Technology Leadership has been a great course for me and has solidified my desire to move towards leadership. After conducting the SWOT Analysis for an assignment, my administrators invited me to participate in a SWOT Analysis for our school regarding a variety of topics. So, I would certainly consider this course relevant. My experience from this course will greatly impact my school improvement because my assignments (SWOT Analysis, Shared Vision Survey, and Action Plan) provided the evidence I needed to present to my administration in order to begin a Technology Committee. This committee will develop a school-wide Technology Plan, along with other initiatives. We will have our first meeting before the end of the school year, and we will begin with data from my Tech Planning Project. My hopes are for us to review the analysis and plan to modify as the committee sees fit, and use those to develop our Technology Plan for 2017 – 2018!
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This course, Educational Research, has been my toughest course so far! Luckily, its professor was great at walking us through the content. I think this course was most difficult because it has been furthest from my comfort zone. I knew very little about quantitative and qualitative research, nor did I think I could successfully analyze it. However, Dr. Dias has been great with walking us through analysis of research. I thought the synchronous session with a practice run of our "Annotated Article" was highly beneficial because we were able to work through it together before attempting it on our own. In addition to the practice before our independent work, I like the way Dr. Dias split up our Capstone Proposal into sections. This made my proposal seem like a manageable "mountain" to climb. Her timely feedback was great because she provided specific details AND reasoning behind it. This helped me actually learn, rather than feeling like I was just "jumping through hoops".
The Capstone Proposal and the analysis on multiple research articles have built my confidence in this area. I am no expert, but I feel as though I can trust myself to analyze research for my school. This is a quality needed for anyone working with Instructional Technology. One of our standards requires us to analyze and evaluate tools, so my new understanding of how research is conducted and then presented will help me exhibit this within my field. My thoughts on 21st Century K-12 Learners’ needs is that they simply are not being met by “traditional” classroom settings. Current students need to have more personalized learning in flexible learning environments, which is nurtured in a “newer” instructional model, such as blended or flipped classrooms (Roblyer 2016). I think most teachers would agree that their goals for their students is to reach critical thinking, unpredictable problem-solving, and higher-order thinking levels. Technology, when used effectively, can assist teachers in supporting their students to reach these higher levels of cognitive thinking. Students should use digital tools and resources to conduct the research to support their higher-order thinking decisions. Another major component in 21st Century Learning is collaboration. Technology plays a huge role in collaboration. Digital tools can really open the door for students to communicate with others worldwide and develop more of a cultural understanding that they may not have experienced without technology. Using NETS-S standards in combination with a teacher’s state content standards can be a great way to start integrating “newer” instructional models in order to bridge the gap between student-needs and the education they are receiving.
This 21st Century Teaching and Learning Course has taught me a lot about selecting and evaluating digital tools and resources and gearing instructional design towards authentic learning. Before this course, I was unfamiliar with the LoTi scale and the Indicators of Engaged Learning. While I knew that some strategies were more engaging to students, I had not seen a specified list, nor had I ever evaluated lessons based on the LoTi levels of indicators of Engaged Learning. Ms. Roberts provided multiple opportunities throughout the course to evaluate lessons based on these criteria, even assigned coaching practice. This scaffolding process she incorporated modeled for me ways in which I can model/demonstrate to my fellow teachers regarding LoTi and Engaged Learning practices. The LoTi & ELI evaluation assignments built my confidence in becoming a technology coach. While my confidence is growing, I know that I still have lots to learn, and can’t wait to begin implementing these strategies into my classroom. Roblyer, M. D. (2016). Integrating educational technology into teaching (7th ed.). Pearson Education. |
AuthorSarah Miller Archives
July 2017
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