Final Blog Post

I think that the GAME plan has merit in any classroom with any age of students, even with students with special needs. The GAME plan gives both the teacher and the students a foundation from which we establish goals, measure our progress, and reflection. I have been considering how to incorporate technology into my classroom to meet the needs of my students in a capacity beyond assistive technology and I plan to use the GAME plan to do just this.

As for my own GAME plan and goals I have set, I will be working on them as the school year progresses. It is unfortunate that I took this class just prior to my first year of teaching, but I feel that I have the skills, resources for and understanding of the GAME plan that I can use this to guide me through my first year and beyond.

I do want to continue to learn about the different technologies and how I can effectively use them with my students. I will begin with assistive technology and I really want to implement my unit that I created in this class. As for my unit, I believe that later in the year, once I have had a chance to teach some technology skills to my students, I will collaborate with my partner in the cluster program (she teaches grades 3-5). I want to make sure that I effectively use these tools in such a manner that it offers my students the best benefit possible.

Using the GAME Plan Process with Students

Without determining a plan to meet your goals, goals become hard to attain. The GAME plan is just that, a plan that allows each student to make decisions about how they are going to obtain their goals, which also includes an important step in evaluating progress and revising your plan. This I feel is often where students have the most difficulty and is something that we need to teach our students. In my experiences as an associate, I have seen all too often that students don't know what to do when they are struggling to meet goals. They don't understand, and we fail to teach them, that they can reflect and revise both their plan and their goals.

I see the IEPs that I will be using for my students as a form of a GAME plan. Here we (the teachers and parents) establish the goals, the standards by which we will measure growth towards the goal, the actions needed to accomplish the goals, and evaluate/revise the goal. As for my students using the GAME plan themselves, this will be very difficult. For most of my students, understanding what it is and why we do it will be a difficult task and will need to be set up in a very structured way. I am not sure yet how I will use this with my students and how it would look in my classroom, aside from the IEPs that I will use.

Revising Your GAME Plan

As I stated last week, I haven't really had the opportunity to make progress on my goals because we are on summer break. So I will do my best in answering these questions.

What have you learned so far that you can apply in your instructional practice?

One of the most important things I have learned so far is the importance of understanding the learning needs of my students. For my students especially, being able to differentiate lessons in both learning styles and level of ability is central in their success. Remember, I will be teaching in an MD Special Ed program with 7-10 students at varying academic levels. I have learned that the students that I will have this upcoming year have previously been with a teacher that did little to build their skills, so structure, organization, and motivation are going to be essential to having a successful year. The chapter in our text that dealt with UDL and assistive technology are definitely going to be used in my classroom.

As for assessment, I believe that I will learn more about what to use and when as I gain experience. To begin with I expect to use mostly performance based assessments on students.

Based on the NETS-T, what new learning goals will you set for yourself?

Along with my original goals, I know that I want to learn as much as possible about assistive technology. This falls under the NETS-T 2. Design Digital-Age Learning Experiences and Assessments. Specifically, I want to develop my skills in (c.) customizing and personalizing learning activities to address students' diverse learning styles, working strategies, and abilities using digital tools and resources

If you are not ready to set new learning goals, how will you extend what you have learned so far?

Basically, I am just adding a new goal and still working to make progress on my previous goals.

What learning approaches will you try next time to improve your learning?

I can't really answer this question completely as of yet, because so much of what I will learn will be through experience and reflection. I do plan to reflect on lessons at a minimum of weekly and I have a spot for reflective notes on my daily lesson plans. I still plan to do some research and make use of networking with colleagues, support staff, mentors and classmates in education.

Evaluating My GAME Plan Progress

Both of my goals fall under Standard 2. Design and Develop Digital-Age Learning Experiences and Assessments (assessment and differentiated learning)

ASSESSMENT GOALS

As for my goals about assessment, I have had little opportunity to apply any of what I have read in our texts due to this class being during the summer months. Even though I am teaching summer school, the classes are only twice a week for 3 hours and aside from doing some running records to make sure we are, at a minimum, maintaining reading levels (the reason for this class is to try to avoid backwards growth during the summer months), I have had little opportunity to work with assessing students and no contact with colleagues or mentor. So far, I have learned that my students will mainly be using performance based assessment as a means of demonstrating what they have learned. Many of the other methods our text has outlined will not be appropriate for my students based on their needs. Many students have accommodations for assessments such as the forced-option and open-ended response formats. Understanding how to implement these accommodations is a skill that I need as well as skills my support staff (such as associates) need to accurately measure growth. I feel that there is much that I still need to learn, but I feel that this may be less to do with my own skills and more to do with my confidence. As I gain experience and move throughout the year, I feel I will have a better idea of what I still need to learn and how to adjust my plan to fit my needs.

DIFFERENTIATING LEARNING GOALS

I have had a bit more experience this summer in learning how to differentiate learning, as my students range (in reading alone) from pre-K to reading level F. Some of my students don't even know all the alphabet or letter sounds while others are able to read at level F (about grade 2). This has made it interesting how to set up learning centers (such as a writing center) that meets all their needs. As for individualizing work, I do use small groups and group them according to ability. However, independent work with students is a bit more challenging. Some of my students have never experiences working independently in a center and I have very little time with them to teach this skill during the summer. I rely heavily on my associate to make sure students are engaging in centers appropriately while I work with small groups. I know that once fall is here and we are at regular school days this will be different, but I see this as an opportunity to learn how to effectively differentiate learning. As in my progress with my assessment goals, the majority of my learning and questions will be formed once our fall school year begins, at which time I will monitor/reflect on student and my own learning and how I will need to adjust my plan.

