Monitoring my Game Plan

In looking for information on assessment types I feel like this week’s learning resources really tie into my individual Game Plan. In my research I have found that I really did know more about the different ways that students learn, and when I sat down and started making a list, I discovered that I actually do incorporate different learning styles into my teaching. My focus has now really become assessment types. I teach to different learning styles and assess students in different ways throughout each unit, however I really only use paper and pencil examinations and quizzes.

My action plan does need to be modified in the sense that I feel that I do teach in multiple ways to meet the needs of all students. However, I really am interested in varying my formal assessments and making them less formal. In the past I have always gotten students in my physics classes that want old fashion examinations. They all excelled in the academics, and just wanted me to tell them the information, in previous years when I would try new activities some of the students would lose interest because they just wanted the information because they were great at spitting it back out to me, they really didn’t care about the learning experiences. I have seen a major shift in students learning styles and them needing the experiences to understand the information.

This way of learning is much more conducive to varying my assessments and incorporating more projects and individualized learning activities. Some new questions that I have started to think about more are:

· In what ways can I assess students learning without having them write it down?
· How can I assess students on the same material but with different media?
· How do I grade different types of media projects and use the same points scale?
o If we think that students don’t notice that their neighbor got 1 more point than they did, we as teachers are kidding ourselves?
o How do I explain to a parent what I expect of their child, and get them on board to learn along with us?

Carrying out my GAME Plan

In order to carry out my own personal GAME Plan of developing new assessments that reach all of the students diverse learning needs I am going to do the following:

· Research different learning styles
· Find different types of technologies that correspond to the type of learning
· Search the internet and lesson planning sites for ideas in my specific content areas of projects and assessments that other teachers have used
· Learn and practice the technology on my own time and model the technology in class that I expect my students to use.

In conjunction with my own personal research I am going to need addition information on my students. A survey seems like the easiest way to gather information about students; however I have my doubts that some students will take it seriously and be able to answer preset questions with the kind of detail that portrays the way that they learn. I will use a survey to gather information about what student like and dislike, and also experience in which they excelled in. However, I want to use some of the activities in class and record information of students that take more interest in these activities, and come up with some different areas that students excel in.

I have been able to do some research online about different learning styles. I have also discussed this GAME Plan that I have developed for myself with some of the teachers at school and now having teachers sending me ideas in different subject areas of ways that they assess student learning. I plan to send out an email, starting with just the high school where I work for assessment ideas and then plan to contact the middle and elementary schools. With this information I hope to build a file of assessment types that are used all the way through a student’s education k -12.

My GAME plan:

After reading through the web site for the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) and looking over the different NETS-T (see website below) the areas that I feel fairly confident in are:

· Facilitate and Inspire Student Learning and Creativity
· Model Digital-Age Work and Learning
· Promote and Model Digital Citizenship and Responsibility
· Engage in Professional Growth and Leadership

In the classes that I teach I try to incorporate the modeling process of technology use whenever possible. In teaching Physics for the last few years without a book or many printed resources I have become creative in getting students to learn the information without relying on a book as a reference. My students know that when they take my class they are going to be using technology as a primary source of information. From the beginning we look at how valid information is and make sure that it is appropriate for high school use. I thought I would be so excited this year when our district purchase books for my classes, however I have found myself going back to the inquiry based lessons that I have come accustom too in the years past.

The area that I feel the least comfortable with is Design and Develop Digital-Age Learning Experiences and Assessments. I feel that I am making progress in designing and developing learning experiences that incorporate technology however I do not feel confident when trying to design an assessment that is comprehensive of the entire unit.

Goal: To incorporate assessments that utilize the vast amount of technology that my school provides.

Action: I am going to design a few different assessments that will meet the needs of the different ability levels and learning styles of my students for the first unit in my second semester physics class. I will give the students the option of choosing what type of assessment they are interested in and allow them to explore the many variations of how they can show me that they understand the overall unit.

Monitor Progress: I am going to set weekly goals of coming up with 3 new ideas for assessments. At the end of the week I will make a short presentation to the students and get feedback.

Evaluate/Extend Learning: I am going to use a variety of resources to evaluate the process that I will be participating in such as student feedback and department feedback. I value the opinions of my peers and my students. I think it would be a great idea for students to share their assessments with other teachers (possibly not in our department) to see if their project conveys and understanding of material. I feel it is also important to talk to students about how I could have helped them reach their goals in this assessment differently.

http://www.iste.org/Content/NavigationMenu/NETS/ForTeachers/2008Standards/NETS_T_Standards_Final.pdf