EDTECH 501 Reflections

In entering the EDTECH program I knew I was going to be challenged and I wasn't sure if the material taught would offer practical application for my classroom. I've sat through many classes over the years and found that most courses don't blend theory, methods, and application, but instead focus on hypothetical situations or scenarios. What I appreciate so much about this course is that we were exposed to a variety of methodologies, but required to experience them first hand. Expertise is cultivated through experience where trial and error is embraced. Without it we simply make assumptions that hold little credibility.

Perhaps the biggest challenge for me was adjusting to the use of APA formatting. Throughout my undergraduate degree I was required to use MLA and my school site requires that we teach MLA. It was a difficult adjustment making the transition. I often caught myself confusing the two and mixing up the distinctions that exist. It meant more time on the Purdue Owl website which at times was frustrating. Even though I thought I had the format down there were plenty of times where I had to back track and fix my errors. I felt the sample papers posted were a fabulous resource. I didn't just copy the formatted material, but rather looked at the example for guidance and used the Owl website to be sure I was following the correct format. I am also very thankful for the feedback of my small group.They graciously provided me with constructive criticism and encouragement. Their words were crucial in assuring that I felt an assignment was complete and done correctly. The whole process of using APA gave me insight into what my students must feel when they experience MLA for the first time. It humbled me in that it helped expose the struggles my students might face when I teach them about citations and parenthetical documentation. It has influenced the way I intend to teach MLA formatting this upcoming school year to best assist my students.

Despite the struggles I believe my favorite artifact was my school evaluation summary. All the other assignments were valuable as they exposed me to new technologies and offered opportunities for practice. However, the evaluation gave me a better understanding of what I can expect from my district and school site in terms of technology support, both short and long term. I also felt this was the assignment where I had to do the most digging. I talked with various members of my district to be sure I had first hand knowledge. This assignment also took the most amount of time because I was passionate about finding the most accurate information to be assessed. I didn't just want to do the assignment, but I wanted it to be meaningful and useful for my school site. I think because of my passion and desire to evaluate my school's level of technology integration I produced my best work.

While I intend to share my findings from the evaluation summary with my administrators, I also see myself using just about every tool from this class over the course of the next year. Everything from feedly to VoiceThread to Blogger to GoogleSlides. I was hoping that this course would teach me how to maximize the potential use of the technology I do have available at my school site. I intend to take the resources introduced in this course and slowly embed them into my course curriculum. For example, Socratic Seminars are already an integral part of my classroom structure. For every seminar students must come to class with an article related to the topic. I plan to introduce feedly as a means of accessing news sources and helping students find credible evidence. I will also utilize Blogger so students can develop digital portfolios. My other intention is to share these resources with my colleagues in hopes that we can begin embedding diverse technologies into the curriculum across the grade levels. There are endless possibilities of how I will use what I learned in this course throughout the school year.

Week 8- Final Project

PBL site and Self-Evaluation

1. What do you know/ understand best about Project Based Learning? What do you

understand least well? 

I understand best that Project Based Learning must hold “real world” application. If what

students are learning holds value for their lives in the future then their involvement will be more

meaningful. It is therefore the responsibility of educators to create learning opportunities where

students can develop the necessary skills for life. Developing genuine, authentic lessons that

build student knowledge, allow for repetitive practice, permit revisions, and require professional

product development are all required for success in PBLs. 

What I am still learning with PBL’s is how to best set-up the pedagogical sequence so

that each lesson builds on the next to create the culminating activity. It isn’t that I don’t

understand how to go about this process, but more that the process is time consuming and

involves tremendous thinking. When looking at the scope of the school year and what content

must be taught in association with given standards it can be very overwhelming figuring out how

to logically implement all the requirements. 

2. What did you expect to learn in this course? What did you actually learn? More, less,

and why?

To be honest I didn’t know what to expect I would learn in this course. I was simply hopeful

that what I learned in this course would be of use in my teaching and also push me to grow in my

abilities to design instruction. I am very happy to say that I find this course very applicable to my

teaching. 

What I actually learned was the ins-and-outs in creating an effective PBL. I quickly found that

PBL’s are about mastering skills and standards. They require a “team” component that requires

students to collaborate with one another and build an atmosphere that accepts peer, self, and

teacher assessment for the sake of personal growth. At the foundational level PBLs must be

driven by an essential question that guides student creativity with large themes that serve as

protective barriers in the exploration process. I also found that PBLs support the idea of setting

high expectations and scaffolding lessons to help students achieve high standards for success. 

