More than halfway done with my website and I still I wish I had more time to do it justice. Building my Capstone website was a very interesting experience. I had to take into account my target audience every step of the way and become a web designer to create the ultimate experience for my visitors. Here is my thought process and reflections.
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Guide to Being a Good Critical Friend
At my school site, we refer to critical friend as "friendly feedback" and we utilize a set of protocol that I really love.It loosely looks like:
Desired Feedback from Others For our capstones, the goal is to design a website that draws in visitors. It should contain useful information and be easy to navigate which means the layout and design of the website is a big deal. Thus, color, space, alignment, images/media, organization and content are all important aspects. It is not enough to have information on a page, it should be easy to read as well as understand. Thus, I would like my critical friend to let me know if my content makes sense, if it's too long or too short, and if it presented in a way that is pleasing to the eye. I would want to know if there is too much text, if it is too dry, or if anything looks odd or out of place. I would also like suggestions on how I might make my pages more appealing to visitors. Do I need more images to break up large amounts of text? Do I need to organize the components of the page in a different way for it to be more feng shui? I definitely want to know if something doesn't make sense, if something doesn't belong and needs to be moved elsewhere (to another page maybe), or if things just need to be cut. Last but not least, I would like to know what already looks good so I don't start second guessing myself and unnecessarily revamping and everything in sight. Educational Technology Mission Statement At American Canyon Middle School we do not have an educational technology mission statement nor is there anything explicitly mentioned within as observed by the following, “Inspiring and preparing students today for the possibilities of tomorrow by instilling the 4 “C”s (Critical Thinking, Communication, Collaboration & Creativity) in a respectful, safe, collaborative community by utilizing clear expectations and focusing on strengthening relationships.” Although our school does not mention educational technology usage within our vision statement, American Canyon Middle School’s vision and goals are aligned with the Napa Valley Unified School District vision and goals which states, “Our mission is to transform lives by instilling 21st Century skills and to inspire lifelong learning.” Under this statement and in more detail, the NVUSD website describes the district as a student-centered and 21st Century school district that emphasizes instruction that enables student ownership of their learning, use of technology to enhance learning, and ensuring student active participation and engagement in personalized educational experiences. There is also emphasis on technology-rich classrooms that engage students in relevant, rigorous inquiries aligned to Common Core standards. Specifically, there are three goals: (1) preparing all students for College and Careers, (2) providing equitable access and opportunities to close the achievement gap, and (3) instilling 21st Century skills. Under each goal, there is emphasis on technology. Under the first goal, STEM, computer science, coding and robotics are emphasized. Under the second goal, use of technology to support differentiated instructions for intervention is emphasized. Under the last goal, technology is regarded as a teaching and learning tool used to increase student engagement and provide authentic real-world tasks. NVUSD is a BYOD (bring your own device) district which allows students to bring and use their own personal electronic devices at school. Students may use their devices in the classroom to access and save information from the Internet, collaborate with other learners, and utilize productivity tools available to them. The purpose of the BYOD program is to help students practice responsible use of technology at school as well as learn ways to use technology for productivity, time management, research, and creativity to become responsible digital citizens part of the global online community as well give students authentic experiences to build their 21st Century skills. As part of NVUSD, American Canyon Middle School is also a BYOD (bring your own device) school. Devices are provided to students who do not own their own device. Under the BYOD technology guidelines, devices are to be used appropriately and responsibly as proper digital citizens. Violations of these policies will result in confiscation and may be subject to disciplinary action or reported to local authorities in cases of serious offenses. In summary, the educational technology mission statement encompasses the goal to infuse technology into the classroom to prepare students for College and Career in the 21st Century which means utilizing technology to engage students, provide opportunities to practice the 4 C’s (or 6 C’s—communication, collaboration, critical thinking, creativity, character, and citizenship) through authentic real-world inquiry, and to differentiate, remediate or advance learning. I think that these goals are necessary to prepare students for the jobs of tomorrow and they align with my own personal practices. Mission Statement and My Personal Practices Since my first year of teaching and now in my fourth year of teaching, infusion of technology has significantly increased probably ten-fold. Implementing technology into my