My GAME plan for professional growth and leadership has already started. I teach grade 7 with two other teachers in my school. We have a homeroom system where we all teach our homerooms all four core subject areas. We have collaboration time for seventy minutes per cycle. In our last meeting our topic of discussion was the lack of math skills our students have this year. I suggested a meeting with our division curriculum support teacher for math. The principal of the school allowed us to have a half day meeting to discuss strategies that would clear up any math misconceptions or deficits in math concepts. The meeting was successful and all three of us have started to implement these strategies in our math classes. As we use the techniques to discover misconceptions we will monitor students’ progress in each of the math strands. For some of our weaker math students more diagnostic tools would be appreciated to establish their actual math and numeracy levels. Wahl and Duffield (2005) talk about curriculum developers and textbook publishers going online to make material accessible and changeable for learners at all levels. I would like to investigate this idea further and try to bring this into my school.
Seeing that one of my goals is to bring more usable technology into my classroom, I would also need the necessary budget and training to implement these programs. Some years ago I had a student who was issued a computer through government funding. One software application loaded on the computer was a text to speech word processing program. I was given no training on this program whatsoever. I was told by our resource teacher that the student knew how to use it. Not true. However, that is where it was left. The student did not get full benefit of the program. If had had to do it again, I would demand the training required for the student and myself. I have mentioned to my administrator that other software programs could be used to benefit some of our more special needs students (not only in my classroom, but in our school). At this time our division is going through somewhat of a revolution of its technology policies and standards. No schools are receiving money for technology at this time.
In my last post I mentioned there was a possibility of creating a web literacy program for teachers in my school and division. Talks have slowed down and I am dealing with more staff that sees no real advantage to using technology in the classroom. I feel it is even more important to negotiate for this web literacy program. If we do not pursue this matter, we stand a good chance of failing our students in preparing them for the workforce of the 21st century. I am comforted in that one of my colleagues is finishing this program in December of this year and can help in the negotiations for my technology support for our students.
References:
Wahl, L., & Duffield, J. (2005). Using flexible technology to meet the needs of diverse learners: What teachers can do. WestEd, pp. 1–11. Retrieved from http://www.wested.org/cs/we/view/rs/763.
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I can see how you will need to become a very strong advocate for computer literacy and technology integration in your classroom, as well as your district. Currently a few teachers in our school have been busy writing grants and applying for funds through corporations. For example, one group is working on securing funds through a Pepsi grant, BP offers science related funds and Target offers small funds to teachers. I wonder if you could have any success with funding through organizations like that? Maybe you could form a small group with like-minded teachers to work together on the projects? Good Luck.
ReplyDeleteDonna C.
I think it was a great idea to sit down with your colleages and discuss the areas where your students need improvement. You are very fortunate to have a principal that would allow this. We are given a few collegial days every year to plan, but there is always so much other paperwork to do that we do not get to discuss what is really important. Collaborating with other educators can help you to develop a plan to meet the students' needs and get ideas that you may not have had alone. Including technology such as diagnostic tools when teaching students will also appeal to their learning styles and make learning more enjoyable for them.
ReplyDeleteThe problem that you experienced with a lack of training in the word processing program is similar to what many teachers are experiencing today. It is important for teachers to have a clear understanding of what they are using to teach before it can be introduced to the students. We can not expect students to use technology if we can not give them the proper instruction to use it. Stick to your idea about creating a web literacy program and I am sure that in time teachers will see how useful and helpful it can be. The more that we expose teachers and students to technology, the faster we will see improvements in student learning. Good luck!
Donna,
ReplyDeleteI like the idea of grants via corporations. I have often asked my principal if there are these types of possibilities for our school. He never gives me a direct answer. I do not know if these types of grants are not available in Canada or if our school division has a policy against such grant money. I have suggested a venture with Dell or Apple to increase the amount of technology available to students, but to this point, it will not happen. I will keep at it.
Tiffany,
ReplyDeleteSeveral years ago our school division decided that to have effective teaching, staff needed time together and discuss what works and what does not work. These times are for sharing ideas and to focus on the big ideas. I think it is working to some degree. At times these meetings turn into complaint sessions instead of productive discussion and thinking.
As the end of this program is coming sooner than I can believe, my "free" time will be spent on developing a formal proposal for the web literacy program.
Knowing what I know now, I would handle the situation of the software differently. I would be more aggressive in learning the program and getting training.
Hi Rusty,
ReplyDeleteGlad to hear that your staff discussions are going well. Our school started something similar, we are going to meet Tuesday mornings before school once a month. I hope we can be productive and stay on track. I would like to use a blog and discussion forum to brainstorm ideas before we get to the meetings--since time will be of the essence. Not sure if this will work for all teachers--as many say they do not have the time! When I became a teacher I knew that my job was going to be many hours outside of the class time. Not all teachers think this way---do you have similar problems in your school? Although, in the school I am in--we do have a great group of teachers who go the extra mile. We just have a couple of complainers!!
Tammy,
ReplyDeleteI work with many great teachers who put in much extra time. What we are encountering is more and more expected extra curricular volunteering. All our sports teams have coaches who are staff members. These are all volunteer positions. We are also expected to do other supervising for school events. These events are becoming more of a regular thing. Some of the complaining stems from the fact that we have manditory volunteering.