GAME Plan Review

While reflecting on my GAME plan, I am pleased to say that I have made quite a bit of progress. I have already attended a couple of conferences in the area, and have sat in on some webinars. All of these experiences helped me gather new ideas and strategies that I am excited to implement into my class next year. The evaluation of this goal will happen once I try these new strategies with my students. However, I realize this may lead to new goals, but I am excited to try them out.

What I realized going through my GAME plan is that I already do these steps. Now I am categorizing them into the four defined areas. As teachers, we are expected to set goals for our students and our lessons. It should also be a natural idea to make goals for ourselves. One of my goals is to receive my masters' degree. I am in the action and monitoring stage of this goal right now. I may not have specifically laid out my goal in the GAME plan format, but I am following the steps all the same. When we set goals for our students and lessons, we determine how the lesson will be executed and the assessment method we will use. This, again, follows the GAME plan format.

It would be interesting to have students create their own GAME plans at the beginning of the school year. After going through the overview of the course, students could choose an area they would like to work on specifically for their goal. This could be something simple like improving their technology skills or maybe finding ways to transfer the content we learn into other classrooms. They could come up with something more challenging, if they choose. Regardless, setting the timeframe within our 20 week course would provide students with ample time to work towards their goal, while getting through the steps of the GAME plan efficiently.They would not have to set it up as a GAME plan, exactly, but if they set a goal and determine action steps, they will be able to naturally monitor and evaluate their plan given time in class to do so.

I am very excited to enhance the technology use in my classroom. This seems strange since I teach a computer class. But I have expanded the list of technology applications that I could incorporate. For example, instead of just using PowerPoint or Google Presentation, students could also use Prezi, Haiki Deck, SlideShare, and many other applications. I really think students will appreciate having more options than I currently give, and will be able to better apply what they learn into other classes and future projects.

While I already use problem-based learning and digital storytelling in my class, I am looking forward to expanding on the blogging realm for my students. I implemented blogs into one of my classes this past semester, and had great success. With a few tweaks and updates, I think students will enjoy using blogs and will learn the value of collaboration with feedback from peers. I will continue to look at various ways PBL and digital storytelling can be expanded to provide a quality experience for my students, and am looking forward to working with my PLC to encourage more of these types of strategies in other classrooms.

GAME Plan Updates

This has been an interesting week, as we have finished school and the focus has been in tying up loose ends, final exams, posting grades, and cleaning up our rooms. Because of this, my GAME plan has made minimal progress. My personnel resources have been unavailable as they focus on their own year-end tasks.

I was able to find some time to work on it, as I knew that I needed to make it a priority if I wanted to stay motivated. In the time that I had, I reviewed my compiled list of conferences and webinars that I felt would help me in becoming a better educator and help my classes to be more engaging and authentic. This was a fun task for me, as I was able to further explore the initial list and found a small handful of my priority learning events. These are the conferences and webinars that I will be presenting to my principal as the top choice events.

For my second goal of widening the variety of assessment tools that I use, I have been in continuous contact with our technology coordinator and my colleagues to gather ideas and best practices. This week I am attending the teacher quality professional development day offered at our school. Two of the sessions that I am attending are focused on assessments and differentiation. I am very excited about these, and am hopeful that I am able to get some good resources from them.

At this point, I am still pleased with my action plan. Throughout the summer, I will be spending a lot of time determining appropriate assessment tools for my classes from what I have gathered. I am looking forward to the learning opportunities that I have committed to, and am excited to be able to apply what I learn to my plans for next school year.

The biggest thing that I have learned to this point is that there are a lot of teachers out there that are willing to share their ideas and best practices. I have known this to a certain extent, but the amount of responses I have received just in my building alone is astonishing. These responses have even come from the teachers who generally do not participate in these types of email requests. I am very pleased and encouraged by these responses, and will definitely continue to call upon my colleagues for ideas in the future.

