Focusing on Action in My GAME Plan Cycle

It's time for action! After determining areas of instruction dealing with technology integration and course content that need improvement, I am now continuing the process and examining what resources and additional information might be helpful as well as what I have accomplished so far. Cennamo, Ross, & Ertmer (2009) define this process: "You identify what you already know about the task at hand and develop a plan of attack, otherwise known as a learning strategy" (p. 3). With this action plan, my learning is self-directed, within my control, and enables me to gain skills that I can then share with my students.

My first area of adjustment is to help my students become more reflective with collaborative tools. I have chosen to use a blog for this, and the resource that I feel would be most helpful is to become increasingly involved with blogging—particularly with other teachers and professionals. In this way, I will be able to sharpen my own blogging/reflection skills. Practicing what I will be asking my students to do will give me insights on how to guide and encourage them. In addition to this course, I need to continue to investigate blogs that would foster this type of reflective interaction. My progress in this area is the blogging I am doing for this course—composing my own posts, reflecting on the GAME plan, and then reading, reflecting, and responding to my cohorts. Also, in my own classroom, we use a blog and I am beginning to post more reflective prompts for my students to address. My continued involvement in this exchange will strengthen my skills and serve as scaffolding for my students.

The second and fourth areas involve designing learning experiences that incorporate digital tools and resources, and communicating with students via digital tools. Some resources needed to continue exploring these areas are: consulting with my school IT department on acceptable resources, conferring with my colleagues on tools they have used successfully, and reading current literature on new technology and classroom strategies. In addition to the information gained from this class and program, I have also addressed these topics with a few teachers at my school and plan to make this an ongoing practice with more colleagues.

My third area of improvement deals with customizing my instruction to meet the diverse needs in my classroom. Resources that will help me accomplish this will be to initially determine what those needs are and then begin to restructure my lesson plans to accommodate them. Examining student data, observing my students, talking with prior instructors, and asking for advice from the school special needs coordinator will be beneficial. Creating options for students is my goal, and a valuable resource will be searching for current lesson plans online that will help me to see applications for my own classes. My progress so far has been to create a background knowledge questionnaire for one of my classes that includes questions dealing with how students learn best or what they feel they need in order to be successful in the course. In this way, I hope to gain a little more perspective on how to structure the class.

Howard (2004) offers that every student should "have access to the curriculum in a way that promotes the most learning for that individual" (p. 26). Three of my four action steps deal with tailoring my instruction and technology use to be a better fit with the needs of my students. All of my action steps, however, are intended for the same target—to help my students better understand and personalize our class content.

References

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

Howard, K. L. (2004, February). Universal design for learning: Meeting the needs of all students. Learning and Leading with Technology, 31(5), 26-29.