3. What will you do with what you have learned?

I have already taken my PBL that I created and presented it to my Professional Learning

Community (PLC). My hope is that I am able to implement this unit this upcoming fall when

teaching Of Mice and Men. Moreover, my goal is to pass along many of the resources I have

been exposed to in this course to the curriculum design team. There are already so many PBLs in

existence that there is no point in recreating the wheel, so knowing where to find well-developed

and effective PBLs and supporting resources is huge. I’m hoping in the months to come I am

able to build more PBL’s that center on the core literature taught each year in 9th grade English. 

Week 6- Role of the Facilitator

In reviewing my learning log I realized I never posted my week 6 reflection. Here it is below!

1. Will my role in the teaching/learning process change?

I don’t believe my role in the teaching/learning process will change very much. My normal

teaching relies heavily on the the implementation of student-centered activities. My primary task is to

develop curriculum that allows students to be self-directed learners. I must creatively think of how to

create more manageable tasks that hold real world value and keep students engagement. These

components allow students to develop mastery learning. That mastery learning comes from hands

on/do-it-yourself (DIY) mentality of learning. I see my job in the classroom as

guiding students in the right direction, asking higher-level thinking questions to drive their

understanding, and facilitating learning. My job also requires that I assess the classroom climate to

meet the needs of all students and develop differentiation when necessary. 

2. What are the skills of effective facilitation?

Effective facilitation requires that the teacher be organized. It demands that students understand

the norms of the classroom along with the expectations of the assignment. For teachers to trust

students in collaboration students must demonstrate a level of maturity that comes through effective

teacher modeling and classroom management. I think a huge component in facilitation is allowing

students to struggle and not giving in when they simply want to be told how to do what the task

requires. I know when I feel fatigued and frustrated it is easy to fall back into the default mode of

explaining to students the steps they should take rather than guiding their thinking process. When

teachers stay patience and guide students through questioning and providing appropriate resources it

puts the responsibility of learning on the student. The road to self-discovery is often more

challenging, but the fruit produced is far more meaningful. 

3. Will the students develop the competencies and skills needed to be successful?

I believe students will develop the skills they need to be successful. The thing I like about my

PBL is that each of the formative assessments is a result of a purposeful lesson that is taught so that

students are exposed to a specific skill that will be required in the culminating activity. The goal is

that through managing the amount of information students are introduced to in each lesson that they

will develop a depth of learning. Moreover, each activity requires that students engage in critical

thinking skills and in some work with others to solve problems. As a result, students will find

themselves having to dig into the meat of the content through the application of the desired skills. It is

through application and evaluation that students find themselves engaging in higher-order thinking. 

4. What changes will you need to make in order to become an effective facilitator in your PBL

unit?

       One of the biggest changes I will need to make in my PBL is creating a list of guiding questions

for students. I think by creating a set of questions that can easily be accessed at any time to facilitate

informal, impromptu classroom discussion will allow me to be proactive in the facilitation process. 

School Evaluation Summary

This assignment was a fresh reminder of why I am enrolled in the EDTECH program. While I believe my school district is progressive in how it is attacking technology integration and support, I believe I play an important role in improving our district use of technology. My job as a teacher is to contribute to professional development and provide educated, research-based suggestions for improvement. While my district's technology plan is solid and self-evaluated frequently, something I greatly appreciate, more specific professional development needs to be put in place to assure maximum use of the technologies that are provided. It is easy to point fingers and say that more needs to be done to make room for the purchase of technologies to create a nice 1:1 or even 1:3 ratio of devices to students. However, the reality is that our school has almost 3,000 students making it difficult to build such an environment. I do believe and trust the direction my district is going and see it as my responsibility to maximize the resources that are available. 

The knowledge gained from this assignment helps me to see the areas of weakness at my school site. With these area exposed it helps me to understand the capacity to which I am able to integrate technology and what personal research I can conduct to contribute to solving these issues. It also showed me that I need to be more proactive in assisting and helping other teachers with technology integration. Most are willing to incorporate technologies, but lack the understanding of how. Taking the knowledge gained from the EDTECH program I can contribute from the ground-level by exposing my Professional Learning Community and other colleagues to the methods, strategies and tools I am learning about. 

The survey process also provided me with insight into the in-depth details of the technology plan created by my district.  I can now proactively monitor the district and my schools site's progress for technology integration. I am extremely blessed to be in a district that takes pride in all that they do. This is reflected in the development of the technology plan which reveals the districts desire to do everything possible to create a learning environment where all students can succeed in mind, body, and spirit. 

