This assignment helped tie the standards together for me and lead me further on my journey to become the best teacher I can be. Technology Lesson Plan helped me develop ISTE Standard 1 and 2. Standard 1 states, "Facilitate and inspire student learning and creativity. Teachers use their knowledge of subject matter, teaching and learning, and technology to facilitate experiences that advance student learning, creativity, and innovation in both face-to-face and virtual environments." Content knowledge was a huge part of this assignment. I used resources outside of my own knowledge in order to create a lesson that was factual and easy to understand. This step mainly occurred in the Procedures section when I directly teach what synonyms are. I also combined the content knowledge with pedagogy. I used collaborative learning as a way for students to work cooperatively with their peers in order for them to develop a better understanding of the material together. Lastly, technology was integrated as well through the use of Popplet. All of these pieces in the lesson plan created student learning in a face to face and virtual environment, which specifically is stated in section D of this standard. My lesson planning gave students the opportunity to work together by creating lists of synonyms and planning out how their technology project would look before getting started. After this, students are then able to work individually on their projects while seeing and adding to their group member's work. This is one of the many advantages to technology applications. None of this learning would be possible if I didn't take the time to plan out my lesson in detail.
While developing ISTE 1, I was gaining valuable knowledge of ISTE Standard 2 as well. ISTE Standard 2 states, "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 Standards." I felt I was strongly developing this during the assessment portion of this assignment. During the assessment section, I strategized what assessment tool would be the best to demonstrate my students' understanding and how technology could be used effectively with this. It is also important to remember context. During this lesson, my context was a school where I had access to laptop carts so each student could use a laptop. This is why the assessment had to be able to be created entirely on a laptop and in my case the application being used was free. I critically thought about which assessment would be best, formative or summative. I chose a performance assessment that integrated technology and was formative. Specifically, this helps me meet part a."design or adapt relevant learning experiences that incorporate digital tools and resources to promote student learning and creativity." I designed my lesson and assesment around a digital tool where the students could make a lot of their own decisions. For example, I created the assessment in such a way where they had certain criteria to meet, but they could go above and beyond this. I also required images to be drawn using the Popplet application and students could choose any synonyms they wanted to use for sentences; this planning allows them to be creative and use technology to support their creative thinking. I also felt strong in part c after this assignment, which states, "Customize and personalize learning activities to address students’ diverse learning styles, working strategies, and abilities using digital tools and resources." In the Instructional Context section of my lesson plan, I described how I would differentiate instruction for various learners. For example, I explained how I would adapt for students with special needs, students who are ELL, and students who are Talented and Gifted. My students in my future classrooms will all be different (which is wonderful thing) and 'one size fits all' teaching will not work. This gave me the chance to practice how I would teach so that each student can understand and use the technology. Scaffolding is a huge part, especially when using technology and this assignment gave me great practice in ways I would adapt my teaching.
"Teachers who love teaching, teach kids to love learning"
Technology Lesson Plan
Click on the image above to read my entire lesson plan.
Click on the image above to view an example of my student product for this lesson.
The goal of this assignment was to develop an effective lesson plan that intergrated technology. This process incorporated the TPACK framework we have been learning about and gave us practice creating a lesson plan around learning objectives, choosing how to assess learning, and replicating what the student work would look like. While working on this assignment, I felt as if everything I had learned up to this point was coming together. We had a chance to be creative, intertwine a variety of ideas we had been shown, and connect our work back to the standards, both the Iowa Core and Technology standards. As a teacher, I am going to be creating lesson plans for each subject I teach every day. This allowed me to prepare becoming the organized teacher my students need. The first section of this assignment was the lesson plan. We included different sections to show how having a detail-oriented plan benefits the content being taught. This lesson plan included a summary of the lesson and grade level, learning objectives, the content standards the lesson aligned with, technology standards, the instructional context, a list of materials, the procedures, the role of technology, and references. This lesson plan was different than others I have made in the past because of the crucial role of technology. It is important that we choose technology as a tool that helps make the lesson more effective; we should choose the content first and then the technology, not the other way around. Adding these additional pieces to my lesson plan is logical because technology is affected by the school context I am in and reflecting on the use of technology will ensure my students are understanding the content better because of it. Next, we created an assessment strategy. I chose to use a rubric for this part of the assignment. While creating my rubric, I kept in mind making each element and category specific. I also learned to make sure the assessment criteria aligns with the criteria stated in your lesson objectives. I used these criteria and additional criteria to create the rubric for the formative assessment. Assessment tools allow teachers to be objective when grading. The students were to create a Popplet demonstrating their knowledge of synonyms. The final part of this assignment is the student product; I created an example of what my students would create in groups at the end of the lesson. Popplet is a technology tool that allows someone to create a concept map while adding text and images. It allows for creativity and shows a visual of my students' thought processes.