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Standard III: Teaching, Learning, and the Curriculum (2000)
Teachers implement curriculum plans, that include methods and strategies for applying technology to maximize student learning. Teachers:
A. facilitate technology-enhanced experiences that address content standards and student technology standards.
As a technology teacher, everything I do is geared toward student technology standards. Keyboarding is the class that I teach most often which by nature doesn't offer up many artifacts. However, I have more of an opportunity to branch out in my smaller Computer Applications class in which we study advanced functions of Word and also Excel, PowerPoint and Access. The Standard Report Test is an authentic assessment that I use with my students in which they must correctly format a Standard Report in Word. In the Computers Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow WebQuest, students use the Internet to do research and create a timeline using PowerPoint. I also let students create PowerPoints of their choice and one option they have is to design a Student Created Game.
B. use technology to support learner-centered strategies that address the diverse needs of students.
This standard is closely related to Standard II.A, though this deals with the actual implementation and use of the technology rather than the planning and designing stage. However, since I both designed and implemented the Technology Integration Plan and the Spelling Practice PowerPoint, I have chosen to use them as supporting artifacts here as well.
The Technology Integration Plan describes how technology would be (and was) used in my alternative middle school classroom during the 2001-02 school year. The Spelling Practice PowerPoint was developed when I taught Special Education. The spelling curriculum I was using at the time suggested a "See, Say, Spell, Write" approach to learning spelling in which the teacher would briefly display a word on an overhead projector. After the word was removed, the students would then say the word aloud, spell the word verbally and finally write the word on paper. By developing a PowerPoint to automate the process, I could have each student working on an individual spelling list based on their needs rather than having the entire class working together on the same list.
C. apply technology to develop students' higher order skills and creativity.
Being that so much of what I teach focuses on computer skills rather than concepts, I don't often get the opportunity to help students attain higher order levels of thinking. However, I work it in whenever I can. For instance, as part of my PowerPoint unit, students have the option to develop a Student Created Game. During Summer School the past several years, I have also had the opportunity to teach an Educational Game Review class in which students play selected games on the computer and write Online Game Reviews with their personal ratings and comments. Finally, the Computers Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow WebQuest provides students with the opportunity to create a timeline about the history of computers and also make predictions about what computers will be like 30 years from now.
D. manage student learning activities in a technology-enhanced environment
Since my classroom is a computer lab, all of my learning activities take place in a "technology-enhanced environment". In Keyboarding class, a student's completed lessons account for a huge part of his or her final grade. MicroType 4 is the keyboarding instruction software that I use and the MicroType 4 Completion Scale demonstrates how I track where students should be in their progress from week to week. The Keyboarding Speed Test Record outlines how I monitor student performance in terms of overall typing speed and percentage of improvement. Furthermore, during the upcoming year, I hope to be able to implement my Action Research Plan in Keyboarding so that I might better manage student progress and use the most effective methods of keyboarding instruction for my students.
Jeffrey T. Young ~ jty6w7@mizzou.edu ~ Updated June 2009