Reflection

After reading a few other PLE reflection posts, I feel less alone. There are certainly benefits to owning and operating a Personal Learning Environment. But there are definitely negatives to the experience too.
First, the benefits.
If you’re part of a community that is technologically based, having a PLE is a great option. It provides you with the opportunity to get connected with others, share original ideas, or thoughts that have been sparked by information from the community.
It’s an easy means of communication. I can quickly comment on another person’s PLE (assuming it’s blog based) to leave a few thoughts when they occur to me. Because these PLE’s are available at all times, there’s less chance to forget the comments you were going to make, opposed to having to wait to see the person face to face.
It allows for the creation of a global community. The introduction and facilitation of the internet does provide for the creation of an international community to be created and people to become part of this virtual community.
These are all great aspects. However, there are also downfalls.
You have to enjoy blogging. Not everyone likes to share the thoughts they have, and by operating a PLE, you have to continually update, share, and add new information. If you don’t enjoy this sort of sharing and upkeep, the PLE becomes more of a burden than anything else. It’s a weekly task that becomes mundane and arduous. Because there were requirements, we took the worksheets, answered the questions, and moved on.
These thoughts that we shared on the PLE’s may or may not have been genuine thoughts towards our model, but it was a piece to be done. There was a sense of ‘artificialness’ to a lot of the posts, just trying to meet the requirements. Also because of the requirements, we had to do weekly posts. And to be honest, this model did not evolve each and every week.
Also, there’s an issue of sharing information. I’ve never really thought about the idea of intellectual property, because frankly, before now I’ve never really cared about the materials that I produced. But, by being in this class, this is the first time that I feel like I’ve created something that I did get invested in. And even if my model isn’t as applicable as I think it is, I’m proud of it, and the ideas behind it. It is something that I would go back and revisit and improve if I did decide to go into education and professional development. I am heavily invested in Howard Gardner’s Multiple Intelligence theory. I think this is the direction that classrooms need to move in to create varied and inclusive education.
So by posting this idea, and this model, who’s to say that someone won’t stumble across it and take the root of these ideas, and this process and run with it before I get a chance to? And for once, in my education career, it bothers me that this has been posted on the internet. I’ve never been one to share my ideas, but now I’ve been put in a position that for a grade, I have to do so. It’s kind of an uncomfortable position to be in.
I do understand the benefits and merits of creating a PLE, and becoming part of a community. But I feel that these should be optional endeavors, not something that you HAVE to do. As a learning experience, it’s been interesting, and I know it’s provided a lot of new information for several of the students in the class. However, I am familiar with the general concept of blogging and networking. I would prefer to keep my online activities as social, keeping my academic ideas to myself until they’re published or put into practice.

One last post before my summary

I figured I could post my final (almost final?) copy of my model. After our class presentations, I combined Jerry's suggestions and I really am happy with the way it turned out. I think graphically, it makes sense and I like that the content isn't overwhelming. Along the bottom will have the intelligence domains, and each circle is an interaction point where Student, Teacher, and Administration interact.


Now that that's done, next up is my PLE reflection.

(CLICK THE IMAGE TO ENLARGE)

So as of right now, this is the direction I'm heading in. My general thoughts are that I really like linear graphics and things that are very streamlined in presentation (the Bates model really spoke to me and seemed straight forward) I'm not a huge fan of bubbles and squiggles that make things look like a choose your own adventure novel. The only trouble with this is it doesn't lend itself to appearing to be iterative. Though it's not displayed, there will be a feedback component from Evaluation back into the Design & Development section (and possibly back into FEA section too). My other struggle is trying to represent the communication aspect, and bringing the focus onto the students.

Another issue I'm debating is something Steve and I spoke about- when assessing the students , something along the lines of an observational checklist would be beneficial. I'm creating something similar for my Front End Analysis class, but it most likely will not be ready for this project submission. Do I include what I have as an appendix, or maybe have a list for one of the learning styles, or leave it out all together? Part of me feels that the more that's included, the richer the material becomes as a whole. On the other hand, the fact that it's unfinished bothers me.

Model Report

The one thing I've come to appreciate is peer evaluations. You get great feedback from someone who is going through the same process as you.

I was having difficulty figuring out how to represent communication in my model. It's important that someone understand that there are factions of people who need to communicate together in order to successfully implement a change in the classroom environment and instruction. After getting to sit down with Leigh and telling her who was communicating with whom, her idea of a visual representation got me sketching out parts of my model.

