Final Reflection

As it relates to the learning I have absorbed in this course, it has changed the way I teach already.  Each week of theoretical information molded and shaped my thinking to a new level of understanding.  This has been beneficial to me, my students, my colleagues, and their students.  When it comes to designing lessons I have more insight as to how to present the knowledge and help students solidify the understanding through rich-learning experiences.  My students are more engaged and intrigued as to what new learning will take place each day.  They are even sharing with their friends who are sharing with their teachers who are asking me “What are you doing in your classroom?” 

My personal theory remains in tack in that I believe the most effective way to instruct students is to apply theories and instructional strategies that undergird the lesson objectives and match the learners’ needs.  This equates to creating lessons that incorporate strategies to address the varying learning styles of my students and integrating technology that enhances the learning taking place. 

Technology integration has evolved in my classroom to where my students are more hands-on individually and collaboratively.  They are motivated to work together or complete a project knowing that they will transfer their learning into a constructed piece to share with others beyond the classroom.  I would like to adjust my instructional practice to include a more reflective approach for my students.  Our district is not ready to open up to web-related learning experiences and so my class blog has been blocked to where we can partially look at it but not use it to discuss their learning with each other or other classrooms.  I still go home and upload their work so that they can access and share with their parents at home but I am at a disadvantage to guide their learning in this manner.  I discovered that Edublog is not blocked from our access at school and it has taken some time to transfer information over to the class blog but I have been working on it.   I have not been able to imbed the voice thread where it shows on the blog page – only a link is provided.  On blogger it shows right on the page as well as the Webspiration organizers.

One technology tool I would like to further explore is the varying ways to use voicethreads – long distance learning with other classes, assessments, and subject practice lessons (as seen in one of the weeks’ videos).  This tool will support student’s learning by enabling them to share their thinking and reflect on their learning.  They can also work collaboratively or individually to create presentations and receive feedback from others that can refine their understanding of subject topics thereby enhancing their learning.  Another tool that I would like to continue to use is software applications housed in Microsoft Office to include Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Publisher.  I use these applications regularly as instructional tools but as a result of this course I now have a reservoir of ways to use these applications for student learning.  Already we have used the spreadsheet to input data based on their group’s region in our study of the regions of the United States and create 3-D pie charts to see a visual representation of the population of each state.  This generated questions from my students in that though a state is big it does not mean its population is larger than much smaller states with a greater number of people living there.  We added these questions to our K-W-L Charts to further research why.  This week we have been studying the history of each state where we will compile a timeline of significant events.  Each student will have a state and will have be using Online Encyclopedia Britannica to learn about their states history which they will compare to our state Florida using a Venn or H diagram using Word or PowerPoint.

Two long-term goal changes I would like to make to my instructional practice regarding technology integration is to maintain a reflective blog for the work I’m doing in my class and use a wikispace (which we have used twice so far this year) to design units of study that can be used for student learning.  I plan to use my current blog for my Walden courses to reflect on instructional practice.  I plan to collaborate with the gifted teacher to begin vocabucasting with my students using their math vocabulary and use other tools as mentioned earlier to share our learning with the school.  I would like to fine tune my technology skills so as to instruct other teachers and classes to begin learning with technology support and enhancement.

I am personally fascinated with technology and like the many facets of learning that it makes possible.  I believe in working smarter not harder.  Technology helps to make that possible.  I would like to one day teach classes in a virtual setting where we step into simulated programs that cross barriers to learning allowing all students to engage in rich learning experiences about the world in which we live – past, present, and future.