Currently, my third grade students
are taking on their first research project in which they have the freedom to
comment on one another’s work for the first time, and explore district-approved
websites. I decided to create a digital
citizenship lesson addressing general tablet responsibility, research
responsibility, and posting responsibility. I also saved this lesson to the
server, so that each student could follow along on his or her individual
devices. I split this lesson into three segments so that students are able to
practice each element of digital citizenship in conjunction with their
research. I taught one portion of this lesson each day in order, so that they
could practice each skill before moving on to the next. The first day was simply dedicated to
refreshing how to handle the tablets responsibly. My students have used these
tablets a handful of times this year, but I find that a general review before
each use is incredibly necessary. The next portion of this lesson focused on
research responsibility. In our district, the students are only allowed to use
district approved links which is wonderful in that it promotes web safety, but
can also be limiting in that it is not conducive to teaching students how to explore
and find their own relevant links safely. Lastly, my students had their first
opportunity to post on one another’s research projects through our district’s
server. I wanted to model and emphasize commenting positivity and safety so
this lesson spanned over the course of this entire project. Each day, I modeled
posting positive, constructive feedback appropriately and safely. I can report
without reservation that this was the most enjoyable aspect of the digital
safety lesson for my students. They absolutely flourished when giving clear,
specific and positive feedback to their peers. Each student was so excited to
share their comments, and explain the components of positive posting. I really
enjoyed creating this lesson, and love that it led to a successful digital
citizenship lesson.
Saturday, 10 December 2016
Sunday, 4 December 2016
Growth Through Accomplished Teaching
As I read through my
initial reflection it became strikingly evident to me that the skills I have
attained in this course have been, and will continue to be invaluable to my
practice. I read through the words of my initial reflection and though they
sounded familiar, I felt as if they were also distant. Since September, if I
have transformed so much as both a reflective teacher, and a leader. I have
always been an extremely passionate, reflective teacher with a strong desire to
grow which is reflected in my initial words, however, through my research,
understanding of the Marzano Framework, and collaborative opportunities through
this course, I now have the tools necessary to facilitate a productive,
data-driven and constructive professional learning community. I have attained a
more data driven approach to reflection and analysis of teaching and student
work. As a result of the past ten weeks, my reflective practices, the strength
of my lesson design, and the productivity of my PLC meetings have improved
greatly.
When I consider the teacher leadership standard
address in this course, “Engage in analysis of teaching and collaborative
practices” I feel as I presume my third graders feel when they use the work as
evidence to determine that they have reached their learning target for the day.
I can say, with absolute certainty that this course has guided me to meet
Teacher Leadership Standard 4. I will address my improvement when analyzing my
teaching individually, and collectively and reflecting to improve my practice. Prior
to this course and in my initial response, I described myself as “agonizingly
reflective.” This was true; I spent far too much energy replaying ever minute
of my lesson in my head, and overthinking every instructional decision that I
made. Now, I pour my energy into reflecting through a data-driven lens that
will allow me to improve educational outcomes for my students. This takes place
in both individual reflective practices, and as a PLC. Individually, I now
analyze my instruction, and my student lens with a focus on “improving
teaching, not proving that students got it” (Duel, 2009). It is vital to use student work to clarify
the specific components that students need support with in order to design
effective interventions. Data-driven reflection is an integral component of
impactful PLC work. As leader, it is essential that I cultivate a deeply
trusting, respectful environment. In order to attain a trusting environment, I
must be willing to take ownership of instructional mistakes, and model using
authentic, imperfect data to improve my practice, or “to honestly and thoroughly reveal
professional struggle” (Nicholson, Capitelli, Richert &
Bonetti, 2016). Ultimately, it is imperative to understand that impactful
teaching requires constant adjustment, and through a lens of imperfection and
growth. At the beginning of the course, I facilitated productive PLC meetings,
but the way in which we have approached data analysis has shifted immensely
after further exposure to best practice in this class. Prior to this class, we
would bring our data to meetings; identify students requiring interventions,
and plan appropriate interventions for those students. This course has driven me to fine-tune this
process to maximize our precious time together.
I was given the idea to frontload the majority of this process. I now
send our analysis questions in advance to ensure that my teammates come to the
meeting prepared to sharing.
Moving
forward, I will continue to lead PLC meetings in a manner that recognizes that
the most important component of PLC work is to use formative data to improve
student learning (Defour & Reeves, 2016). I
will not only continue to analyze data with my team to plan interventions for
struggling students, but will also work with my team to determine the
most impactful, appropriate interventions that
“employ systematic, intensive, focused, and immediate small-group instruction”
(Defour & Reeves, 2016). I will also
continue to recognize that the most crucial PLC work is only possible to
complete when a warm, mutually-respectful environment is created and
maintained.
