Design and Develop Digital-Age Learning Experiences and Assessments

Teachers design, develop, and evaluate authentic learning experiences and assessments incorporating contemporary tools and resources to maximize content learning in context and to develop the knowledge, skills, and attitudes identified in the NETS (Students). Teachers:

  • design or adapt relevant learning experiences that incorporate digital tools and resources to promote student learning and creativity

    Since I teach a technology based course, not using digital tools is an impossibility. I rely on digital tools in every aspect of the course. A good example of this is the filamentality I developed as part of my ISLT 9440 coursework. As part of the filamentality, I rely on many different digital tools, including Wikipedia, YouTube videos, and pictorial representations of hard to understand concepts. I also relied completely on YouTube when I used it for the YouTube Discussion Board. As part of the discussion, I encouraged my students to come up with creative ways of expressing their view points through the medium of video. I gave this same direction for the two group projects in the class: podcasting and the movie project. I encouraged my students to come up with creative ways of presenting their chosen Web Application to the class.

    Artifacts Referenced

  • develop technology-enriched learning environments that enable all students to pursue their individual curiosities and become active participants in setting their own educational goals, managing their own learning, and assessing their own progress

    As a teacher, I think it's important that individual students give input into what they're going to learn. I start with this on the very first day, where I give each student a Knowledge Survey. This survey serves two major purposes: it gives me a way to measure their current technology knowledge and skills as well as providing them one avenue of input into the course content. If there is a piece of technology they really want to know about, I will make sure it's represented in the course calendar and that class time is spent discussing it. With all the major projects, I try to keep the specific subject matter the students can choose to cover as open as possible. This is not always possible, however, and in the iMovie project especially, I limit the scope to Missouri GLE topics. The scope is widest in the Web Application Presentation, where students can choose any web application to present to the class.

    Artifacts Referenced

  • customize and personalize learning activities to address students' diverse learning styles, working strategies, and abilities using digital tools and resources

    I begin learning about my students on the first day of class, when they take the Knowledge Survey.  I've structured the class such that students will experience many different types of learning, working strategies, as well as be able to utilize their diverse abilities in class.  For example, projects like the iMovie project and the YouTube Discussion Board gives students an open ended assignment where they have the freedom to express themselves creatively with minimal constraints.  Instead of just learning how to create videos, the students actually create one themselves.  The Assignment with the fewest constraints is the Web Application Presentation.  Students are tasked with finding a web application that they personally find interesting and then teach the class how to use it. 

    While lecturing, I provide information in multiple formats.  In the Course Materials section of the class, students will find text articles, podcasts, and videos conveying the information they are going to learn.  During the hardware class section, they get the opportunity to personally work inside a computer, where they have to successfully install RAM, as well as correctly connect up an audio / visual setup that includes a laptop, DVD / VCR, and an LCD projector. 

    Artifacts Referenced

  • provide students with multiple and varied formative and summative assessments aligned with content and technology standards and use resulting data to inform learning and teaching

    As part of the class I teach, I provide multiple forms of assessment. For the Web Application Presentation, for example, I have all the members of the class fill out a peer review form, assess the student-teacher's presentation, organization, and content knowledge.  I also fill out one of these forms to give the student.  The student-teacher will take this feedback and respond to it in their presentation reflection, which is due a week after their presentation.  This feedback mechanism requires constant testing to achieve good results.

    For other major projects in the class, a rubric is utilized to give students a breakdown of their performance. 

    Artifacts Referenced

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NETS text taken from the ISTE Website.