Showcase of Graduate Work
My graduate degree is a Master's in Educational Technology Degree. The majority of my classes dealt with technology and how to appropriately use it in the classroom. I was given many opportunities to explore technologies that were previously foreign to me and create projects using them. Another focus in my graduate program was on investigating learners to better guide my instruction with them. This led to explorations of ways to reach students using traditional methods and new technologies. The first section contains artifacts of how I learned more about students by investigating them as learners. The second section provides you will technology resources and ideas that can be used in the classroom to aid in engagement and assessment.
Understanding Learners
Literacy Learner Project
There is arguably nothing more important in teaching than knowing your student as both a learner and a person. In this research project I focus on one student as a literacy learner. I began by assessing the student with multiple reading assessments before planning individualized lessons for him. I then implemented the lessons, gathered evidence, and reflected on the entire experience. I learned that we need to meet students where they are in reading and build on the strengths while working on the weaknesses.
Critical Review of Conferences and Binders
As a teacher, it is important to formatively assess students throughout units. In this critical review, I looked at a common formative assessment I perform on a daily basis in my classroom. Conferencing with students and tracking their progress in binders has been very beneficial to my instruction. This review looked at professional opinions on the topic and synthesized the pros and cons of continuing the practice.
Misconceptions Interview
When investigating students we will inevitably run into misconceptions. It is important to embrace misconceptions to help guide our instruction. In this audio project I set out to interview an adult on an elementary school topic to see how misconceptions can form and develop. I reflect on possible reasons for the misconceptions and how they can be addressed, just as we should do in the classroom.
Content Management System Pre-Assessment
Pre-assessments are crucial in understanding a student's knowledge base. In this screencast, I explore a content management system and its ability to create a meaningful pre-assessment for math. As an educator I would want all of my students to take a pre-assessment before a unit to help make decisions on how the content needs to be taught.
Teaching Philosophies Digital Story
There are many different ways to teach children. Some ways have been proven to be more effective than others. In this digital story, I explore two different methods to teach someone how to ride a bike and the difference each method makes. Part of the decision on how to teach something hinges on the student, further proving the importance of investigating our students before, during, and after we teach.
Using Digital Tools for Teachers
Using Minecraft as a Learning Opportunity
As our world becomes more and more connected and digitized teachers need to adjust how they teach and assess students to better relate to their students. In this screencast I present a math assessment designed for fifth grade students inside the world of the popular video game "Minecraft." I aimed to create a world that gave instruction to students while allowing them to demonstrate their knowledge of coordinate grids to me.
Educational Tech Tools Infographic
Like most current teachers, I have been looking for new technologies to use in my classroom to aid with student engagement and to better my instruction. I created an infographic that explores nine different tech tools that can be used for different situations. I researched and investigated all of them before giving descriptions of how and when to best use them.
Online Resource Library
Math can be a very complicated subject to teach. When a concept seems abstract and hard to grasp, students can shut down. To combat this I created an online digital resource library full of online tools teachers can use to engage and educate students. The library is divided into different math domains to help with organizations. Each tech tool has a formal review written about it by myself or from some peers.
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