Through my coaching sessions with my
colleagues, my research, and deeper analysis of the Marzano Framework, my
lesson design, planning techniques, and lesson delivery have positively
improved. In my initial reflection, I indicated that I delve deeply into the
Marzano framework solely during my observation time. With my growing understanding
and comfort with this framework, it has now become an extremely useful,
formative tool when designing lessons. For each criterion, there are examples
elucidating specifically what an unsatisfactory, basic, proficient, and a
distinguished rating would look like. This is a very beneficial tool in
improving teaching practices as these examples show precisely what steps I must
take in order to improve. For example, as illustrated in my lesson plan, in my
lesson planning session with my classmates, my goal was to strengthen accessing
my student’s prior knowledge, and building background knowledge. We used the
provided Accomplished Teaching Lesson Guide for Effective instruction to map
out how content-specific prior knowledge would be activated, and how I could
build background knowledge to ensure that all students have access to the
content, and to promote student engagement, and buy-in. We also discussed as a
group, the importance of using our student’s background knowledge and
experiences to strengthen their understanding of the content, and to promote
diversity. Jiang (2014) claims that by recognizing differences and “by being
open to diverse ideas, teacher[s] establish a safe classroom environment.”
(p.301). It was incredibly powerful to brainstorm ideas with other
professionals to choose the most impactful strategies. As a result of this
experience, my lesson design improved, and, ultimately, my students were successful.
In
the future, I will continue to use these resources to help inform and improve
my planning, and my instruction. Being that the Marzano Framework is incredibly
comprehensive, I will always have areas to focus upon to improve my practice,
and specific examples to support my improvement. As a teacher in UPSD, I have always adhered to
the UPSD basics of instruction, which align exceptionally well with the Marzano
framework, but I now recognize the power of collaboratively planning with peers
to gains ideas to strengthen my lessons. I will continue to utilize my
teammates’ perspectives to strength my practice, and to recognize each of them
as the invaluable resource that they are.
In
the past ten weeks, my collaborative practice, my reflective practice and my
lesson design have all improved. As a result, the educational experience my
students have been provided with has also improved. Ultimately, I have learned
that the most essential skill an accomplished teacher can develop is a strong
belief that we are never done learning, and to maintain that growth mindset
indefinitely. I look forward to continuing to apply all that I have learned and
to constantly refine my craft to become the best educator and PLC leader
possible.
References
Defour,
R., Reeves, D. (2016) The futility of PLC lite. Retrieved from http://web.b.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.spu.edu/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=c4fb9e6c-27e1-454d-b26c-17a9cee2499a%40sessionmgr102&vid=1&hid=124.
Deul,
A. Holmlund, M. Slavit. D., Kennedy, A. (2009).
Looking at Student Work.
Educational Leadership. Retrieved from http:ww.ascud.org/lookingatstudentwork
Jian,
Y. (2014). Exploring Teacher Questioning as a Formative Assessment Strategy.
RELC Journal: A Journal of Language Teaching And Research, 45(3), 286-304.
Nicholson, J. Capitelli, A.,
Richert, A. & Bonetti, S. (2016) The
Affordances of Using a
Teacher Leadership Network to Support Leadership Development.
Teacher Leadership Network to Support Leadership Development.
York
Barr, J., Sommers, W.A., Ghere, G.S., & Montie, J. (2006). Reflective
Practice to Improve Schools:
An Action Guide for Educators. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.
An Action Guide for Educators. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.
Artifacts
Tuesday, 29 November 2016
ITSE5 EDTC6433 Resolution Reflection Module 5
ITSE5 EDTC6433 Resolution
Reflection Module 5
ISTE Standard 5: Engage in Professional Growth and
Leadership
Teachers continuously improve
their professional practice, model lifelong learning, and exhibit leadership in
their school and professional community by promoting and demonstrating the
effective use of digital tools and resources.
The following standards are most
relevant to my triggering question:
Exhibit leadership by demonstrating a vision of technology
infusion, participating in shared decision making and community building, and
developing the leadership and technology skills of others.
Evaluate
and reflect on current research and professional practice on a regular basis to
make effective use of existing and emerging digital tools and resources in
support of student learning.
