Final Course Reflective Post

1) Has your perspective and/or feelings changed about technology in instruction as a result of being in this course? How?

In many aspects I learned about many tools that would be helpful in the classroom setting where technology is integrated into the school. However, I am leaving this class feeling frustrated with the amount of time and effort I had to exude to create a story board or a voice over. Seeing how difficult and frustrating these types of tools were to make, I am not likely to make them again in the future. However, learning about tools like padlet have been a great resource. My current perspective on technology is that it should not be in the class unless it is creating better time management.

2) Which technologies or tools used in this course stand out to you? Why?

The technologies and tools that stand out to me are using a weebly for a classroom blog to inform students are parents of the occurrences and expectations of the classroom (this is from my EDF course). Additionally, I could see myself using padlet in the class. I found a wealth of technology resources from my EDI 331 professor for teaching foreign languages. These resources provide authentic contexts and materials for the learners and can be differentiated according to the student. 

Don’t start by thinking about how to use a technology but rather to think about what you want students to be able to do. And then think about how technology can help you do that. ~Kevin Gaugler

3) Which technology(-ies) are you most eager to use in the classroom? How will you use it? (This may or may not be the one(s) chosen for your final project.)

I am most eager to use the resources shared in my content seminar. They provide real contexts like speaking to a pen pal, reading news articles and researching current events in the target language. Bringing authenticity and culture into learning. There is also a website, vocaroo.com where students can record themselves speaking. I look forward to using this tool to have conversations with students where they are speaking in the target language and receiving feedback in the target language as well.

4) Based on your answer to number 3, do you think you can implement the tech. tool in a planned upcoming lesson that you will be teaching? Or, suggest it to your CT to use in an upcoming lesson? Explain.

In my current placement technology is not used because the computers tend to be glitchy. I would implement reading authentic material but I would not create a lesson that depends on the students using technology. For group work especially I would like to use a padlet for brainstorming ideas or words between the groups. 

Final Project

I am in an rural school setting, a 9th grad classroom where technology is 1-1 for students. For my final project I've created a unit where students learn irregular "yo" verbs in Spanish, they practice these verbs and as part of their final project, they create a story book with sentences using the "yo verbs". I've also added an element of differentiation to this unit because students will have different ways they want to present and create their story books. They can use an online story creator, they can draw the images and create their story book by hand and then video themselves turning through the book or they can create a powerpoint or a prezi presentation to model their story book.

The authenticity of this unit comes from the fact that students will be reading their stories to a class of Spanish immersion first graders. This is a great project to involve creative ideas as well as Spanish writing skills.

To assess the stories, I've created a rubric that outlines the expectations for every sentence a student creates. The sentence needs to have a subject, the subject needs to be "yo", the verb needs to be from our irregulars, ect. This rubric is set up where it's either a yes they have the element or no they do not. For grading, I believe this takes out the opinion piece and allows the grades to be assigned based on how the story met the standards.

Learning Readiness

Gifted Learners:

Something that surprised me from the video resources is how gifted students typically can have anxiety with group projects and grades because of their drive for perfection. I believe that one of the methods we are taught is partner and group work because it does have many benefits for students (interpersonal communication, safety net for speaking, more engaging) and for teachers (less grading, collaboration, everyone is speaking and listening). However, some students do not enjoy working in groups for various reasons. Anxiety from perfection being a reason that I have not really thought about. For gifted students, working with others may cause anxious feelings because of their need for perfection and their social communication skills. I personally have seen this play out in my placement with a student who really finds his classmates immature and does not enjoy their comments in class or working with them. He tends to do his work alone and does not want to work with a partner or group. I've noticed that if he is with a group, he's usually withdrawn from the activity and will do a separate page all for himself. 

