Evaluate Reflection

I enjoyed working through this quest because it supported my belief of the importance of assessment for learning.  I believe that formative assessment happens constantly, and though my one example may not have shown it, I constantly assess the learning of my students.  I use Socrative quite a bit for quick class quizzes, (and the students love any excuse to whip out those phones).  I like to verbally assess, small group assess, look over shoulder assess, watch them play games, in fact just about everything I do is assess the kids as they learn.  I am working toward more problem based learning situations so they can actually learn through assessment.  I have a ways to go on this but am enjoying the trials.  I need to work on my feedback strategies.  I have some good ideas and have sent cute Vokis with good or bad news for verbal feedback, audio recorded messages and sent via email, and written right on the feedback section and returned to students, however I need to be more consistent and make sure the students know where to look for the feedback.  I use data to plan my lessons and like the way the LMS provides different ways of interpreting the data.  I love using rubrics and often use the tasks with rubrics included on the Mars site.  I do not like making rubrics, but try to keep them simple and to the language of the standard.  I differentiate for children for many reasons and always make sure that my class is respectful of diversity in all situations.

Evaluate 3.1.2 Self-Reflection on Teaching Abilities Quest

INDIVIDUAL TEACHING REFLECTION/GROWTH PLAN

     In reflecting on my teaching abilities, I will state that I am Certified to teach middle grades math, language arts, and social studies.  I have earned my Ed.S in Education Technology and have an online teaching and reading endorsement from RESA. I feel that I have the prerequisite technology skills to teach online because of my endorsement, experience gathered during my 4 years teaching online classes through our district virtual program, and exposure to many different strategies and tools discovered through the quests. My classes are engaging and flexible and I do work with individuals to make sure that they master the material prior to moving forward in the course.  I often post several recovery assignments that appeal to different type learners for students to relearn material and recover from exams.  I will use online games, interactive quizzes with feedback, Safari videos, and Softchalk activities.I  post weekly announcements, hold weekly Safari Live Class Meetings, send regular emails and keep constant communication with the students online.

I  post a copy of the Forsyth County AUP policy, constantly refer to technology etiquette and post my netiquette policy on the announcement page, in my resource folder, and in the class orientation folder.

I have had experience as a student online, including these quests, so I can see my course as a student would. Secondly, every time I create or use a lesson for students, I view it as a student so I can see it or take the quiz from their perspective.All of my tests are based on the required Georgia Performance Standards and include a variety of Bloom levels, mostly 2 and 3.  I use A2K data base to find great questions, I use the exam view bank, CRCT practice questions, and other resources to create questions – most of my tests are exported into the LMS via ExamView, but I also load my own.I  create interactive games and assessments, projects, learning activities, videos, recordings, virtual examples, and exams all based on the pacing guide and the Georgia Performance Standards.I use the LOR, Promethean Planet, sites obtained through the online endorsement class, fellow teachers, online searches, packaged parts of lessons, and self-created activities to engage the students in learning.I use pre-tests via Wordle and Crossword Puzzles to introduce the language of math, then pre-assess the knowledge – allowing students to open the pre-assessments after a period of learning to see how much growth has been evident.

ARTIFACTS

Project - Dissolving the Digital Divide

Socrative Workshop Project

Problem Based Learning Unit

SELF-REFLECTIONS

    One area in which I would like to show improvement deals with academic honesty in my course, I agree with Dr. Siemens that we must “redefine cheating and plagiarism” (Siemens, Plagarism and Academic Honesty, 2009) due to the instant and easy access to so many resources and information at our fingertips.  It would take every minute of the educator’s time to search through the web for any sign of copying and my course will make it very difficult to find infringements because many times, there is only one way to solve a specific math problem so it would be nearly impossible to find any type of issues dealing with plagiarism.  Having knowledge of this fact should encourage me to develop a course that can be engaging, shows connections to real life situations, and gives the students opportunities to bring in personal strategies and methods as they discuss and collaborate about problems involving mathematics.
Another big area in which I will need to show improvement will be in the area of assessment.  Siemens states that we must move toward “authentic assessments that deal with approaches that are reflective of real life” (Siemens, Plagarism and Academic Honesty, 2009).  This is true in f2f and online courses in this age of twenty-first century learners.  Students are much more personally involved and engaged when they can glimpse a link to actual life experiences.
As for copyright issues, I feel that the first level of the Creative Commons License would be sufficient for my course.  In this license, the only request is that any work used is attributed to the original author.  Many of the math problems that I create are built upon those that I have seen or used in the past from books or resources online, and I try to give the credit to the source.  The schools system where I teach has a closed LMS so many of us do not worry about our copyrights since we are only posting courses and resources within our own database.  However, we do have more strict and specific copyright statements that require anyone who uses the collaborative material from our district to gain permission prior to use outside of our district.  This will not be the case for my course because I would like to see what others can do with some of the resources I have packaged. I am not an extremely creative person and I certainly am enthusiastic about seeing what creative people can do with my basic efforts.
     I must be sure to design a class that focuses on thinking and problem-solving, identify the goals for the lesson and provide students with effective learning strategies to process the information.  Use of learning communities is an important strategy in the cognitive learning theory and should be used with teacher guidance instead of teacher control, giving the learner more involvement in the learning process by linking new knowledge to existing knowledge. In cognitive learning, analogies, concept mapping, organizers are good strategies for the teacher to bring into the classroom.  Also, it is important that I stay current on new technologies that support students in this theory and most importantly, mix up the different learning theories to create the best learning environment for the students. 

