TPACK Reflection
As I wrote in my TPACK blog last semester, growing in TPACK is a constant and ongoing process. Every day in the classroom is a new opportunity to refine my content knowledge, streamline my pedagogical approach, and optimize technology use. For my project, I’ve had to work hard on all three. My primary challenge is to find uses that aren’t simply online replacements for what I already do in the classroom. I don’t want to use technology for technology’s sake. It needs to be meaningful. One recent foray into TPACK involved using Educreations, my favorite interactive whiteboard app, to assess my students in math. Each student could choose a subtraction problem and record themselves solving it on Educreations. This simple assessment hit at least two of the intersection points on the TPACK Venn diagram. While this Educreations assessment doesn’t relate directly to my capstone project, and it doesn’t necessarily advance my first graders as budding technologists, it was a nifty way for me to “observe” every students’ proficiency with regrouping in subtraction without losing any class time….and to integrate technology with pedagogy and content knowledge. My School’s Educational Technology Mission Statement My school doesn’t yet have an educational technology mission statement. Since educational technology is an important part of our students’ education, and a mission statement is a great way of providing a framework for planning, evaluating, and assessing that education, I’m hoping that my school will develop one soon. If my school were to put together a detailed educational technology mission statement, this is what I’d like it to include, at a minimum:
How Have I Evolved and What Decisions Did I Have to Make? I think that one of my greatest areas of “evolution” in this program has been in awareness. I teach in a K-8 private parochial school, and most of my daily interactions are with other early elementary teachers. When I take a professional development course, my focus is on how I can apply my learning to first grade. When I’m reading about pedagogy or content knowledge or technology, it’s all within the context of young learners. I’ve been part of two Touro cohorts, both of which included a wide variety of teachers, including high school teachers, art teachers, science and math teachers, language teachers, and more. Developing an understanding of how other teachers teach, use technology, and address the diverse needs of their diverse students has helped me evolve in perspective. When I think of my first graders as future high school students, it helps me to craft a curriculum and an environment with a larger goal in mind. While I still address their developmental needs today, I better understand how the academic and social demands on them will change over time.
4 Comments
Florencia
3/2/2017 09:11:57 pm
Lori,
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Jenny
3/3/2017 12:59:27 pm
I really enjoyed reading the description of your journey and evolution as an educator through the Innovative Learning program as it's very similar to my own. Like you, I find so much value in hearing from our cohort members at different levels and subject areas. Both the similarities and differences prompt me to think of both where my students are before they come to me in 5th grade and where they will be heading when they leave me and what part I play in the student's educational journey.
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Dana Hand
3/3/2017 07:33:44 pm
Like others in our cohort, my school does not have an educational technology mission statement either. Although teachers are expected to teach the Common Core State Standards K-12 Technology Skills, many teachers I know (including myself!) have not even mastered some of these skills that our 5th graders are supposed to have mastered. I agree that the goals of the ed tech program does need to be vertically aligned between grade levels. The CCSS Scope and Sequence is actually pretty clear and user friendly, but I know our site has never sat down together and discussed them at all. Dipping our toes into digital citizenship/acceptable might be an important place for our school to begin.
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Devorah
3/8/2017 10:16:59 am
I feel that as educators in Northern California, home to the technological revolution, it is so surprising that so many of the schools in the area do not have technology mission statements. As "Innovative Educators", this should be our priority! We have to strongly encourage our administrators to create this.
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