Evaluating GAME Plan Progress, Week #5

Goal #1:
1c Facilitate and inspire student learning and creativity by promoting student reflection using collaborative tools to reveal and clarify students’ conceptual understanding and thinking, planning, and creative processes (ISTE NETS-T, 2008).


How effective were my actions in helping me meet my goals?
This week’s learning has helped me meet my first goal in that researching and applying PBL (Problem-Based Learning) scenarios opens up a whole new area of “collaborative tools to reveal and clarify students’ conceptual understanding and thinking, planning and creative processes (ISTE NETS-T, 2008). Taking the time to evaluate many web resources, read and reflect upon the blog and discussion postings of colleagues, and attempt to synthesize these within the context of the course text resources all helped me determine how to apply PBL within my ancient civilizations course in a number of ways.

What have I learned so far that I can apply in my instructional practice?
I have learned that basing learning activities on problems gives students the opportunity use technology to “clarify and define the problem, gather and analyze data, present solutions, engage in reflection, and produce a product to demonstrate the final outcome” (Laureate, 2009). I have also learned that the problems students solve do not have to take place in modern times, but that I can have them pretend to be ancient philosophers, politicians, architects and scientists solving problems that existed back then and, ultimately, analyzing how these types of problems have changed or remained the same throughout time. I have truly figured out how to apply PBL to my curriculum while focusing on state social studies and technology standards.

What do I still have to learn? What new questions have arisen?
I still need to determine how to scale down my project ideas to fit within the time-frame that works for both computer lab sharing and interdisciplinary planning. As a middle school teacher, I need to be mindful of sharing the lab throughout the year, as well as the long-term project schedules of my peers teaching other subjects. We have fallen into a schedule of sorts to be certain that resources are available and that students are not overwhelmed. Basically, I cannot add a 4 to 6 week project in addition to the one our department traditionally undertakes in grade six. So, how can I use PBL at least two to three times per year, yet scale the projects back enough to make it manageable for students to be successful?


How will I adjust my plan to fit my current needs? At this point, the adjustment I need to make to my plan is to direct my inquiries toward methods of presentation. I feel knowledgeable in the other areas outlined above, and am waiting on district feedback regarding electronic means of student reflection still. So, this week, I plan to explore Media Player, Flickr, voicethreads.com and other types of digital presentation software. This seems to be the next piece in need of research, and within my control.

Goal #2:
5a Engage in professional growth and leadership by participating in local and global learning communities to explore creative applications of technology and improve student learning (ISTE NETS-T, 2008).

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This second goal continues to help me make progress toward the first goal. My participation in the “local learning community” at my middle school has been helpful in that conversing with my student teacher and a few tech-savvy colleagues has helped me process and build upon ideas in short, productive bursts. In addition, my participation in the more “global” Walden community, including the digital classroom and blogs, has been critical in helping me find and make use of many new web resources this week. I have not only familiarized myself with several PBL support sites, but many social studies sites with primary-source-based evidence and teaching and learning strategies, and engaging, relevant streaming video resources as well. I intend to apply all of these to my practice in multiple ways. Moreover, their digital availability makes them highly accessible to both students and me, from multiple locations and devices. Once of my PBL ideas involves students acting as teachers, so the accessibility of these resources for all of us is critical, and will make both of our jobs easier. Imagine, for example, a group of students teaching a class and facilitating a learning activity concerning the Peloponnesian War. Easy access to streaming video, photos, Power Point presentations and quiz or game making software will greatly facilitate the process!

I am feeling pretty good about goal #2, and see this as an area that I have made a habit of working on continually. My next plan adjustment is to expand by “local learning community” to include my students as they experiment with teaching options and we learn from one another.

References:
International Society for Technology in Education (2008). National Education Standards for Teachers (NETS-T). Retrieved on 02/08/10, from http://www.iste.org/Content/NavigationMenu/NETS/ForTeachers/2008Standards/NETS_T_Standards_Final.pdf.

Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2009). Program 8. Spotlight on Technology: Problem-Based Learning, Part 1 (Motion picture). Integrating technology across the content areas.Baltimore: Author.