I am a teacher with about 5 years of experience working in Coquitlam, B.C. During my practicum, I was very lucky to land in classrooms with amazing, forward thinking teachers who weren’t afraid to try new, innovative ideas in their classrooms. Through these early teaching experiences, I internalized the idea that a good teacher is someone who is innovative and willing to learn along with the students. That model has served me well in my own teaching as I gravitated more and more towards trying new technologies and different teaching approaches in my classroom.
My overall goal for the MET program is to learn how to use technology effectively in my classroom. I know how easy it is to get caught up in the bells and whistles of technology, but, for me, it is important to use technology in a way that will add depth to my lessons and open doors to new experiences for my students.
In this particular course, I am hoping to focus on the assessment, social software and multimedia sections.
Assessment:
Assessment is an area where I feel that I am weak and throughout my teaching years, I have looked for ways to improve my understanding of it. This year, our school hosted early morning assessment pro-d sessions with Peter Liljedahl, a professor at SFU. During these sessions, I reflected upon my assessment practices in the classroom and thought about ways to create formative assessments that are more useful for my student’s learning process. As Gibbs and Simpson (2004-05) point out, there has been a great deal of focus on assessment as measurement which results in dull, dry learning. This ty
pe of assessment as a measurement of learning encourages teaching knowledge out of context and results in short lasting outcomes. I want to learn to focus more on assessment for learning. In this course, I am looking forward to reading more literature around assessment practices and thinking about how to apply them in a way that works for both my students and myself.
Creative Commons photo by RambergMedialmages
Social Software and Multimedia:
At this point in my learning, I am finding myself very focused on increasing cooperative learning opportunities for my students and on exploring new ways to differentiate learning in my classroom. Using social software for collaboration and having students show their knowledge through creating multimedia presentations could prove to be a viable option for me. At the moment, I am particularly interested in the affordances offered by the webcam. If it fits into the course structure, I would like to examine some of the ways to use webcams for collaboration and differentiation. Webcams can be used by b
oth teachers and students to create and record digital stories that explain concepts and show knowledge. They also provide the possibility for communication within the classroom community of practice and with people in other parts of the world. Using social software such as skype in conjunction with a webcam can allow students to experience more global understandings of the world.
Creative Commons Photo by mind_scratch
References:
Gibbs, G & Simpson, C. (2004-05) Conditions Under Which Assessment Supports
Students’ Learning. Learning and Teaching in Higher Education 1(1). Retrieved May 20, 2011 from http://resources.glos.ac.uk/shareddata/dms/2B70988BBCD42A03949CB4F3CB78A516.pdf