Triggering Event Question:
As the PLC leader of my grade
level, it is important for me to model how to creatively effectively use
technology in my instruction. How can I use PLC time to best support the use of
technology in our third grade instruction and content and inspire my colleagues
to use technology as well?
Through
this course, my experience infusing technology into my daily lessons has grown
immensely. Through my own research, and the research of my colleagues I have
found so many incredible ways to use technology to supplement student learning
and to increase engagement. My confidence using technology as an educational
tool has grown, and it is time that I use this background to model how to
effectively use technology to our grade level team. Above all, I sought to
research more ways to inspire my colleagues to use technology in their
classroom. The ISTE standard is most relevant to my
triggering event question covers demonstrating technology use, and “developing
the leadership and technology skills of others.” I lead the third grade PLC team and believe that we need to
allow our students more opportunities to use technology to supplement and
enrich their learning experiences. Through this program, the frequency in which
I use technology with my students has increased significantly, and I would like
to inspire my teammates to provide these experiences for their students as
well. I believe that my teammates will be happy to provide these experiences
once they are comfortable using technology effectively.
My first step was researching to find a resource
that helps my team understand how to effectively integrate technology in the
classroom. I found an article entitled What is Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge? This article explains a framework for teacher
understanding of technology integration called technological, pedagogical,
content knowledge (TPACK). This paper explains that the effective development
of TPACK is necessary for technology integration (Koeler & Mishra 2009).
This framework focuses largely on three types of knowledge and the interaction
of them. They are content, pedagogy and technology. This article explains how
the interaction of content, pedagogy and technology produce the background
required to effectively integrate technology. This article answers my
triggering question in that it elucidates how to most effectively integrate
technology in the classroom. The TPACK framework is a good resource to bring to
PLC to spark a discussion on how best to integrate technology in our classrooms
effectively. The article also touches on some of the challenges of technology
implementation in the classroom. The one that resonated with me the most is
that often teachers to not have adequate training and background experience
“with using digital technologies for teaching and learning.” ( Koeler &
Mishra 2009) I would like to be the teammate who advocates for more training
opportunities for primary teachers to gain confidence when using technology in
our classroom, and also take baby steps with my team and dedicate fifteen
minutes of PLC time weekly to exploring an approved tablet resource with my
teammates. The TPACK framework is a great resource when considering how to
integrate technology effectively.
Next, I sought to research
specific professional development opportunities regarding technology and
resources that would help support this skillset for my colleagues. A member of my
learning circle, Sarah Watkins led me straight to an answer. She provided me with a source from the
Northwest Council for Computer education. This organization has a multitude of
professional development opportunities. NCCE leads regional conferences and
even provides opportunities to work specifically with schools to support the
needs of their staff. I am particularly interested in the peer coaching
training that is offered to provide me with the skill necessary to support
teachers. I have also just joined the technology committee in my district and the main
objective of this committee is to pilot new applications and resources and
eventually train my grade level on how to utilize the applications we decide
upon. I am looking forward to using this opportunity to grow as a leader and
develop my technology skillset. I believe that the most important component of
being a tech leader is having a strong explorative, growth mindset. As
technology is an ever-changing field, it is incredibly important to change with
it as an educator, and constantly striving to be as effective as possible when
integrating technology in the classroom.
ITSE 5 reveals the importance of teachers
reflecting on technology practice regularly and exploring and utilizing
technological tools that support student learning. Through my research I have
found how to exhibit leadership on my team to inspire my colleagues to infuse
technology in their classroom.
References
Koeler, M., Mishra, P., (2009)
What is
Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge?
Retrieved from https://canvas.spu.edu/courses/10314/files/271967?module_item_id=101834.
NCCE (2016) NCCE: Leadership, Innovation, Learning. Northwest Council for Computer Education. retrieved from http://www.ncce.org
Artifacts:
Video- Integrating Technology in the
Classroom:
NCCE
Link:
Edutopia Community:
Wednesday, 16 November 2016
ITSE4 EDTC6433 Resolution Reflection Module
ISTE Standard 4: Promote and Model Digital
Citizenship
The following standards are most
relevant to my triggering question:
Advocate, model, and teach safe, legal, and ethical use of
digital information and technology, including respect for copyright,
intellectual property, and the appropriate documentation of sources
Promote and model digital etiquette and responsible social interactions
related to the use of technology and information
Triggering Event Question:
How can I instill ethical,
safe and responsible technology practices in my third grade students that they
will carry with them throughout their education, and ultimately, their lives?
