Final Reflection

Overall, this course was very challenging for me personally due to the fact that technology integration has not been taught to me in-depth prior to this course. Consequently, I would say that this class has slightly changed my perspective and feelings about technology in instruction. When I say “slightly” I mean that it has made me more confident in my ability to use technology, which gives me hope that I will also be able to teach my future students new technologies to help replace, amplify or transform my instruction. However, I still feel like technology in instruction can be dangerous and misused. I say this because technology can definitely help students and teachers work smarter and not harder but it also can create issues of abuse and or technical difficulties that are sometimes not worth the trouble they may cause.

The technologies and tools that stood out to be in this course were screencasting and paper slides. Both of these tools are meaningful and engaging presentation formats that can be beneficial for student and teacher use. I really like that these forms of presenting material are conducive for using multiple medias such as audio, images and video while also requiring forethought, planning and collaboration. I could see myself using both of these technologies in my future classroom and student teaching semester. In fact, I used screencasting in my technology integrated lesson plan to transform what most may do as a simple poster project, into a more engaging and collaborative creation. In my technology integrated lesson plan I had students use screencasting and Google slides’ drawing tool to make a blueprint of a potential Rube Goldberg Machine that represented the model of the Water Cycle. I think I am most eager to use paper slides because I really enjoyed our in-class paper slides project. In fact, I already have ideas for using paper slides for student projects on meiosis and mitosis during my student teaching. I love that paper slides let students use their phones in a productive and educational manner. Also, using technology in these ways for my science class will help me integrated the ideas of STEM in my future classroom, which is a huge push in education right now.

I have not currently shared my technology ideas with my Cooperating Teacher. However, I would like to tell him about my idea to use the Rube Goldberg Machine Model and Screencastify for a Water Cycle project because this lesson plan is both NGSS and STEM compliant. This lesson plan also allows for the necessary modifications, accommodations and differentiation that allow all tiers of students to be held to a high standard of achievement. Furthermore, as mentioned above I think I will implement the paper slides tool in my student teaching because when meeting with my Cooperating Teacher she said that one of the first topics we will be covering when I get there is mitosis and meiosis. Therefore/, I think that I will share my ideas with her and hopefully implement them in my lesson for that unit. I think that since I found it engaging when done in class, students will also hopefully find the paper slide project really fun. 

Final Project

My final project is going to be about the Water Cycle. I chose the Water Cycle because it was a topic that I actually had to teach about during my teacher assisting placement for my Unit on Earth’s Systems and Interactions. When I was teaching the Water Cycle to my 6^th graders, I felt like it would be a good fit for the technology integrated lesson plan because there are a lot of components that would be learned by students much better in a more visual and interactive setting that technology can provide. Many of these “cycles” such as the rock cycle and water cycle can be hard for students to interpret when just reading about it. Therefore, I think it is important that for these challenging topics we provide means for students to work hands on with the concepts and create meaningful projects for authentic audiences. Incorporating technology into these experiences can both empower and transform student learning.

The outline of my lesson plan includes introductions to the water cycle, explanations of the water cycle via online virtual and interactive labs and a final project presentation of a Rube Goldberg Machine Screencast modeling the water cycle. To begin frontloading for this unit, I will use Padlet and some pictures of landscapes to get students thinking about the different places and phases in which water can be found. I will then move into using some interactive Water Cycle labs from both “Earth Guide” and a Weebly page. This will hopefully accommodate all levels of learners by allowing students to work at their own pace, have interactive visuals and have sound options. The final project will be a group project with pairings made based on pre-test scores to allow those who are similarly minded to work together. This project requires collaboration in order to make a final screencast project that is a Rube Goldberg Machine whose components represent different parts of the Water Cycle. Different teams, based on the different tiers of students, will have varying project requirements in order to modify the project in a way to accommodate all levels of learners. I think using the screencast for the final project will require an extra degree of collaboration and group interaction that a poster does not require, thus meeting the technology standard stating that “students will contribute constructively to project teams, assuming various roles and responsibilities to work effectively toward a common goal” (ISTE Global Collaborator 7C) while also meeting the NGSS requirements for developing a model representing the Water Cycle.

