At this point progress on my GAME plan is limited because I am substitute teaching instead of teaching full-time. Because of this I am not in a very good position to try out new activities and technology with my students and evaluate who effective they are. It also does not help that my district has this entire week off from school.
There are a few areas where I am making some gains. For the purpose of my Walden assignments I have been revisiting some of the lesson plans I have used in the past when I was teaching full-time and revising them to incorporate some of the new technology tools I am learning to use to make them more effective and more learner centered. Through substitute teaching I have also been learning about activities and technology other teachers in my district are using and have been able to see how effective some of these activities are in engaging and motivating students. During my 4th grade substitute experience on Friday I learned about the everyday mathematics games web site which students were excited to use. Students were also excited to share their creative writing stories with each other and to hear each other's stories. These stories were hand written on paper, but the assignment could have been easily turned into a multi-media project which the students would have probably really enjoyed making and viewing.
My action plan would probably be great if I was teaching in a full-time position currently. Though I think modifying it for substitute teaching would be difficult since I am using the lesson plans of other teachers in their classrooms, I am generally only there for a day or two, and usually do not know ahead of time what I will be teaching. Even when I do know what I will be teaching ahead of time, I am usually teaching out of subject area so do not have the background knowledge about the curriculum I would need to create effective learning experiences for that particular class.
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Erin to Laura:
ReplyDeleteI hear what you are saying about substitute teaching. Every day is a new day; new students, new classrooms, new subjects, new activities. I think it is neat that you are using all of these experiences as a positive means to better your teaching. Everything you are doing will help you when you get back into your own classroom.
When you are substitute teaching for someone who utilizes technology in their classroom (and has planned a "tech"-based lesson for that day, do you feel that they usually leave you adequate instructions? I seem to shy away from leaving technology-infused activities for substitutes to do because I am worried that I will not be able to clearly communicate the directions. Some of the subs I have had are very up on technology and would not be afraid to use it, while others seem to have difficulty with the DVD player. I just never know who will be in my classroom to sub for me. Do you have any suggestions about things that would be helpful for me to do for my future substitute teachers?
Erin,
ReplyDelete1. It helps a lot is if the lesson involves technology that the students are already familiar with using and know what they are to do.
2. It is also good to leave the sub with the web addresses the students are using even if the students are familiar with them. It helps to have that information when checking to be sure the kids aren't on other sites messing around and also if the kids are having a little trouble getting to the site.
3. If possible talk to the sub ahead of time to find out how familiar and comfortable they are with the technology and if they have been certified to supervise internet use in your district (or however your district handles that).
4. If you have your sub taking your students to a computer lab include the room number for the computer lab in the plans.
5. If students are assigned to specific computers, leave the sub with a list of the assigned computer numbers or computer lab seating chart. If students need to sign a sign in sheet for the computer they are using, make sure the sub knows about that and where to locate it.
When I had my own classroom and would leave lessons using technology with my subs in the past they have involved the students accessing sites they were familiar with. I also left a list of sites my students were allowed to access for my sub with specific instructions that students were not to be on any other programs or sites. On the assignment paper I would leave for my students I would include a reminder that they were only to be accessing the sites and programs required for the assignment and nothing else. I never left an internet research assignment or a activity requiring my students to go to the computer lab for a sub unless I had personally talked to the sub and knew they had our district certification to supervise student internet and computer lab use. Assignments I would leave for my students to do on the handful of classroom computers I had included responding to a blog discussion question on my class blog page, viewing andcopying down power point presentation notes that I uploaded to the school's ed-line page, and on-line activity pages my students did regularly using their text book's web site.
Not very many technology lessons have been left for me as a sub, but Friday last week, the 4th grade teacher had left some computer activities. The instructions I was left were minimal. In one case the students needed to enter their test answers into a web site my instructions were "students enter answers in computer after completing test". I wasn't sure what this entailed, but the kids did and I didn't even give them that instruction. I was going to ask them about it after they finished the test, but as they finished they automatically started turning in the portion they needed to turn in to me and going directly to the classroom computers to enter the answers they needed to enter into the computer. Later in the day she had them scheduled for the computer lab to play their Everyday Math games. The instructions she left for me were "11 - 11:30: Computer lab - EM Games". I had no idea where the computer lab even was, let alone what EM Games were. But at 11 I lined the kids up at the door reminded them they needed to be quiet in the hall, told them we were going to the computer lab to play their EM games and they needed to be on those and nothing else. Told the kid in the front of the line that because I didn't know where the computer lab was he was going to lead today instead of me, and well we got to the computer lab and the kids went straight to the web site where their EM games were. All except for one who had the web address punched in wrong and the student next to her was able to help her. However, I also had to deal with "so and so isn't using his/her assigned computer" which is how I found out that the students were assigned to specific computers.