Her sketch places communication as the center with spokes attached, but as I began to think about it and my model in general, I’m looking to change the behaviors of the teachers in their classroom, and since it is a teacher centered model, the center of communication should be teachers.

I’ve also narrowed down what I believe would be necessary for a comprehensive FEA. Initially I was going to include a teacher self assessment, a student assessment that looked at their learning style, their strengths based off of Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences, and if they have all the necessary prerequisites for the grade level curriculum. There would also be an assessment of the available outside resources to supplement classroom instruction. In talking to Leigh, she mentioned that it would be valuable to have possibly an outside observer in addition to a self assessment to help counteract any bias the teacher would encounter in assessing their own teaching practices.

In looking at how to develop the new lesson plans, I’m a bit muddled and need more time to think about that and play around with sketches, but looking at other example models is really beneficial. It’s helpful to see what I like about other models, and what I dislike to help clarify what direction I feel it would be best to head in.

The other portion I’ve been thinking about currently is the evaluation aspect of this process. End of the year summative evaluation is a must. Feedback from how the students are achieving is important, along with feedback from administration. What I’m unsure about is how prominent I want to make formative evaluation. On one hand occasional spot checks to see how students are achieving would be helpful information for future lesson plans throughout the year in. But on the flipside, if students didn’t comprehend a certain unit, I don’t want the teacher to fault the technique he/she used and not use it again because of poor results.

Thinking about how my model looks, as of right now I almost see a series of boxes, and each box contains smaller pieces, which are all necessary for the larger section, and each section informs to section that comes after it. But in doing something like that, I feel like it creates a process that’s too linear and not one that is iterative. I could have arrows that point back to previous sections, but then it gets muddled and confusing. It’s something that I have to think about more.

Innovation and Change

Asking teachers to assess and change their learning practices will almost certainly lead to implementing innovative techniques, especially when looking at reaching out to a population of students who tend to become ignored after years.

A personal anecdote before I continue to stress the importance of the evaluation of teaching practices. My brother is currently a senior in high school, he has struggled with school since he was 6 years old, where his first grade teacher recommended that he be "tested" for ADHD. After years of fighting with and against a variety of stimulants, he made the decision with our parents to stop taking the prescriptions because of how it was affecting him in other facets of his life. The medicine never really helped, only made things worse. So here is a kid who never did well in school, didn't do his homework (or did it and just forgot to turn it in...yes, this happened on a number of occasions...but a zero is a zero, even if the assignment is completed, crumpled at the bottom of his backpack). Brandon ended up with a reputation. He was the kid who had teachers told him 'oh, Mr. So-and-so told me about you'.

He found himself in a class within the last month sitting with two other students. They were chatting while completing an in class assignment. The teacher told one of the students (we'll call him Todd) to move because she noticed he was talking. Todd asked why she was moving him (apparently she had a....fondness for moving him frequently). Her response to him was, and I quote, "Well you're distracting yourself and Mike(the other student in their triad), so he can't get his work done. And Brandon isn't even going to bother doing his work, so you have to move."

Stellar teaching practices.

And yes, admittedly, Brandon often doesn't do his work. On the rare occasion when he's feeling adventurous, he will do some. And that day was one of those days where he was working, and he was halfway done with his packet. But after her highly motivating and encouraging comment (please note the heavy sarcasm) Brandon flipped to the front of his packet, wrote his name on the front page, and wrote her a note

I was working, but since you don't think I do anything, I'm finished

He handed in his half completed assignment and then proceeded to take a nap.

Now these are the instances, the teachers who have given up on kids, that have been motivating me lately.

My model would have teachers assessing their current practices in their front end analysis, looking at the students they have, and how their lessons are formatted, along with constraints from the curriculum they have to cover. And from that information, new practices can be implemented >> innovation. That much I understand, but integrating the aspect of these communication channels- I start to get lost.

There needs to be communication, that much I understand. I kind of understand who needs to be talking to who, but I don't really understand where or how that feeds into my model's design, or if it even does at all? It's something I'll have to go back and look over to sort out.

Model development

There are currently classroom experiences that are not reaching or engaging all students, because of the No Child Left Behind era, and in the hopes of producing educated individuals, all students need to be placed in classrooms are that engaging them in learning.

In looking at the costs, in order to meet this need there would need to be additional resources and/or materials provided to teachers, along with the possibility of training to learn how to integrate these resources and materials into their lesson plans. By ignoring this need, students who are not being engaged will continue to not excel, or do poorly in school. They will also have a higher potential to drop out once they are old enough to make those decisions.

