Instructional Technology Professional Development

Career Goals and Objectives

As an Intervention Specialists it is apparent that I remain informed of various intervention plans from education to social behavior skills. I would like to help students improve their behavior so they can effectively participate and learn during class time. Introducing technology in my instruction to aid with multiple learning styles, so each child is able to achieve the goal of 80% accuracy on all assessments through the school year.

Continued Education

I will utilize various resources to learn differentiated techniques that will help enhance student receptiveness and application skills. I can utilize personal development opportunities that will aid in implementing technology and interventions, which are vital to Special Education instructors. Organizations such as: PBS.org, National Organization of Special Education Teachers, and ED.gov.

Career Goal Timeline

My plan is to use at least 2-3 types of technology when teaching for all content areas. This would include but is not limited to CD and text read (via Smart Board), computerized testing or practice, and interactive assignments with the use of computers. I would also like to take one professional development and Math class each year which coincides with the curriculum needed to be highly qualified by the end of 2014. This will make me a more effective teacher, and marketable in my field.

Using Technology

I believe by acquiring the knowledge needed to teach specific Mathematical concepts that so many mild/learning disabled students miss will prove to be rewarding. As well as, learning the correct way to employ technology to get various interventions across to my students will also prove to be an asset towards learning. Encouraging student to remain focused by introducing technology that the all have a common ground of understanding, to aid with deficits that need to mastered before learning new concepts. Technology can also be used in the form of tutorials for new concepts.

Summary Reflections for Chapters 5 & 6 (Integrating Educational Technology into Teaching)

These two chapters where packed with so much information that can be used to integrate technology in my partially hospitalization classroom. I was thinking that the most important usages would be reading intervention and social skills. Most of my students struggle with reading as a specific learning disability, as well as social behavior skills. I constantly try to merge the two concepts together. Therefore, the major components, academically is reading, comprehension, and writing skills.

          Carlin-Menter and Shuell (2003) states “by engaging students in multimedia design during the writing process, two-dimensional linear thinking is replaced with multidimensional thinking with regard to story character, and context” (171). These concepts are extremely difficult for children with Emotional Disturbance disorders. I would like to be able to tap into the cognitive adjustments that can be utilized to accommodate writing skills that demonstrate reading comprehension and social behavior skills.

          I had my students write a 5 paragraph assignment describing the events that caused them to be enrolled in a behavior program. The students were given five prompted topic ideas to start each paragraph (which included the introduction and conclusion). I thought, since the final paragraph states how he/she would replace negative behaviors with appropriate ones, it could work as a self fulfilling prophecy. This assignment was great!

          However, it would have been even better if the student could read or listen to their classmates’ responses. It was really more evident to me after reading the text how this could be accomplished; the text suggested several ways. I thought about creating a behavior website, and/or an anthology for the students writing with the use of desktop publishing discussed at the beginning of chapter five.

          After reading chapter six, I could see that it would be beneficial for my students to be videotaped enacting their own behavior skits. Of course a lot of planning would have to go into this, especially getting parental permission. Although, it could be time consuming, this would be helpful in showing students that they can modify their behavior, even if they were just acting. It would prove to be a positive influence, having students watch themselves, and using behavior skits that address immediate social skill deficits. This will promote positive social and behavior skill growth.

Using Contemporary Instructional Software to Engage "Digital Natives"

                        Teachers can address students’ needs from various learning backgrounds, when they choose to utilize instructional software in their lesson plans. This was shown in the “Schools Use Games for Learning and Assessments” video (http://www.edutopia.org/computer-simulations-games-virtual-learning-video). This will help to engage “Digital Natives” in participating and learning new concepts more effectively. Bloom’s Taxonomy’s higher-order of learning can be implemented in instructions, because various levels of difficulty can be administered to age and cognitively appropriate standards. This order addresses the learning levels in these categories: Knowledge, Comprehension, Application, Analysis, Synthesis, and Evaluation. Each level of learning can be incorporated, and/or introduced in various software programs.

          The benefits of using technology as a teaching tool, is the advantage of remedial, and specific interventions being targeted through the use of video games and instructional software programs. Often students lack the background knowledge to grasp the concept that is being presented in class. Let’s face it our students come from various backgrounds and socioeconomic statuses. Therefore creating the right circumstances or situational examples to create some type of familiarity for them to connect to can be close to impossible in some situations, Integrating Educational Technology into Teaching, Robyler and Doering states, “Teachers simply cannot give students access to the resources or situations that stimulation can (89).” Not only are these factors important starting points for instruction, but realizing the multiple intelligences each student has must be taken under consideration. The hands on, and interactive activities allows students to start on an even turf. Therefore, the students are using basic skills that help to enhance higher level learning on a more common ground, so mostly all students can be successful. Another good reason to use technology in the classroom is equally important for students who are gifted, as the video Digital Youth Portrait: Sam (http://www.edutopia.org/digital-generation-profile-sam-video) brought out. It conveys that this population of students can have an opportunity to experience enrichment lessons that help to inspire, and accommodate for boredom by releasing the student to creativity.

