Course Reflection 5364

Course Reflection 5364

This course has been a great learning opportunity for me.  It was exciting to work with such a diverse group of educators. Constructivism, as described by the Southwest Educational Development Laboratory (1999), played a key role in the success that I had in this course.  The team that I worked with was a flexible group of teachers who always pulled their own weight and the final product reflects their commitment to excellence.  We each brought a different skill set and we were able to figure out the best way to highlight each person’s abilities.  This experience is in contrast to the opinion I held prior to the course.  I thought it would be too difficult to work with others across long distances and with such diverse backgrounds.  I now see the importance of collaborating with a wide variety of stakeholders to get a more thorough product.

The incorporation of a UDL (Rose and Meyer, 2012) lesson plan in this course’s assignments helped me to understand how to modify basic lessons for diverse student populations.  The lessons we created can be seen on our group collaboration site. https://sites.google.com/site/fivestartexcollaboration/

The google doc we created in which to collaborate allowed us to practice goal setting.  I learned during this course that setting a goal and identifying roles of the team early on are vital to successful completion of the task.

I think that the most impactful information I gained in this course is based on the work of Pitler (2005).  He described in great detail the need for buy in and support from administrators.  I see this most clearly in my work with teachers on lesson planning and curriculum development.  Because my administrators don’t see the value of technology, the teachers and students haven’t seen the full potential of all the technology we have in the building.  We owe it to our students to give them every experience possible while they are in our care (Page, 2002).

I learn best by seeing an example of what is expected.  This course helped me to be successful by providing clear rubrics for what is expected during each part of the assignments.  I was able to check myself against the rubrics each week and see that I was fulfilling the expectations of my professor.  I checked my assignment grade as soon as possible so that I could revamp next week’s assignment based on what the comments of my professor and associate were. 

In addition to the fact that I am a new believer in constructivism, which I mentioned previously, I feel that now I have a new outlook on how to modify lessons to incorporate technology.  My goal for this course was to learn how to integrate technology seamlessly and I reached my goal.  Through careful study and listening to the experiences of my professor and classmates, I was able to obtain new techniques which allow me to use technology as the basis of lesson plans, not in addition to lesson plans.  I previously thought that teachers should be first planning the lesson and the objectives without technology and then incorporating it into the lesson.  Now I know that technology products and processes can support the development of the lesson plan by giving a framework into which the lesson is built.  Using technology as the support for the lesson, instead of in addition to the lesson, allows the teacher to become more effective and teach the TEKS for technology at the same time as the TEKS for their core-subject.  This requires a change on the part of administrators in that they should understand this personally.  I hope that the change I can affect on my campus is just that; I would like to be the voice of experience for my teachers and my principal.  I can show them through my example how much more deeply we can affect our students’ learning (Schacter, 1999). 

Page, M.S. (2002). Technology-Enriched Classrooms: Effects on Students of Low Socioeconomic Status.  Journal of Research on Technology in Education, 34 (4), 389-409.  Retrieved October 5, 2009 from the International Society of Education at http://www.iste.org/AM/Templane.cfm?Section=Number_4_Summer_20021&Template=/MembersOnly.cfn&ContentFileID=830

Pitler, H. (2005). McRel technology initiative: The development of a technology intervention program final report (Contract Number ED-01-CO-0006). Aurora, CO: Mid-Continent Research for Education and Learning. (ERIC Document Reporduction Service No. ED486685) Retrieved from http://eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/custom/portlets/recordDetails/detailmini.jsp

?_nfpb=true&_&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=ED486685&ERICExtSearc h_SearchType_0=no&accno=ED486685.

Pitler, H., Hubbell, E., Kuhn, M., & Malenoski, K. (2007). Using Technology with Classroom Instruction that Works. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Rose, D., & Meyer, A. (2002). Teaching Every Student in the Digital Age: Universal Design for Learning. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. Available online at the Center for Applied Special Technology web site, http://www.cast.org/teachingeverystudent/ideas/tes/

Schacter, J. (1999). The impact of education technology on student achievement: What the most current research has to say. Santa Monica, CA: Milken Exchange on Education Technology.

Southwest Educational Development Laboratory, (1999). Learning as a personal event: A brief introduction to constructivism. http://www.sedl.org/pubs/tec26/intro2c.html