I must say that throughout this course I have gained a wealth of knowledge regarding the implementation of technology in various content areas. I have enjoyed reading about what my colleagues who teach other subjects and grade levels have done to implement technology in their classrooms. I also feel that I have grown professionally through the development and implementation of my personal G-A-M-E Plan.
To recap, the goals I have identified for my G-A-M-E plan are as follows:
1. To increase my collaboration time with a colleague outside of my PLC. 2. To engage in collaborative conversations with students (both seniors and fifth graders) and other teachers to facilitate increase proficiency in my students' writing skills. As a side note, I will strive to ensure that the comments I leave for students are constructive in nature. I will avoid statements such as "Nice job" or "Good Work". My feedback should be specific (Goemaat, 2015).
1. To increase my collaboration time with a colleague outside of my PLC. 2. To engage in collaborative conversations with students (both seniors and fifth graders) and other teachers to facilitate increase proficiency in my students' writing skills. As a side note, I will strive to ensure that the comments I leave for students are constructive in nature. I will avoid statements such as "Nice job" or "Good Work". My feedback should be specific (Goemaat, 2015).
I have learned that when collaborating with a colleague who is outside of your building, communication is very important. There were many times in the past 6 weeks that things had come up that prevented the senior writing teacher and I to collaborate face to face. Whether it was changes in her schedule, sickness, field trips, etc. It just seemed that it was hard to find a time to talk. We had to get creative with our time and found that using email and even an occasional phone call over lunch was enough just to touch base with each other. Even though this class is ending, this collaborative partnership will not. We are planning to continue just as we are now through at least this school year. We will reevaluate in the spring to see if there is benefit for all stakeholders to continue collaborative writing partnerships.
My second goal was to engage in collaborative conversations with both my fifth graders and their senior partners. I must say, this is probably an area that I have not done as well in. I have not been nearly as consistent as I had hoped and planned for. Many time, I would meet with my own students while they were writing and gave them verbal feedback, when I did that, I failed to go back online and give feedback within the document itself. I think that is important, because I could also collaborate with the senior as well. This is something that I will have to address. I may not have to adjust my plan, but I do need to adjust my practice. A possible way to do that could be to have a no talking writing period. So, if they need help on their writing, they should send me a message asking me to get on their doc. This might help me to increase my online presence and also allow students to experience more of this type of feedback.
I had hoped to find some support from other educators by posting about collaborative writing partnerships on a discussion board, but found that those who responded had never done anything like it before and were asking me questions. I was happy to oblige and we, of course, still had thought provoking conversations. I was also disappointed in the book that I had found and ordered for giving productive feedback. It really wasn't what I thought it was going to be, and found it did not give me the tools and/or resources I had hoped for. Again, I don't believe I need to adjust my plan or goals because of this roadblock, I just need to keep searching and eliciting suggestions and guidance from other colleagues.
Because my plan is based around social networking, I believe that I have a good grasp on how to implement that into my teaching. Problem Based Learning and Digital Storytelling are also two things that I am looking to incorporate more as the year goes on. I would really like to look at using them specifically in Science and Social Studies. They could both make for great final projects in an independent study that students work on over an extended period of time. As I have stated before, I work with some amazing educators in my PLC and I plan to bring some of these ideas to the table to see how they can best be utilized and monitored to create the richest, most engaging environment for our students.
References
Goemaat, A. (2015, September 9). Mrs. G's G-A-M-E Plan. [Blog Post]. Retrieved from http://frivolousreflect.blogspot.com