Evaluate 3.1.1 Differentiation Quest

I gave a pre-test prior to starting a unit on integers and rational numbers.  Once the data was compiled, I did an analysis of the types of questions missed by students.  At this point, I was able to form working groups that would give us the best use of class time.

Group 1 - Needs review of fraction operations
Group 2 - Needs review of long division
Group 3 - Needs review of fraction, decimal, percent conversion
Group 4 - Really struggling with all of these concepts - need basic review and practice
Group 5 - Ready to start with integer operations

As for individuals and the LMS, it would be simple to have the student participate in an online assessment and upon analysis, the LMS could assign lessons and activities and drop them in the student planner. Most of the LMS programs allow instructors to give permissions to assignments, where you can go in and check names of students who will see it and those who will not. So, in a way, this really can personalize the assignments and lessons for individual students.

Evaluate 2.1.2 Rubrics and Competencies Quest

I use the standard itself to structure the competency.  For example, if I am teaching a unit on ratio and proportions, I would use the standard as my starting point:

MCC7.RP.2b Identify the constant of proportionality (unit
rate) in tables, graphs, equations, diagrams, and verbal
descriptions of proportional relationships

Student competency would be based on the following

Identify the constant of proportionality (unit rate) in tables, graphs, equations, diagrams, and verbal  descriptions of proportional relationships

Table

Graph

Equation

Diagram

Verbal Description

Student identifies only one constant of Proportionality:     Needs to go back and look at more lessons - low
Student identifies only two constants of Proportionality    Emerging - Should look over examples of missed
Student identifies three constants of Proportionality          Meets - Minimum requirement to move forward
Student identifies four constants of Proportionality           Very Good - Student understands constants
Student identifies all five constants of Proportionality        Exceeds - Student has mastered this standard

Evaluate 2.1.1 Data Driven Instruction, Analytics, Reporting Tools Quest

This software system does a great job of tracking student data and analysis.  It begins with the class ID, term, and course(s) for the teacher, along with the number of students enrolled in the class. The second chart gives the teacher an overall look at the type of student, if the student is ready to begin the class(completion of orientation) and the test they expect to take at the end of the course.  

The communication log is something I have not seen before and I can see how useful it would be to have it on the system, instead of on a different file or notebook. One could easily be created by the teacher as a personal inactive file to help instructors remember to contact parents often for good things as well as issues.

The lesson tracking system is good because you can see when the student accessed a lesson and how much of the lesson was viewed.  This is extremely important, especially for younger children who tend to go straight to the end of the lesson and try to take the quiz.  Sometimes, students log on so their parents think they are working, but just leave the site up and many of the systems show that no files have been opened so this gets nipped pretty quickly.  It is helpful to see the dates because you can see if a student might be waiting until the last minute to do the work and you could use this data to conference with the student to help them get back on track.  The student activity explains quite a bit about the grade.

Most systems allow students to view their grades and it would be a shame for a teacher just to give a grade with no feedback.  The comments should provide the student with advice or suggestions on how to better understand the concept. Then, the dropbox allows the student to submit more open-ended work and gives the teacher opportunities to comment on those assignments, with plenty of feedback.  

Evaluate 1.1.3 The Summative Assessment Quest

I created a summative assessment over expressions and used the common core standard to review the questions.  I wanted to make sure that the students were given the opportunity to show me at what level they could solve expressions problems, so I included mostly level 2 questions, put on level 1 question in to give everyone a chance to show they had some knowledge of expressions, and I included a 2-part level 3 question where students had to show application of the concept.

Evaluate 1.1.2 Quality Feedback Quest

This was a student who had some multiple choice and a couple of short response. It appeared that he did not even look at the lesson, so I responded to him on his work with a really interactive and engaging web site that I felt would help him.  I deleted his formative quiz, reset the questions, and he did very well after trying another way of learning.  The first quiz was over text based material.