Evaluation Summary Survey

Evaluation Summary

Technology Plan

In navigating the National Center for Technology Planning Guidebook it became even more clear how essential it is to have a plan behind technology integration. There are endless options and paths schools and districts can take when considering how to best incorporate technology in the classroom. The end goal remains the same: prepare students for the real world through the application of critical thinking skills. Technology is simply a vessel used to prepare. 

It also became evident that the endless opportunities available are dependent upon student and teacher accessibility and knowledge of how to use the technology. It became evident that in order for success districts and school sites must have a comprehensive and detailed plan that includes self-evaluation in order to ensure the productivity of technology integration. Moreover, this plan must remain "broad" so as to stay flexible to the ever-evolving world of technology. 

While I looked at state plans and those developed by other districts, I was pleasantly surprised by the initiative developed by the district to which I work. Adopted in 2012 the plan is a five year plan (2012-2017). The primary objective of my district is to grow students in "mind, body, and spirit." The desire is to help students use technology to accomplish the mission laid out my the district. The in-depth plan is a lot to take in, but I believe it shows the proactive approach my district is taking. While flaws always exist I trust this plan is and will be effective. 

Clovis Unified Technology Plan 

Week 7 Reflection

I’ve stated several times throughout this semester that I am very thankful for the practical application the EDTECH 542 class provides. The fact that this course is designed to allow educators to create curriculum for their classrooms while learning new methods and teaching practices is an invaluable experience. With that said I have been very purposeful in designing my PBL because I want to be sure it is something that can be used by my 9th grade English team. In the transition to Common Core our district has moved in the direction of PBLs making this course content very applicable. Thus, my evaluation process will largely involve my PLC (Professional Learning Community).

There are four other teachers that make up my PLC team. If teachers hop on board we can implement this 4-6 week unit this coming fall as we teach Of Mice and Men. The hope is that with a diverse group of teachers, and a wide range of teaching experience, we will collectively be able to work out the cinks of this PBL while simultaneously assessing how well the assessments build student knowledge and meet the Common Core standards. I would like to monitor our PBL experience through the use of a double-entry journal for teachers. In the left hand column teachers will list the activities done in class each day and how the class was structured, essentially a rough outline of a lesson plan. On the right hand side of the journal teachers will then reflect on the aspects of the day that went well and those that need improvement. This journal will serve as the foundation for conversation after the PBL is complete. In this way we can look at what common issues surfaced or which classroom structure provided the best environment for PBL success. Assuming that time allows it, our weekly PLC meeting time can be used to analyze and compare our journal entries as we progress through the PBL. Doing this will chunk our reflection and hopefully create an opportunity for deep and meaningful analysis for how to improve the PBL as a whole.

Moreover, I have a close friend that teachers at a different school. Her school site is not nearly as diverse as mine and mostly composed of affluent white students. I have asked that she would implement this unit as well that we might compare how the PBL plays out at each of our school sites. With the data from her journal we will be able to explore how different demographics influence the productivity of the PBL.

In addition, I intend to create an evaluation form where students can provide feedback about this learning process. I hope to list each formative assessment and ask students how useful they found the assignment in preparing them for the summative assessment. I will also ask students to consider what additional skills they would like to be exposed to in the weeks leading up to the summative assessment. From the teacher’s perspective the pedagogical sequencing of a unit often makes sense; however, students might have a different perspective and hearing their voice will be key in building the PBL so it fits student needs.

The reflection process never stops. The goal would be that every time we teach we reflect and look at ways to which we can better serve our students. It is my hope that through this PBL, and the reflection that follows, that I will be able to guide my students in developing mastery learning of both Common Core standards and 21st Century Skills.

***My peer evaluation partner for this assignment was Catherine Holthaus.

Tech Trends

So much of what I appreciate about the EDTECH program is that the content of each class seems to bleed into what we are learning in other courses. In this assignment we were asked to select an educational trend to analyze. I decided to pursue what methods are being used to successfully create deeper learning. My primary objective in teaching is to see students develop complete understanding and mastery of material. If we don’t go very wide in what we learn but can create depth then I believe it teaches students the proper process for creating lasting knowledge. In choosing this topic I was excited that the content of my selected trend relates closely with EDTECH 542, which focuses on building PBLs (Project-Based Learning). In 542 I am working to build my own PBL, but what this assignment did was it provided me with the opportunity to look at the various factors that make a PBL successful.

