GAME Plan Review

In thinking back over the length of the course, I have thought about what I really took away from the GAME Plan. What it comes down to is that I have reinforced the idea that I need to plan into my year ways to improve my teaching strategies and methods. In regards of technology, I have not learned too much new information, with the exception of how to make video podcasts using VoiceThread.

One of the things that I have learned in the course, and will use in my next semester's course is to use online collaboration when I cover genetics. The lesson plan I developed for my "Traits and Punnett Square" lesson. I will use online collaboration to have my students see how traits are passed through generations, and that not all dominant traits are more prominent in populations. This lesson will be quite beneficial, and I will use it in the future.

As my schedule opens up (hopefully soon), I will begin to update my calendars more frequently and provide more podcasts for my students so that they can focus on the information they may have missed or not understood in class.

Overall, I thought I picked up a few good ideas in the class, and will use them when I can in the future.

Happy Holidays!

Using the GAME plan for students to learn NETS-S standards

Throughout my building, I am one of the teachers who is labeled an “Outside thinker.” As I attended a workshop yesterday, I was told that I am the epitome of the phrase “think outside the box.” And rightly so, throughout this school year, I have been trying a variety of new tools and tricks and have had amazing success with them. I think it would be a good idea to have students build a portfolio throughout their course and have them tie in the NETS-S standards as part of their portfolio. My strategies this year have been focused primarily on project based learning through differentiated lessons and activities, which has made each student’s learning experience quite unique. As the semester is winding down, I am starting to think of final assessment methods to coincide with the learning methods we have used throughout the term. As I was doing so, I realized that it would be quite beneficial for students to plan out and build their portfolio throughout the year.

One of the Virginia SOL’s options students can use is demonstrate their mastery of the standards is to create a binder that demonstrates their understanding of the materials in the course. As I read more about differentiation and hear several views on the matter, I realize this style of learning is quite beneficial for students, so that they can demonstrate their abilities in other methods than standard based assessments. Using a portfolio would be quite interesting to cover all standards, not just the science content standards, but also the NETS-S as well. In order to do this, I would have a list of the standards and have the students fill in a way they want to be assessed to cover each standards, and a reason as to why. This way students could plan out their learning, as well as suggest various forms of technology we could use as a class to complete various projects as well.

I am still toying with the idea, but I think it could have a great deal of potential in the future if I can organize my thoughts more effectively.

NETS-T and building on my plan.

As I work towards my GAME plan, I realized that I have some things that I have done that would be beneficial for my students. One of the first things that I have done was adapt a voicethread to include an instructional video that the students can watch to cover the content on DNA. Making videos such as these would be beneficial tools for students that are struggling with content, or that have missed a day. My goal is to make one of these each for the major points of the standards that I cover in each unit.

One of the areas that I would love to try to establish in my classroom is to set up a virtual learning environment, where students collaborate with other students, not just in our school, but in other schools as well, throughout various times in the day. I learned this week about how teachers collaborate with other schools and it is quite beneficial for all students (Laureate Education Inc, 2009). I want to try to create a learning environment for all of my students. My biggest concern is the giant mountain I have to overcome to get started with this. Our school is not to supportive of social networking in regards to learning because of some previous situations, so I need to convince them that these endeavors would be beneficial to our students. One of the points that Vicki Davis made was how using online collaborative tools really helps to differentiate lessons, which is one of the biggest areas my district is trying to promote this year (Laureate Education Inc., 2009). Hopefully that approach will work out best for me.

References:

Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2009a). Program nine. Spotlight on Technology: Social Networking and Online Collaboration. Part 1. Integrating Technology Across the Content Areas. Baltimore: Author.

Building podcasts

The hardest part of my tasks this week was to find out how to create a podcast in the most effective way I can. I started by learning how to use GarageBand on my computer, and tried to learn the basic setup. So far, I have not had too many problems, and have made a nice short audio track that has some added sounds for effects. From here, I think it is necessary to learn how to combine the audio track with a video (probably using iMovie) and post that to a website.

What I would like to do in the future is learn how to create a flash video for a website since they are smaller and take up less server space. I have started to record some of the notes I present in class in short segments using my SmartBoard, and will need to learn to combine the video with audio so I can create the video podcasts. Overall I am quite confident in what I have done so far, and think that I should be able to construct a variety of podcasts starting with my unit on DNA which started Monday. I want to create one by the end of the week focusing on how mutations are made, and what they can do to a protein’s function.

Overall, I am interested in learning more and want to find the simplest and easiest wa to do what I can to make high quality podcasts that the students can use to help them learn the concepts we are discussing in class.