Final Course Reflections
Reflection 1:
How will you use technology in your teaching?
Initial Day 1 Answer:
On Day one of the course, the following was my response to how I would use/ am using technology in the classroom:
“Utilizing technology in my classroom to it's fullest potential is something that, as a current educator, I am continually trying to improve. Currently, I use technology daily in my classroom. I find that bringing technology "in" maximizes student engagement, thus ensuring that students are reaching their potential to learn new material and explore learning through a different "scope". I use a variety of resources such as SMARTboard technology, allowing for an interactive experience, electronic devices such as Kindles for reading, iPods for use of applications such as QR code readers, document cameras and so on. I also implement an online management tool, Class Dojo, in which student behavior is tracked daily and parents and students can track progress and behaviors live throughout the day.”
When revisiting my initial response, there are certainly elements I would add after completing this course. I now understand that improving and incorporating now that I’ve learned are valuable and useful when considering how technology is best used in the classroom. We’ve learned through the course that there are four main domains that must be considered and used for technology to reach its maximum potential in the classroom setting. The “big picture” is important to consider. We can take advantage of the opportunities technology provides us as teachers in many ways, including: instruction, management, professional development , and community building.
Instructionally, we dove into what worthwhile skills are important for students to learn. What we teach them daily must go further than just what we are “required” to teach them based on standards of learning. My eyes were opened to the meaningful skills we can expose our students to to prepare them to function and thrive in the outside world. I plan to utilize the wealth of online resources that focus on developing 21st century Skills, such as problem solving, collaboration, etc. to enhance instruction for my students.
We also explored how technology can greatly impact our classroom management. I briefly mentioned about that I already was using Class Dojo before beginning this course in my classroom. However, by creating another sample classroom for our assignment, I realized that HOW I use this technology can be improved. Since creating the sample class, I have gone into my actual classrooms Dojo and edited some of the ways students receive feedback. I refined them to better focus on interpersonal skills (attentive, speaking clearly to others, etc.), importance of working in a cooperative manner in the classroom (accomplishing tasks, carrying out roles assigned), and also individualized management skills (goals, time-management).
We were also enlightened with ways technology builds community in the classroom, something that was not at all part of my original response. I loved exploring teacher blogs and the creation of the pinterest boards. Creating a sense of community in the classroom is crucial and in the future, I plan to use technology to do so. I currently send home a weekly paper newsletter that honestly probably never reaches half of the students or parents in the classroom. Instead, I hope to get permission to use a program like Instagram to reach my students (who love social media) and parents to keep them informed on classroom happenings as well as keep them aware of expectations and big events to know about. The resource, remind 101 is also such an awesome tool I discovered through exploration in one of our assignments that I plan to use to communicate with parents.
Finally, another part that was not included in my original response was my own professional development and the resources that are available--for free! Honestly, I always just participate in the specific opportunities my school district provides rather than ever seeking out opportunities on my own. I was amazed by the resources available and fully intend to use many that I briefly explored for the projects to better my teaching and incorporate those technologies into my classroom. The professional development piece is how I will continue learning from here on out about how technology can greatly improve to ensure my classroom and students are receiving amazing and engaging instruction.
Reflection 2:
The skills detailed in the 21st Century Skills’ framework tie nicely into the Manifesto 15.
The 21st Century Skills were developed to refine the skills and knowledge that is needed to ensure our students are prepared to succeed in work, life, and to be a good citizen in our world. The same basis is used in the Manifesto 15, as the “visions” and actions that are presented that highlight the ways in which we need to evolve education teach to better of future. The 21st century skills and Manifesto 15, used in conjunction, can provide educators with amazing insights and ideas to transform their way to thinking about the “Big Picture” and the meaningful skills we must pass along to our students.
While these ideas are revolutionary and would greatly steer our students towards becoming successful in our ever changing work,many schools in America are so far removed from realizing the principles detailed in from these two resources. I believe this is from the pressures placed upon educators to meet specific and targeted standards, the pressure of standardized testing, and other external responsibilities that are placed on the teacher. Unfortunately, because of these said areas of demand, teachers are so laser focused on these things that impact our teacher evaluation, that the skills students truly need to know that are highlighted in the 21st Century Skills and the Manifesto 15 are but on the backburner.
