Self-directed learners and the role of differentiation

Students who are self-directed tend to be much more engaged in the learning process. The more they are engaged the more they learn and this is our goal as teachers. As far as differentiation, having different activities for students to do throughout the project will keep them working and will also keep them thinking critically and reflecting on what they are doing in their project.

Student-centered assessment

In my first two year I have have not taken advantage of using student-centered assessment. I always thought that my students would not take it seriously and would not grade each other properly. After completing the module on this topic I believe I will begin to use student-centered assessment in my lessons because it allows students to have more of a part in the overall learning process and will hopefully keep students more engaged in the lesson.

How can technology be used most effectively?

There are many ways that technology can be used in the classroom. However, in order to make it most effective we need to find ways that will be useful for students in the future. Having students do research, create presentations, create blogs about their work, and complete online surveys/questions about their projects are all ways that we can effectively use technology in our classroom to promote learning.

Using the Internet

I have used the internet for researching and used GoogleDocs in my classroom, however, what I learned today gave me many more ideas for things I can do in my classroom. I plan on implementing some of the different communication options and also the survey/polling options in my classroom for feedback from my students. Today was a very informative day!

Reflecting on my learning

After completing this part of the training I now know the importance of first creating my CFQs so that I can have general and specific questions to base my lesson around. I can then supply students with these questions prior to the lesson and they will be able to see what they will need to learn from the lesson. In order to create a good lesson I need to focus the activity and content around the standards supplied in the TEKS. Forming my lessons around these standards will help me create much more efficient activities. Finally, having a formative assessment will allow me to get my assessment consistent and continually give feedback to students.

Projects

Having students participate in projects during lessons helps them think critically while applying the knowledge they are gaining in different ways. Projects let students be creative and find ways to show they understand the information we are teaching, but they get to have more freedom of choice as far as how they present their knowledge. Using projects is also a good way for teachers to continually assess students' progress and give them constructive feedback. I have learned a lot of new information already today about using projects in the classroom that I can now apply to my lesson plans.