After investigating the NETS-T indicators, I have decided that the two with which I am most uncomfortable are indicator number one and indicator number five. The following is my GAME plan for each indicator.
Goal
Indicator one – Learn to model creative thinking for my students
Indicator five – Make myself part of various learning communities
Action
Indicator one – As I have learned in this course, creative thinking involves more than merely coming up with something new. Creative thinking involves decision making, being self-directed, and confidence (Cennamo et al., 2009). This new meaning of creativity requires that I redo the way that I instruct so that I am modeling these skills for my students. In order to accomplish this, I will review each unit of instruction this year before beginning and look at how I can incorporate the modeling of these creative skills.
Indicator five – I am by nature a person that likes to keep to myself. It is not that I am opposed to others helping me or that I do not like people. I just feel more at ease when I keep to myself. This will need to change if I want my students to be successful. Therefore, I will seek to become a part of two learning communities this coming year. I would like to develop one in my school. I will start with my department and see where it might go from there. I will also seek to become part of a larger learning community. The Ohio Foreign Language Association (OFLA) provides a number of opportunities for foreign language educators to interact, both through conferences and online. I will try to be actively involved in the online discussion this coming year as well as attend at least one conference.
Monitor
Indicator one – As a way of monitoring my integration of modeling creative thinking skills, I will keep a reflection log at the end of each unit. I will critique whether or not I identified ways to achieve my goal of modeling these skills as well as how effective I was at carrying those out once I did identify them.
Indicator five – In order to monitor this indicator I will communicate my goals with my colleagues. I will talk with my principal about my desire to attend a conference so that she can help keep me accountable in achieving that goal. She has always been supportive in professional development opportunities and I am confident she will help me with this. Also, at the beginning of the year department meeting I will express my desire to develop a learning community within the department. We have done some collaborative group work in the past so I think that they will be receptive to this. Having my colleagues and my principal aware of my goals will help me to ensure that they come to fruition. As Dr. Peggy Ertmer (Laureate Education, 2010) pointed out, a supportive environment is vital in the development and execution of a technology rich learning environment.
Evaluate and Extend
Indicator one – Evaluating the modeling of creative thinking skills will come as a natural consequence of my monitoring plan. My reflection journal will let me know how I am doing in that area. In terms of the extension, I have two thoughts. First, I will see if I have met the goal of incorporating creative thinking skills for my students. And second, I will look at how I can do the modeling differently or better to continue to improve my students’ abilities.
Indicator five – In order to evaluate indicator number five, I will see what affect my learning communities had on my teaching and my students’ learning. Did they help to make my classroom a more creative and effective learning environment? If so, then I will seek to do more of the same and perhaps even expand my learning community beyond my department. If not, I will attempt to determine why they were ineffective and see how tweaking the learning communities or looking for different learning communities could prove beneficial.
Cennamo, K., Ross, J. & Ertmer, P. (2009). Technology integration for meaningful
classroom use: A standards-based approach. (Laureate Education, Inc., Custom
ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.
Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2010). Program four. Enriching Content
Area Learning Experiences with Technology. [Webcast]. Integrating Technology
Across the Content Areas. MD: Author.
Bryan,
ReplyDeleteFor your first goal have you thought of surveying your students as an evaluation of how they learn from your modeling of creativity. I'm wondering if they recognize that they benefit from your actions.
I would also suggest you investigate your professional community. I joined a reading association and it did nothing for my collaborative goals. Ask others if they benefited from joining, especially if there is a membership fee.
Suzanna Tornberg
Hi Bryan.
ReplyDeleteIt seems as though you have some good plans for achieving your GAME goals. I also chose Indicator 5 because I believe, like you, that it is often more comfortable for us to find a way of working and stick with it. I have learned so much from other people but, like you, I have rarely reach out since I did not feel as though I needed any help.
Creative thinking is such a vital component and, whether you realize it or not, you probably do already model it (though maybe not explicitly) to your students. All good teachers have to be creative thinkers just to come up with their lesson plans in the first place! I wonder if you can plan to teach your lessons more as problem solving, inquiry projects which will naturally ask the students to become more creative and self-directed?
In my limited experience, second languages are often taught by textbook. Learn the vocabulary, then the grammar, then put the two together and this seems ridiculous when you compare to the way children naturally learn their native tongue. I am sure that you are probably far more progressive and realize that language comes from a common need to communicate for trade and socialization. I wonder how much more engaged and creative students might be if languages were taught from this perspective.
Susan