One question that I have in regards to my GAME plan is: what types of webinars or other online sessions have other teachers attended or researched that may help me in finding assessment tools or new uses for technology? I have been asking my school colleagues, but I would like to expand into the blogging world. If you have resources, or even best practices that you're willing to share, I would love to hear from you!

Gathering Resources

As I review my GAME plan, I see places where resources and information will be required in order for the plan to be effective.

First and foremost, I need administrative support. I will be working closely with my building principal to find conferences that will help my professional growth. I will also need to work with our Technology Coordinator in finding technology-based assessment tools.

As I begin my search for assessment tools, I will need access to online resources, as well as my peers. I will be counting on the feedback of my colleagues to gather opinions on the usability and application of the various tools they currently use. I think an initial survey through Google Forms will be helpful in gathering ideas from my colleagues, allowing them to describe the tools they use while collecting the data in an easy-to-read format.

I am excited to begin my GAME plan adventure. Both of my goals will be much easier to carry out if I have all of the resources ready and available. I know through discussions that I already have my principal and some of my colleagues ready to help me achieve my goals, which will go a long way.

If you have any input on ways I can continue to improve upon my GAME plan, I would appreciate your comments.

GAME Plan

In order to continue to increase my own knowledge and development, I have come up with a personal GAME plan. This plan is to help increase my own skill set in order to provide a better learning experience for my students.

My GAME plan is as follows:

1.      Set Goals

a.      I would like to find or develop multiple and varied formative and summative assessments that align with content and technology standards. This is ISTE-T standard 2d. While I currently use a few types of assessments to gauge student progress, I have found it difficult to vary my assessments for my computer classes. I would like to find new ways to assess students in a way that is more engaging to them. I will explore this goal throughout the rest of this school year.

b.      In order to improve my professional practice and model lifelong learning, I would like to participate in more local and global learning communities to explore creative applications of technology to improve student learning, which is ISTE-T standard 5a. This is something I have wanted to do for a while, but have not been able to make work. Attending conferences, webinars, and other learning opportunities is a great way to gather new ideas and collaborate with other educators. I would like to spend my summer exploring opportunities available and beginning to attend these learning events so I am ready to implement the new technology applications at the beginning of the next school year.

2.      Plan Actions

a.      I have set up a meeting with our technology director to discuss what types of assessment tools are available for our school. I have also become engaged in online research to find other ways to assess my students, and will speak with my PLC and other colleagues to help develop my list of tools.

b.      Working with my building principal, I have found a couple of potential conferences I can attend this June which are focused on technology in the classroom. I have also signed up for some webinars through Adobe, which should help in developing ideas for new and innovative projects in my graphic design class.

3.      Monitor Actions

a.      I will implement the assessment tools that I find and am introduced to in my classes. There will be a trial period for each of them while I determine if the assessment tool is appropriate for my classes or not. While this will be easily determined prior to use for some tools, others will need to be tested with students before any decisions are made.

b.      I will develop a portfolio of things that I learn at conferences and webinars. This portfolio will include a description of the technology application, along with a list of potential uses in each class that I teach.

4.      Evaluate Actions

a.      Evaluating the success of this goal will be in determining if the assessment tools were engaging and provided accurate information in regards to student progress and understanding. If I am not able to see these types of results of the assessment, I will need to try a different tool.

b.      While the development of this goal will be an ongoing process, I plan on sharing the portfolio with my PLC to determine the usefulness of the technology applications that I learn about. With the help of my PLC, I will be able to find the most appropriate uses for each application and even come up with other ideas that I had not previously discovered.

This is a basic draft of my GAME plan. While I put a timeframe on both of my goals, realistically they will both be ongoing as I aim to become a better and more innovative teacher. I am open to ideas and suggestions for how to improve this plan, especially in regards to the evaluation process.

References:

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

International Society for Technology in Education. (2008). National education standards for teachers (NETS-T). Retrieved from http://www.iste.org/standards/nets-for-teachers