Standard 4: Promote and Model Digital Citizenship and Responsibility

1. Advocate, model, and teach safe, legal, and ethical use of digital information and technology, including respect for copyright, intellectual property, and the appropriate documentation of sources.

Before I teach any lesson that requires technological integration, I will have a discussion with my students on what is appropriate use for being on the internet and ask them what tips are for using the computers. After we have the discussion, I can show them a slideshow of additional safety tips and why they are important and relevant to use. I know that students will listen better to rules and regulations if there is a rational reason for them being used. I will treat my students with respect and trust and let them know that I want them to be safe because I care about their well being and I want them to not abuse the privilege. For older students, I will teach them about what happens when copyright is ignored when conducting research and show them how to properly site where they received information and sources. Overall, I want them to be able to use technology appropriately and I feel that if my students and I can have a mature conversation about how to use the internet, it will be a successful transition.

2. Address the diverse needs of all learners by using learner-centered strategies providing equitable access to appropriate digital tools and resources.
I would first assess my students and figure out what they need as far as academic support. Once I understand their strengths and needs, I will help guide my students through step-by-step instruction and find various forms of digital tools and resources for my students to work on for the lesson activities. For students that don't have pronounced fine motor skills, I will have them work on touchscreen type media so that they will be able to complete activities in a different way. I will have to make sure I present very differentiated instruction so that all of my students are able to participate and meet the lesson objectives effectively. Most of the activities I find happen to fall into differentiated instruction based learning because there are backup areas for students that need additional support. I have already been researching activities since I'm going to be a special education teacher.

3. Promote and model digital etiquette and responsible social interactions related to the use of technology and information.
Before I teach any lesson that requires technological integration, I will have a discussion with my students on what is appropriate use for being on the internet and ask them what tips are for using the computers. After we have the discussion, I can show them a slideshow of additional safety tips and why they are important and relevant to use. I know that students will listen better to rules and regulations if there is a rational reason for them being used. I will treat my students with respect and trust and let them know that I want them to be safe because I care about their well being and I want them to not abuse the privilege. For older students, I will teach them about what happens when copyright is ignored when conducting research and show them how to properly site where they received information and sources. Overall, I want them to be able to use technology appropriately and I feel that if my students and I can have a mature conversation about how to use the internet, it will be a successful transition.

4. Develop and model cultural understanding and global awareness by engaging with colleagues and students of other cultures using digital-age communication and collaboration tools.
Ways of communicating with each other have expanded immensely in the 21st century. The methods include e-mail, texting, and instant messaging. It's great to be able to contact anyone anywhere at anytime by talking, messaging, or even sharing pictures and/or information with whoever you choose. The problems arise with so many options, though, because some people may not understand the responsibility that goes along with such opportunity. It is vital that we teach our students what is okay to share and what isn't in order to keep them safe from harm. Sharing information with someone that isn't trustworthy can have dire consequences since it can be forwarded all around the world. In cautious format, it is a very useful tool to have access to. An example of connecting students to various cultures using the internet would be to have a pen pal assigned to each student in the class so that they can develop social skills and also learn more about other students their age from various cultures.

Standard 3: Model Digital-Age Work and Learning

1. Demonstrate fluency in technology systems and the transfer of current knowledge to new technologies and situations.

It is very difficult to promote fluency in technology systems and to then transfer current knowledge to new technologies and situations. Some students don't even have internet at home and some schools don't provide enough funding in order to keep up with high-functioning technology for each of the classrooms. When I'm in the schools, I will make sure that there is always an opportunity to share technological experiences with my students. I could also bring in my iPhone to show them certain apps and educational videos if there aren't any other supplies. I understand that I may have to make additional trips to the computer lab in certain situations in order to incorporate effective technology integration into my future lessons. So far, I have been semi-successful in using technology integrated lessons in the classroom such as with the metric online game. The only problem is that the computers were failing and students weren't getting a chance to work on the game. Technology will fail at times and so I must always have a backup plan ready in advance so that there isn't a disruption in the flow of my lesson.