In my present classroom, I believe that I better understand the anxieties that this student faces. For him, all of our group work, class discussions and general off topic discussions must be incredibly frustrating. Our class struggles with behavior management and for this student, he must experience incredible anxiety from the lack of structure and organization. Usually, when things are array in the class, he usually reads his book. My CT does not approve of him reading his book but going forward with this new information, I think I will ask her if she or I can ask him how he feels in class and how we can help him be more comfortable. Additionally, in future classrooms it is important that I know my students and I know them well. Technology can be a way to allow students to choose who they work with and what projects they work on. For gifted students, technology allows the teacher to give them content that will stretch them and help them grow while everyone in the class is learning. 

In general, it is essential that we as educators understand that gifted students are often mislabeled. We need to know who our students are. It's also important that all of our students are comfortable in our classrooms. Gifted students may prefer to work alone rather than in groups, that's okay. 

UDL In our classroom

Principles 2.4 & 2.5: Integrating language into the classroom and using multiple media to meet student needs.

I was able to find a lot of great resources on the UDL website for both of these principles but I was also able to find 2 additional sites and sources that can be helpful. The first, Tagxedo is a site that allows anyone to create a word map or a concept map in any language. This is another way for students to display their thinking but I love that this is not language exclusive. I know in my classroom there are some students who are stressed when they have to use technology, this site seems easy to manage but it could be better for some to have the option to create a hard copy rather than a technology copy, this is a modification that can easily be made. Like I said, there is not a language barrier so students are able to create or learn vocabulary through this site. Personally, I see myself using this site to create some class posters!
Tagxedo is UDL friendly because it meets a variety of languages and allows students to display their learning and knowledge in another format.
The second resource I found that is UDL friendly is audiobooks. I sourced LearningAlly and iBooks as two great resources. I am under the impression that LearningAlly is language exclusive in English right now but hearing and following an English book is helpful for English Language Learners. iBooks does have a medium library of bilingual audio books and other language audio books. Over the years, I expect both of these resources to multiply in their offerings to students. These two sources are UDL friendly because they present written material in an oral way, as I stated in my video for many language learners, when we allow them to hear and see the word and remove the pronunciation or decoding process they are able to comprehend more. These are both great resources to embrace languages in the classroom and to use multiple media strategies to help students learn, no matter their first language.

Here's my Vlog:

Cyberbullying

Cyberbullying:

• What is it: Cyberbullying is a form of bullying that happens using an online platform. I define bullying as an action that hurts or belittles another human which is able to occur in a variety of platforms. 
• Image resource of an overview of Michigan's Cyberbully Laws:
• Cyberbullying statistic: "More than half of adolescents and teens have been bullied online, and about the same number have engaged in cyber bullying" (Guardchild.com) 
• Resources: Media Smarts
• Media Smarts is a website that provides lesson plans for teachers on a variety of subjects including:
• Virtual vs. Physical Worlds
• Avatars & Identity
• Ethical Online Behavior 
• The lessons are for grades 5-9 and include a detailed lesson plan with thinking prompts and questions and ethical questions to ask a class to have a discussion about cyberbullying and the possible effects students' actions can have.  

Does homework really boost achievement?

We've all had homework in at least one stage of our life, but did homework really impact our academic achievement? For many schools, homework is a common practice, teachers believe that students will grow and learn more because of the work they are doing outside of the classroom. In the United States educational culture homework is a common string, meaning there should be a wealth of research and studies that supports homework, but does it exist? Research reveals that "the relationship between time spent on homework and achievement gains at the student level is unclear" (Trautwein, Köller, 2003, p. 116) in part this is due to the empirical method of study but also because studying the effectiveness of homework in relation to achievement is a difficult to measure. When we look at an additional study we find that "homework has a positive association with achievement and that this association is strongest and most positive at the secondary level..." (Maltese, Tai, Fan, 2012, p. 53) however the author continues by clarifying "...crucial questions remained unaddressed." (Maltese, 2012, p. 59). They were unable to answer important questions like whether time on homework directly impacts achievement or if homework time can be associated with higher test scores. In a study that studied other studies the following was published: "We found 69 correlations between homework and achievement reported in 32 documents. Fifty correlations were in positive direction and 19 in a negative direction." (Cooper,Robinson, Patall, 2006, p. 48). To summarize the paragraph above, research that has been conducted on homework and achievement have found varied data and difficult methods to measure true achievement and not include confounding variables. Studies have shown both that homework is affective but it has also been shown that homework does not affect student achievement.