          In an ideal technology situation, there would be a lot of advantages for using instructional software to enhance students’ learning. I can recall a virtual frog dissecting website that I had came across a few years ago. This site was interactive and allowed students to practice, and take their time finding the correct parts of the frog, before the assessment. Therefore the student can work at his/her own pace to study, and submit the test at the given time. I thought this was excellent, especially thinking back to my own nightmare of dissecting a real frog, and the smell…. Well, let’s just say it was very unpleasant for me. In the textbook, Roblyer and Doering brought out, “Many school systems are finding dissections of animals on a computer screen to be much less expensive and just as instructional as using real frogs or cats (89).” Also, virtual labs can be essential to science teachers, especially when dealing with certain formulas that can be dangerous or impractical for classroom use.

   

Integrating Educational Technology into Teaching

            Chapter Two of the text, Integrating Education Technology into Teaching, helped me see how this accommodation can appeal to students of various multiple intelligences. The chapter was also proactive in regards to teacher’s self-reflection, and states that “awareness enables teachers to set learning goals for themselves and, in turn, to make thoughtful decisions for technology integration (67).” Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) Framework provides teachers with guidelines to implement learning theories into lesson plans using technology. The authors brought that “teaching is a complex combination of what teachers know about the content they teach and they decided to teach that content” (49). However, in order to integrate technology in the lesson plans, teachers will need to understand the concepts needed to use it, as well as. “Technology pedagogical content knowledge is an understanding that emerges from an interaction of content, pedagogy, and technology knowledge” (49).  Figure 2.8 in the text was extremely helpful in helping teachers visualize how other knowledge domains connect to each other to create TPACK. The TPACK model overlaps each other within Content Knowledge, Pedagogical Knowledge, and Technology Knowledge.

Technology Integration Planning (TIP) Model for teachers is the reciprocal to TPACK. Just as equally important to the understanding teachers will gain from TPACK, they need to learn how to implement what they have learned in their planning. The texts conveys the fact that there are different types of teachers, those who are very knowledgeable in their content area, some who are technologically savvy, and others who have a toolbox of teaching methods that they can utilize at any time. However, the six phases of TIP consists of the following:

Phase 1 focus: What is my technological pedagogical content knowledge?  Think where you see yourself in the frame. What are your strengths and weaknesses? This will help set learning goals.

Phase 2 focus: Why should I use a technology-based method? Everett Rogers brought out a good point; teachers needing to see a relative advantage. Meaning that before changing a lesson plan to incorporate technology, there needs to be clear cut benefits for the new method.

Phase 3 focus: How will I know students have learned? Well, the lessons should have an objective that students will be expected to met. The teacher will assess the students on how well they meet the objective.

Phase 4 focus: What teaching strategies and activities will work best? Teachers will take the characteristics of the topic, students’ needs, and then decide on what instructional course to take. Also, he/she will have to remember to take into consideration the classroom environment and constraints.

Phase 5 focus: Are essential conditions in the place to support technology integrations? This is important because if your lesson plan is in need of a Smart Board, so you can print notes from it, and you do not have the technical support needed – of course, it will be impossible to implement this technology in you lesson. Therefore, school districts will have to be supportive of technology use in the classroom.

Phase 6 focus: What worked well? What could be improved? These questions are also used for any lesson plan. However, in cooperation with technology, being able to pinpoint success will be helpful for the next lesson and critiquing.

I can recall being at a teacher in service about integrating technology, last month. We discussed how students on different academic levels can be incorporated in higher level technical assignments. One of my ideas was to use the Response to Intervention (RTI) pyramid and groups. The students will then be re-grouped into with tier 2-3 students to complete an assignment, and finally the students who are on an enrichment track would create a website for the assignment. The website would incorporate all the facts (from tier 1), the research and essays (form tier 1-3), and technology (from all three tiers). Therefore, all the students can see their work being displayed on the websites (on three websites per class). Some of the veteran teachers thought it would take too much work, but the instructor and other teachers thought it would be fun, and worthwhile trying.