan more math friendly and efficient.

Resource

Cennamo, K., Ross, J., & Ertmer, P. (2009).Technology integration for meaningful classroom use: A standards-based approach (Laureate Education custom edition). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.