Interestingly, one study has found a factor that directly impacts student achievement: time spent on homework. In a comparison between Chinese, Japanese and American culture mothers were asked from each culture to estimate the time their children spent on homework daily. Generally the american mothers reported that their children spent very little time on homework (70 minutes) whereas the time spent on homework in the first grade by children of Chinese and Japanese culture were staggering in comparison (494 minutes (China) and 233 minutes (Japan). The study continues to list ways that student achievement is impacted through homework and other variables such as time spent with a parent, student motivation and homework help (Chen, Stevenson, 1989, p. 559).

In conclusion, we have not found that homework helps nor harms a student's achievement. Based on the research used I would conclude that a student is much more impacted by the learning goals associated to the homework as well as family and environment factors outside of school. Student achievement may be impacted by homework but is most definitely is impacted by student's home environment and support. To a fellow colleague I would recommend to align your homework with your content core goals. I would also encourage my colleague to consider the student's home environment before assigning homework. It is vital to consider is this student will have access to the tools they will need to complete the assignment.

References:


Chen, C., & Stevenson, H. (1989). Homework: A Cross-Cultural Examination. Child Development,60(3), 551-561.

Cooper, H., Robinson, J., & Patall, E. (2006). Does Homework Improve Academic Achievement? A Synthesis of Research, 1987-2003. Review of Educational Research, 76(1), 1-62.

Maltese, A., Tai, R., & Fan, X. (2012). When is Homework Worth the Time? Evaluating the Association Between Homework and Achievement in High School Science and Math. The High School Journal, 96(1), 52-72

Trautwein, U., & Köller, O. (2003). The Relationship Between Homework and Achievement—Still Much of a Mystery. Educational Psychology Review,15(2), 115-145. 

Post #3: Power of the Blog

I have many thoughts about the potential of using a blogging platform in my future class. My CT uses a blogging platform for her Spanish AP class to post comments and questions that she did not discuss in class or use the questions as homework. She asks that her students post their own thoughts and comments and also respond to their classmate's thoughts and comments. I think this is one way to potentially use a blog: incorporating student discussion outside of the class on a blogging platform.

Another potential way to incorporate a blog is for student creativity. The internet gives students a chance to create and innovate in ways that some cannot complete through written word or paper-based/materials based projects. Students can incorporate almost any element available on the internet into their blog, making their access to learning tools unlimited. Some students may prefer visual cues where as others may prefer audio, through youtube and images both of the elements become incorporable into both teaching and creating.

Personally, I see a blog as a great way to monitor growth. I have this idea that for my Spanish 2
students they would complete a unit of cultural immersion in the classroom. Using a blog as a way to document their experiences, students would be able to video/photograph their experience in the community, share their experience and also complete the project at any time.

I now prefer to type over writing, I still see the validity and importance of writing. Having worked in my placement now for a bit, I can see where tools such as "spell-checker" and "autocorrect" are helpful to students. I think it is unrealistic, especially in an language learning classroom to expect perfect spelling, but with blogging there are tools to help students try and spell how the words sound and then be corrected and see the correct spelling.

From my limited exposure I think that a blog offers more creative options. Parents can easily see what their child has been working on (big plus) and students can control many aspects of their blog with an easy layout, I always have a difficult time inserting images into Google Docs. In my opinion, a blog offers an entire realm of creativity and freedom to students that Google Docs cannot compare with.

Wrapping up my thoughts- I think that blogging has infinite uses in the classroom. I love the idea of the freedom and creativity it brings to students (and teachers).

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