The areas where I would like to strengthen my confidence and proficiency are to facilitate and inspire student learning and creativity, and design and develop digital-age learning experiences and assessments. Currently, the majority of our curriculum is direct instruction with scripted lessons that require teachers to teach to the state exam. When the administration is coming into our rooms frequently to monitor that we are teaching each section of the scripted lesson, it leaves little room for creativity.
However, on the occasions where we are able to be creative with our lessons I would integrate technology tools. The goals that I will set to facilitate and inspire student learning and creativity and develop digital-age learning experiences and assessments are to enhance my lessons with technology, solve real-world problems, and collaborate more often as peers.
In order for this to happen, I must look for opportunities where I can integrate technology into some of my lessons. I will set goals by consulting the data that I collect from summative and formative assessments (Cennamo, 2009). By looking at student performance it will guide my decisions for how to best teach my students.
I will monitor my progress by looking at the data and student performance and I will monitor their progress by doing formal and informal assessments based on their achievement.
Lastly, I will evaluate my teaching and extend my learning by checking to see if all standards were assessed and planned correctly. I will work with my grade level team to make sure I am not over looking anything, as well as sharing with my team what worked with my class and what I need to be better prepared with the next time.
Cennamo, K., Ross, J., & Ertmer, P. (2009). Technology integration for meaningful classroom use: A standards-based approach. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.
National Education Standards for Teachers (NETS-T) located at http://www.iste.org/Content/NavigationMenu/NETS/ForTeachers/2008Standards/NETS_T_Standards_Final.pdf.
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Hello Sarah,
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry to hear that your district is still promoting scripted lessons. I hope that by integrating technology where you can that the administration will see the benefit to allowing student a creative voice. Do you have computer lab time or computers in your room? An easy way to implement technology is to have kids use digital camera. It allows them to make a connection using a real-life picture. I asked my students to bring in their cameras and it was amazing how excited they got. Good luck and I look forward to reading about your progress.
Dawn Bell
Sarah, I understand where you are coming from. I am back into the classroom again and already feeling the pressure of teaching in preparation for assessments and satisfying the necessary "powers that be" by utilizing scripted lessons. However, I must say that I am easily integrating the technology to the scripted lessons. At first, I was nervous that the "powers that be" would not like how I substituted specific activities with technological devices such as interactive whiteboards and document cameras. But, surprisingly, one of the grant partners actually welcomed the technology. She said she wished she saw more of it. So, I actually learned that the lessons were not as scripted as I first thought. For example, I altered an activity where students had to use letter cards and cards with pictures to identify and match the picture’s first sound to the appropriate letter. Instead, I used digital pics on the interactive whiteboard and had students drag the picture to its matching first letter. I wish I could do more creative lessons but I believe with schools like mine, and possibly yours, it will take small baby steps of altering and adding technology before we can get to the ultimate goal of getting more creative and tech savvy with our lessons. Hang in there. You are not alone. I do believe the education system is slowly coming to realize the impact and value technology has on our student's learning.
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