Week Six
Assignment: Final Project
Dyane Plumly
EDU697
Dr. Philip
Orlando, Ed. Spec
August 4, 2014
Introduction
Ten
rigorous courses later, and I am earning my Masters of Arts in Teaching and
Learning with Technology from Ashford University. This final paper for EDU697
links to my portfolio, which is a culmination of the learning that I have
obtained over the past year and a half. Additionally, this paper will explain
Ashford’s Program Learning Outcomes through my own learning experiences as I
rank their value and relevancy to me in my own teaching practice. It will also
describe the design and development challenges that I experienced while
creating my portfolio, which shows redesigned assignments to accurately reflect
my progressive learning, and the ways in which I was able to apply new learning
to overcome these challenges.
Link to ePortfolio
The
link to my final Masters of Arts in Teaching and Learning with Technology is: http://dyaneplumlymatlt.blogspot.com/. This blog, which
was created in my final course, EDU697, is a reflection of my learning over the
past ten courses. On each page, you will see Ashford's MATLT eight Program
Learning Outcomes and the assignments that show how I have attained mastery in
each of the objectives.
PLO Ranking and Justification
Throughout
the Masters of Arts in Teaching and Learning with Technology program at
Ashford, I have successfully fulfilled each of the eight Program Learning
Outcomes. As a classroom teacher, each of these learning outcomes is invaluable
and necessary for me to be the most effective educator possible. Yet, that
being said, I also must prioritize the inclusion of these learning outcomes in
my teaching practice. Due to this, my ranking for these is as follows:
#1:
PLO 4 - Apply research to support learning in a
technology-enhanced environment.
Although there
is educational value in each of the Program Learning Outcomes, I have selected
PLO 4: Apply research to support
learning in a technology-enhanced environment as my highest priority.
Obviously, I am not a researcher, so initially this selection may come as a
surprise. However, as an educator, it is my professional practice to always use
best practices. Often, teachers may reproduce old lessons or practice old
teaching practices because it’s the way things have been done, but this is not
the most effective or supportive learning environment for our students. Due to
this, I don’t want to rely on my own isolated experiences to design instruction
and assessment but rather rely on evidence-based research of the best practices
so that I can best serve my students. This pushes me to remain forward thinking
and change my practices with the demands of an ever-changing world.
#
2: PLO 3 -Design learning opportunities that apply technology-enhanced
instructional strategies to support the needs of all learners
Next, I ranked PLO 3, to design learning
opportunities that apply technology-enhanced instructional strategies to
support the needs of all learners, as the most necessary in my professional
practice. In my particular classroom, I serve students who have been
historically disenfranchised from the traditional school setting. My students
have been detained in juvenile hall (or who have parents who are incarcerated),
have substance abuse problems, in the foster care system, are English learners
who are crossing the Tijuana border each day, and have Individualized
Educational Plans – and all in addition to the “regular” teenage growing pains.
Due to this, each of my students has different learning strengths and needs and
requires personalized instruction and assessment. Due to this, the learning
that I have accumulated from this PLO allows me to use technology to support
the needs of all my learners and is invaluable.
#3. PLO 5 - Exemplify
ethical practices of technology usage
The third PLO I selected was to exemplify
ethical practices of technology usage. When reviewing the Belmont Report, the basic ethical principles are
respect for persons, beneficence, and justice. As a classroom teacher, I
always want to ensure that I am doing no harm to my students, keep them
informed about my processes, give them the opportunity to give consent for any
research I might embark on, choose resources and instructional materials that
give all students access to the technology. As a teacher, ethical
considerations must be part of my daily decision-making, yet, the other reason
why I chose to rank this PLO so highly was that it is also important to me to
teach my students to become safe users of technology. By ensuring students are
safe and responsible online, I am not only meeting my own ethical
considerations, but teaching students how to make their own.
#4 & #5:
PLO 6 - Evaluate technology resources to facilitate
effective assessment and evaluation & PLO 7 - Utilize technology to collect and analyze data,
interpret results, and communicate findings
Instructional
design principles and theory heavily influence how to use effective assessment
and evaluation tools, particularly with the use of assessment. As a classroom teacher, assessment
is critical for me to understand where my students are and what I need to do in
order to get them to the objective I have outlined. PLO 6 and PLO 7 are
critical for me as an educator because it frames
the way in which I assess students - that learning is no longer about what they
necessarily have memorized, but whether or not they know how to access
the information that they seek and determine its credibility. I have elected to
rank these Program Learning Outcomes together since using effective technology
assessment tools is directly linked to my ability to use that data to make
informed decisions in my instructional design.
# 6: PLO 8 - Demonstrate
the ability to make informed decisions regarding the use of technology in
support of learning and leadership.
My
sixth ranking is to make informed decisions to support learning and leadership.
This
PLO is important to me because I am teacher who strives to integrate technology
and to share these resources with my colleagues. In doing so, it is imperative that
the technology decisions I make must be smart, and benefit my students as we
push them forward to becoming college and career ready in an ever-evolving
digital world. The technology push can sometimes be a challenging one, and that
is why the decisions an innovate leader (what I hope to be) makes must be
carefully selected in order to support learning and leadership.
# 7 & 8:
PLO 1 - Demonstrate
knowledge and skills related to learning using technology & PLO 2 - Demonstrate
knowledge and skills in current and emerging instructional technologies.
