Once I work on this website over the summer, this will be the greatest tool in my class.
https://sites.google.com/site/economicprojectofsweetness/home
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Week 12
The first set of competencies that I would like to cover in this response is the ID, training manager, and instructor competencies as found in table 27.3 on pg 275-276. After reading through the table, I feel that my main strength is that of being an instructor because of the teacher background. An instructor in ID seems to be exactly what most of us try to accomplish in our own classrooms. Although I do feel that I need to work on my instructional methods and strategies to better integrate technology into the classroom.
Strengths
Professional Foundations
As a teacher you are constantly communicating with students, parents, and administration, while trying to comply with the legal standards handed down by the state and federal government through the benchmarks. A teacher also must keep up their training and schooling, at least in Michigan, to keep their license and professional credibility up to date.
Planning and Preparation
This is a personal strength because over the last three years, I have been able to be more comfortable with my subject matter. This leads me to be able to plan and prepare better and more complete instruction.
Weakness
Instructional Methods and Strategies
I personally do not feel that this is a horrible weakness to have as a teacher. Reason being that if I am trying to keep the interest of students in the lesson I am teaching, the ability to stimulate and sustain motivation in them is a must. I have use power points for the last two years of teaching, which has allowed me to be a better presenter of information and allow for a greater amount of clarification and feedback from the students. I believe that I am not to a level though that is promoting the retention of knowledge and skills of where I want to be. Overall I label this as my weakness because I always want to improve and do not want to be complacent.
The second set of competencies I would like to talk about is set associated with online instruction. This is an area that I would love to build over the years, but as of right now it is a total and complete weakness. In my classroom I try to allow for discussion based learning to happen by presenting the class with at problem and idea that they come up with the ideas for. Then we come together as a class to discuss the answer and I can fix any questions that they have about the topic. The main competencies in table 27.4 that I would love to develop is the idea of establishing ground rules for the discussion but only have minimal interaction with the students. As of right now, I would consider myself a little bit of a control freak in the classroom, so if I could have an online class it would allow me to be able to have class lead by the students and it would force me to sit back and watch what they are learning.
The last set of competencies that I would like to develop for my professional goals is that of a training manager and the section of responsibility to others in table 27.5 on page 277. My ultimate goal of earning this degree is to help bring technology into the classroom, but also to be able to help other teachers with questions that they have on their educational tools. Sometimes I forget that some teachers are not as ready to have the technology aspect brought into their classroom. In my district there are still teachers that keep grades by hand in a grade-book. The main idea I would have to work with is being fair in my interactions with these teachers because they have been teaching longer than I have and have a great deal of knowledge outside of technology.
Strengths
Professional Foundations
As a teacher you are constantly communicating with students, parents, and administration, while trying to comply with the legal standards handed down by the state and federal government through the benchmarks. A teacher also must keep up their training and schooling, at least in Michigan, to keep their license and professional credibility up to date.
Planning and Preparation
This is a personal strength because over the last three years, I have been able to be more comfortable with my subject matter. This leads me to be able to plan and prepare better and more complete instruction.
Weakness
Instructional Methods and Strategies
I personally do not feel that this is a horrible weakness to have as a teacher. Reason being that if I am trying to keep the interest of students in the lesson I am teaching, the ability to stimulate and sustain motivation in them is a must. I have use power points for the last two years of teaching, which has allowed me to be a better presenter of information and allow for a greater amount of clarification and feedback from the students. I believe that I am not to a level though that is promoting the retention of knowledge and skills of where I want to be. Overall I label this as my weakness because I always want to improve and do not want to be complacent.
The second set of competencies I would like to talk about is set associated with online instruction. This is an area that I would love to build over the years, but as of right now it is a total and complete weakness. In my classroom I try to allow for discussion based learning to happen by presenting the class with at problem and idea that they come up with the ideas for. Then we come together as a class to discuss the answer and I can fix any questions that they have about the topic. The main competencies in table 27.4 that I would love to develop is the idea of establishing ground rules for the discussion but only have minimal interaction with the students. As of right now, I would consider myself a little bit of a control freak in the classroom, so if I could have an online class it would allow me to be able to have class lead by the students and it would force me to sit back and watch what they are learning.
The last set of competencies that I would like to develop for my professional goals is that of a training manager and the section of responsibility to others in table 27.5 on page 277. My ultimate goal of earning this degree is to help bring technology into the classroom, but also to be able to help other teachers with questions that they have on their educational tools. Sometimes I forget that some teachers are not as ready to have the technology aspect brought into their classroom. In my district there are still teachers that keep grades by hand in a grade-book. The main idea I would have to work with is being fair in my interactions with these teachers because they have been teaching longer than I have and have a great deal of knowledge outside of technology.
