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Educational Research is such an important subject in our culture. Although there may be those that feel differently, I believe we have one of the strongest educational systems in the world here in America. Students come from all over the world to study in our country, and our economy and research and development here in the states is the proof. This course helped me realize the importance of research-based pedagogy. I learned so much about research and APA formatting in this course. I appreciate the passion Dr. Lee has about the subject she teaches. I don’t feel I had many misconceptions about educational research, but this course certainly has given me more insight into educational research. As I mentioned earlier, I learned a lot more about APA formatting than I ever have before and will now be able to more successfully apply it into my formal research projects. This insight and many other resources that I have discovered in this class will serve me well in the future. This research-based information will definitely help make me a more informed educator for teaching and learning.
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I thoroughly enjoyed reading The Impact Cycle textbook. I especially enjoyed the videos and supporting content that it contained. I think it is a very innovative approach to instructional coaching. I learned how to implement the impact cycle, gained experience using it, and saw examples from the textbook in action. I was also excited to see how so many of peers are integrating it. There were multiple checklists and other tools included that accompany proven approaches to education. I am positive this will assist me moving forward as an educator. As for personal growth, I realized how much more I need to dig into instructional strategies to become a stronger teacher. I would say that is my biggest takeaway from my coaching experience up to this point. Luckily, the textbook includes many resources to study and use in the future. To become a better coach, I am going to need to spend more time becoming acquainted with these resources, as well as staying on top of newer strategies and other educational tools since education and technology are always progressing.
Reference: Knight, J. (2018). The Impact Cycle: What instructional coaches should do to foster powerful improvements in teaching. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin. I genuinely enjoyed this class. Dr. Yi made everything easy to understand and was extremely professional and organized. The textbook by Roblyer and Hughes is the “go-to manual” for Instructional Technology, and I can see why. It is packed with great ideas, strategies, and exemplar lessons plans. All of these are critical to an instructional technology professional. Taking this course has served as professional development and certainly has raised the bar regarding my content knowledge as it relates to instructional technology. I have always considered myself a high achiever regarding technology due to my background and work experience, but this course really helped focus on where I can make improvements in my teaching regarding instructional technology.
One of my favorite things about this class is all the resources that I was exposed to both in the reading and by gaining insight into what my peers are using in their systems/classrooms. I got some great ideas that I even used in my own projects, but more importantly, this gave me new knowledge that I can synthesize into my own curriculum. I am blessed that at my job, I can develop my own curriculum based on my students’ needs if it incorporates the proper standards. I plan to use much of what I have learned in this class as I move forward in my own classroom. Some new concepts that I learned about over the course of this class are culturally responsive pedagogy and the LoTi framework. Now that I am more familiar with both, I agree 100% that they are both important aspects of an engaged learner. As a teacher, there is not a much higher goal that you can have than to have an engaged student. By far, learning so much new knowledge was my favorite aspect of the course. I will now always be able to assess my lesson and activities in a new and improved way. Reference: Roblyer, M.D., & Hughes, J. E. (2019). Integrating Educational Technology into Teaching: Transforming Learning Across Disciplines. Pearson. (Original work published 2010) I enjoyed reading this chapter and it really got my wheels turning. My school district does a really respectable job supporting teachers with productivity tools and technology related to our curriculum. However, during this “pandemic season”, we were caught off guard for sure. I teach in a different county than my wife, so I got to see how two different systems handled the situation. I feel Cobb should have been better prepared for the situation, but when I mentioned the idea of a LMS to my administrators in a Zoom meeting, I was told that it wasn’t that they didn’t want an LMS, but because the system is so large, it isn’t feasible to get enough licenses for the software. Money is unfortunately a barrier that exists regarding productivity tools. Cobb does an excellent job of developing solutions to some technology problems in house, which is something that many other systems do not have the resources to do, but regarding having an LMS that is comparable to Schoology, it appears we were caught off guard. We were left to teach during this digital learning phase using ad-hoc resources, and as we saw in our reading, there are good options out there so that was fortunate. I am familiar with and use several of the resources listed in our textbook, but there are so many it’s overwhelming. It takes time to learn how to incorporate them into our curriculum. The example lesson plans and tables with examples immensely helpful.
