Monitoring My GAME Plan Progress

I am fortunate to work in a school district that understands the importance of technology in the 21st century classroom. I have a lot of great technology to use including an interactive smart board, active expression polling system, a slate, document camera, and a computer lab right down the hall which is available nearly anytime I need it. I am certainly aware of how lucky I am to have such wonderful tools to use in my classroom, and it certainly has impacted my student’s grades and their interest in my lessons.

As for this week’s blog questions I am finding most of what I need very easily, however I am finding other issues arising I had not thought of until the project of getting my GAME plan in motion.

1) Are you finding the information and resources you need? I am finding all my information very easily. Any problems that arise I am always able to solve very quickly if not on my own, with the support of more knowledgeable staff within my building. What I am finding is as I get more involved in my PLAN I am wanting to do more activities and modify the lesson more and more. For example, I had my students making book trailers. My students loved making the book trailers, but I thought how cool it would be to have my students record their voice and add voice over to their book trailers. This has led me to several obstacles such as recording software, microphones, and file management.

2) Do you need to modify your action plan? The only modifications I am making to my GAME plan is to enhance the projects to incorporate more components such as the aforementioned voice recordings.

3) What have you learned so far? So far in this point of the GAME plan I have learned one main thing; do not be afraid to try. I am always amazed at how flexible my students are when I try new things in the classroom. They understand that I am human and have their best interest in mind. If a lesson falls flat, they are quick to tell me but they are also quick to help me. I can always tell when a lesson is working because my students are engaged and involved. As a younger teacher I felt like I learn a lot from my students. I thought that feeling would eventually go away, however, I still learn a great deal from my students. I hope they learn as much from me.

4) What new questions have arisen? Again, that feeling of, “the more I know, the less I understand,” comes to mind. With the voice recordings there are several options available such as audacity or recording straight into PowerPoint. Each has its benefits and drawbacks, but each has left me with a feeling of uncertainty when deciding which is the best.

One main aspect I see emerging from this Project-Based assessment is that not only does it give my students actual work as a discipline but it also models how I, as a teacher, deal with real problems at work. This doubles as a great tool to show my students how to problem solve when their own problems arise, (Cennamo, et. al. 2009).

Resources:
Cennamo, K., Ross, J., & Ertmer, P. (2009). Technology integration for meaningful classroom use: A standards-based approach. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.