Evaluating My GAME Plan Progress--Week5

As I inch closer to my goals, I feel pretty good about how I have developed my GAME Plan and continued on with it. Growing up, I was always told that every action had an equal or opposite reaction. The actions that I have taken to help meet my goals have been successful, helpful and at the same time frustrating. I have been able to talk with my mentor teacher and other colleagues about different assessments that they use in their classroom in regards to technology. They have really helped me and furthered my interest in learning new software that will help aid with that. With my second goal, collaborating with students, peers, parents and community members, I have had some struggles. Some people are interested and others just simply are not. Those that are interested do not have the time right now. So I have kind of stalled out for the time being. After my spring break, I am going to contact some schools in the state and ask if they would like to collaborate on a project.

I have learned a great deal. I think the biggest thing that I take away from this, is that when we set GAME Plans into motion, we need to prepare ourselves and be ready to adapt and change the GAME Plan when it is needed. New questions have arisen throughout the process and have led me to different areas that I did not think about before.

I feel that I still need to learn that this takes time and is a process. I am a person who generally likes things to happen as fast as they can. When I set a goal, I am pretty determined to make that happen, especially when it comes to education. Unfortunately sometimes things do happen--collaborators not having the time or people not being interested in collaborating--and I just need to remember to take some time to think things through and evaluate when necessary.

At this time, I feel that my GAME Plan for collaborating with others will probably not take place until next year. To fit my current needs, I need to focus on getting plans in place and being prepared for that. My goal for varied assessments does not really need to be adjusted; I need to put all my learning and research into action-using it in the classroom.

So from everything that has happened so far, the most important thing is to be prepared. Here is a link to a video that will remind you to Be Prepared.

Monitoring My GAME Plan

When I make goals, the hardest part for me is actually completing the goals. I would say that I average about 50-70% completion of all my goals throughout my life. Just to show you here are some examples of completing goals:

Soccer Championship
BPA Officer
BPA Scholarship
High School Diploma
Acceptance to The Ohio State University
Getting my Bachelors Degree with a teaching certificate from OSU
Getting married
Having a baby--who is now 2.5 years old

Now here are some goals that haven't been reached/completed

Lose the baby weight
Give up Pop
No sugar
Any New Year's Resolution




So it's not always easy completing goals that we set. In terms of My GAME Plan, monitoring the GAME Plan is the most important part to completing my goals. Information and resources have been abundant for my goals. Most of those resources are for providing varied assessments for my students. For this particular goal, I have learned that I still need to work on my knowledge of assessments and work at it to get it to the level it needs to be. I feel that I need to modify the GAME Plan for this goal, so that it includes more of me learning about Assessments in general and the concepts of it. Then being able to delve into the different assessments available and beginning to implement them into the classroom.

For my second goal, collaborating with students, peers, parents and community members is going so-so. I am getting great support from colleagues and administrators. They are helping me find resources needed and providing me with details on how to form collaborative partnerships with schools and businesses in the area. I am finding it harder to collaborate with parents. I knew this would be an area of challenge. Most parents are busy with work, raising other children, children's activities, and then their own personal lives. So I am trying to figure out if there is a way to schedule or get around these issues with the parents. Of course one parent did contact me and explain that she felt very lacking in knowledge and did not feel comfortable with using technology but would love to help out in other ways. The thought occurred to me that maybe we could invite parents and some members of the community to an Evening of Learning--hosted by the students. Students would be able to teach those who did not feel comfortable with technology. This could included--internet, email, skype, Microsoft Office and even get into some of the bigger software that my student's use--photoshop, premiere, etc.

For both of my goals, things are falling into place, there are some issues that have come up. When that happens, I just need to refocus and reorganize. It is important to be able to adapt and look at the bigger picture.

Now I need to go back and start on those goals that I have yet to complete....

Resources for GAME Plan

In order to carry out my GAME plan, I need to utilize various resources. For my goals, I would like to provide students with multiple and varied formative and summative assessments aligned with content and technology standards and use resulting data to inform learning and teaching; and I would like to collaborate with students, peers, parents and community members using digital tools and resources to support student success and innovation, to be achieved I need to talk with various people. The people I need to resource are: parents, colleagues, school administrators,mentor teacher, other community members, and most importantly my students. I am going to need to do some research as well, and I need to utilize the Internet, read journal articles, magazines and some books. When it comes to the use of digital tools, I really need to learn about the different tools and actually work with--getting to know the ins and outs of those tools.

I have taken some steps to accomplishing my goals. I started talking with my mentor teacher about different assessments that they use in their classroom. I sent out a letter to parents asking them to fill out a survey that I created--asking them about ways they could collaborate using digital tools that would support student learning. I have a meeting set up with school administrators to discuss implementing collaborative partnerships with local schools, businesses and giving them an idea of what I am hoping to do with the collaborative partnerships.

To accomplish my goals, I need to get the resources needed and to get involved with and in these resources.

GAME Plan

GAME Plan 1

Goals: I would like to provide students with multiple and varied formative and summative assessments aligned with content and technology standards and use resulting data to inform learning and teaching. (NETS-T 2d)(International Society for Technology in Education, 2008)

Action: I am going to talk with my mentor teacher and ask about how they provide students with multiple and varied formative and summative assessments. I will also do some research on the different types of assessments I can provide for my students through online research.

Monitor: Did I talk with my mentor teacher? Did the mentor teacher provide me with answers for how they implement different assessments? Did I research different types of assessments? Do these assessments fit in with the curriculum I teach? Are these assessments going to be effective for my students?

Evaluate & Extend: Determine which assessments will work best in my classroom and which assessments fit in with each lesson plan. Discuss my findings with my mentor teacher and show them what I plan to do to incorporate these assessments in my classroom.



GAME Plan 2

Goals: I would like to collaborate with students, peers, parents and community members using digital tools and resources to support student success and innovation. (NETS-T 3b)(International Society for Technology in Education, 2008)

Action: I am going to contact peers, parents and community members and ask for them to meet with me and discuss different ways we can collaborate to support our students through the use of digital tools. I am going to research schools across the nation that has collaboration partnerships and see how they support their students. Setup collaboration partnerships that will allow my students to utilize community members to help support their success and innovation through the use of digital tools. Talk with school administrators and discuss the implementation process of a collaborative partnership.

Monitor: Did I meet with peers, parents and community members to discuss ways of supporting our students? Are these supporters willing to commit to supporting students? Do we have the resources available to support our students? What types of things do the supporters bring to the table? What are other schools doing?

Evaluate & Extend: Determine if there is a strong support system ready to go and in place for my students learning. Continue to talk with supporters about other ideas and options we have available to us. Continue to research digital tools and how they can be used in collaboration with supporters of students. Discuss with school administrators all of the research I have looked at and the information I have gathered from the supporters.

References
International Society for Technology in Education, Initials. (2008). Nets for teachers 2008. Retrieved from http://www.iste.org/standards/nets-for-teachers/nets-for-teachers-2008.aspx