2. Collaborate with students, peers, parents, and community members using digital tools and    resources to support student success and innovation.
I want to be able to create a classroom blog for myself in order for students, parents, peers, and community members to look at it and be able to understand my philosophy of teaching and plans and goals that I have set for the school year. It would be a comfortable setting for conversation between parents and others that are wondering about what my methods entitle and how I can improve in any way that may be beneficial for students based upon their learning styles and/or potential disabilities. I could even add an application to the webpage that would allow private conversation through a message box between me and the parents. I would also include links to academic-based activity sites where students could find intervention and practice through various subjects. This would be a site where I could provide everyone with viable information. 

3. Communicate relevant information and ideas effectively to students, parents, and peers using a variety of digital-age media and formats.
I feel that the comment I put under the last statement would be used the same way within this statement. In the webpage I will make, I will be able to post relevant information about various subject matter that parents and students could read into and understand what I want to bring attention to. I will also post instructional videos and online games on the direct site for everyone to use. There will be a variety of materials readily available on the website for teachers and students alike that each can benefit from. Still, some families don't have access to the internet, so I would have to make accommodations in those future situations and have more direct contact with parents so that we can work together as a team in order to provide an effective education for their children.

4.   Model and facilitate effective use of current and emerging digital tools to locate, analyze, evaluate, and use information resources to support research and learning.
I understand that there are different multiple intelligence foci for all individual students such as visual/spatial, bodily kinesthetic, naturalists, musical, and auditory learning. I will need to meet those needs of my students so that they are all understanding the content of the lessons. I hope that I can have a SMART board in my classroom so that I can make learning more personal and experiential for my students. I don't want my students to be sitting in chairs all day because I understand that everyone needs to get up and move around in order for the blood to flow back to the brain. I want to use the SMART board as a tool for brain breaks; where students can get up and dance to a video displayed such as Just Dance step-by-step instructional videos. I feel that using digital portfolios for authentic assessment on my students would be the most beneficial tool in order to track their progress.

Standard 2: Design and Develop Digital-Age Learning Experiences and Assessments

 

1. Design or adapt relevant learning experiences that incorporate digital tools and resources to promote student learning and creativity. 

I provided real-world experience connections through the metric conversion unit through using it in cooking. Through the online game and textbook information, the students came up with various other ways they could use conversions in reality. They talked about weighing items to understand how much produce would cost, and measuring furniture in order to make sure that it fits in a room. They were able to work on activities such as the horrendous soup game and activities in the textbook where they could come up with creative methods of using conversions and how they could apply it to their everyday life.


2. Develop technology-enriched learning environments that enable all students to pursue their individual curiosities and become active participants in setting their own educational goals, managing their own learning, and assessing their own progress. 
I feel that I accomplished this through the KWL charts especially since it helped with whole group and individual self learning and assessing. By having students talk about what they know and want to know openly as a class, I was able to write up on the board all of the facts and blurbs of information that my students knew about the upcoming lesson. It also helped students realize that they had a lot in common with what they knew and wanted to know. This created a comfortable environment for the students not to feel embarrassed about what they knew or didn't know about the solar system. The chart helped them build their goals as a class and then, after the lesson, they were able to come back to it to express what they learned from the activities, presentations, and lesson as a whole.

3. Customize and personalize learning activities to address students' diverse learning styles, working strategies, and abilities using digital tools and resources. 
One of my students, Ronnie, cannot read or write at a fourth grade level. I helped him out a lot visually with the charts and how to use the chart in his math work for conversions. He told me that the charts were the greatest help he has ever had in class when it comes to math. He felt like he was unable to perform math facts efficiently because of his lack in being able to read or write. When I had the chart on the board and I walked my students through how to use it, it became more simplistic for my student Ronnie. I also helped my students by pairing them up with others so that they could work together and learn from each other.

4. Provide students with multiple and varied formative and summative assessments aligned with content and technology standards and use resulting data to inform learning and teaching.
During the science lesson that I taught my classmates, they followed the technology standards of using the computer in order to conduct research on the planets that were provided to them. It was teaching them how to use proper researching methods while they were learning the content of the solar system. There were multiple points that I was assessing; which sources they were using for their individual research, how they implemented the research into a Prezi slideshow, and what they each took away from viewing the presentations (what did they learn?). The standards covered the technology aspect of researching while the content was meeting the standards of fourth grade science topics.