Monitoring My GAME Plan Progress

As I monitor my progress of my GAME plan, I can say that at this point I am unsatisfied with how things are going and I know that it is mainly due to the fact that I have not had any time to commit to actually make progress on my goals.

INFORMATION AND RESOURCES

I have done a little research into how to differentiate lessons for my students with special needs. I have found a few blogs that give me some ideas. Right now, most of what I have learned has been from my own experience; trial and error then reflecting on the process. I am teaching Summer School and I have students that are academically at both ends of the spectrum and being able to take a lesson, such as teaching money identification and counting, and differentiate learning so that all students are engaged has been difficult. I am learning how to create lessons that all students can engage with and how to manage support staff (my associate) and use them to help in this process.

MODIFY

At this point, I don’t see the need to modify my plan. I want to give my first plan a chance to work. Because it is summer, and the program is moving into a new school, I think that I will have to actually have to experience the new school setting as well as get to know my students in order to determine if I need to modify my action plan.

LEARNING SO FAR

From my experience as a long-term sub and summer school teacher of this program, I can that what I have learned so far is the need to constantly reflect on lessons, make sure that I am organized to collect data for IEPs on time and accurately, and reflect on my personal GAME plan so I can make necessary modifications when needed.

QUESTIONS

Being a first year teacher, I feel like I am going into this blind, not knowing what to expect, but I have had the opportunity to know some of my students before I begin my new journey. I am full of all kinds of questions, but they are mostly to do with the unknowns of being a new teacher. I am both excited and nervous. I am sure that I will have questions as I begin this new journey, which I will refer to as I reflect on my lessons and through data collection and analyzing data for IEPs.

Carrying Out My GAME Plan

I apologize to my group about not doing any postings. I was out of town without access to the Internet and then when I returned home, we had a power outage that damaged my computer and left me without access for another week. I am now trying to catch up and become a contributing group member.

Beginning this fall, I will be a new Special Education Teacher. This is my first full-time job, so my goals that I chose are about assessment and differentiation.

RESOURCES

The resources that will be needed in order to carry out my GAME plan for both of my goals will be the expertise or advice from my colleagues and mentor. I believe this will be one of the greatest sources of feedback that I will have close at hand. Aside from this, reading journals about assessment and differentiating lessons, and the knowledge I receive from classes I am taking to get my endorsement (I was hired with an emergency licenses which is dependent on my obtaining an endorsement for an Instructional Strategist with focus on Mental Disabilities.)

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

I am not sure what other additional information I need at this time. This will be my first year teaching and I am not sure what to expect yet. I think that one thing I need to understand is about how students grades will be reported: Will they receive a report card or are their learning achievements only reported through their IEPs?

STEPS TAKEN SO FAR

I have done a small amount of research through blogs about differentiating lessons with special needs students. I have also done some running records and letter/number identification as sort of a pre-assessment because I have a few students in my Summer School class that will be in my classroom in the fall. This gives me an idea of where they are at coming to me and where I will need to go with them throughout the year. Summer school is done the first week of August and between the time I finish with the class and I can move into my room for this fall, I plan to look in our library to find some journal articles related to assessment and differentiation of special need students.

Developing Your Personal GAME Plan

As a teacher just beginning her career, I believe the two indicators that I feel the least confident in falls under c. and d. in Standard 2. Design and Develop Digital-Age Learning Experiences and Assessments. I have very little experience in developing/using assessments and differentiating learning to meet the needs of all students’ learning styles in a real-life setting. Yes I did this in my methods classes, but they were seldom put into action to see if they worked appropriately in the classroom.

GOAL:

ASSESSMENTS: I want to learn about different assessment tools and how to apply the right tool to the lesson designed. Along with that, I want to become stronger in creating effective rubrics that state exactly what is expected in terms the student will understand, is reflective of the whole process and not just the final product and allows for the student to conduct self-assessments as well as my assessment.
DIFFERENTIATED LEARNING: I want to develop my skills in creating lessons that allows students to customize/personalize their learning. I want to better learn to recognize different learning styles.

ACTION:

BOTH GOALS: I believe the best resource for me to learn will be from my mentor and by networking with veteran teachers. I need to be open for constructive criticisms and apply the suggestion received to classroom. I will also stay abreast of current trends in teaching by regularly reviewing educational journals and attending PD. Reflecting on what works and what needs to be done differently will be paramount to developing my skills in these areas.

MONITOR:

BOTH GOALS: Reflecting, reflecting, and more reflecting! Asking myself questions such as:
• Are the assessments I am using assessing the learning objectives? Could I have used something different to get a better picture of learning that took place?
• Do I need to try something different? Am I using the same types of assessment for lessons?
• Am I networking and apply suggestions?
• Are students engaged and motivated? What could be done differently? Am I being flexible?

EVALUATE:

BOTH GOALS: After reflecting it will be necessary to make the necessary changes and implement them. Without following through on this part, the reflections are meaningless. Continue to stay current by subscribing to educational journals and keeping updated, as well as actively participating in PD opportunities will help extend my learning. Most importantly I need to realize that experience is very much a factor in this process. Learn from things that don’t work and take pleasure in what does.

I know that I am sharing this class with many veteran teachers whom I would love to hear suggestions and words of wisdom about my goals. Please feel free to share your insight!