Course Reflection

By developing my own GAME plan through self reflection I targeted specific areas of my teaching that I wanted to improve, this process allowed me to grow in areas that I feel are extremely important when teaching in the 21^st century.  My GAME plan forced me to focus on National Education Standards for teacher (NETS-T) which impacts my approach to teaching, development of lesson plans and strategies when teaching.  I have learned how to keep my digital information updated more frequently and cited with the creator’s information.  I have also learned how to plan and incorporate lessons that allow my students to have more choice in their learning as they use technology.  This will encourage engagement and the pursuing of personal interests within my lessons; it allows the students to take more ownership for their individual learning.  I think the process of creating a GAME plan enabled me to pursue the changes I wanted to make after reflecting on my teaching.  This is something I can easily implement with my students as well.  I have them reflect on their performance in class frequently and creating a GAME plan is taking those reflections a step further by laying out a plan to improve as a learner or teacher.

The technology we used throughout this course has inspired me to implement the usage of wikis and digital stories on more of a regular unit basis.  I had created my own digital stories when going through my undergraduate studies, but I had forgotten about them until I took this course.  They were not called digital stories when I was making them, but we used Windows Movie Maker or a program very similar.  I remember them being some of my favorite projects.  I know these types of projects truly spark the students’ interests and motivate them to do well on their final assessment.  If I can plan a way to make computer access more available for my students and not lose too much physical activity time, I would like to incorporate digital stories in each quarter of the year.  Another type of lesson I plan on following through on is my pursuit of changing school lunches.  The problem-based learning assignment motivated me to finally start a project that focuses on the unhealthy choices students have during school lunches.  I plan to have more projects like the one I have all ready created and eventually have the students research how we can actually get the school district to change the food and drinks available for students at school.  We can incorporate social networks and other forms of online collaboration to gain insight from schools that have all ready addressed this problem and have converted their school to having healthy and more nutritious options during lunch.

I feel passionate about the lessons I have created during this course and the growth I have made as a teacher teaching towards 21^st century skills is apparent to me.  I feel more confident and eager to continue to learn 21^st century skills and ways to implement them into my classroom.  In the past I felt the challenges of incorporate lessons that strongly focused on technology skills could be too difficult when teaching physical education classes, but I have proven to myself they are not.

David

Monitoring my GAME plan

Monitoring Goal #1

I have found and sought out many forms of useful information pertaining to my first goal of creating a more student-orientated learning environment.  The collaboration with colleagues has been the most beneficial form of action and has allowed me to progress with my development of these types of lessons.  Currently I do not see a need to modify my action plan, but I feel I could extend my search for advice to other teachers.  I have only contacted teachers with physical education backgrounds, but seeking advice from teachers can benefit as well.  I have learned that this form of teaching is a work in progress, but the students have all ready shown interest in having more choices when it comes to completely their daily fitness activities.  Through my progression so far one question has came to mind; I am struggling to figure out a way to implement this strategy of lesson planning to lessons that need focus on specific skills required in our curriculum.  So my question is what is the best way to go about this?

Monitoring Goal #2

I have found all the information I need to correctly site my existing digital information and ways to site future information used to teach my classes.  I do not need to modify my action plan, this goal is very straight forward and is accomplished by following through on my plans.  I have learned through my action plan that when I come across information in the past and cannot find the correct information to site the source properly I end up finding new information which is more beneficial because it forces me to update my presentations when more current content.  Throughout this process I have not discovered new questions to pursue, once again, I believe this to be the case because this goal is very specific and simply requires commitment to correct my current information and continue to site information used in the future.

David

Action Plan

Now that I have established my goals, the next step is to establish and carry out an action plan.

