When I first visited the International Society for Technology in Education website and looked at the National Education Standards for Teachers, I felt like I had a lot of work to go. I looked again to try to focus on just a couple of things that I would select as my goals and started to feel a little bit better.
The first standard states: Facilitate and Inspire Student Learning and Creativity. I do not feel fully comfortable with this standard and do not feel like I am meeting this standard in a couple of ways. Inspiring student learning is not the part that I struggle with; it is the creativity. As a middle school math teacher the actual concepts are relatively black-and-white and I struggle with how to incorporate creativity into Math.
The second standard states: Design and Develop Digital-Age Learning Experiences and Assessments. Due to a limited amount of accessible, working technology, I tend to shy away from using the technology that I do have at my disposal because it is often more trouble than its worth. Therefore, I do not feel I am doing a good enough job at creating digital-age learning experiences and assessments.
One of my goals to feeling more comfortable and proficient at both these standards is to incorporate an element of technology in at least two activities per unit. The main thing holding me back is me and my hesitance to go outside of the comfort-zone. The action that I will take to accomplish this goal is to review my unit plan before the start of the unit and identify where technology could be used to better learning tool. From there I will alter my lesson plans to incorporate some type of technology. I will have to monitor my own progress through self-reflection. I could keep a record of each time I implement a technology and assess what went well and did not go well and how I can avoid some of the blunders in the future.
Within the second standard it states: teacher 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. Many of my students are not curious about math and it is hard to even guide them into something they would be curious about. Also, I find that when I incorporate technology into a lesson, I am still quite restrictive with the students. Therefore, I want to set a goal to loosen up the boundaries and allow students to have more control over their learning. One of my fears with this is that the content standards will not be met, but with the right assignment I think it could work. Since I currently do not know how I would do this, I will need to work with my colleagues to brainstorm a way to achieve this goal. Through the conversations with my colleagues at our designated department meetings I will be able to monitor the progress. When an idea is finally being implemented, I will evaluate the idea and my ability to provide a technology-enriched learning environment based on the independence of the students and the amount of technology they are using.
Does anyone have any ideas for my math classroom?
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Hi Emma,
ReplyDeleteI agree that integrating technology is sometimes difficult for math. There are many skill-and-drill types of games and such, but maybe not as much that allows students to be curious and creative with math.
I am in the middle of a short technology project that I am doing with my "challenge" (high-achieving) math students. I teach fifth grade, so I am sure you could modify this for middle schoolers...
We are currently studying graphing, so I thought we could use the computers to assist us with this concept. I am most comfortable with Microsoft Word (although Excel would probably be better...) and used its "Insert Chart" tool to build simple graphs with my students. We recently installed Word 2010 in our lab and it has some amazing options for different types of graphs. My students were able to add their data (we graphed the amount of time it takes us to do our afterschool activities) and the program updated their graphs. They could easily switch to a different type of graph and saw that some types are much better for viewing their data, comparing the data, etc.
The next day, I gave them a virtual million dollars to spend. I had a simple table made up with many options for spending (travel, media, entertainment, clothing, vehicles, savings, charity, etc.) and they wrote down how much they would spend in each area. Then, with a partner, they began a graph that would show both students' choices side by side. That way, they could compare their own choices with another student. (If I do this again, I may allow them to do a bit of research as they are budgeting their money...many of them had no clue how much a car costs, etc. One of my students wanted to buy a pink Ferrari for $500,000. I looked it up for him and found out that they can run up to $250,000! He actually had enough to buy two! Ah, a boy can dream...)
Anyway, I have really enjoyed seeing how motivated my students were with this project, and there has been relatively no prep on my part. I hope you find some things that fall into place for you, too. Good luck!
Erin
I share your frustraton in trying to integrate technology into my math classes. In my mind, math has always been a subject taught via a teacher-centered, direct instruction approach. Have you thought of incorporating a wiki into your classroom as a form of assessment? This was mentioned in a previous course I took. Students could be divided into groups with each group being responsible for a lesson in unit. Their assignment is to write a "textbook" entry for that particular lesson. The entry would include explanations and examples. Students could then use the wiki as a study guide for a written test or quiz.
ReplyDeleteEmma,
ReplyDeleteI understand your frustrations regarding working technology in the classroom and/or school campus. I am often in the same boat. I do think that reviewing your units before you begin teaching to see how you can incorporate technology into them is a great idea and one that can easily be adjusted into your teaching. It definitely is less overwhelming when we break tasks down by subjects and units. Otherwise it seems like an unattainable amount of work. Good luck to you!
Thanks for all the suggestions!
ReplyDeleteBrenda, I like the idea of a wiki but have not tried that yet with my students. Most of them have never used a wiki before so I would have to teach although many of them will probably be able to easily figure it out just by playing around. I would also have to play around a little more to feel comfortable with it.
Erin, I just did a graphing activity with my students and we used Microsoft Excel to input data and then create graphs. I think I could certainly improve upon this in the future but I think it was good for them just to get the introduction into using the computer to generate graphs.