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Week 11 Response
One significant theme that seems to be in all three chapters is the idea that if you have a job in instructional design/technology, you will be constantly adapting and adding to your profession. In the business world there is a chance that you will play many different roles with in the team and organization, which means that you will have to learn how to accomplish multiple aspects of your job. In P-12 there is a chance that through the requirement of continuing education you will move up to different levels of the school structural system. By achieving a masters degree new possibilities open up and if you have a instructional design/technology degree there is even more possibilities. The last reading of higher education seems to be the straightest forward of the three. To gain a full time professor’s job you must gain experience working with in the instructional design field. This makes complete sense because these are the teachers that are teaching all college enrolled students.
Another theme that works is way through all three chapters, at least to me, is the systematic approach that is taken when it comes to holding an instructional design/technology job. All three chapters have at least one system laid out in a graphic organizer that lays out the successful steps for change. For example the higher education reading lays out the promotion/tenure progression of both the Australian and US educational system. Both of the systems are different, but have necessary steps in place to further the education and specialization of their staff. In the P-12 there is a Step Up to Excellence program laid out in a lovely step format. Each step of this program is put in to better the improvement ideas for a school district by having a greater input of information and opinions from different sources. The business portion on the other hand allows the input of one person to determine a part, then the team as a whole puts the project or plan together.
One major difference between the three chapters is each area of employment seems to have a different component to the role that instructional design/technology plays in the work place. In a business the idea that seemed to be a theme to me was that an instructional design/technology employees were to work as part of a team. They could be the manager, a designer, or just a member of the group, but they each only did their assigned job. Then everyone would come together to produce the final product the team was working on. While in the P-12, or school environment, the aspect of the team was everyone working together to develop new approaches for improvement for the schools. Unlike the business approach, the schools would have to pull members from different levels together to weigh in their opinions on every step of the process. Higher education is a lot like the P-12, except the readings makes it out to be more specialized. In higher education the professors have obtained their high level degrees and are training others to become more specialized in their field of expertise.
The idea that I can positively say would work the best in my place of employment is the importance that is placed on communication and cooperation at every level of the school. If each level of the school system would come together and try to work a great deal of our differences, then more plans could be implemented with out a great amount of up rise.
Another theme that works is way through all three chapters, at least to me, is the systematic approach that is taken when it comes to holding an instructional design/technology job. All three chapters have at least one system laid out in a graphic organizer that lays out the successful steps for change. For example the higher education reading lays out the promotion/tenure progression of both the Australian and US educational system. Both of the systems are different, but have necessary steps in place to further the education and specialization of their staff. In the P-12 there is a Step Up to Excellence program laid out in a lovely step format. Each step of this program is put in to better the improvement ideas for a school district by having a greater input of information and opinions from different sources. The business portion on the other hand allows the input of one person to determine a part, then the team as a whole puts the project or plan together.
One major difference between the three chapters is each area of employment seems to have a different component to the role that instructional design/technology plays in the work place. In a business the idea that seemed to be a theme to me was that an instructional design/technology employees were to work as part of a team. They could be the manager, a designer, or just a member of the group, but they each only did their assigned job. Then everyone would come together to produce the final product the team was working on. While in the P-12, or school environment, the aspect of the team was everyone working together to develop new approaches for improvement for the schools. Unlike the business approach, the schools would have to pull members from different levels together to weigh in their opinions on every step of the process. Higher education is a lot like the P-12, except the readings makes it out to be more specialized. In higher education the professors have obtained their high level degrees and are training others to become more specialized in their field of expertise.
The idea that I can positively say would work the best in my place of employment is the importance that is placed on communication and cooperation at every level of the school. If each level of the school system would come together and try to work a great deal of our differences, then more plans could be implemented with out a great amount of up rise.
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
The following is a concept map on the three branches of government in the United States. I would use this concept map in both my 11th and 8th grade classes to help students orginize the main information that they have to know for all three. The concept map would allow the students to visually follow the information in a step by step and orginized way. In a lesson I would give the students a blank concept map and have them fill out the information as it was given in the correct bubble.
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Week 10 Reflection
The first trend that hit home with me was the Step Up to Excellence. By looking at the step diagram on pg. 214 this idea became more apparent to me. In most cases, this seems to be a great system to help school districts change from one level of achievement to the next one higher up. I even think it would work to help my district in a way, although this is not what is coming to my mind when I read this. What comes to mind is the new laws passing in my states government as I write this. Some of you in this class do not live in the state of Michigan, but as of right now in this moment the way government and schools are ran is about to be changed. Michigan is about to become the next Wisconsin in the news and when I saw the steps laid out for me it seems to close to what I have been reading and hearing in the new government to not respond in this way.