mathematics classroom was not easy. Knowing that I wanted to incorporate technology for richer learning, collaboration, creativity, communication, and critical thinking did not help me with the actual implementation. Initially, I did not know how to create lessons that incorporated technology in a way that enhanced learning mainly because I had no exposure to the kind of tech tools available to me in my content area. I wondered what tools were out there that aligned to my curriculum and content standards. I never felt like I had enough time to explore or learn about anything well enough to implement. Moreover, I was afraid that the tools would be more of a distraction or liability than an asset. Those fears still exist but knowing how technology can fit into my curriculum has allowed me to infuse my classroom with more engaging lessons and opportunities for my students to practice their communication and collaboration. The Mission Statement and My Capstone Goals The district technology goals align with the goals of my capstone perfectly. The goals of the district emphasize differentiation, remediation, and enrichment of student learning as well as engagement in personalized educational experiences. My capstone is about personalized learning which at the heart of it is about Competency-Based Learning (CBL)--helping students master the content at their pace and in the way they learn best. I am infusing my research of the benefits of metacognition and what I have learned about personalized learning to create my capstone. I would like to see how digital assessment tools that provide hints, videos, feedback can help students master content and with reaching their personal learning goals. How to Support This Mission To support this mission, in the future, I would like to focus more on using data from digital assessments to inform goal-setting for my students. I want them to be more aware of the process or goal-setting which would include helping them figure out what content they will need to master (the standards), creating a SMART goal based on where their learning level is at, and planning how they will go about accomplishing that goal. Moreover, last year I did not spend much time on digital assessments as a remediation tool and would like to pursue this more as I cannot provide one-on-one support as much as I would like. For example, I might have students work on Khan Academy 20 minutes a day or every other day or assign it for homework, mandating that they use the videos or hints when they are stuck. I can also create my own EdPuzzle videos that embed metacognitive questions, helpful hints, and videos as support. For now, this is my answer but I am sure that my solution will continue to evolve as I continue to learn and grow like that of my students. Audience and Why The audience of my capstone is inevitably going to be fellow educators, in particular, educators in the mathematics content area. Although I ultimately wanted to address my students in my capstone, I realized that my goal and probably every other educator’s goal which is to promote social justice, achieve equity and to close the achievement gap would better be achieved by spreading knowledge to other educators. My hope is that my fellow educators will find what I have to offer worthy of implementing in their own classroom and therefore supporting and affecting more students than I can do alone. Mathematics can be intimidating and downright challenging. Some issues we face in the math classroom are the fact that students are not achieving procedural fluency of skills and concepts and many are left behind. For many of our students, it is in one ear and out the other or they never learn the concept but it is on to a new thing. No matter what the roadblock is, we as educators have to find the most effective instructional methods to engage students, deepen learning, and to prepare them for the 21st century. There are still so many educators who are stuck on traditional instruction whether it be because they do not know any other way (have not had any substantial professional development or training), they are scared, they have no time, or whether they feel it’s too much work to learn something new. These are the educators I want to reach. If I can make implementing digital tools and innovative learning more simple, I hope that I can convert them. Ideas for Content of Learn More Pages In my Learn More pages, I hope to include various lessons to teach students about digital citizenship first as well as mathematical content lessons, assessments, PrBL units (cognitively complex tasks), how to videos, math tools and resources, and other resources like graphic organizers and so on. Ideas on How to Engage and Teach My Audience
To engage and teach my audience, I think having a short description of each thing is important. If there are too many links to choose from and I get frustrated and don’t know where to start, I personally sometimes skip a lot of things or leave the page. If I can see a short synopsis of the item and I can use that to determine if the content is going to be helpful to me, I am more likely to stay on the page and explore. I think thumbnails are also very helpful. For math teachers, pre-made lessons and worksheets that are well-made is like finding treasure so I think having those available and highlighting those will be effective. I also think providing descriptions of the math tools almost like a short review, pros, cons, what it’s used for, tutorial how to video, and maybe an accompanying lesson would be very engaging. I think data demonstrating how it was used in a classroom and the results can also be used to engage and teach my audience. A lot of the