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.