         

Standard 1: Facilitate and Inspire Student Learning and Creativity

1. Promote, support, and model creative and innovative thinking and inventiveness.                    When I taught my technology-integrated lesson in the fourth grade classroom, I taught the metric conversion lesson using an online game called "Horrendous Soup". It helped my students understand how to use the KHDBDCM chart effectively to answer conversion questions while having them use their creativity through the game. I tend to learn and think visually as a teacher and student; so when I teach, there is always a visual behind the lesson that students can use and remember key points from. I also make sure that activities that are attached to the lesson are open-ended so that my students can use their creativity as much as possible while applying what they learned.
2. Engage students in exploring real-world issues and solving authentic problems using digital tools and resources.                                                                                                                       Also through the metric conversion lesson, I was able to engage students in exploring real-world issues and solving authentic problems using digital tools and resources. Since I had my students work on the online game, the online game showed students how they can apply metric conversion knowledge through adding ingredients to recipes. They were able to choose the ingredients that they wanted to add to the soup and then, using the recipe card, they were able to convert within the metric system in order to insert the correct amount of each ingredient.
3. Promote student reflection using collaborative tools to reveal and clarify students' conceptual understanding and thinking, planning, and creative processes.                                With my science lesson for my classmates, I taught my lesson on the solar system using a KWL chart on a Word document along with the Prezi online slideshow. Prior to the lesson/activity, I had them fill out a KWL chart for what they know about the solar system and what they want to know more about. So, there was a prior reflection for students as well as information I could gain from knowing in order to understand what they need to know during the lesson. The KWL chart that was posted on the board helped students learn from each other as well. When it came time to work on the presentation of the planets on Prezi, students would be able to learn from their peers on what occurs in the solar system and then be able to go back to the KWL chart afterwards and fill out the Learned section.
4. Model collaborative knowledge construction by engaging in learning with students, colleagues, and others in face-to-face and virtual  environments.                                              During the activity process of the metric conversion lesson, I allowed my students to partner up at a certain point so that they could work together on creating the most horrendous soup imaginable. They worked together to choose the ingredients and then also to check each others work on the recipe cards. There was an activity sheet that they could work on after they partnered up on the online game. It gave them additional practice and also gave them a chance to share their individual soups. I observed and helped my students understand the concept if they were stuck on the conversions. At the beginning of the lesson, I had students share examples of what ingredients they could put in the soup and also examples of how to convert units.  

                                            

Lesson Plan #2 Reflection: Assessment of Learning

Left side image #1: Paper individual assessment/activity     
Right side image #2: Print out of "Horrendous Soup" recipe card

Student's Level of Success:
I feel that the students that have strength in math didn't have trouble with transitioning to this additional method of converting within the metric system in a more visual format. A few students that don't have strengths in math struggled with the concept of converting units within the metric system until I demonstrated this technique for them and then they were able to complete the tasks. Only a handful of students needed additional practice with the new method by playing the online game and practicing the chart on the worksheet handout. 

My Level of Success:
Despite a few mistakes that I made, the technological issues, and the time management, I believe that I did a great job of staying on my toes and thinking fast so that my students weren't off task and still had the opportunity to play the game and practice the method in some type of context. I feel that I did well with writing my notes and instruction down on the board ahead of time so that I was ready to teach without losing any time on writing down the teaching points throughout the lesson. I feel that I could have come up with the pairing of students on the computers when the issues started rather than after my teacher had provided that idea so that I didn't lose any time on the activity. I also feel that I could have enhanced my instructional period by walking around the room while teaching so that I could manage the class physically and so that the students in the back part of the room could hear me over the computer fans. If I were to change any part of this lesson, I would take out the section on having the students watch the instructional video before playing the game because I don't feel that the video was helpful at all and it took time away from the actual activity part of the lesson.

Lesson Plan #2 Reflection: Mechanics

 

Technologies:

Computers

iPads

Integration:

Students used computers/iPads in order to practice converting within the metric system using the "Horrendous Soup" online game. If the computers and iPads didn't work, students partnered up with each other to play the game together. Students watched the instructional video on how to play the game and some students still didn't understand how to play it; so I brought the class back together so that I was able to explain how to play the game in a more simplistic manner. Students put ingredients into a bowl of boiling soup in the game and, at the end, a recipe card popped up for them to convert their ingredients into various units depending on what ingredient they put in and how much of it was put in.