charts, graphs, statistical data, and qualitative data may be compelling for my audience. Without being able to survey other educators in my content area, I am pretty much going off of what I would like to see as an educator in the math field. I like it fast and simple. Tell me what you’re offering. What it does. Show me that it has been effective in your classroom. Tell me how I can implement it and finally, provide all the materials and resources and I am happy. I am interested to hear what my colleagues and other educators would like to see whether they are in the math content area or any other content. My Goals Relative to the Goals of the Program My original goals coming into the Innovative Learning program was to first off, expose myself to digital tools that could potentially support or improve the quality of student learning in the mathematics classroom setting and secondly, learn how to integrate them into my classroom to better prepare my students for the demands of the 21st century. To be honest, my goals were largely influenced by all of the good things I had heard from other educators about how they had successfully incorporated innovative learning via digital tools into their classroom. However, many of the stories I had heard were from other content areas such as English Language Arts, Social Studies, or Science. Sadly, there were far fewer success stories in the mathematics content area, making me wonder what relevant tools were out there for 8th grade math and how might I integrate it into my curriculum. Thinking about this evoked curiosity but mainly a sense of confusion and uncertainty. There were a lot of questions swirling around in my head. I thought to myself that these stories provided no road maps for how these educators achieved the success that they had achieved. There were no guarantees that tools they talked about would work in my particular grade level or benefit my students. Moreover, I had no access to research data to show that the tools would indeed do what some have heralded. I needed evidenced-based learning. Educators know that there are a great many tools out there, digital or not. However, we also know that not all of them are great quality and that they will not always align to our curriculum, standards, or objectives. Thus, this is how I have come to enroll in the Innovative Learning program and the influencing factors behind my goals. Moving forward into the program, my goals have somewhat naturally evolved to using digital tools as a means to affect social justice and equalize the playing field which aligns perfectly with the goals of the Innovative Learning program. At the start of the program, scholarly literature as well as my own research data led me to the conclusion that critical thinking skills are necessary for academic success as well as for enduring the 21st century. Students must be able to demonstrate a type of critical thinking skills called metacognition which can be taught through different means and mediums. Therefore, after taking the EDUC 702 Digital Tools for Edu-Vators course, I felt that personalized learning or competency-based learning aligned well with my previous goals. I saw how personalized learning could really support students in improving their quality of learning and critical thinking skills. The next question was how do I implement this and are there any available tools? The answer I came up with was to create a digital assessment tool for students that personalized learning, integrated the use of metacognitive thinking skills, and supported mastery learning. My Cohort and I I have very creative and intelligent cohort members whom I really respect and admire. I believe that their ideas, suggestions, and discussions often provoke and inspire greater ideas in me. They greatly support me unknowingly by constantly making me think, rethink, and eventually connect my thoughts to bigger and better ideas. I could not generate all that I have without them. I believe that my cohort and I are in agreement on this subject and I think this will continue to serve as a great support. For example, one member is a tech tool guru, one thinks outside the box, and another has insights to my content area to list some of the support I can enlist. Additionally, my members have done a great job of trying to get me to not overtax myself which is more helpful than they know. Anxiety is a given when trying to attain your masters and we all need a little TLC and this cohort has endless amounts. Lastly, as the instructor has already said, I think “critical friends” or as we ACMSers know it, “friendly feedback” will be very import during this last stage of the program for our capstone projects. I believe that this platform will provide us with the opportunities to gain insight, generate new ideas, and improve our products. Group Norms I believe that hand raising is a great group norm. It ensures that discussion is orderly and that no one is being talked over or is dominating the conversation. I think it is important to share the floor even if we have a lot to say. I also believe that it is important to mute our mics when not sharing because background noises can be distracting or disruptive to the group discussion. I also believe in respecting everyone’s time which means starting and ending on time. I also like the 5 minute potty/stretch break in the middle of the 2 hour session because it helps circulate the blood and oxygen in our body and can contribute to refreshing our minds. |
Nai Saelee
Middle school math teacher preparing the leaders of the future. Inspiring curiosity, creativity, collaboration Archives
December 2017
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