Reflect on what you perceive to be your own areas of strength and what competencies you feel you need to work hardest to develop given your professional goals. State adn describe at least 3 competencies you'd lilke to develop and why.
Like the Instructional Design and Technology professionals, K—12 public education teachers have a lengthy list of competencies or expectations that they are required to prove and perform. I always strive to practice what it is that I teach (reading and writing), to stay sharpened and abreast on the latest research concerning the teaching of reading and writing, and one day I would like to also experience teaching in the collegial setting.
One of my strengths is effective communication and rapport building with my students. I put conscious effort forth to make each one of my students feel like welcomed editions and contributors to our classroom family, to make sure that they recognize their capabilities and strengths, that they feel accepted, and that they know that am interested in their education and them as individuals. I feel that I also do well with clarification and feedback. I give detailed, written steps for assignments, discuss them with students, ask for questions, provide assistance throughout, and try my best to elaborate on what is expected of students. I also try to comment in writing on most assignments so that students know how well they performed in comparison with the expectations, what they did well and which specific areas need improvement and how to improve. Another thing that I am always conscious of is stimulating and sustaining my students’ motivation. I try to make sure that every lesson is somehow fun, engaging or interesting for them.
Areas that I feel I could use some sharpening or improvement in are using media and technology to enhance learning and performance. Along with that, I want to learn to better manage the instructional process through the appropriate use of technology (page 276, Table 27.3). I have been guilty of using technology to support what I am teaching or of just trying to find ways to squeeze technology into my lessons, without using technology to “transform” my teaching. I have mostly used technology like word processing for typing papers, internet for research or vocabulary projects, an overhead projector (the old fashioned kind) to model ideas for students, stereo equipment, and movie/television clips to teach or show examples of learning goals. I would like to develop these areas of competency because I recognize how important technology implementation is for our children to succeed in the work force and world that we are attempting to prepare them for. It is also an efficient, effective way, if used properly, to help students to learn and apply certain information. I do think that technology can and should be used to help transform education and I want to know how to go about using it to do so. I would also like more training and support with assessing learning and performance. I feel that I do fairly well with monitoring students’ progress through summative assessments, and with creating fair yet rigorous formative assessments that help me to see what students have really internalized, but I also realize how important assessments and using data to drive instruction are and want to make sure I am staying current on how best to use my students’ data to help them to reach the performance standards they are expected to reach.
(The Instructional Designer and Instructor sections of Tables 27.3 and 27.5 were helpful because they are most similar to public education teaching.)
Reiser, R. & Dempsey, J. (2007). Trends and Issues in Instructional Design and Technology (2nd ed.). Prentice Hall.
I struggle with transforming the way I teach and not just throwing in technology also. At times I feel I succeed with how I teach by using technology, but other times I feel like I'm just using technology for typing and research. My biggest issue is that typing and searching the internet are fairly new skills with Third Graders, but I still want to push them. This class has shown me how many different ways I can transform teaching though.
ReplyDeleteYou have great goals in mind, and it sounds like you are doing a great job with your students. They are very lucky to have you. It's really great you want to use more technology and transform your teaching style with it.
ReplyDeleteMargie
I think we can all say that we have are guilty of using technology in our classroom and lessons without using to "transform" our teaching. I this is a goal that we all have to strive for. That our use of technology actually accomplishes something, that we use it effectively in the classroom. I feel it is through classes like these and through discourse with other educators that we can begin to break through this though pattern and begin to use technology in transforming ways.
ReplyDeleteJosh, that is the problem that I have with technology is that people have such limited thinking about what technology can do for them and they don't start with scratch with a technology and beg the question "what can this do for me.. what can my kids learn through this that they couldn't otherwise."
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