By including Front End Analysis (FEA) in a model, you can evaluate whether or not the problem that you are looking at is something that can be solved with instructional design. It also allows you to pinpoint what are the root causes of the problem you are attempting to solve, thus providing you with a better idea of what instructional strategies would be worthwhile employing. It also allows for a greater understanding of the student learners, specifically what their learning styles are. By conducting a FEA, the teacher's instructional strategies can be informed by the obtained information.

When conducting a FEA, not just the teacher lesson plans need to be considered. The environment that the teacher works in also needs to be considered. There is a possibility that the teacher would like to employ new methods in their teaching, but because of the school culture, they don't. There is also the likelihood for budget constraints. In listening to many teachers talk about their classroom, many of them mention how anything "extra" in the classroom typically comes out of their own pockets, and not the school budget.

The learner also needs to be considered. If they lack the necessary prerequisite skills, they could be disengaged from the lessons simply because they're confused, or don't understand what is being taught.

In my mind, this model is beginning to come together slowly, I just need to figure out how to transfer those ideas into "boxes and arrows". That's my goal for the next week, to begin to sketch out what this is going to look like, and possibly have it informed by the Gerlach and Ely classroom model. Because of my interests specifically, I do believe there's going to be a little more FEA work, but I llike that a lot of the work is done concurrently, though it's still a linear process.

Module 2 Readings

Ryan made a good point in his last blog, about the difficulties of trying to instill change in a system that is resistant to change. I began to think about this in the context of my system project, and I believe that change would be just as difficult to enact there. We become comfortable with routine, and changing that to try something that may or may not work (which is something we must all remember! Yes, we do our best to create instruction that will be beneficial. We are equipped with tools to make us successful, but in the end, only time (and evaluation) will tell how successful we actually were).

One thing that stood out to me in the reading was the diagram from the Rossett reading on Needs Assessment. It's probably the best representation that I've seen to illustrate the relationship between Front End Analysis and the rest of an instructional project. It was a lesson I learned well while working on my IDE631 project. You start with your analysis, but that is hardly the last that you see of it. As you go through each phase of the project, you're forced to think about aspects of the learner that you hadn't considered before. Thus you revisit your analysis, and go back to your learner to gain more information from them. This seems to happen every step of the way, just as it's shown in the Rossett diagram.

Untitled

Before I dive into new thoughts about my model, I've been playing with posterous and trying to figure out how to organize the things I'd like to have included in my PLE and honestly, I don't think I have the HTML savvy to pull it off. I've seen a couple of layout modifications, but my knowledge of it can be defined as more infantile than novice, so I might have to (unfortunately) switch to blogger (http://www.ambermarieacevedo.blogspot.com). This hurts my heart a bit, but after learning that I can still do everything from my email, it might make things a bit easier for me.

However, enough rambling and on to my model.

Being part of this program really makes you think. And not just think about the subject matter at hand, but really think about huge life altering decisions about what sort of practitioner you want to be, where you want to make your mark in the world, and who you really want to help with your knowledge. Coming into this program I really thought I wanted to work in a corporate setting, and maybe one day I still will. But I keep coming back to education. In part because I've seen the struggles my brother had from kindergarten on. So if I could work in a setting like that and improve just one aspect of the education system in a school, it would be a worthwhile endeavor.

I see students such as my brother, who for whatever reason are not engaged in the material. For instance: he excels at tests, is an exceptional reader, and blows my mind when it comes to his understanding of math. Despite all of this and an IQ test which indicates that he should be excelling in school and academics, he continually performs at a very low level when looking at his grade history.

My thinking is to create a system that would help teachers create or build upon lesson plans to enrich the material and increase the likelihood of engaging a student such as my brother.

Suprasystem: The school
System: The classroom
Subsystems: Lesson plans, classroom student culture (possibly, I'm not sure of this, but I do believe that in creating an environment for students to be successful in, there needs to be an understanding of the roles that students fill, and the niches that they create for themselves)
Subsystem Interface: Teacher, or instructor
Information channels: Prior student knowledge, outside resources

I may be thinking big, and very possibly could be naive in my thinking and the teachers in the class could very well be thinking 'ha, good luck'. But I have to start somewhere so I'd rather aim for the moon, and fall among the stars....or something like that, anyway.

Posted via email from Learning, Growing, Evolving.