It quickly became clear to me that in order for deeper learning to exist there must be more collaboration between teachers at my high school. We are only given 45 minutes of collaboration time per week. Our collaboration is within our content specific areas and grouped based on grade level. I believe my PLC (Professional Learning Community) works well together and has taken some steps towards implementing strategies for mastery learning. However, with such little time to collaborate our progress in this process is slow moving. 

In addition, our school has not built into its’ schedule time for teachers to collaborate across content areas. Projects built across subject matters presents students with opportunities to demonstrate their understanding of content-specific standards while under the umbrella of one project. I believe in the value of this process for students and sought to embrace it this past school year. A fellow colleague of mine teachers health and we were placed in the same “house” together. “House” is a label used to describe when teachers share the same students. In this case all of my English 9 students also took her class for health. The house system worked well as we were able to develop a project where students researched a disease and a celebrity with that disease to create a 5 page research paper. Students then created a digital presentation that highlighted the main points of their research paper. I was able to focus on MLA formatting while she graded the content. This worked great for our classes as we were able to scaffold our lessons to build student understanding on the specific standards we wanted them to master. The downfall is that not all teachers are part of houses, thus not all teachers are offered the luxury of implementing cross-curricular projects. 

This assignment helped me to better understand the importance of teacher collaboration time. The National Council for Time and Learning’s (NCTL) research offered five suggested priorities for cultivating a school environment that develops deeper learning. Of those five I can implement three as an individual teacher. I am able to make assignments meaningful, design them to maintain “real world” application, and cultivate a positive learning environment. However, without creating teacher collaboration time I lack a key ingredient that is necessary for building success in student learning. 

My school site would greatly benefit from the PBL model of learning, but with a student population of nearly 3,000 it presents logistical challenges. Regardless, I believe if the method isn’t fully adopted portions can be used in our classrooms to slowly begin building a culture of deeper learning. In a recent meeting at my school site we were told by our administration that the school will be moving in the direction of implementing more PLC time in the school schedule. Therefore, I would like to present my findings from this project, and my EDTECH 542 PBL, to affirm and encourage this movement for more teacher collaboration time. Perhaps this research will provide insight that will push our staff members to engage in this design for learning and allow administrators to see the lasting benefits. It does require more work and time, but the end outcome means we are more effective educators and students are better learners. 

Tech Trends: Deeper Learning Prezi

EDTECH 542 PBL site (please note this project is not yet finalized)

Week 5- Interdisciplinary Curriculum

Developing curriculum across the disciplines is something my school site would benefit from. While our API scores remain high and students demonstrate mastery learning, I believe we could be more effective through interdisciplinary studies. There are some teachers that make an attempt, but without very much PLC (professional learning communities) time it is hard to develop the curriculum. The video suggests that successful interdisciplinary curriculum design starts with backwards mapping, knowing what you want students to know by the end of the PBL, and figuring out what needs to be learned for students to successfully meet the end objectives. Throughout the process teachers need collaboration time to discuss and plan effectively how the content areas will be intertwined in instruction.

This past school year was my first year taking a stab at interdisciplinary curriculum design. A colleague and I have built a solid professional and personal friendship over the years. We decided to put in the extra time to develop a project tougher since we were placed in the same "house." This meant all of the students that took my class for English were also taking her health class. Realizing that meaningful learning calls for curriculum that blends subject matter, we decided to experiment. My main objective was teaching students effective research techniques and how to develop a formal, professional, MLA formatted research. Her objective was for students to understand the process of learning about a specific disease and the features that should be looked at when analyzing a diseases' cause and effects.

While it wasn't perfect, there were tremendous benefits to doing this project. Students felt more accountable because they knew the final paper would count in both classes. Moreover, students had not one but two teachers that they could ask questions and get feedback from. The major benefit for me was that when I gave instruction it was all focused on teaching the elements of research and writing a research paper. This left room for me to demonstrate how to use different technological tools as a result of not having to focus on teaching content, which was taught by the health teacher. It made it far more manageable to grade as my focus was honed in on proper citation, MLA alignment, and that the paper was free of plagiarism.

Moving forward, I am hoping to voice the effectiveness of interdisciplinary curriculum. I believe if we can come together and figure out a way to have more collaboration time at our school site we could be better serve our students.

This topic aligns with our Planning and Preparation additions to our PBL this week. Below are links to pages added to my PBL site.

• Entry Event.
• Project Timeline.
• tools and resources.
• Teaching and Learning Guide.

EDTECH Research

In teaching it is important to develop assignments that assess student knowledge, increase student engagement, and encourage critical thinking skills. At times it can be difficult to facilitate all three of these features in one assignment. When it comes to teaching students how to conduct proper research the task can be especially daunting. Research is a multi-dimensional beast that must be simplified for students, especially when not all students have the same skills or access to technology. I learned quickly this past school year that several of my students are not digitally literature and need step-by-step instruction to aid in their understanding.