Step 1- Our wonderful governor Rick Snyder have purposed a new law that has passed the senate and house of Michigan where a appointed manager can come into towns and schools redesign and fire the whole system.
Step 2- Then the manager can come into the school and align the clusters or departments of the schools in the way that he/she deems is the best and most efficient way to conduct an educational classroom.
Step 3- Along with the clusters within the school the manager can also help align the school itself. Just as the clusters or departments in the school, the manager has control over the whole school district itself. Meaning that the manager, appointed by the governor, not only controls the departments he/she controls the school district.
Step 4- See Steps two and three and it applies to teams and individuals.
Step5- The manager then has the ability to evaluate the whole systems performance that he/she has set up to determine whether to take a new course of action or start it over again from the feedback gathered. (A luxury that the original elected employees did not have)
Through these steps the government of Michigan has purpose a Step Up To Excellence program for failing towns and school districts around the state.
The second trend that hit home with me was the role of instructional design and technology specialists in a school. According to the book, “A role that IDT specialist can play is in working to create improvements in the core and supporting work.” (Reiser and Dempsey pg. 216) This is the exact reason I decided to pursue this master degree program. When I started working at my school district three years ago, most of the staff were older and did not necessarily use the technology that was available to them in the classroom. I wanted to be able to help these teachers incorporate the technology into their classrooms so that they could transfer their vast amount of knowledge and teaching skills to the modern student. Along the way I also wanted to sharpen and be exposed to more technology myself, but helping my fellow teachers was the main point. Now three years later great deals of those teachers that I started this degree to help have retired, in their place though is a great staff that is of the younger generation. This new staff is eager to incorporate technology into the classroom, so my mind has shifted from a case of training people on technology to helping discover new ways of incorporating it into the classroom.
Jing
This video made by me on Jing is a demonstration I would use to help my students at the start of their financial project in economics. What is contained in the video is a way to look up stocks using the tools of Google finance. In the begging of the project the students have to find three companies that they want to invest their money into. After they choose their three companies they need to find a place where they can keep track of their stock options. The easiest place that I have found is using Google finance. Eventually the students will visit this site once a week and insert the numbers into a table that is keeping track of prices, profits, and losses over the whole semester.
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Week 9 - Chapter 18
The fist interesting fact to me in this reading is the idea that instructional designers are spending, “much of their time is now spent as project managers, supervising contractors with varying degrees of instructional design expertise.” (Reiser and Dempsey pg.177) To me this sounds like a major application of technology within a teacher’s classroom. With the right amount of training, conditioning, and technology a teacher can create a classroom atmosphere where the students have the necessary skills to be successful at various levels. When the teacher creates this type of classroom they can become more of a manager of learning, rather than the main component of learning. Meaning that the students are taking more self initiated approach to their own education and the teacher is the guide. This frees up the higher end or more experienced students to move at a faster pace, while allowing the teacher to “manage” students that need assistance. This is where we as teachers in this class are aiming for our classroom to be. To have technology be an educational tool that frees both students and teachers from traditional chains and allows for new avenues of learning to be built.
The second interesting idea from the reading for me comes from the globalization of training. Instructional Design/Technology has led to the necessary requirement of training employees to the ever changing work force. This is not just a US idea; it is now part of the rest of the world that is moving at a quick pace of life. Cause and point is the fact that a great deal of “text and instructional strategies must be modified for different cultures.” (Reiser and Dempsey pg. 181) This is just like the classroom because as a teacher you are required to gain new knowledge through the wonderful world of professional development. As a teacher you are always refining you skills and this training that is put upon you is to achieve the idea of progress and change. Once you have this new information you have to take it to the classroom and change the language and ideas for the different students in your room. Just as Instructional Designers have to change the language to fit different cultural ideas, the teacher must change the language of a lesson or idea to fit the various levels of students. In a way a classroom is a small cultural globe contained in a single room, but as the teacher you must reach each end of that globe.
The second interesting idea from the reading for me comes from the globalization of training. Instructional Design/Technology has led to the necessary requirement of training employees to the ever changing work force. This is not just a US idea; it is now part of the rest of the world that is moving at a quick pace of life. Cause and point is the fact that a great deal of “text and instructional strategies must be modified for different cultures.” (Reiser and Dempsey pg. 181) This is just like the classroom because as a teacher you are required to gain new knowledge through the wonderful world of professional development. As a teacher you are always refining you skills and this training that is put upon you is to achieve the idea of progress and change. Once you have this new information you have to take it to the classroom and change the language and ideas for the different students in your room. Just as Instructional Designers have to change the language to fit different cultural ideas, the teacher must change the language of a lesson or idea to fit the various levels of students. In a way a classroom is a small cultural globe contained in a single room, but as the teacher you must reach each end of that globe.
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