However, I also truly believe that teachers can be “sneaky” and find a way to demonstrate these skills all while focusing on the curriculum that is driven by standards. One example of how I might do this is by looking at the skill of Learning and Innovation Skills. These are considered the “4cs” of the 21st century skills- Critical Thinking, Collaboration, Communication, Creativity. When I see those four “Cs”, my mind automatically jumps to the opportunity to provide the students with a project based approach to learn skills that are required by the standards, yet students would do so in a way that they would use critical thinking, collaboration, communication, and creativity-- all skills that are needed for success in the outside world. I’ve ultized PBLs in my classroom and the approach is a powerful one! One of my favorite resources that helps me prepare my lessons is:
http://bie.org/project_search
Here, you are able to search by subject, grade level, skills, AND the lessons even align with Common Core Standards (which is easily adapted if working with VA SOLS) so that you can ensure that the skills “required” in your teaching are being met all while also teaching crucial 21st century skills.
Part 3: Personal Critique Using ISTE standards
You don't need to critique each sub-skill. Just provide a general narrative about the skills you feel comfortable performing, and the skills you feel you still need to continually improve.
The International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) provides a wonderful description of skills in which teachers should be proficient in the use of technology as professionals. After looking over these, I’ve come to the realization that this course has provided us many opportunities to become educated on these domains and better our teaching. Like any professional recommendations and standards, we are able to pinpoint what skills we as educators are doing well, and what skills we would like to continually improve.
There are several descriptions of skills that I think this course did an excellent job at highlighting and I feel I am now already improving my instruction through technology using these skills. I feel confident first off in my ability to promote and support creativity and innovative thinking in the classroom. The projects we completed have helped me realize that technology is powerful, and there are endless amounts of resources available to engage our students in deeper thinking and provide them with powerful teaching that has direct effects on how they will be successful in the outside world. I also feel confident and excited to implement the skill of communicating information and ideas to my students, parents, and also fellow educational peers. While this is sort of a skill that I need to improve- as I am not exactly yet using these resources, this course has equipped me with ways I plan to demonstrate this skill in the near future, including communication apps, such as Remind 101, Class Dojo, creating a Blog (or a class website using Weebly), and learning from and sharing with peers through resources like Pinterest.
As a teacher, an area I always strive to grow in is my professional development. There is no better way to improve best practices in your classroom than engaging in such opportunities. While I have learned a lot from this course, I realize that to truly implement amazing opportunity for my students and better my teaching, I must continue to learn and grow and take advantage of the opportunities available to do so beyond those provided and required by my district.
How will you use technology in your teaching?
Initial Day 1 Answer:
On Day one of the course, the following was my response to how I would use/ am using technology in the classroom:
“Utilizing technology in my classroom to it's fullest potential is something that, as a current educator, I am continually trying to improve. Currently, I use technology daily in my classroom. I find that bringing technology "in" maximizes student engagement, thus ensuring that students are reaching their potential to learn new material and explore learning through a different "scope". I use a variety of resources such as SMARTboard technology, allowing for an interactive experience, electronic devices such as Kindles for reading, iPods for use of applications such as QR code readers, document cameras and so on. I also implement an online management tool, Class Dojo, in which student behavior is tracked daily and parents and students can track progress and behaviors live throughout the day.”
When revisiting my initial response, there are certainly elements I would add after completing this course. I now understand that improving and incorporating now that I’ve learned are valuable and useful when considering how technology is best used in the classroom. We’ve learned through the course that there are four main domains that must be considered and used for technology to reach its maximum potential in the classroom setting. The “big picture” is important to consider. We can take advantage of the opportunities technology provides us as teachers in many ways, including: instruction, management, professional development , and community building.
Instructionally, we dove into what worthwhile skills are important for students to learn. What we teach them daily must go further than just what we are “required” to teach them based on standards of learning. My eyes were opened to the meaningful skills we can expose our students to to prepare them to function and thrive in the outside world. I plan to utilize the wealth of online resources that focus on developing 21st century Skills, such as problem solving, collaboration, etc. to enhance instruction for my students.
We also explored how technology can greatly impact our classroom management. I briefly mentioned about that I already was using Class Dojo before beginning this course in my classroom. However, by creating another sample classroom for our assignment, I realized that HOW I use this technology can be improved. Since creating the sample class, I have gone into my actual classrooms Dojo and edited some of the ways students receive feedback. I refined them to better focus on interpersonal skills (attentive, speaking clearly to others, etc.), importance of working in a cooperative manner in the classroom (accomplishing tasks, carrying out roles assigned), and also individualized management skills (goals, time-management).