I also learned the importance of offering students multiple opportunities to practice research and assessing specific skills as we go rather than evaluating all the research standards in one major assessment. The challenge for me has been how to divide the components of research so that I appropriately chunk it to meet the needs of my students. I want to be logical in the order to which I teach certain skills so that students understand the research process as a whole. The major components I must covered when teaching research include the following Common Core Standards:

• CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.9-10.6- Use technology, including the Internet, to produce, publish, and update individual or shared writing products, taking advantage of technology's capacity to link to other information and to display information flexibly and dynamically.
• CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.9-10.7- Conduct short as well as more sustained research projects to answer a question (including a self-generated question) or solve a problem; narrow or broaden the inquiry when appropriate; synthesize multiple sources on the subject, demonstrating understanding of the subject under investigation.
• CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.9-10.8- Gather relevant information from multiple authoritative print and digital sources, using advanced searches effectively; assess the usefulness of each source in answering the research question; integrate information into the text selectively to maintain the flow of ideas, avoiding plagiarism and following a standard format for citation.
• CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.9-10.9- Draw evidence from literary or informational texts to support analysis, reflection, and research.

This assignment provided me with an opportunity to develop an end of the year summative research assessment where all four of the above standards can be evaluated. It allowed me to research strategies, methods, and resources I can use along the way to get students where they need to be by the end of the year. When I first began I was confident in teaching foundational basics of research, but my findings have elevated the level of rigor that I will put into my teaching. As a result, I have already begun planning new activities, developing organizers, and creating formative assessments that can be scattered throughout the school year to both affirm and support student learning.

Research in Educational Technology

Week 4 Reflection

My assessments meet the criteria for effective assessments because they are student-centered. Each assessment focuses on skills that will be valuable for the individual students’ lifetime. The assessments build upon one another to create a well-rounded learning environment. All of the formative assessments hold within them a skill or strategy that students must learn to implement in order to perform well on the summative assessments. For example, if students want to find meaningful research that comes from accurate and credible sources then Boolean searching will prove to be a powerful tool. If students can effectively navigate the use of Boolean searching their search results will improve leading to more credible research and a more trustworthy final presentation. Likewise, the the Of Mice and Men Supplemental Text Analysis forces students to analyze various texts by evaluating the effects of specific word choice, type of evidence selected, and the tone to which the author uses. This assignment requires that students make meaningful connections in order to synthesize information and show complete understanding. This skill must be used in the Selling the American Dream Project as students will be pushed to showcase their abilities not only to synthesize and evaluate information, but to create new ideas with the information gathered. Each assessment provides students with an opportunity to improve upon a given learning objective that will be assessed in the summative assessment.

Additionally, many of these assignments require that students either work in pairs or in groups. As a result, this leaves a lot of room for students to evaluate one another and provide constructive feedback that they might grow as critical thinkers. Students are exposed to a variety of evaluators (teacher, peer, self, outside persons). This means there will be diversity in the criticism provided which will present students will yet another opportunity for self-evaluation. With multiple exposures to concepts and ideas students are mastering skills through the process of revision. Consider the rough draft research paper. Students will use the rubric of the teacher to annotate and then provide suggestions in regards to another classmates research paper. In this process students will need to demonstrate understanding of how to facilitate the rubric. Each formative assessment contributes to the level of expectation and rigor that the summative assessments maintain.

While I am confident in my assessments I do see room for improvement. In fact, in looking at the “Key Principles of Assessment” if was clear that I needed to provide students with more opportunity for reflection. I actually went into my PBL site and added the double-entry journal assignment. I see the value in allowing students to reflect on their learning so that they might grasp the depth of their learning. Moreover, I didn’t include in the formative assessments section the fact that I intend to have frequent, informal class discussions to allow students a chance to process and verbally work through their thoughts. Lastly, I was pushed by the question “How will you adjust your teaching during this project to allow more student input in the evaluation process?” I realized that one thing I need to do is model and take on the role of the student. I need to participate in these assignments with students to show the level of expectation and rigor. In my modeling students will have the responsibility of acting as the evaluator. Students will use the various rubrics I intend to use to then assess what I model. In this students will be need to demonstrate what they comprehend in regards to expectations for each assignment. They will also be required to apply concept, critique, and make connections.Ultimately, this is providing students with practice for the summative assessments that will be used.