School Based Experiences: End of Semester Reflection

By

Sarah Kershner

August 6, 2016

Turnitin Originality Score:

Introduction

This semester I have gained so much knowledge in regard to technology

integration. From all of the weekly discussions and projects that included peer reviews,

interviews with veteran teachers, and a lesson plan comparison, I feel that I will be able

to start this upcoming school year better equipped to contribute ideas to my team and to

the school. When looking back there are many things I took away; specifically regarding

the lesson plan comparison and the two interviews I conducted.

Analysis

Lesson Plan Comparison

The plan I created for the midterm assignment was a writing lesson where

students were required to research accomplished individuals. They goal would be to use

this research to write a biography about the individual they chose. In keeping with this

theme, I found two lesson plans online that also involved students researching

individuals. They both include technology integration.

The first lesson plan I found was from BrainPop, submitted by Stacey Lopez, and

can be adapted to meet a second grade writing indicator. In this lesson, students are being

introduced to biographies, learning about their characteristics, and then writing their own.

Students will watch the BrainPopJr video that introduces biographies while they take

notes. When the video is finished, students will contribute to a class anchor chart about

biographies. After a class discussion, the teacher will then instruct students to choose an

individual person available on the BrainPopJr website to learn about. They will be taking

more notes and adding them to the class anchor chart. Students will then use the

information they found to write a biography on their selected person.

 The second lesson plan I found was from learnnc.org and submitted by Joan

Milliken. In this lesson, students are working on their research skills throughout the

process of looking up biographies. The teacher should be collaborating with the media

specialist. Students will get an index card at random with the name of a famous person.

This will be the person that they research. Students will be going to the Media Center in

order to look up their person in the Encyclopedia. If computers are available, students

will be able to use the computerized version of the Encyclopedias. After reading about

the famous person, they will be filling out a worksheet with basic facts they have found

out about their individual. They have the option to fill out the document as paper and

pencil or on the computer. The lesson plan also states that if students finish early, they

have the option to continue their research with a variety of websites. Students will

organize all of their information in order to do an oral presentation about their individual.

I thought that both lessons had some strengths and some weaknesses. In the first

lesson I reviewed, the BrainPop lesson, I really liked the videos that they use to help

children understand the basics of a biography. The way BrainPop is set up makes it very

engaging for students. The characters Annie and Moby explain things in a fun and

exciting way. Along with that introductory video, I think that the videos where students

are researching individual people and their accomplishments are also very engaging.

However, when I think back to when we learned about the SAMR model of integrating

technology by Ruben Puentedura, this lesson seems to only be at the substitution level.

Substitution in the SAMR model is defined as “Technology as a direct tool substitution

with no functional change” (Walsh, 2015). Although the videos are very engaging and

kid friendly, they could have been replaced with books that gave the same type of
information. The website does offer supplementary quizzes that students can take online

to match the content but the video itself seems to me more like substitution. They do not

transform for lesson using technology in anyway. The only time they use the technology

is when students are watching the videos.

In the second lesson plan, I really liked the idea of collaborating with the Media

Specialist. I think this lesson provides an additional benefit for the teacher in that team

teaching and involving other people in the school building is a great way to learn as a

teacher. I believe that going to the library and looking at the Encyclopedias will be

engaging for students. I think having the online Encyclopedias are also very important for

students especially to help with the skill of differentiation. The other aspect of technology

that was incorporated in the lesson was using a Word Processor in order to fill out the

information sheet to help with their biography. This lesson also seemed to be at the

Substitution level for the SAMR model. Just like the first lesson, there is not any

transformation of the teaching and learning experience from the technology. The use of

technology in this particular lesson can be substituted for paper and pencil. Teachers have

the option to use the specific technologies, which infers that technology is replaceable for

this particular lesson.

Interviews

The two interviews I conducted were with my teammates from my Lake Seneca

Elementary School. They are both second grade teachers at Lake Seneca Elementary

School in Germantown, Maryland. Kiarah Guice, with whom I did my first interview, has

been teaching in Montgomery County for 8 years. The second interviewee, Brooke
Simon, also has been teaching in Montgomery County Maryland but for 10 years. They

both have experience with using technology in the classroom.

When I asked Mrs. Guice about her technology integration, she listed a variety of

different tools she incorporates into her classroom daily. The main sources of technology

integration she uses are “the Promethean Board, chromebooks, desktop computers, and

cd players” (Guice, 2016). She discussed a variety of reasons she uses each tool. For

example, she talked about how she uses the Chromebooks for students to “play math,

reading, and typing games, to read eBooks, to research information for projects…” and

other ways (Guice, 2016). She uses the Promethean Board to “display websites and

videos” as well as allowing them to play interactive games on a variety of websites

(Guice, 2016). When I asked Mrs. Guice what benefits she sees with technology

integration, she talked about the accessibility, the engagement and the ability to

accommodate students. She discussed that she has come across some difficulties when

using technology in the classroom and those mostly consist of technical problems and the

need for an alternate activity. After interviewing Mrs. Guice, I got the sense that she

believes the benefits outweigh the limitations. Although I was not able to complete an

observation Mrs. Guice, from the interview, seems to try her best to incorporate

technology into her classroom to enhance learning.