My
final rankings are for PLO 1 & 2, which show knowledge and skills in using
relevant technology. I have ranked these two PLO’s together because they are
similar in their description of skillfully using technology. Perhaps oddly, I
have ranked these PLO’s last because I believe that by demonstrating skills in
the previous six PLO’s, these are automatically met. PLO 1 & 2 are overarching
skill and are not specific. By proving a mastery of using evidence-based
practices, ensuring that technology is supporting the needs of all my learners,
and that I am using technology to assess my learner’s and inform my
instructional decisions, then, by default, I have met PLO 1 & 2 as well.
PLO’s in the Classroom
As a high school teacher, each of the Program Learning
Outcomes from my Masters of Arts in Teaching and Learning with Technology is
absolutely relevant to my teaching practice. To begin with, the first two
PLO’s, in which knowledge and skills to using relevant, current technology for
learning purposes is an overarching expectation in my classroom – both for
myself as an educator and for my students. In my classroom, we use technology
daily. Lever-Duffy & McDonald (2011)
remind us that technology must remain a means, not an end, to student learning.
Whether it is the use of my learning management
system, Haiku, Google Drive, or the act of research, technology guides the
learning in my classroom.
As an educator, I am committed to
cultivating students that are college and career ready. Regardless of the
fields that my students may enter, they must have digital literacy skills and
be competent in their use of technology in our ever-evolving and advancing
technological world. Each of the Program Learning Outcomes, whether it is
ensuring that our technology use is safe and ethical (PLO 5) or it is helping
to guide the instructional and assessment decisions we make (PLO 3, 6 & 7),
ultimately guide students toward the path of digital literacy. As a teacher, I
must make evidence-based decisions (PLO 4) to guide my instructional design,
assess my students, lead my colleagues (PLO 8), and conduct my own research to
collect data for effectiveness and change (PLO 7).
Overcoming Design and Development
Challenges
The
development of my portfolio has been an opportunity for me to create a
culminating project that is a reflection of my learning over the past ten
courses. Yet, this process also includes some design and development
challenges.
When
initially tasked with creating a portfolio, my first challenge was choosing
which technology tool I would use to showcase my work. I oscillated between the
use of a wiki and a blog. Initially, I contemplated using a wiki, as I believe
that they are more collaborative and serve as more “living and breathing”
document. However, when considering the purpose of my portfolio, I wanted to
choose a tool that showcased my work and accomplishments – not necessarily
something that would continue to evolve.
Due to this, and my desire to use a tool that would connect to Google
(in order to streamline with all other resources and tools that I regularly
use), I elected to use Blogger.
Yet, this
selection still left me with several other challenges to consider. I had to
determine a proper layout that was both aesthetically pleasing and functional. In
previous coursework, we had learned about design principles. According Clark & Mayer (2011),
“instructional designers should consider how words and pictures work together
to create meaning for the learner” (p. 70). In my
understanding, this means that when both text and images are used to shape a
learner’s experience, it can be more stimulating and engaging - yet, they must
work in cohesion so that they are not distracting from or depressing the
learning.
As my portfolio is a tool used to showcase my
hard work over the past year and a half, I also wanted to employ my own
aesthetical preferences as well – clean and simple. Due to this, I decided to
focus my portfolio on showing clear, easy to view information on my assignments
and not use decorative or other graphics. As my portfolio is ultimately about
me, I did elect to share my Jing video (an audio presentation that includes a
visual slide) and a small image of myself. Otherwise, I wanted only the use of
color (the background) and the layout to be visually pleasing but used in a way
that emphasized the actual work. In discussions with some of my classmates,
this seemed to be a smart choice, as many of my classmates enjoyed the visual
appeal of my blog and did not suggest the use of extra graphics.
My
most significant challenge occurred throughout the six weeks as I was working
through the development of my portfolio. This challenge was selecting
appropriate assignments to align with the Program Learning Outcome redesigns. As
both a current student and classroom teacher, my main priority throughout this
Ashford program was to ensure that the work I completed as a student would be
useful my work as a teacher. I wanted my learning experience to be authentic
and relevant. This helps to save time for myself and ensure that my students are benefiting
from my experiences as a student and what I am learning.
Each week, we
were tasked to redesign a former assignment to align it the Program Learning
Outcomes. As a studious student, I initially thought that my assignments would
already meet the various criteria. However, upon further review, starting from
my first course until the most recent, I realized how much I had progressed and
learned through the MATLT program. Suddenly, I had to sift through many
assignments and consider best candidates for a thoughtful review – not only to
make sure it align with the PLO, but also to make changes that would benefit my
students upon their delivery in my classroom.
In order to do so, I had to
spend a lot of time reading prior coursework and research texts. Yet, by
collaborating with my classmates who I have shared this educational journey
with, I was able to find appropriate assignments to redesign and recall prior
articles and texts to assist me in ensuring that my redesigns were
evidence-based.
Throughout the design of this
portfolio, both design and development challenges arose. However, I found that
each were manageable to overcome by practicing my firm belief of making the
work authentic to my classroom and collaborating with my peers to gain their
valuable input and insight to my work.
Conclusion
As
I conclude my Masters of Arts in Teaching and Learning with Technology from
Ashford University, it is my hope that this final EDU697 reflective paper and
my portfolio will showcase the learning that I have engaged in for the past
year and a half. By tying the eight Program Learning Outcomes to the various
tasks I have completed, I was able to make connections to the learning
objectives, as well as reflect and deepen my overall learning experience.
Although challenges naturally occurred, the skills and knowledge base I have
gained throughout my program allowed me to overcome them and create a final
product I am proud of.
References
Clark, R. C. & Mayer, R. E. (2011). E-Learning
and the science of instruction (3rd ed). San Francisco. Pfeiffer.
Lever-Duffy,
J. & McDonald, J. B. (2011). Teaching and learning with technology
(4th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc./Allyn & Bacon.
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