Time Management:

My mentor teacher and I had established a broad time period in which I had to instruct and implement an activity and assessment. The time frame was from around 9:05 a.m. to 10:05 so that I would have time to establish a stopping and cleaning up point for the students before I continued on to another fourth grade classroom for literature circles. When technological issues started occurring, my time management was shot. I tried to modify the issues as much as possible while still providing a formative assessment but my teacher looked at the clock and told me that I was losing time and I was late on wrapping up the first part of the lesson because I failed to check on how the computers would work. After he helped me on the modifications for after I came back for literature circles, I was able to manage the activities and assessments better. The instructional time was perfect for time management; but I needed to make sure that I chunk information in the future when I have instructional periods.

Lesson #2 Reflection: Instructional Decisions/Teaching

Preperation: 

While my fourth grade class went on a morning hike on the nature trail, I prepared my lesson by writing notes down on the back of my lesson plan and writing key points on the board so that I could manage my time in advance. 

I wrote down key formative practice problems that I would model for my students and practice problems that they would answer in their math journals individually. 

Modeled problems - 2.1 liters (l) = _____ milliliters (ml), 9.3 centimeters (cm) = _____ millimeters (mm)

                                8 centimeters (cm) = _____ millimeters (mm)

Student practice problems - 5 grams (g) = _____ milligrams (mg), 7 kilometers (km) = _____ meters (m)

                                           6 millimeters (mm) = _____ centimeters (cm)

Modeled chart on board - 1000     100     10     1     .1     .01     .001

                                           K         H        D     B     D      C        M

                                          kilo     hecto  deka base deci  centi     milli

                                         (km)     (hm)   (dk)  (m)  (dm)  (cm)   (mm)

Notes written on the board - Units of weight: oz, lb, t (students provided answers)

                                            Units of length: m, miles, ft, in, cm, mm, km, yd (students provided answers)

                                            Units of mass: g, kg, mg, l, kl, ml (students provided answers)

Implementation:

What went well during the lesson was that my students were able to start making transitional connections between what they knew about the units of measurement and how they learned how to convert to various units within the metric system from their teacher to the visual chart I was presenting to them on the board. I went over some practice problems and demonstration of how to move decimals in the numbers to whatever unit they were converting to by using the chart. Some students understood it right away and with the students that were still struggling, I helped them by working one-on-one with them on how the chart works and that if a number doesn't have a decimal, it's automatically at the very end of the number. 

What did not go well was with the technological integration of the metric soup game on the computers. A few computers don't stay charged and so they need to stay plugged in at the cart when students are working on them. A few other computers started dying and malfunctioning. I had those students move on to one of the iPads that were available to work on the game. The game worked on a couple of the iPads and the other iPads didn't have a working game on them or they would die quickly. Soon, no one was able to work on the iPads if the computers weren't working; so I had those students move on to the paper activity/assessment. After some students weren't able to play the online game, I had them partner up on a computer with another student so that all of the students had the chance to practice converting in the game.

With the instructional period, I made a few mistakes on the board. I had the wrong number representation above the units on the chart and I had to fix them after the special education teacher let me know. Another mistake I made was that I had a student practice problem that dealt with converting kilometers into grams; which is not at all possible. The students let me know and I told them that I was testing them with that mistake to see if they would notice so that I felt less humiliated.

Modifications:

Since there were technological issues that occurred between the computers, when I came back from literature circles in another fourth grade classroom I continued on with the lesson by having the students with computer problems move on to one of the iPads that were available to work on the game. The game worked on a couple of the iPads and the other iPads didn't have a working game on them or they would die quickly. Soon, no one was able to work on the iPads if the computers weren't working; so I had those students move on to the paper activity/assessment.

With the instructional period, I made a few mistakes on the board. I had the wrong number representation above the units on the chart and I had to fix them after the special education teacher let me know. Another mistake I made was that I had a student practice problem that dealt with converting kilometers into grams; which is not at all possible. The students let me know and I told them that I was testing them with that mistake to see if they would notice so that I felt less humiliated.