Assessment Plan

Objective	Formative Assessment	Technology Used
1 & 2	Water Cycle Diagram Pre-Test	Online Virtual Lab Quiz
2	Where can I find water?	Padlet
1	Bunsen Burner Demo	Google Forms
1 & 2	Interactive Water Cycle Activity	Google Doc Submission
1 & 2	Water Cycle Review	Quizlet Live

Objective	Summative Assessment	Technology Used
1, 2 & 3	Rube Goldberg Project	Webquest and Screencast
1 & 2	Water Cycle Quiz	Google Forms

Below is a figure that shows an example of the beginnings of a Rube Goldberg Machine.

The Gifted Students: Video Response

Watching these videos on "Giftedness" was really enlightening because in many ways, they are the least accommodated group of students in many school situations. Just because every student is held to the standard of achieving at a high level, does not mean that each student's "high level" is the same. Something that I learned in these videos was that IEP's and 504 plans can be used to help target both learning disabilities and areas of giftedness by giving accommodations for the students to keep learning and excelling.

These videos also helped debunk one of my prior misconceptions, one that many others may have as well. It was that there can be a high level of misdiagnosis in students or individuals that are gifted because many of the "symptoms" of being gifted are similar to those symptoms of disorders like Asperger's Syndrome or ADD, especially when individual's IQ is really high such as over 130. Personally, I guess I had the incorrect belief that learning disabilities and giftedness both appear in students at the same time; however, they can also occur separately. Another misconception that I had was that gifted students have a hard time making friends, and I was informed that in reality this is not always the case. Yes, they can struggle socially causing them to not be very good at making friends. However, I am now aware that gifted students don't just have a general inability to make friends it is just more normal for them to often only have one or two good friends or to try to make friends with people that are older than them because they feel like they are socially understood by these older people or other gifted students.

A student can be both gifted and learning disabled. Therefore, in my current placement and my future classroom I need to know the students personally in order to not foster mismatch between the student and the assessment. Students may be gifted in the fact they are able to think and comprehend on a higher level than the average student; however, their learning disability may make it hard to see that on paper. Consequently, accommodations may be necessary for the student. This is where technology can help assist me and the gifted students in my classroom. For example, when giving an assessment I can have different variations of the test for various learners. This may look like 2 option multiple choice for the lower tier, 4 multiple choice options for the average learner and 5 multiple choice answers for the higher tier. This extra answer would be like "both a and b," or "all of the above." With this extra option, easily added on online assessment creators, I can test students at higher levels of understanding when necessary. Also, I can provide a variety in my assessment techniques. Only ever offering multiple choice or written exams will not always benefit the gifted and or learning disable students. For example, I could offer oral exams and or individual projects. Technology can also help reach the higher level students by creating a webquest with various options for different groups of students. These groups would be determined by a pre-assessment, and then the gifted students could do a more open ended project to extend thinking into higher, more challenging levels.

Another topic for consideration in my current and future science classroom is the concept that gifted students often struggle with social interaction, fear of failure and perfectionism. Consequently, they often want to work individually because they think differently than other students. Therefore, when it comes to projects, I can give the option to do a group project or work individually. This will give the gifted student an option to work alone and only be responsible for oneself. With technology I can easily differentiate the extent of the project to suit the groups needs. For example, the presentation or project could be done using PowerPoint, Prezi, Padlet, etc. However, the required length or how open ended the project is would be determined by the size of group and learning traits of the group. When learning about Earth's Systems, I could have the gifted students not only learn about what the 4 main systems of Earth are but I could also have them apply it to their daily life and depict interactions of systems via video presentation or blog posts. The videos were describing that gifted students are often into online games. Therefore, I could harness their love for the online world and use it for productivity in science class. By assigning them to keep classroom blog posts instead of a hand-written science journal, the gifted students would get the chance to be part of the online community and express their ideas not just in words but also by video or pictures embedded in their posts. This can help combat their learning disabilities of getting their knowledge out on paper or into words. Overall, its important to remember that normal is a relative and subject ideology. We need to make sure as educators that we are accommodating all students' "normal," especially the often over-looked gifted students. In relation to science, us educators need to be able to recognize gifted students, and push them to excel in their field of excellence such as STEM.

Here is a helpful video on some techniques teachers can use to teach gifted students.

