EDU6136 Content Methods Reflection

Reflecting on EDU6136, Content Methods, my biggest take away is development of the lesson sequence for the edTPA.  Everything in this course extremely helpful in the development of these lessons.  From my development on the learning targets and edTPA prep, I would say I grew the most on program standard 2 Instruction: The teacher uses research-based instructional practices to meet the needs of all students.

Figure 1

At the beginning of this quarter, I can only say I felt confident in maybe 2 or 3 of the 9 learning targets.  Providing feedback to students, having students reflect on their learning and academic language were at the bottom of my confidence list (and the top of the edTPA importance).  Throughout this course, I was able to apply class discussions and readings to my internship and development of the edTPA lessons to gain confidence in these areas. For example, the very first discussion post I was able to apply and write about the 50 CATS by Angelo and Cross (Shown in Figure 1 & 2) Through the application of reading, applying it to the classroom and sharing with my peers it helped me develop new skills.  

Figure 2

Although I feel confident in the classroom using research based instructional practices to meet the needs of my students (standard 2), I feel I still need to deepen my understanding of how to translate a few of the learning targets onto paper for the edTPA lesson plans and commentary. I feel confident incorporating students assets and deepening knowledge into my classroom and would actually say it is what I feel most confident in, however I struggle to translate that into the written lesson plans.  In addition, I also still struggle with translating academic language onto paper.

Overall, I have appreciated the real life application of this course.  I can now say I feel confident in 7 or 8 of the 9 learning targets and look forward to building on my new knowledge in both the classroom and edTPA!

Portfolio Evaluation Standard - Community (Module 5 - How Can Teachers Prevent Cyber Bullying?)

Triggering Event

How can we help students understand safety, cultural, and privacy issues related to technology and practice legal and ethical behavior?

My Trigger Event Question based on Reading

What can teachers do to prevent cyber bullying and/or digital harassment?

Article Connection/Explanation to Standard and Trigger Question

This standard (students recognize the rights, responsibilities and opportunities of living, learning and working in an interconnected digital world, and they act and model in ways that are safe, legal and ethical) could not have come at a more perfect time as I am currently teaching the bullying unit in health.  In the bullying sequence, we talk about cyber bullying such as what it is, how to identify it, how to handle it and a review general digital citizenship (the whole first day of school is spent on digital citizenship).  However, for this module, my trigger question is what can teachers do to prevent cyber bullying and/or digital harassment. 

            The first article I read from stopbullying.gov gave pointers targeted more towards students and their parents but some could be applied to teachers such as being aware of what students are doing online and establishing rules around technology use.  I think these are both standard and teachers are currently doing this, however it is impossible to be monitoring 32 screens at once.  The second article from educationworld.com suggests discussing bullying, teaching corporation and creating a bully action plan for prevention. 

Figure 1

            Most articles out there state the same thing about cyber bullying prevention and yet bullying still occurs.  I think the key to bullying prevention is changing the culture of the school by spreading kindness and teaching how to stand up to intolerance.  Students are trying to find themselves and fit in.  With snap chat, facebook and instagram there are many opportunities for students to break each other down when they should be building each other up.  Changing the culture to create kindness instead of hate is the key.  A resource I highly suggest for all teachers is randomactsofkindness.org.  There are ideas to spread acts of kindness around school and even fun calendars for each month with daily random acts.  Figure 1 is an example from edutopia.org of a kindness game poster, something I had my students create. 

            Overall, I think the answer to my trigger question is educating students on cyber bullying/digital harassment.  Bringing awareness to the situation and teaching kids techniques to handle these situations are key.  Also, helping students know to report it to you and be an honest resource.  I have done enough bully education to know that students do not trust that teachers will do anything when they report bullying, so the most important things teachers can do is act when they know something is happening or when a student speaks up.

Resources

A. (2012, March 08). Prevent Cyberbullying. Retrieved March 8,

2017, from https://www.stopbullying.gov/cyberbullying/prevention/index.html

Bullying and Cyberbullying: Six Things Teachers Can Do.

(n.d.). Retrieved March 6, 2017, from http://www.educationworld.com/a_curr/what-schools-can-do-to-stop-bullying.shtml

Random Acts of Kindness. (n.d.). Retrieved March 9, 2017,

from https://www.randomactsofkindness.org/

What is digital harassment? (n.d.). Retrieved March 04, 2017, from

https://www.commonsensemedia.org/cyberbullying/what-is-digital-harassment

EDTC 6431 Learning for Technology Personal Project Reflection

Throughout the course EDTC 6431, Learning for Technology, I created a lesson integrating technology into a high school weight training class or Athletic Performance Enhancement (APE).  I also teach a freshman health class that would have been very easy to add more technology to, as we already use quite a bit, but I wanted to challenge myself by adding technology to a class that typically uses very little, if any.  To do this, I decided to take a project that about half the class has already done (the repeaters) and turn it into something new using technology.  This project is the personal trainer project where the students get to partner up to “train” each other creating a monthlong workout plan and diet based on their peers goal.  To add technology to this project students recorded each other performing the workout that they designed, demoing the exercises.  The final result could either be in video form or a powerpoint with videos embedded.  

After completing the lesson written in phase 4, I would rate it a 7 out of 10.  I think the lesson fits with the class culture and the students who were prepared really enjoyed filming each other using either their phone or chromebook.  The issue I had and the reason why I only gave it a 7 is due to the constant struggle in PE with students bringing their technology to class.  Reminders were given leading up to the day, reminders were written in the locker room for them and still students either did not have it or they were not charged.  I do think the lesson met all of the learning targets, transitioned really well, kept the students engaged and included enough assessment to ensure learning.  However, my struggle is and will be the majority of students do not associate PE with technology and my goal is to try to change that culture.

