Saturday, 11 August 2012

Reflection and Integration of GAME Plan in my Pedagogy


In retrospect, this course has helped me realize that in order to enhance my teaching so that learners learn; I have to find means of integrating technology to differentiate instruction so as to meet students with special needs, from different backgrounds including gifted students (Laureate Education, Inc., 2012b). 

In following my GAME plan, I see the inclusive nature of my lessons and how to streamline them to meet Federal, State and local standards. My lessons are more meaningful and self directed for my learners as it gives them as well as me the opportunity to establish my Goals as I consider what I want my students to learn; then take Actions as I go ahead to teach; then I Monitor their learning and finally Evaluate their learning to determine whether learning actually took place and to what extent (Laureate Education, Inc., 2012c).
Assessment helps the teacher to see how effective her teaching is and if a student needs help and what kind of help the student needs (Cennamo, Ross, and Ertmer, 2009). I have also learned how to use technology to assess my students because according to Dr. Ross, technology can collect and analyze assessment data quickly (Laureate Education, Inc., 2012a).

Although my students had been engaged in online collaboration and problem-based learning, they have not done digital storytelling before and this course exposed me and my students to this kind of learning. Digital storytelling can be motivational for students in any subject because they know that their audio and visuals will not only exist on paper for the teacher’s eyes, but may ultimately result in a digital story for the world to see. The use of digital storytelling in any subject area transforms teaching style from the regular instruction to a classroom of students who have taken over the control of their learning by writing, illustrating and collecting images. This makes digital storytelling a veritable tool in my math classroom because students need constant motivation to make the abstracted nature of mathematics concrete and interesting. I especially like the effectiveness of a combination of problem-based learning, online collaboration and digital storytelling to teach related lessons as we have done in this course; and I intend to integrate them into my pedagogy.

References

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

Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2012a). Assessing Student Learning With  

Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2012b). Meeting students’ needs with    
Laureate Education Inc. (Producer). (2012c). [Video webcast]. Promoting Self-Directed Learning With Technology. Retrieved from https://class.waldenu.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_tab_group_id=_2_1&url=%2Fwebapps%2Fblackboard%2Fexecute%2Flauncher%3Ftype%3DCourse%26id%3D_1341773_1%26url%3D

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