The biggest and best productivity tool(s) I use in my class would be Office 365 and its associated resources. I incorporate Office 365 into much of my curriculum. I have (OneNote) Notebooks created for my classes that my students use. Word and PowerPoint are included in every Office 365 account, and it makes saving their work so much easier in our projects. Sharing files with others for group assignments is easy with Office 365. I am a huge fan of Office 365. Cobb uses iRespond systems to create test banks and to administer tests. This is a tremendous resource. My favorite part is that it grades the test for you and syncs with our gradebook. I don’t know a teacher alive who would have a problem with that. iRespond also has notable features, randomizing tests to prevent “wandering eye syndrome” (p. 146). I use SketchUp and SolidWorks for 3D modeling and 3D printing along with my 3D printer that I have in my class. KhanAcademy is a great resource I use with my eighth graders for learning HTML and CSS. This is a resource that aligns more with our module two reading (OER), but it is a great tool, and I feel it's also helpful regarding productivity. I tried teaching HTML/CSS without KhanAcademy in the past and it wasn’t as successful. One last thing I want to mention about these resources and productivity is that they are Internet-based. This makes things so much more convenient, and my students can always do work outside of my classroom which makes them more productive. Something I agree with and have also noticed in my classroom is mentioned by Roblyer and Hughes (2019) on page 104. In a computer lab, you must “set guidelines and expectations early with students regarding technology. Problems can and do arise and it is important to communicate with them early on”. Every semester, I spend a week or more going over things regarding my lab, computers, and communicating on the web. I would also add that you need to reiterate these guidelines consistently as well. The textbook helped me think of some things that I want to start integrating into my classroom. The design elements listed on page 127 are extremely insightful. The suggestions are a mix of good pedagogical strategies and good strategies regarding accessibility and differentiation. I am going to think about my lesson materials in a different way from now on. I sometimes put too much information on slides and handouts. I need to differentiate my support materials to make it easier for the student. I need to think about diverse ways to represent my information. If I can incorporate more visualizations and less text, I feel it will help. Also, in this same vein, I intend on incorporating more flipped classroom strategies into my curriculum. I already screencast a good deal and it is helpful, but I want to assign more of that as homework and use my class time to assess and give feedback. Also, formative assessments can be given outside of the classroom, so I can identify students to work with in class and use my class time more wisely. Making these changes will also help me better “model information organization” (p. 122) and this is a goal worth reaching for. Lastly, I have noticed a problem with middle schoolers and their written skills. I have in the past incorporated writing into my lessons, but over time, I have slowly minimized how much writing I include in my lessons. I intend on getting back to including more writing and reading into my curriculum, because I feel the need for it is so strong. Roblyer and Hughes mention it often in their book and make some other good points regarding word processing (p. 119). The dynamic group product (p. 119) is another idea that I can see a lot of potential in. I do a good deal of group work and often there are those students that don’t contribute the way they should. I have deployed a few strategies in the past to address this, but if for example a paper is being written, and all the students had to write a paragraph each, it would be much easier to assess and grade them individually. Not to mention the teamwork they would need to use to be successful could be used to assess each other. Taking this approach is certainly more engaging than a traditional approach to writing. These are just a few of my thoughts regarding my reading in module three. Teachers have come to rely on productivity tools. It's always good to analyze options and talk about it with teachers in the field. I have taken away several added resources and strategies that I will use in my classroom. Reference: Roblyer, M.D., & Hughes, J. E. (2019). Integrating Educational Technology into Teaching: Transforming Learning Across Disciplines. Pearson. (Original work published 2010) )For this assignment, I decided that I would focus on the indicator that stood out to me the most in this module and the strategies and resources that I can utilize to strengthen that indicator in my curriculum. All educators want a more engaged, motivated student, and I agree that culturally responsive pedagogy and diversity are great ways to get a student involved.
I agree that we must ‘Encourage students to think critically.’ (Banks & Banks, 2004), but this can prove to be an arduous task at times. In my classroom, I can always count on Minecraft Education to be a big hit and Microsoft/Minecraft Education has created an amazing curriculum, but I also want to engage with my students in ways that don’t always involve game-based learning. I think culturally responsive pedagogy can help with that. As I was reading some of the provided resources, I couldn’t help but to think of how my preconceived expectations about student behavior in the classroom is often not met. I think that as teachers we need to not think of this as a sign of failure. But what can we do to combat this sense of failure? I believe differentiation in strategies is an effective way to do it if it can be assessed and integrated properly. I also use Project-Based Learning in my classroom, and this is a proven successful strategy. Richards, Brown, Forde (2007) reiterates this, along with “what if” scenarios. The examples I have included in this paragraph are things that I already do or have begun the process of integrating into my practice. In the next paragraph, I will reflect on things I want to integrate into my teaching in the future. “As the ‘village’ in which students live becomes more global, they are challenged to interact with people from various backgrounds” (Richards, Brown, Forde, 2007). This statement resounded with me, and I couldn’t agree more with it. The status quo in America has changed, and our approach to education should reflect that. I serve as the FIRST LEGO league coach at my school. I also interact with parents and families through other programs/events at school, and these interactions always lead me to understand the student better. It also allows me to let their family know what I expect and want from education. These interactions are valuable to me. The concept of ‘home-community-school’ (Richards, Brown, Forde, 2007) is a strategy that is underutilized by education. Meaningful dialogue and relationships are important and can help strengthen education. I want to reach out to members of the community through FaceTime, Zoom, or some other ‘synchronous’ (Roblyer & Hughes, 2019) technologies, and make more connections to my content by using these integration strategies. I do this with my research projects that are related to our themes each year in FIRST, but I haven’t taken the time to do that in the classroom. Another activity that was mentioned in both the Roblyer & Hughes (2019) book, as well as the Richards, Brown, Forde (2007) article mentioned utilizing ePals in instruction. When I was younger, I had a pen pal, and I still remember him to this day. It is also a fantastic way to incorporate culturally responsive education. With technology that we have today, it can extend to the global community, not just here in the states. In conclusion, I really enjoyed this assignment. I learned about a lot of resources and strategies that will make my online learning/teaching stronger. I have websites and resources to look more into. Right now, all the options are a little overwhelming, but I am excited to synthesize what I have learned. I have just begun to study culturally responsive education, and I know there is much more to learn about it, but I can see how it can positively affect my teaching and learning, and more importantly, my students’ learning needs. References: Banks, J. A., & Banks, C. A. M. (2003). Handbook of Research on Multicultural Education. Jossey-Bass. Richards, H. V., Brown, A. F., & Forde, T. B. (2007). Addressing Diversity in Schools: Culturally Responsive Pedagogy. TEACHING Exceptional Children, 39(3), 64-68. Roblyer, M.D., & Hughes, J. E. (2019). Integrating Educational Technology into Teaching: Transforming Learning Across Disciplines. Pearson. (Original work published 2010) |
AuthorThis is the education and instructional technology blog of Alex Swan. Archives
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