Mrs. Simon also integrates technology in her classroom in a variety of ways for

all subjects. In math, she uses technology for different centers, which includes

“differentiated fluency links” (Simon, 2016). In reading and writing she has students use

technology to publish work, she incorporates PDF’s into her guided reading block, she

allows students to research, and she has them work on Word Work skills based on their
individual needs. Very similar to Mrs. Guice, when I asked her what benefits she saw

with incorporating technology into her classroom, she also saw a rise in engagement with

her students as well as the ability to differentiate lessons with each student. She also

added that using technology allows students to “visualize real life” situations as well as

provide more opportunities for teachers to “monitor follow-up and make it meaningful”

(Simon, 2016). Mrs. Simon has come across a few difficulties when dealing with

technology. One difficulty she discussed in her interview was that every student wanted

to be the person in charge of the computer when working in groups. When the students

aren’t the ones in charge they sometimes tend to lose interest. Another difficulty she

discussed was the amount of time is takes to find the online resources that meet the needs

of all the students. Since she was on my team this year, I know personally how much

time and effort it took for her to be in charge of finding resources for math. Our team was

very grateful to have her provide those resources. From the interview, it seemed as

though Mrs. Simon is very adamant about including technology in her classroom.

Although she has found some drawbacks with it, she also sees the benefits outweighing

any difficulty encountered.

Synthesis

Lesson Plan Comparison

Since I believe that both lesson plans I have chosen to compare are at level of

Substitution in the SAMR model, there are a few suggestions I would make in order to

bump it up to lessons that meet the Modification or Redefinition level.

In the first lesson, students are learning what characteristics a biography has and

then writing their own, using the BrainPopJr videos. As I said before I think this lesson
only fits the Substitution level because this same lesson could be done if you were to

replace the videos with books. Although the videos are very engaging and are a good fit

for second graders, it is not transforming the lesson. When I look back at examples from

the article by Ms. Walsh, she showed different ways to take a simple lesson and take

small steps to increase it into a lesson that meets the Redefinition level. In the lesson

plan, students are taking notes on the characteristics of a biography that they learned from

the video using paper and pencil. One way I could see the teacher incorporating

technology in a more productive way is for students to be in groups using Google Docs.

Instead of students writing everything down on sticky notes and then adding it to an

anchor chart at the end, students could be typing notes into a Google Doc that makes it so

that everyone can see what everyone else is typing. This way, all of the notes will already

be combined and as students are taking notes they can get an idea of what others in the

class are taking away from the video. Another idea I had for this lesson is to add a little

more to the part when students are choosing an individual person to research using the

videos provided by BrainPop. The teacher could let students know in advance what

people are available on the website to research. Students could pick whom they wanted to

research and the teacher could place them into groups. In their groups, they can watch the

video as well as using a Google Doc to take down notes instead of using paper and

pencil. Instead of typing up a biography of their person, another idea could be that groups

create a multimedia project that demonstrates the important aspects of the person’s life.

They can include pictures and animations that they think will help convey what they

learned about their person. I believe that if this lesson had those few suggestions, it would

no longer be a lesson that is just substituting technology.

 The second lesson I reviewed is very similar to the first one. This is the lesson

where the teacher is collaborating with the Media Specialist to allow students to research

people using Encyclopedias. This lesson also seemed to be at a Substitution level because

they suggestion using the online Encyclopedias versus the textbook versions, as well as

using a Word Processor to fill out their fact worksheet instead of using paper pencil.

Many of the suggestions I made for the first lesson can apply to this lesson. I think that

students can still use the textbook versions of the Encyclopedias in the Media Center but

when they are taking notes I always like the idea of using Google Docs. This way it

allows students to collaborate and work together. The teacher can also put different links

to allow students to gather more research about their individual. The final project was an

oral presentation of the biography. Just like the previous lesson, I think students could

make a multimedia project that demonstrates the life of their individual. In this case it can

help with their oral presentation or be their presentation.

When choosing between using the two above lesson plans I would recommend the

first lesson that involves BrainPop. From a personal and professional perspective I truly

believe that BrainPop presents the information effectively and makes it very kid friendly.

Students are able to take away a great deal of knowledge from the short videos. However,

if I used the first lesson, I would include my previous suggestions which include making

a multimedia project at the end. I think that it would then become a very productive and

effective lesson.

Interviews

After interviewing both teachers, I believe that they do a great job of

incorporating technology into their classroom. When these teachers are planning there is
always thought given into how they can include technology to support student learning.

Their planning is broken up so that each person takes on a subject. Whichever teacher is

in charge of reading, they make sure to include any online PDFs that are leveled that can

be used in Guided Reading. The teacher in charge of science and social studies includes

any links or videos that support different topics that are being covered. The teacher in

charge of math does a lot of work. From personal experience, I know Mrs. Simon puts a

lot of effort into making sure we have sources for math. She includes websites that can be

used for students on grade level, for students below, and for students that need to be

enriched. It can take time to really look for these sources. Our school also participated in

the EMAT Pilot Program this year where we were introduced to different math

formatives to use with our students. Since Mrs. Simon was in charge of math, she made

sure to include websites that were good practice for these formatives. Many of these

formatives were online so she made sure to include that into the planning template.