UDL Principles: Big IQ Kids (Providing options for language, expressions and symbols)

Privacy Laws: CIPA/COPPA

When it comes to the internet, it can be a great resource but also a great threat, especially to our young people. Consequently, there are laws enacted to help protect youth from online harm. Two of these privacy laws include COPPA and CIPA. Enacted in 1998, COPPA is the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act that has web sites require permission from parents for individuals 13 and under to share personal information (Cobb County School District). For example, to open an account on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Tumblr, Kik, and Snapchat an individual must be 13 (Nominet: The Social Age Study). This law is in place because the personal information of those 13 and under needs to be protected so they are not naively giving out their information on strange websites or social media without parent consent; however, many kids can lie about their age to still create an account. Statistics estimate that approximately 59% of children have already used a social network by the time they are 10, and that Facebook has the most users under the age of 13 (Nominet: The Social Age Study). In fact, “52 per cent of 8 to 16-year-olds admit they ignore Facebook’s age restriction” (Nominet: The Social Age Study). Lastly, COPPA tries to make sure that websites requiring information from children can be viewed by the parent and informs them who else can view the information.

CIPA is the Children’s Internet Protection Act which was put into effect in 2001 (Cobb County School District). This law is in place to put restrictions on public and school libraries to ensure they have a policy of Internet safety for minors. Moreover, CIPA calls for blocks and filters on any web sites that may be inappropriate or harmful to students. If a public school or library does not follow the CIPA regulations, their funding will not be provided (Cobb County School District). The rationale for this law resides in the fact that students and minors should not have access to potentially explicit internet content in a public place such as a library or school where they should be safe from threats, including online threats. Researchers have suggested that the average age at which children have first viewed some sort of pornography is eight years old, largely due to the widely available internet access (Focus on the Family).

Consequently, as teachers we need to be aware of these privacy policies and the discussed rationale providing explanations for their enactment. As educators in the digital age, we need to do our research to make sure that the online resources we are going to use in our classroom are age appropriate and abides these laws and parent consent. For example, a potential teaching resource I could use in my future classroom would be Quizlet. Quizlet allows users under 13 to sign up but they have special restrictions for that student such as requiring a parent email address. However, as the teacher I can create an account and set up classrooms and play Quizlet Live with students, which is a great study resource. This is great for schools with one to one technology. Also, Discovery Education is a great free online resource for science teachers like myself to use because they can find STEM based lesson plans to use in the classroom. I also would want to take it upon myself as a teacher to educate my students about the potential threats of the online world and how to also be a responsible internet user. There are a lot of resources online of informational videos I can use to talk to my students about CIPA and COPPA such as tes teach that has a whole slide share set up with presentations and videos for both students and teachers describing the laws.  

References:

Cobb County School District: http://www.cobbk12.org/centraloffice/instructionaltechnology/IL/Web2_0/cipa_coppa_overview.pdf

Nominet: The Social Age Study

http://www.nominet.uk/kids-not-equipped-for-coming-of-digital-age/

Focus on the Family: When Children View Pornography http://www.focusonthefamily.com/parenting/sexuality/when-children-use-pornography/when-children-view-pornography

Is grade retention actually of benefit to students?

A common educational belief is the act of holding children back also referred to as grade retention. Grade retention is keeping a student back for another year in the same grade because the student is not keeping up with or accomplishing the curriculum requirements for that grade. The idea is that holding them back will give them more time to master the material before moving on instead of just automatically granting them social promotion. However, this brings me to the question of is grade retention actually of benefit to the student, long term or short term? I question this because it is of such large cost in time and money for both the student and the school. Consequently, there ought to be empirical evidence supporting schools’ decisions to consider grade retention over social promotion.

My initial opinion was that it would be more of a long term negative effect on the student over a positive one if he or she experienced grade retention. According to Martin (2011), both early and recent research has concluded that grade retention has largely negative outcomes. There have been a lot of studies that have shown that grade retention is highly correlated with poorer academic achievement and low involvement in post-high school education (Martin, 2011). Furthermore, studies have shown that a higher dropout rate is seen among students that are held back because it appears students actually learn more if promoted (Deschenes, 2001). In fact, the dropout rates among students that are held back are usually higher than those that were promoted even though they exhibited low academic achievement as well. A study was conducted including data from 3,261 high school students and they found that even after considering the various demographic factors among the participants, there were statistically significant effects of grade retention on the students (Martin, 2011). Areas studied were self-concept, homework completion, motivation and amount of school absences (Martin, 2011). Martin’s (2011) study showed that these factors were negatively affected by grade retention, along with decreased self-esteem among students that were held back; however, peer relationships did not appear to be statistically affected. 

