1. My understandings of the
standards changed when designing lessons particularly when thinking about
Standard 1, facilitating and inspiring student learning and creativity. It’s
easy to think of things for the students to do in class that will cover the
standards, but it’s quite a challenge when thinking about less direct
instruction, and more facilitating the learning process. I also changed
understandings of standard 2, design and develop digital-age learning
experiences and assessments, because it was very difficult to find ways of
integrating technology into my lessons, without it seeming forced, or out of
place. My last lesson, however, I was successfully able to incorporate
digital-age assessments into my lesson.
- From my peer’s lessons, I have learned that it
is quite difficult for most people to apply standard 1, facilitating and
inspiring student learning and creativity, to lessons without extensive
background knowledge in the subject. Some of my peers were naturals at
facilitating and inspiring student learning and creativity; for example,
when Taryn let us create our own book on the ipads that could be anything
we wanted, as long as it had to do with pumpkins. Other peers focused on
making lessons “fun” but focused on jazzed-up rote memorization as
opposed to inspiring creativity. This has definitely made me think about
my own lessons, and how I can better apply them to Standard 1.
3. My
experiences in this class have broadened my view on my own teaching practices.
This class, coupled with my practicum experiences, has made me into a better-informed
teacher. I feel better prepared to facilitate and inspire student learning and
creativity. This class wasn’t just teaching us about the different technologies
that exist in this day in age, but gave us practical experience in using
technology as a tool, and as a part of the daily classroom environment. I think
the most important concept I got out of this class was from standard 2,
designing and developing digital-age learning experiences and assessments. This
one was tricky because many lessons don’t easily lend themselves to a
technology component. This helped me realize that, when you use technology as
part of your assessment, it actually allows teachers to individualize
assessments much more, by having the opportunity to talk to each student about
what they have learned. In this class, we also learned about modeling
digital-age work and learning. This one was particularly fun, because we were
allowed the freedom to explore the different apps and toys that surround us, in
order to better our technology brains, so to speak. With standard 4, promoting
and modeling digital citizenship and responsibility, I feel like standard 4 was
one of the underlying themes throughout the entire class, not just from a
particular assignment. We were always expected to conduct ourselves in a way
that was considered appropriate, including no plagiarism or other forms of
indecency. Because this was already practiced on a weekly basis, I feel that it
will be even easier to explain and enforce to my students.
- From my peer’s lessons, I have learned that it
is quite difficult for most people to apply standard 1, facilitating and
inspiring student learning and creativity, to lessons without extensive
background knowledge in the subject. Some of my peers were naturals at
facilitating and inspiring student learning and creativity; for example,
when Taryn let us create our own book on the ipads that could be anything
we wanted, as long as it had to do with pumpkins. Other peers focused on
making lessons “fun” but focused on jazzed-up rote memorization as
opposed to inspiring creativity. This has definitely made me think about
my own lessons, and how I can better apply them to Standard 1.
