NETS-T

After reading the National Education Standards for Teachers I believe that I exhibit all five indicators with varying strengths. Two of the standards that seem to be my continuous goal however are designing and developing new experiences and facilitating my students’ creative learning. I feel that these standards tie together and would seamlessly integrate into a GAME plan.

I have done many digital projects with my students and my peers over the years with different success rates. Something that I have never done with my class, but have done on my own within Walden University is creating a wiki. I would very much like to try and create such an interactive learning experience. Recently, to culminate our Rocks and Minerals unit, I gave my students the optional project of doing a Birthstone Report. If they desired, individual students could research their birthstone using pre-evaluated website links I gave them and describe their birthstone using various classifications that we studied in class (hardness, transparency, value, location, etc). The students then typed or wrote their findings onto a poster and presented it to the class. Out of twenty-five students, only four chose to do this. I believe that if I had made this into a wiki project, many more students would have participated. By opening the project up to inspire collaboration and creative thinking, I could have had students born in the same month work together and post pictures as well as textual information about their birthstone.


To monitor my progress in this area, I would constantly check in with my students to see their work. I would provide time in class for my students to ask questions and advice from me. As any good teacher knows, modeling is key to success. Since this would be my first wiki project, I would have my class work together to create a sample wiki first so they know how to use the available technology. That way, they could do the birthstone project mostly at home. I would have minilessons as needed to show the class new features on our chosen wiki hosting page and to combat any problems that they might have. At the end of this project, I would evaluate not only my students’ progress but my own. Did I succeed in teaching twenty-five fourth graders how to navigate the web? Were they able to effectively compile research information and choose the most important facts? Were they able to put the information in their own words and properly credit their sources? If so, I know I am on a roll into creating many more collaborative wikis with my students. If not, I would hold a brainstorming session with the class to see if we could figure out how to remedy the situation, and be more prepared for a positive experience in the future.

References
National Education Standards for Teachers (NETS-T) located at http://www.iste.org/Content/NavigationMenu/NETS/ForTeachers/2008Standards/NETS_T_Standards_Final.pdf.