In addition to this lesson, I tried to incorporate more technology into the classroom by starting a weekly blog so the students could keep track of their workouts, monitor their progress and generally reflect on the week.  This again has been a struggle because they do not bring their chromebooks to class. Although class time is given for the blog post, I have unfortunately had to give zeros for about half the students who are choosing not to do the blog because they are not bringing their chromebooks.  My next step moving forward and big takeaway from this lesson is to survey the students to see what technology they want to use in class and what would motivate them to bring their chromebooks, charged, to class.  

Overall, this course and this project have been nothing but beneficial.  I have tried many new ideas to add technology into the classroom and feel this APE class has been my guinea pig for me to try different things and make mistakes.  Although I may not know where I will be teaching next year, I am confident that I will be able to add technology into the classroom, even if there is limited access to technology.  It is all about being creative and stepping out of your comfort zone.  At the end of the day, the students love technology and they are the experts - so using them as a resource is crucial!

Link to Personal Project (modified for blog post): https://docs.google.com/document/d/11aOzjvBqjCUeS3aWFkailjVwjyxrkMGloqctrDJZ1cQ/edit?usp=sharing

Contents of link include: 

Standards/objectives, strategies/resources, lesson plan/artifacts

Is it Possible to Add Coding to Physical Education?

Triggering Event

What are ways in which students can use critical thinking skills to plan and conduct research, manage projects, solve problems, and make informed decisions using appropriate digital tools and resources?

My Trigger Event Question based on Reading

How can coding and/or gaming be used in PE or Health to help develop critical thinking or problem solving skills?

Article Connection/Explanation to Standard and Trigger Question

It seems like everywhere you turn, coding is the topic of conversation. There are TV commercials for new tech toys and even monthly subscription boxes full of products to teach coding. With coding taking over I figured it was time to investigate how I can include it in physical education. I found an article on TeachHub that talks about the importance of adding coding to the classroom because it’s not a trend; it’s the future. The article talks about adding 60 minutes of coding to your classroom each week. The article linked to code.org, which contains example lesson plans and activity ideas to add coding.  It was a really user friendly site and lets you modify the search based on experience level, age group, subject etc. Unfortunately, PE was not one of the subjects included in this.

Based on my research, it does not seem common to add coding or gaming to PE in the traditional sense however I feel optimistic that I could incorporate it in some fashion.  I strongly believe that our only limit is our creativity and just because someone has not done it yet, does not mean it can’t be done.  For example, like I could create a scavenger hunt workout with the pieces needed to complete the coding sequence. 

Figure 1

Another idea, as seen in Figure 1 (activity from Hour of Code), after the students created the tour in coding, I could have a physical “tour” created in the gym or running around the school.  Again, although the research and ideas in coding and gaming in PE are limited, I enjoy the challenge of creating something new and unexpected in PE.  

Resources

Hour of Code. (n.d.). Retrieved February 24, 2017, from https://hourofcode.com/us/learn

Kiang, D. (2014). 3 ways coding and gaming can enhance learning. Edutopia. Retrieved from http://www.edutopia.org/blog/coding-and-gaming-enhance-learning-Douglas-kiang

Technology in the Classroom: The Hour of Code. (n.d.). Retrieved February 24, 2017, from http://www.teachhub.com/technology-classroom-hour-code

Portfolio Evaluation Standard-Instruction (Do Student's Know How to Find Valid Health Resources?)

Triggering Event

What are ways in which students can apply digital tools to gather, evaluate, and use information?

My Trigger Event Question based on Reading

How can a health teacher pre-assess ICT literacy to ensure students know how to access valid health information?

Article Connection/Explanation to Standard and Trigger Question

Figure 1

In health, the majority of our projects are based on student research.  For the wellness unit we have the students perform group research on the six health skills and then have the students jigsaw to teach each other each skill based on their research.  With this being said, without be assessing the students on ICT literacy to ensure they know how to find valid information, the project would essentially fail. That is what sparked my question of how can a health teacher pre-assess ICT literacy to ensure students know how to access valid health information?  During my research, I found a research paper by Pinkham et al. regarding assessment of student website evaluation skills.  “Over the past 20 years, the amount of information available to students via the Internet has increase dramatically.  Access for students to technological resources used to locate information on the Internet has likewise increased.  As a result, teachers are now being asked to teach students important 21^st century skills, including the ability to effectively evaluate website resources.” (Pinkham et al., 2008, pg. 1)  The research paper outlines the steps performed to pre-assess and post-assess students ability to evaluate website resources.  The portion of the paper I found most beneficial was the example questions in Appendix D:  Pre-and Post-Assessment instrument, which begins on page 22 (Figure 1).  The questions coincided with websites that were easy for students to navigate.  Overall, this research paper gave me evidence of the value for pre-assessing ICT literacy in finding valid resources as well as providing great examples to help me answer my trigger question.  From this, I will be able to create a pre-assessment to be used specifically for health resources. 

            Another way to meet ISTE Standard 3, (students can apply digital tools to gather, evaluate and use information), is using the librarian as a resource.  The librarian will have lots of expertise in not only teaching how students can find valid resources through research but also ideas for pre-assessing as well. 

Resources
Huggins, A. C., Ritzhaupt, A. D., & Dawson, K. (2014). Measuring information and communication technology literacy using a performance assessment: Validation of the Student Tool for Technology Literacy (ST2L). Computers & Education, 77(C), 1–12.

Pinkham, C., Wintle, S. E., & Silvernail, D. L. (2008, December). 21st Century Teaching and Learning: An Assessment of Student Website Evaluation Skills (Rep.). Retrieved February 7, 2017, from https://www1.maine.gov/mlti/resources/21st_Century_Teaching_and_Learning_Website.pdf