Monitoring my GAME Plan Progress

In monitoring my progress on my GAME Plan, I do feel that I need to modify it slightly to make it feel more manageable. My current GAME Plan is set up so that I will create on new technology activity per unit. Although this is still my ultimate goal, I think for now I would just like to focus on creating one very meaningful activity per 9 weeks. I would also like to add that since I am getting ready to start a new semester with new students in January, I would really like to focus on starting my GAME Plan next semester. I have already begun to brainstorm some ideas that I can possibly use for my projects. However, I have not come to the point where I have surely decided on what projects to implement. I will be implementing these into CP Geometry classes, so I think it will be easy to do, but I really want to make sure I plan meaningful activities that my students will get excited about and have the opportunity to show off what they have learned in a creative way. There are still so many things that I need to do to get this GAME Plan going, but I feel that now that I have changed it to just two activities, I can really focus on making two GREAT activities. If anyone has any ideas or suggestions, I would love to hear them. Have you done similar activites in your own classrooms that I could benefit from? Thanks for the input! I look forward to hearing from you!

Carrying Out My GAME Plan

In order to carry out my GAME plan, there are some things that I will need. As far as resources go, I will first of all need support. I will seek support as needed from the technology specialist at my school. I will also need support from my administration and the math department at my school when I plan for and attend technology conferences. Another resources that I will need is time. Creating these activities will require much time and effort if the activities are going to be good activities. Furthermore, I will need creativity and confidence when creating new activities for my classroom. Finally, I will need technology resources and information on that technology. I will also need the knowledge to use and teach the technology that my students will be using. So far I have not had the opportunity to take steps to start to create these lessons. However, I hope to start soon. I plan to start implementing these activies at the beginning of second semester in January, so I will begin planning these activites within the next few weeks!

My GAME Plan

I have chosen to create a GAME plan for strengthening my confidence in two of the NETS - T standards.

The first standard that I would like to strengthen my confidence in is the first standard: Facilitate and Inspire Student Learning and Creativity. My goal will be to create more engaging and authentic lessons that use technology. The action that I will take to help myself achieve this goal will be to make an effort to include at least one activity that uses technology in every unit of study. I think by starting with this small step, I will not feel too overwhelmed at first. I will also be able to create better activities since I am just focused on creating one for each unit instead of one for each individual lesson to begin with. I will monitor my progress by making sure I include one well-planned engaging and authentic lesson that uses technology in every unit of study. I will evaluate my learning by reviewing the effectiveness of each new lesson after it is taught. I will make sure that the lessons are intentional and are effective at reaching the goal.

The second standard that I would like to strengthen my confidence in is the fifth standard: Engage in Professional Growth and Leadership. My goals will be to take part in some type of technology training each school year and to share my learning with my department at my school. The actions that I will take will be to actively search for, sign up for, and attend some sort of technology conference or training during each school year. I will also prepare a presentation and/or training for my department when I return from the training so that they can become more technology proficient as well. I will monitor my progress by making a point to do some type of technology training every school year. I will also ask my department head to make sure I share something with the department at least once a year. Finally, I will evaluate my learning by taking the time to reflect on what I learned at the training that I attended and share that information with my colleagues.

Reflection

After taking this course, I think the most striking revelation that I had about the teaching of new literacy skills to my students is that these skills really do need to be taught. When I was a student, which was really not that long ago, I was not taught all of these skills. However, I did manage to pick them up along the way. I think that I just assumed that these are skills that students, by the time they get to high school, just know. I was wrong. Each of these skills need to be taught to students, and they need a chance to practice using the skills as well.

What I have learned in this course will impact my teaching practices greatly. After taking this course, I plan to spend time every semester on a project-based unit in which students are taught not only the mathematics concepts from the standards that I am expected to cover, but also the new literacy skills that they need to know to thrive in this ever-changing world. I would actually like to implement the unit plan that I created throughout this course. I want my students to learn these new skills, but I also want them to realize that they can do research on mathematics topics as well as the topics that they choose for other classes like English and Social Studies.

I think I would like to help implement a program at my school that requires that all students are trained yearly on Internet ethics before being allowed to access the Internet at school. It is so important that students are actually taught these ethics, as suggested by Dr. Warlick in the class learning resources. We have a program at our school called "Eagle Time," which is much like homeroom. We meet every two weeks with our "Eagle Time" classes, and I think that this would be the perfect opportunity to train our students on Internet ethics. In fact, they could be trained on the first day of school in "Eagle Time." After they view the training PowerPoint, I would like for students to be required to complete a short quiz answering questions about what they were trained on. After passing the quiz and getting parent permission, students would then be given Internet privileges at school.