Synthesis

Through both this course and through obtaining my master’s degree in Educational Technology, I am hoping to develop the skills to be able to transform my current teaching style to better fit [the] 21st century model.

Précis Of Flight Path

Personalized learning is the latest buzzword in education today.  Students are arriving to our classes with varying skill sets and knowledge, and in secondary schools today, teachers are forced to deal with the incompetency’s our students have.  This is a very difficult situation for both the educator and the learner; the learner is unable to scaffold and the educator is unable to facilitate learning.  Through the rush of “getting through” curriculum, students are left behind to fend for themselves in acquiring knowledge, which often results in poor achievement, or worse, complete withdrawal.  Personalized learning will help students by meeting them where they are at and helping them get to the place they need.

The main emphasis of my flight path was creating a blended learning environment where students could have access to prior knowledge they should have acquired, while also getting support for current curriculum.  Fostering communities of learners (Scardamalia & Bereiter, 2002) both within my classroom and with the use of online forums to encourage students to use each other’s knowledge is also an important area of focus.  Working with educators and other learners is a vital skill for today’s learners to become efficient in constructing collaborative knowledge (NETS for Teachers, 2008).  Creating ways to model this collaboration in both my classroom and online community continues to be a goal of mine.

elearning Toolkit Experience

The beginning of this course was kind of like a big, black void; I wondered how I was ever going to be able to accomplish the tasks included in the course outline.  The eLearning toolkit was invaluable at this point.  I have had some limited experience working with the Moodle already set up on our school’s website, but the thought of creating a course with modules was very intimidating.  Through persistence and “fiddling” I was able to gain some general competencies with many of the components listed in the toolkit.  In that aspect, I was modeling the scaffolding that I am expecting of my students – come to the new experience or information with what you already have, and get help at the precise time you need it to continue.  There were many moments of searching through the toolkit, online forums and even using online search engines online to find out how to do something – personalized learning at it’s finest!

I found creating the online quizzes – and especially providing feedback to students – to be a very valuable experience for me in terms of acquiring skills that I will use immediately in my classroom.  Not only did it give me the experience and knowledge on how to create these within an online setting, but also caused me to reflect on what I was doing in the classroom and to make adjustments to my everyday teaching.  Gibbs and Simpson (2004) propose a ‘set of conditions under which assessment supports learning’.  They found that assessment influenced students’ learning far more than teaching and that more course work and less testing promotes better learning.  Creating opportunities for providing students with more formative feedback throughout their learning with online quizzes in an LMS would be one way to accomplish this.

Overall ETEC565A Experience

This is the fifth course in my MET experience, but I suspect 565A will be one of the most valuable of the ten courses I will take.  Creating an online learning environment for my students was one of the most important goals I had for this degree, and the skills I acquired in this course will allow me to do this.  Having to design and create a course within a Learning Management System forced me to consider how to best meet the needs of my learners without actually being in front of them to do it on an as needed basis.  Creating opportunities for students to discuss problems and questions, as well as creating quizzes with feedback to scaffold their learning will be a skill that I will use in my future teaching.

The digital story assignment was a fun activity for me to participate in for a number of reasons.  Mathematics is a subject area that can become very focused and linear – there aren’t often moments to become creative.  Producing a digital story about Pythagoras allowed me to cover course content in a way that was informative but also fun.  I instantly wanted to assign this project to my students to keep them engaged and interested in their learning.

As discussed earlier, considering student assessment and embedding feedback in an online quiz was also an activity that had an immediate impact on my current teaching practice.  Anticipating student difficulties and considering feedback to help lead them back onto the right track will be an activity that I will try to incorporate in my immediate future, utilizing the Moodle on my school home page.

Creating a proposal to acquire funds to implement technology is a reality for must educators.  While most school districts are trying to implement as much technology into schools, budget constraints limit this implementation, as much as teacher expertise.  The practice of considering how to ask for funds and defend the need for funding is an experience that many of us will face again as we continue to try to incorporate technology into our teaching.

Next Steps

Further developing the Moodle course will be an area I continue to explore.  Having an online learning environment where students can scaffold their prior knowledge with current curriculum is vital in keeping our students engaged and motivated to learn.  Having forums where students can converse with each other for help, clarification or idea development will allow them to develop and improve their collaboration skills.  Creating an opportunity for students to engage in Web 2.0 tools and create a digital story is also an activity that I will adapt for my future students.  This story may involve the history of a mathematician, or may evolve into a review activity for a chapter or even the course.  The opportunities to expand this activity to fit my students’ needs are endless.

As a learner, my next steps are to continue in my MET path and finish up the remaining courses to obtain my master’s degree.  My next course is ETEC 533 (Technology in the Mathematics and Science Classroom), and since it is directly related to my teaching area, I am very excited to be taking this course.

After completing my MET courses, I have two main interests that I will pursue.  First, I will continue to develop my courses and teaching practices to incorporate effective and meaningful technology.  It is important as educators to evolve our teaching practices and philosophies to best meet the needs of our learners.  Prensky (2001) coined today’s learners as “digital natives”, and continuing to teach them the way we were taught not only leaves them disinterested and unengaged, also does students a disservice in not allowing them to develop their collaboration skills and allow them to mature into active learners.  The days of “top-down” education need to be over!  Secondly, I want to advocate to my colleagues the need to embrace and incorporate technology, instead of fearing it.  I would like to have a role in my school and my district to educate teachers about the possibilities of utilizing technology into their classrooms to enhance their current classroom teaching practices and to best meet the technology needs of our students.

Resources

Gibbs, G. and Simpson, C. (2005).  “Conditions under which assessment supports students’ learning.” Learning and Teaching in Higher Education

Prensky, M. (2001). Digital natives, digital immigrants. On the Horizon. NCB University Press, 9(5).

Scardamalia, M., and Bereiter, C. Computer support for knowledge-building communities. The Journal of the Learning Sciences (1994) 3:265-83.