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!

Reflection (EDUC - 6712I - 4)

After going through this course, the most striking revelation that I have about teaching new literacy skills is how easy they can be aligned with benchmarks for our general curriculum. However, I did struggle with trying to figure out how I can adapt an inquiry research for my students, who are special education students in an MD program. I will revisit this idea and try to adapt, because I feel that many of the skills taught here will be good for my students. It could be done in a collaboration with a gen ed classroom where my students would be paired up other students and they could work together on an inquiry research problem.

I think that through this course, I am more aware of the needs to start teaching students how to think critically about the information they find, especially online since that seems to be the most popular way that students access information; the earlier the better. I have worked with teachers that utilize the Internet for research projects, but they do not teach them how to find quality information that is reliable. Student’s, even high school students (as I have addressed this problem with my son who is 16), have the idea that if it’s on the Internet then it is true and unless they are taught what to look for and how to determine a websites reliability, finding reliable information is nothing more than the luck of the draw.

I think that I would like to try to do some kind of inquiry research project in collaboration with a gen ed teacher next school year. I may wait until later in the year to begin this as I am not only a new teacher, but the program was moved to a new building for next year and I want time to develop a relationship with other teachers. As for exact professional development, I would like to further explore different types of technology and its application for the classroom. Because it is more applicable to my classroom, I would like to focus my study on assistive technology. They have so much wonderful programs and devices that are used to adapt and modify curriculum to individual needs, but I don’t know how to use a lot of what they have to offer. Actually, this is where I think this is the direction I’d like my career to go, but I am just beginning my teaching career. I’d also like to learn How to use technology such as Web 2.0, podcasting, digital imaginary (using video editing software), etc.

Reflection

As a substitute teacher, I usually do not have the option to choose technology; therefore, how I currently teach differs from how I expect to teach when I have my own classroom. One advantage I have had as a sub is to practice thinking how I could include technology to improve the lessons I do teach.

When I have my own classroom, I want to integrate students creating concept map software. Until my own experience using it, I did not realize its potential to help students gain a deeper understanding of the concepts I am teaching. I would also like to introduce students to VoiceThread and give them an option of using VoiceThread to assess their knowledge gained. I believe that both of these tools give students another previously unavailable opportunity to demonstrate what they have learned.

As for long-term changes, I cannot make or plan these types of goals until I get a full-time teaching position. I know that I will include technology in many different ways, but without knowing what grade I will be teaching, it is hard to say how I plan to integrate. I think using technology is important for many reasons – motivation, familiarization as they will use technology in the future, provides more modalities for the brain to make connections, etc – but specific goals and strategies in the long-term are hard for me to set when my future career is so foggy right now. If anybody has any suggestions or ideas for goals for somebody in my position I will consider them.

Connectivism and Social Learning in Practice

Social learning theories are based on the idea that students are actively engaged with others in creating an artifact. Differing from constructionist in that involvement of creating the artifact is collaborative rather than individual.

I believe that when learning activities are designed to include social learning theories, students use HOTS (higher order thinking skills) to test ideas, revise or affirm ideas, and create a network to connect learning. Technology can aid students by offering them a global network of communication and giving students a real world look at different ideas and perspectives, because experiences from peers in different parts of the world may lend to different understandings of certain concepts.

Technology such as VoiceThread, web quests and website creation (just to name a few) can be used in group setting to create an artifact. Students in the group can problem-solve together, and builds on the basic components presented in Using Technology with Classroom Instruction that Works.