Thursday, March 22, 2012

Monitoring My GAME Plan Progress


Monitoring My GAME Plan Progress

Since I have developed me GAME plan, I have been more active in exploring different types of technologies.  I have found some information that pertains to the school and county terms of conditions of the use of technology among students.  This has been insightful in that I am discovering that not all teachers are adhering to the policies properly.  I still need to explore the use of an active board for myself instead of reading about it or hearing about it from others.  I would like to actually take the time and use one for myself to become acquainted with the technology and its terminology before using it in front of the students to increase my comfort level. 

In order to modify my action plan, I would like to design ideas that I could use to better the use technology for my students.  After learning about the various types of technologies, I would then like to learn how to effectively implement the technology into my daily lessons.  After reading about the four types of assessments, I would also like to include how I can incorporate the use of technology that can support and enhance assessments. 

I have learned that finding the necessary information is right at my fingertips.  The literature is there to help me learn about technology as well as the responsibility of the use of technology.  I have also learned that teachers are compelled to share their knowledge and are willing to help and to advise.

The new questions that have arisen after I have been learning about the technology and school use of technology policies is how can I successfully implement the use of technology in my math lessons and assessments?  After I become more comfortable with how to use the technology properly to promote digital citizenship and responsibility and in designing and developing digital-age learning experiences and assessments, I would like to implement my findings.  I would like to implement the four types of assessments and choose the most appropriate assessments rather than the traditional paper and pencil test.  Therefore, how can I properly promote digital citizenship and responsibility and how can I appropriately implement the use of technology to enhance student learning in a math class?

5 comments:

  1. Joe to Malissa

    Since mathematics is both of our content areas, I would like to share with you my discussion about assessments that I posted on our discussion board (if you haven’t had the time to look at it yet). I have cropped and edited it to cut to the meat of the post. It states:

    …I have often struggled to find creative and innovative ways to use the varied types of assessments in education. Compound this difficulty with infusing technology only adds to my dilemma. … I have settled on a few ways to ensure that both can be integrated with one another.

    Since I work with an interactive whiteboard every day… I have been able to attend professional development on the transponders used with this software (clickers) that are often used for forced-option formats. Subsequently, I have been able to develop several weekly quizzes that utilize both this type of assessment and technology. This also enables the teacher to pull data and analyze student results instantaneously.

    Through a couple of courses, this one included, I have been developing a unit project for students to develop a wiki. At first, the wiki project was developed for unit reviews … where students would collaborate online to create a test review. …I have come to realize that my students could perform this task on a weekly, if not daily, basis for homework review. Interesting about this task is that almost all of our math homework is free-response, or rather open-ended questions (with respect to approach to solving). The very project itself forces dialogue and collaboration amongst members to successfully complete the task by its due date.

    In addition to the wiki-project, I often assign unit projects where students are given a “job” as if they are an architect or contractor. The project emulates a real-world situation where students need to complete a job or submit proposals based on RPF (request for proposal) guidelines given to them. The finished product is a formal written recommendation in a portfolio-type fashion.

    Lastly, both the wiki and unit projects have one final requirement; students need to present their findings to an audience. This approach uses cross-curriculum skills that strengthen other content areas as well. As benefit, students are able to use the interactive whiteboard to assist in their presentation of their findings. As a teacher, I can video the presentations and grade the performance from a pre-determined rubric.

    I hope this has given you some ideas to assist in implementing technology in your classes. Please know that these are works-in-progress and by no means the only way it can be done. They are, however, the only way that I have come up with and I am more than willing to take some pointers and suggestions on how to make them better or introduce new ways you have found. Sounds like you are on the right track!

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    1. I work for the technology department for my county, and I too have found that many teachers do not adhere to the policies that have been set in place, especially where the students are concerned. We use to block sites like Facebook and Youtube, but since there are so many ways that students can bypass the firewall and access the sites, the county is going to unblock all social networking sites. This will effectively put the burden of discipline on the teachers for when their students visits those sites during classroom instruction. Another problem is that some teachers use the laptops for personal use and they forget that it is county property. Same goes with email.

      Concerning how you would modify your plan, there are numerous ways to incorporate their technology with assessments. Performance and project based assessments seem to work best with technology in my opinion. Letting the students create podcasts, VoiceThreads, videos, photo-stories, blogs, wikis is a much better way to let the learners show they have learned and it allows you to incorporate technology into assessments.

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  2. I work in a computer lab and I think adding technology to the mix is noble and responsible of you. We are in a Master’s program that focuses on integrating technology into our curriculums, but what I have learned it is that it must make sense. Maybe you should think about starting slowly and see how each change goes. Evaluate the difference between achievement prior to the change and then after it.
    Making sure that your students are not getting in trouble on the Internet is our responsibility and your concern is warranted. I would hope that your use of technology for math includes real-world application where students can actually see these concepts being used towards getting something done…like building a bridge or a home.
    Take care and good luck with your GAME Plan!

    Fred Aspan-Martin

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  3. Joanne to Malissa

    My subject area is also mathematics and I would like to address your desire to use different types of assessments other than paper-and-pencil. I have created a couple of unit assessments where students create a digital presentation to share their learning. Students have completed the first alternative assessment for transformations. It was an interesting experience for both students and myself. I created a rubric for students to use as they created their digital presentation to share both their content learning and how the geometry is related to the real world. I wanted to allow students the opportunity to be creative and also use their area of strength to create the presentation. Most groups used Prezi and Animoto for their presentation a couple groups used Photo Story, while another group made a rap. Many students were concerned about how I was going to grade their presentation even though I felt as though I had provided appropriate structure in the rubric. I kept reassuring students as long as they made sure to include all the requirements they would earn a good grade. After so many students expressed their concerns I talked with the class as a whole to let them know this is the first time I have assessed students' learning in this way and it was going to be a learning experience for all of us.

    My advice for using alternative assessments in mathematics is you will need to be extremely patient and reassuring especially if you allow students to choose the format in which they will create their presentation. Remember students probably have never been asked to be creative in mathematics, they are used to being judged on whether the final answer is correct.

    Joanne C.

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    1. Joanne,

      Thank you for your advice. It is good to know that other mathematic teachers are trying this. I did a project in my class last semester where they created a poster or book and they had to be creative. This was a change for the students. If technology were used, they students would be able to be more creative. I believe it will be a learning process for us all. Thank you for your advice!

      Malissa

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