Wednesday, January 23, 2013
Carrying Out My GAME Plan
Last week I discussed my GAME plan. Both of my goals were based around reflection, which is an area that I feel is important for both students and teachers. My first goal is to use blogging with students to help build a reflective classroom and my second goal is to reflect on my own practices and how I use technology to enhance it. In order to carry out these goals it is going to take some work and lots of planning. To start the planning stage I need to ask myself three questions: 1. what resources will I need to carry out the plan, 2. What additional information do I need, and 3. What steps have you been able to take so far.
Resources Needed/Additional Information:
For the most part I have the resources that I will need. Students have their own MacBooks and I have my smartboard to do demonstrations and show expectations. Through talking to colleagues and trial and error I will have to come up with the best student friendly blog that will meet my needs. I will also need to come up with a way to organize my own reflections in a useable format. To accomplish this I will once again talk with colleagues and explore options to see which one best fits my needs.
Steps Taken So Far:
This week I took my first step of trying to get students involved in reflection through blogging. We currently use a website called My Big Campus with out students. This website resembles Facebook, but in a clean educational format. I have previously completed discussions on here, but never had the students reflect on their knowledge. This week we did a small reflection on what they learned after a lesson and what they still are struggling with. It went well, but I would like to do more with it in the future. Reflection was a new process to my students and they are going to need lots of practice and demonstrations.
In this weeks video, Dr. Ross discussed the importance of technology and how it can reach different learners and enhance the learning of diverse learners (Laureate Education, 2010). Through reflection I hope to gain knowledge of what technology works best for my students and what they need incorporated to better their education. Technology truly does allow us to adapt education to each individual students needs.
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Hi Eric,
ReplyDeleteMyCampus looks like a great place for students to reflect in collaboration. How is it different to Edmodo? I have recently found that my students are reflecting more often and more consciously to find solutions if they are in a discussion group, which is likely how MyCampus is set up: all commenting to a discussion thread. Posting a topic for discussion regularly will help students focus better so that they can contribute more detail to a particular topic.
I wanted to ask you if you notice any diversity in the ability to reflection. One of my colleagues reminded me that written reflections are favored by girls, and that boys would perhaps reflect better in another medium. This might not always be the case, but in my class the girls dominate in depth and frequency of reflections. This encouraged me to try different technology tools to determine if this would improve reflection skills for male students in my class. What do you think or what differences (reflection skills) have you noticed in your students?
Thanks, Alexi
Eric,
ReplyDeleteYour GAME plan is an important standard and hard to reach. I find that I often set up a closure activity, or include a reflective piece in an assessment give in class. I feel the students give generic responses, ones that they know I want to hear. It is difficult to decifer, which students are truly reflecting and which are "fudging" their responses. How do you hold your students responsible for their reflection? Do you have a rubric? checklist? rating scale? no preference? I love that this works for you and your students. Reflection is such an important aspect of our teaching and the students' learning (and in life, in general).
Do you find it difficult to keep track of all of your students in this way? I am sure they respond to eachother's reflections; therefore, there is technically no limit to how many written pieces you are reading. To me, that would be overwhelming and discouraging (again, for me). What do you feel?
Hi Jacqui
DeleteI have also used a reflective piece in assessment exercises for my students and it has worked. To prevent students from giving generic responses, I usually discuss ahead of time what type of information should go into their reflection (for instance, what they attempted to do (activity), what they could have done better, how they felt about the end product) and so forth. In my rubric, I also assign a grade to their reflections although students almost always get a full score as reflections are their personal views. I must admit that I have learned the value of reflection from my studies with Walden and so have adopted their model of tracking reflection of other peoples work. I have them copy and paste their comments on other peoples work or have them present a print screen and URL of their reflections. Maybe these can help to make reflective practice less daunting. What do you think?
E Jonah Greene
The print screen is probably more convenient. They could print the page, therefore I could see the initial post, their response, and perhaps be able to just sift through papers, instead of having to scroll up and down in search of individual student's discussions.
DeleteThank you, Jonah!
Jackie
You are welcome.
DeleteJonah
Hi everyone, Jackie, Jonah, and Eric,
DeleteTo follow on Jackie's response, My school uses NetOp's Vision software to monitor and communicate with students. This software has the capability for keeping track of and recording student responses in realtime. This has been one of the more positive software choices that my school system has made.
Jim
Hello Eric
ReplyDeleteYou chose reflection as a major component of your GAME plan. I have no doubt that you will succeed with your plan as reflection is a critical dimension of an effective teacher (Kotler, Zehm & Kotler, 2005, p. 136). However, kottler, et al., also describe it as "extremely complex and demanding process that requires a lifetime of dedication" (p. 136). This suggests that you will have to dedicate many long hours to your own reflection and work on developing reflective traits in your students - all of which are achievable. Using blogs to encourage student reflection is an excellent means to develop in your students serious and critical contemplation.
I visited the My Big Campus website and I see how it could be used to encourage student reflection and discussion. Outside of using it to assess your lesson, you could use the website to develop issues to be discussed in future lessons or create a jump board for inquiry learning projects.
I am a big supporter of collegial support and assistance. You have taken the right step in using your colleagues for advice and ideas.
I wish you all the best with your plan.
Ezra Jonah Greene
Reference
kottler, J. A., Zehm S. J., & Kottler E., (2005), On being a teacher - the human dimension, Thousand Oaks, CA:Corwin Press
Hi Eric,
ReplyDeleteI see that you are using My Big Campus as a blog for your student interaction. I also am planning to use this as means to advance student learning. I have run into quite a number of problems with students ability to access specific working groups outside of the school site. Have you had to deal with anything like this? And if you have how did you resolve these issues?
Thanks,
Jim