Action Plan for Goal #1

I have begun researching on the internet using Google Scholar and Walden library resources that focus on physical education teachers that implement strategies geared towards student-driven activities.  The type of activities I am looking for should give students more freedom to pursue exercises of their interest or work towards improving skills related to sports/activities of interest.  Along with the research I have talked to colleagues within my building to brainstorm lessons that we could all implement that works towards the goal of our students becoming more independent learners.  The last and most beneficial action I have taken is reaching out to other physical education teachers, mostly through e-mail, and asking for advice and ideas they may have.  I have all ready received responses from classmates I had in college and professors from the university I attended.  I plan to continue these forms of research to fulfill the knowledge I need before implementing my newly planned lessons.  I will also need to wear pedometers and heart rate monitors myself to test the efficiency of the activities my students have the chose to pursue.  I do not want my students participating in activities that could prevent them from reaching their daily fitness goals.

Action Plan for Goal #2

My second goal requires individual responsibilities, for instances awareness and organization will be extremely important.  My plan is to check every piece of digital information I present to my class and make sure I have correctly cited the source.  In order to accomplish this I plan to review all my materials when creating my lesson plans.  To get ahead of the game and correct materials I have used in the past and plan to use in the future I will hold myself accountable and review at least three pieces of digital information each week until I have correctly cited all sources.  If I cannot find the source for the information I have used in the past, I will search for replacements.  When it comes to planning ways to implement discussions about properly cited resources during class lessons, I can collaborate with fellow teachers to gain insight and possible learn tactics I may want to use in my classroom.

My GAME Plan

For many of the performance indicators I feel understand what it takes to meet the goals, but I have not implemented the right strategies or methods to accomplish those goals.  The two indicators I chose to focus on have particular areas that I need to improve in order to create an environment that supports technology and the evaluation of 21^st century skills.

2. Design and Develop Digital-Age Learning Experiences and Assessments

b. develop technology-enriched learning environments that enable all students to pursue their individual curiosities and become active participants in setting their own educational goals, managing their own learning, and assessing their own progress

* (International Society for Technology in Education, 2008).

GOAL:  With the lessons I have technology currently in place, I want to create a learning environment that allows my students to have more freedom in the choices they make in order to accomplish their daily fitness goals and create an environment that allows them to set, manage and assess personal goals.

ACTION:  Currently the students have daily fitness goals they must accomplish while wearing pedometers or heart rate monitors.  I will work on developing lessons that focus on curriculum-based standards, but allow my students to have more choices when it comes to activities that will reach those standards and daily fitness goals.  Collaborating with other physical education teachers and researching lesson ideas that focus on more student-led fitness activities will help create appropriate lessons for my classes.

MONITOR:  I will monitor my progress on implementing more student-led fitness days by gathering data on daily lessons and the number of choices the students have to accomplish their fitness goals.  I will also keep track of the number of students that reach their fitness goals during these lessons.

EVALUATE/EXTEND:  I will evaluate the effectiveness of more student-led fitness days by looking at the data gathered and comparing how many student reached their fitness goal to how many choices the students had throughout the lesson.  Hopefully the data supports that students perform better when given more choices I will continue to think of more activities to incorporate and continue to seek advice from colleagues and research.

4. Promote and Model Digital Citizenship and Responsibility

a. 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

* (International Society for Technology in Education, 2008).

GOAL:  My goal is to make sure every piece of digital information I use in class includes the proper citation and to make my students more aware of the importance of giving everyone and their creations credit.

ACTION:  I will go through all my current forms of digital information and look-up or replace citation information.  I will also create notes in my lessons to remind myself to instigate conversation about the importance of giving credit to the creators of digital information.

MONITOR:  I will create a section on project/lesson rubrics that requires students to cite all pieces of digital information.  This will help me track the number of students that follow my examples in class.

EVALUATE/EXTEND:  I will analyze my collected data and determine whether students understand how to properly site digital information.  I will ultimately be able to determine if my modeling is sufficient enough or if I need to create lessons that help the students understand how to effectively site sources and why it is important.

International Society for Technology in Education. (2008). National education standards for teachers (NETS-T). Retrieved from http://www.iste.org/Libraries/PDFs/NETS_for_Teachers_2008_EN.sflb.ashx

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