We were also enlightened with ways technology builds community in the classroom, something that was not at all part of my original response. I loved exploring teacher blogs and the creation of the pinterest boards. Creating a sense of community in the classroom is crucial and in the future, I plan to use technology to do so. I currently send home a weekly paper newsletter that honestly probably never reaches half of the students or parents in the classroom. Instead, I hope to get permission to use a program like Instagram to reach my students (who love social media) and parents to keep them informed on classroom happenings as well as keep them aware of expectations and big events to know about. The resource, remind 101 is also such an awesome tool I discovered through exploration in one of our assignments that I plan to use to communicate with parents.
Finally, another part that was not included in my original response was my own professional development and the resources that are available--for free! Honestly, I always just participate in the specific opportunities my school district provides rather than ever seeking out opportunities on my own. I was amazed by the resources available and fully intend to use many that I briefly explored for the projects to better my teaching and incorporate those technologies into my classroom. The professional development piece is how I will continue learning from here on out about how technology can greatly improve to ensure my classroom and students are receiving amazing and engaging instruction.
Reflection 2:
The skills detailed in the 21st Century Skills’ framework tie nicely into the Manifesto 15.
The 21st Century Skills were developed to refine the skills and knowledge that is needed to ensure our students are prepared to succeed in work, life, and to be a good citizen in our world. The same basis is used in the Manifesto 15, as the “visions” and actions that are presented that highlight the ways in which we need to evolve education teach to better of future. The 21st century skills and Manifesto 15, used in conjunction, can provide educators with amazing insights and ideas to transform their way to thinking about the “Big Picture” and the meaningful skills we must pass along to our students.
While these ideas are revolutionary and would greatly steer our students towards becoming successful in our ever changing work,many schools in America are so far removed from realizing the principles detailed in from these two resources. I believe this is from the pressures placed upon educators to meet specific and targeted standards, the pressure of standardized testing, and other external responsibilities that are placed on the teacher. Unfortunately, because of these said areas of demand, teachers are so laser focused on these things that impact our teacher evaluation, that the skills students truly need to know that are highlighted in the 21st Century Skills and the Manifesto 15 are but on the backburner.
However, I also truly believe that teachers can be “sneaky” and find a way to demonstrate these skills all while focusing on the curriculum that is driven by standards. One example of how I might do this is by looking at the skill of Learning and Innovation Skills. These are considered the “4cs” of the 21st century skills- Critical Thinking, Collaboration, Communication, Creativity. When I see those four “Cs”, my mind automatically jumps to the opportunity to provide the students with a project based approach to learn skills that are required by the standards, yet students would do so in a way that they would use critical thinking, collaboration, communication, and creativity-- all skills that are needed for success in the outside world. I’ve ultized PBLs in my classroom and the approach is a powerful one! One of my favorite resources that helps me prepare my lessons is:
http://bie.org/project_search
Here, you are able to search by subject, grade level, skills, AND the lessons even align with Common Core Standards (which is easily adapted if working with VA SOLS) so that you can ensure that the skills “required” in your teaching are being met all while also teaching crucial 21st century skills.
Part 3: Personal Critique Using ISTE standards
You don't need to critique each sub-skill. Just provide a general narrative about the skills you feel comfortable performing, and the skills you feel you still need to continually improve.
The International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) provides a wonderful description of skills in which teachers should be proficient in the use of technology as professionals. After looking over these, I’ve come to the realization that this course has provided us many opportunities to become educated on these domains and better our teaching. Like any professional recommendations and standards, we are able to pinpoint what skills we as educators are doing well, and what skills we would like to continually improve.
There are several descriptions of skills that I think this course did an excellent job at highlighting and I feel I am now already improving my instruction through technology using these skills. I feel confident first off in my ability to promote and support creativity and innovative thinking in the classroom. The projects we completed have helped me realize that technology is powerful, and there are endless amounts of resources available to engage our students in deeper thinking and provide them with powerful teaching that has direct effects on how they will be successful in the outside world. I also feel confident and excited to implement the skill of communicating information and ideas to my students, parents, and also fellow educational peers. While this is sort of a skill that I need to improve- as I am not exactly yet using these resources, this course has equipped me with ways I plan to demonstrate this skill in the near future, including communication apps, such as Remind 101, Class Dojo, creating a Blog (or a class website using Weebly), and learning from and sharing with peers through resources like Pinterest.
As a teacher, an area I always strive to grow in is my professional development. There is no better way to improve best practices in your classroom than engaging in such opportunities. While I have learned a lot from this course, I realize that to truly implement amazing opportunity for my students and better my teaching, I must continue to learn and grow and take advantage of the opportunities available to do so beyond those provided and required by my district.