Final Blog Post

As a result from my GAME plan I have learned that I need to follow through with my ideas. So often I will say I am going to do something as it sounds neat and interesting but then push it aside because doing my normal routine takes less effort. However, as I have found out there are so many more benefits to setting up a GAME plan and following it. By doing so I do not feel as if I have to have everything accomplished in one day, I can implement this over a period of time which does not seem as overwhelming. My students are much more engaged and eager to learn what I am teaching when I think of new ways to present the concepts to them. I also like the monitoring and evaluating piece of the GAME plan. It makes you sit down and reflect of what went well and what did not. I will definitely maintain using the GAME plan as I continue to put into practice new strategies and ideas.

I do not feel as if there will be any immediate adjustments to my instructional practice regarding technology as I have already done so with my GAME plan. However, I will continue doing what I am currently doing such as blogging with my students and creating more assessments using the interactive clickers. As I have learned in this course to be successful with integrating technology into your course is to feel confident with the technology you are using. I am still doing so as I try my new ideas with the pieces of technology I am currently using with my students. We are getting ready to change semesters and I will try my hardest to implement something new then.

Using the GAME Plan Process with Students

To start off, I would develop a GAME plan with my students by taking them through the process step by step and take time to talk about the great benefits of setting up a GAME plan. I would make a goal that would be applicable to all students, something very simple. We would then discuss actions we could take to meet this goal. Once we have a few suggestions, as a class we would narrow it down to two actions allowing students to have some say of how they will obtain this goal. Once we have decided that, we will then talk about ways we are going to monitor our progress and decide on again two ways to do that. Lastly, we will talk about how we could evaluate ourselves in a week to decide whether or not we have met our goal or not. Each day I would take 10 – 15 minutes to have a group discussion about how their GAME plan is coming along. I would take this time to answer any questions the students may have.

Once I felt confident the students understood what exactly a GAME plan is, I will have created a mini-project coinciding with the concepts I would currently be teaching. Students would need to come up with a GAME plan in order to produce a quality project to be turned into me. I would incorporate the Technology Standards for Students into the project by handing them a rubric I have created. It would be very easy for me to use Creativity and Innovation, Communication and Collaboration, Research and Information Fluency, Critical Thinking, Problem Solving, and Decision Making, Digital Citizenship, and Technology Operations and Concepts as the categories for my rubric. I would then need to decide the details of how students would earn a 4, 3, 2, or 1 for the specific category. I feel that if I would hand this out to the students before hand, they would know exactly what I was grading them on; of course it would pertain to my math curriculum as well.

By students seeing students’ final projects it would tell me if students understand the Technology Standards with out having to go through each and every standard individually.

Revising Your GAME Plan

I am still working on providing students with multiple and varied formative and summative assessments aligned with content and technology standards and use resulting data to inform learning and teaching. I tried my problem-based learning lesson plan that I created for last week. I teach a PSSA prep class to 11th graders who are struggling to score proficient on the PSSA’s. So this week, instead of given them an actual paper/pencil test, I made them complete a project using all the concepts we discussed. They could work with a partner or by themselves and they had to complete their final project using Microsoft Word. I provided the students with a rubric I created and then I left them go from there. I am thrilled at the final projects these students are turning into me to be graded. I am going to keep this idea in the back of mind as all of my students were on task and engaged in the project at hand. Very successful lesson!

As of right now, I do not think I am ready to set new goals for myself. I feel as if I have not explored enough different options for my current goals. I have implemented a new way for assessing the students through a project and clickers; and I have also had my class create a personal blog for reflection. However, a statement that sticks in my mind is to give the students choices. I do not feel I have fulfilled that task. Just trying one new teaching style is not enough for me. I would like to get maybe one more in each category so then it would give the students some options.

I have learned that students love to work on computers. Therefore, when I try to implement new assessments and reflection strategies, I am going to try my hardest to incorporate the computer. Students are asking me everyday, “are we going to blog today?” I love the fact that they are so eager to blog but I also do not want blogging to loose its spark with the students. I try to get them to blog once a week. I felt that once a week would not wear out its welcome! This is the biggest piece I have learned so far and again, that is the more technology I can incorporate the more interested, motivated, and engaged my students are.

I am going to try more problem-based learning lessons with my students as I have found they very much enjoy them and they do a fabulous job at it. Although it does take a little more time to plan and prepare for, it is very beneficial for the students and very rewarding to me to see them succeed!

Evaluating Your GAME Plan Progress

As a refresher the two goals I set for myself are as follows; I need to promote student reflection by using collaborative tools to reveal and clarify students’ conceptual understanding and thinking, planning, and creative processes. I also need to provide students with multiple and varied formative and summative assessments aligned with content and technology standards and use resulting data to inform learning and teaching.

To start off, I feel as if my actions helped a lot with meeting my goals. I took time to sit and really think of different and new ideas I could use in my classroom with my students to help myself meet these goals. With my students setting up their own personal blogs to use for reflection and the explanation part on open-ended questions for my math class, they are not grumbling anymore when they have to complete them. They love to get on the computer to type up their responses as well as placing pictures and gadgets on their blogs. Also, it takes a little bit of time to make, but I have made more assessments to align with my set of “clickers.” Students are more engaged and eager to participate.

So far with my GAME plan, I have learned there are many different ways to implement reflection, explanations, and assessments without using the old fashion paper and pencil. Students seem to be more intrinsically involved when I do something different than plain paper and pencil.

I am still learning and getting comfortable with all the different technology tools than can be used. In my next GAME plan, I would love to incorporate wikis with my classes. But again, I need to get to know more about them myself before I will feel comfortable using them with my students. No new questions have come up; I am focused right now on using our blogs for reflection and my clickers for assessments.

I am not in need of anything right now so I do not foresee any adjustments will be made to my GAME plan. I am feeling very confident and proud of what I have accomplished so far with my students.