Technology is becoming more pervasive in the everyday lives of students, and in the classroom setting. Part of educating the
whole child is ensuring that students have the skills and explicit instruction
necessary to make positive, responsible and ethical decisions when using
technology. ISTE standard four addresses that teachers must “advocate, model,
and teach safe, legal, and ethical use of digital information and technology,”
and I believe that is an extremely important lesson to teach my third grade
students (ISTE Standards, 2016). Even though in the classroom, my students use of technology is very
teacher directed and students do not have the freedom to explore without
restriction, I still find that it is extremely important to educate them regarding
digital responsibility to ensure that they are safe and making positive choices
when they have future, unrestricted access.
Initially,
I assumed that while digital responsibility would be an important skill to
model, it may not be directly applicable to my third grade students at this
point in time. After conversations with my students regarding their access to
the digital world, I learned quickly that this was not the case. I am shocked
by how many of my eight-year-old students have personal cell phones, iPads, tablets
or unrestricted access to the Internet at home. This further illustrated the
importance of teaching internet responsibly and ethics to my students. The
importance of teaching safe and ethical technology use is illuminated in EducationLeadership in an Onlineworld: Connecting students to Technology Responsibly,Safely, and Ethically. While ethical technology use is not a
curricular component, students are exposed to the Internet and social media at
much younger ages. To educate our children comprehensively, we must also focus
on Internet etiquette during this digital age. The article addresses a “lack of
leadership preparation” related to digital literacy, and how this can lead to
problems (Ribble, 2011). This led me to understand how important it is to prepare
students. This article provides strategies for educators to prepare our
students for a responsible digital future. It also provides ideas to reduce
technology misuse or abuse. The most important take away that I will
undoubtedly teach in my classroom is that teachers “need to begin to make
parallels for students between being good to teach other both in the classroom
and in the digital world” (Ribble, 2011). It further explains that students
must be provided with specific examples of responsible behavior in both worlds.
It is so important to teach students that rules that apply to real life also
must be applied online.
This research led me to further explore the importance of
teaching digital responsibility and safety at a young age. The majority of my
third graders do not have access to social media accounts, however it is
extremely important to teach them the importance of digital ethics at a young
age. I teach my students often how to
appropriately interact with one another, and how to resolve conflicts and
navigate bullying but I now realize the importance of teaching these lessons to
protect my students from cyber bullying as well. When I researched further into cyber bullying
I found that in the cast of cyberbullying “there is a greater ease of anonymity
for aggressors” (Gualdo et al., 2014). Another factor that makes cyberbullying
dangerous is that the victim’s reactions are largely invisible. Typically this
type of bullying takes play away from the schools and supervision, so it is
incredibly important to educate our students on the importance of digital
responsibility and the adverse effects of cyber bullying.
This information led me to my area of research I fully
understand the importance of teaching digital citizenship and responsibility, and
the adverse effects of failing to do so, but how do I teach digital citizenship
in the most effective manner? How do I fit this instruction into my already
packed curricular schedule? A member of my learning circle, Megan Leonard, led
me directly to that answer through her research. The article that she found explained that
digital citizenship should not be taught through explicit and direct
instruction (Marrs, 2016). The answer to my question is found through embedding
the instruction into authentic digital learning experiences that are already
occurring. This means that I will not need to devise a separate unit to teach
digital citizenship, I can simply teach it through our exploration and
authentic conversations (Marrs, 2016).
ITSE 4 reveals the importance of teachers
teaching ethical and safe use of technology. This lead me to research the
importance of teaching digital responsibility and the most effective way to
approach this instruction to ensure that my students are prepared to ethically
use digital information.
References
Ribble, R., Miller, T. (2011).
Education
Leadership in an Onlineworld: Connecting students to Technology Responsibly,
Safely, and Ethically. Retrieved from https://canvas.spu.edu/courses/10314/files/271981?module_item_id=101807.
Marrs, H. (2016) Don’t
Teach Digital Citizenship- Embed It! Retrieved from https://www.iste.org/explore/articleDetail?articleid=809&category=In-the- classroom&article=Don%E2%80%99t+teach+digital+citizenship+%E2%80%94+embed+it.
Gulado,
A., Hunter, S., Durkin, K., Arnaiz, P., Maqilon, J. (2012). The Emotional Impact of Cyberbullying:
Differences in perceptions and Experiences as a Function of Role. Retrieved
from https://canvas.spu.edu/courses/10314/files/271964?module_item_id=101805.
Artifacts:
Seesaw
Link:
Cyberbullying Educational Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XktuYaCqj5k
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