I also found it helpful to see how these teachers managed behavior when using

technology in the classroom. That is something that can be difficult especially with

younger students. Both teachers discussed some sort of ground rule setting. Mrs. Guice

mentioned the “Cyber 5” rules for using the Internet (Guice, 2016). Making sure students

know your expectations is very important in the beginning so that they know they are

responsible for their behavior.

Both teachers seem to implement technology in the same ways. This is partly

because they are on the same team and plan together. I think they are very successful in

incorporating technology into the classroom. Since I was on their team this past year, I

have a few suggestions of how we can step up our use of technology. This was our first
year with Chromebooks in our classroom so we were just learning the basics of how to

incorporate them into our daily classroom routines. I think the next step would be for us

to take our lessons to the Modification or Redefinition levels. This year was a learning

year for the team, so incorporating more projects that use technology would be the next

step.

Reflection

This semester has been a great learning experience for me. This was my first

semester of graduate school and I didn’t know what to expect. It was stressful at first

getting used to taking classes as well as finishing up the school year. I took away many

things from this course.

All of the discussions we participated in as well as peer reviewing lesson plans

and websites, has really made me grow as a teacher. Starting from Week 1 in the course it

was very interesting to learn about everyone’s backgrounds. There are some people in

this class who have been teaching for years and years and some people who are just at the

beginning of their careers. I think being able to get different perspectives from different

people helps with professional growth. When we discussed differentiated instruction

Week 6 of this course it also gave me more ideas of what I can do in my own classroom.

I also benefited from Week 9 when peers posted examples of assistive technology they

have used or want to use in the future in their classroom.

I really liked that we got to participate in a group for this class and have other

students peer review our work. I thought it was a great experience being able to read

lesson plans of our peers as well as have them read ours and give us feedback. Reading

other lesson plans with a critical eye made me think of things I would want to change or
incorporate into my own lessons. The same goes with the classroom website. I

appreciated all of the feedback I received as well as being able to look at their websites. It

gave me some great ideas I can use in the future.

The new school year is coming up very quickly. I plan to utilize the

differentiation discussion to make sure that I learn about my students. It is very important

to get to know their interests and how they learn in order to help differentiate and meet

their needs. That is something that I will start using from the very beginning of the year.

The other pieces of information I will use much more this year are all of the assistive

technologies that people have listed. I just learned about WordQ myself this past year and

I started to use it. I want to incorporate it much more in my classroom this coming year. I

also learned that the Montgomery County website lists so many different assistive

technologies on their website as well. I never thought to look there. I will make sure to go

there and continue to use assistive technologies to support students. The one major thing I

am very excited to take away from this course is the classroom website I have built. I

have always wanted to make one but just never sat down to do it. I am glad we had to do

it for this class because the population at my new school will really be grateful for this

website. This website will help me build relationships with the parents at this school

because as I have been told they like to know everything that is going on at all times.

Looking at other websites from students in this class gave me some great ideas that I will

continue to update throughout the year.

One area I need to grow in order to become a better teacher is my relationship

with parents. The parent community at my school for the past three years was not very

involved. I tried my best to communicate with parents however there were many barriers
that made communication difficult. At my new school I have been informed that I will

have many interactions with parents. The disposition this relates to is Relationship with

Students, Parents, and other Stakeholders through Effective Communication.

Specifically: Communicates professionally, respectfully, and effectively through:

Personal Contact and a variety of media, formats, and information sources which are

selected to meet specific information needs (UMUC, 2014). As I stated before, I believe

one way to improve communication will be the classroom website I created. I think this is

a great step in the right direction.

This class has been very eye opening and showed me many ways I can

incorporate technology into the classroom. When thinking about technology integration

in the classroom before this class, I only thought of the simplest ways to do that. What

came to mind was putting a Chromebook in a child’s hand or showing a video. This class

has broadened my view so much. I will be able to enhance my teaching skills due to this

class for my upcoming school year and and for all the years to come.

References:

Guice, K. (2016, July 1). Personal Interview

Lopez, S. (n.d.). Biography Lesson Plan: An Introduction to Biographies. Retrieved from

 https://educators.brainpop.com/lesson-plan/biography-lesson-plan-introduction-

biographies/

Milliken, J. (2008). Beginning biography research. Retrieved from

http://www.learnnc.org/lp/pages/3004

Simon, B. (2016, July 1). Personal Interview.

UMUC Education Department. (2014, July). Department of Education Professional

Dispositions

Policy. Retrieved from

http://www.umuc.edu/visitors/about/departments/edudept/edupolicies/upload/prof

essional-dispositions-policy.pdf

Walsh, K. (2015, April 15) 8 Examples of Transforming Lessons Through the SAMR

Cycle. Retrieved from http://www.emergingedtech.co HYPERLINK

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