Module 8

Of everything you learned, what do you think will have the biggest impact on student learning?

Our unit will be taught as a dry run this year after AIMS, but next year it will be right at the beginning of the school year. I think going over all the new technology and teaching them new things at the beginning of the year will open us up to incorporate all kinds of things as we go through the rest of the year, because we won't have to take the time to start from scratch to teach them how to do the technology. So I see the unit allowing us next year to really have a lot more hands on technology - presentations, photostory, powerpoints, publisher items and I look forward to that. This will better prepare the students for the upper grades.

Monday March 23rd

How I will implement my unit:
I like that we are working as a team in this and that we will be able to try it out this spring after AIMS and then fine tune it to teach it again at the beginning of next year. And each year as we continue I can see it getting more fine tuned and I think, more exciting for the students.

We are using technology that for some is new and others it is not. For example I heavily use Publisher and so I used that as the medium for the students output from the Webquest. On the other hand I don't know anything about using photostory or voice streaming. So as a team we will be able to teach each other and thus all of us will be learning as we in turn teach the kids.

Module 6

This module has helped me think about self-directed learners and the role of differentiation in the following ways…. I want my students to feel a sense of ownership about their own learning. And allowing them to work in a self directed mode helps with that. It really makes differentiation easier than when the whole class is working together through a project. If the students know what they need to do, how they can add challenging activities, they will take pride in their work. I realize that I work with 3rd grade, so for most of my students they still like school and want to succeed. The others are the strugglers who get tired of being at the bottom of the class - so this type of a project really suits them. They can progress at their level, and still feel proud about their accomplishments.

Module 5

This module has helped me think about student-centered assessment in the following ways….

• Assessment is not the end all
• Assessments can be a critical indicator of where to go in my teaching - reteach, move on, add rigor, etc.
• Assessments can be motivators for my students - when they see their results, and set goals to move beyond where they are ...... and thus encourage their internal drive to excell.
• Formative assessments can be made fun for the students in that there are so many possibilities you could use. They can show what they have learned by doing.

Module 4

How can technology be used most effectively to support and assess student learning?

I have two examples of how technology can be used effectively to support and assess student learning. I could use a CPS system to give a review or a quiz. The students engagement increases when they can use the responders to enter their answers. They look forward to even quizzes if they can use the responders. I can then print out a report to enter grades.

The second example is by having the students make a powerpoint to show what they have learned or use Publisher to make a newsletter or poster of what they are learning increases their engagement and quickly shows if they have learned the objective.

Module 3

This module has helped me think about the impact of the Internet on my students’ learning in the following ways….First it has reminded me that I am responsible for what they get into when they are with me and what they download and how they use it. I must impress on them the desire to be ethical and use resources ethically.
Second - though with caution, the skies the limit to how much we can use the internet and how it can provide the students with new learning opportunities. My students need to learn (3rd graders) that just because it is on the internet, does not make it true or right.

Module 2

This module has helped me think about using standards, CFQs, or formative assessment in the following ways.... First of all, the whole concept of 21st century instruction hit home like it hasn't before. I need to be teaching in a way that prepares my students for the future and include for example rigor in order to adequately prepare them. The way we unrolled the standards and tied together the district Power standards and state standards to the essential questions helped me see a cohesiveness that can be in our lessons and units that I hadn't thought about before. I liked how we then went back to the above and tied in the technology goals and checked for the rigor. I think we will produce a good unit that will be very challenging to the students.

This module has made me think about my role as an instructional designer in the following ways…. It makes me think about how I can design my curriculum delivery in a way that allows technology to enhance the learning for the student. I don't want to include technology just to include it, but I have already seen how my student engagement goes through the roof for example when we use the CPS system.