Other studies have also found negative effects on student academic performance, post-grade retention. For example, Vandecandelaere et. al. (2016), found that when retained in first grade, students' math scores were affected even more negatively than in if retained after kindergarten.  This suggests to me that maybe the older the students get, the worse the effects of grade retention. Lastly, some research has supported that short term students that are held back may illustrate positive effects because at first they feel advantaged in a sense because they are older than the other students and may have some prior experience with the material. Nevertheless, these “advantages” only appear short term and then disappear (Klapproth et. al., 2016). When talking to my Cooperating Teacher about the topic of grade retention, he said they generally don't hold students back in their middle school; however, he can think of a few students that were held back and when they got to high school a majority of them actually dropped out and did not come back. We also discussed the influence of parents on grade retention and he said from his experience it seems the parents usually push more for the student to be held back then the school does. He said that he can maybe see the short term effects of grade retention being seen as positive but overall he said "I am not a strong proponent of grade retention as I am not sure that it is actually of benefit to the student long term, especially once they are in middle school or older. I could see holding a student back in kindergarten or first grade potentially being helpful for the student, but after that I would say social promotion is ultimately a better way to go."

Overall, I have determined that personally and based on evidence, grade retention is a common educational belief and practice that is not founded in evidence. It appears that grade retention long term does not benefit the student, and the net effects of being held back are highly negative. In discussion with peers I have heard many differing views on grade retention, and majorities were in favor of grade retention. From personal experience, one of my friends was held back in middle school and she end up dropping out of high school and then later getting her GED. Consequently, if I was having a conversation with someone with an opposing, non-evidence based opinion to mine regarding grade retention, I would politely refute them and point them to the studies that I have read about. I would also outline factors such as dropout rates, self-concept, school absences and homework completion and how they are negatively influenced by grade retention.

References:

Deschenes S., Tyack D., & Cuban L. (2001). Mistmatch: Historical Perspective on Schools and Students Who Don’t Fit Them.Teachers College Record, V. 103, N. 4p. 525-547.

Martin, A. J. (2011). Holding back and holding behind: Grade retention and students' non-academic and academic outcomes. British Educational Research Journal, 37(5), 739-763

Vandecandelaere, M., Vansteelandt, S., De Fraine, B., & Van Damme, J. (2016). The effects of early grade retention: Effect modification by prior achievement and age. Journal of School Psychology, 54, 77-93.

Klapproth, F., Schaltz, P., Brunner, M., Keller, U., Fischbach, A., Ugen, S., & Martin, R. (2016). Short-term and medium-term effects of grade retention in secondary school on academic achievement and psychosocial outcome variables. Learning and Individual Differences, 50, 182-194.

Post #3: Blogs in the Classroom

 As a future educator, I would definitely try to take advantage of the online community that the blogging technology helps create. I could see myself using it how blackboard is used at Grand Valley. I can post and discuss each weeks agenda and assignments, along with reminders for both the students and the parents. I like how the blog resembles a Facebook or Twitter because this would hopefully mean that students would be comfortable and confident with using this technology. As the teacher, using this to post information directly can help me better communicate to the parents about what is going on in class more often than just conferences or emails. Furthermore, students could use it as a place to be reminded of or see each days events in case they forget or were absent. They could also use it to spark class discussion or post questions they may have about assignments.

As a science teacher, I can see myself using this a lot instead of having students do written work. I would use it for students to write discussions or reflections after labs and experiments so all the students can benefit from reading others' work. The publicity of information would allow a sense of collaboration in my class that is a key component of a scientific community that would not necessarily be accomplished through written assignments, Word, or Google Docs. Also, a blog keeps a more personalized record or timeline of a person's work throughout the year than Word or Google Docs does, and also allows other students' to read and comment on posts. Consequently, some features that would be useful in my future teaching would be the ease at which information can be shared to a large group including both students and parents, the network or sense of community it would create in my classroom and the pride and ownership students' would take in their work since a blog is a public and creative record of their thoughts. Another advantage of blogging over Google Docs or Word, is the fact students' can embed videos and pictures that enhance the information and depth of their post. Some constraints I may experience could be technology issues, slower responses to questions than if it were in person or lack of face to face discussion and interaction. The use of technology is important; however, it is also important that students are able to communicate professionally in-person and not just online. Therefore, I would need to make sure that I still facilitate discussion in my classroom and not just rely on the online discussions.