Educators facilitate learning with technology to support student achievement of the ISTE Standards for Students. Educators:

 

6a)  Foster a culture where students take ownership of their learning goals and outcomes in both independent and group settings.

 

One of my classes is kind of independent run, where all of the materials--videos, websites, papers, activities--needed for the chapter is put on Google Classroom at once and hard quiz/test dates are given to the students at the beginning of each unit.  It is then up to them to work on their homework, activities, and projects to make sure that they have taken all forms of summative assessment by that hard due date.  This is only done with my honors classes since I do understand that in high school, many students still need that structure.  I have, however, had many students within their reflections at the end of the semester (and even graduates) come to me and say they appreciate having a class run this way as it prepares them for post-secondary classes, as well as really helped to instill time management and responsibility.

 

I also created an action research plan for my Technology Action Research course that first of all considered if flipping a classroom actually is beneficial for student motivation and engagement, and then detailed how each of us in the group would flip our classrooms.  A flipped classroom is shown to, if done correctly, better allow students to move at their pace within the classroom as well as potentially have more time to work with others and the teacher to better clarify the concepts being taught.

 

6b)  Manage the use of technology and student learning strategies in digital platforms, virtual environments, hands-on makerspaces or in the field.

 

Since we are 1:1, we use a tool called GoGuardian which allows us to see our students' computer screens on our screen.  It tracks the sites our students go to and how long they are on each site.  As teachers, we are able to lock their screens to one page or we have the ability to lock them out of their computer altogether should the need arise.  This helps to keep the students on track and safe.  It also helps when teachers are unable to move from their desks or are having trouble getting around the classroom (we have a few in wheelchairs/crutches); we are able to help walk students through problems by looking at the problems on their screens.

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**Note the screenshot was taken after school hours.

 

6c)  Create learning opportunities that challenge students to use a design process and computational thinking to innovate and solve problems.

 

For my Technology and Assessment class, I created a performance assessment I was able to use for my Geometry classes.  This assessment had students answering (semi)real-life problems using Geogebra, an online graphing/constructing tool.  In order to answer the questions, they had to show their constructions and interpret their constructions and reflect on their answers.

 

I also give an activity where students get to design and "build" their own room. The project required them to draw at scale a given bedroom and design it.  The designs had a checklist of items they needed to include such as paint and flooring.  They then had to use formulas to calculate the cost of designing the room along with decorating and furnishing it.  Their final presentation needed to include their cost with their given budget and a digital design to scale the room.  They were required to type out an estimate sheet using equation editors along with providing an accurate blueprint using the software.  

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6d)  Model and nurture creativity and creative expression to communicate ideas, knowledge or connections.

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After creating my digital media portfolio for my Introduction to Digital Media course, I was able to take what I had learned and use that as an example for my Algebra class when I had them create a short YouTube video singing the Quadratic Formula for our Quadratics unit.  The students had full creative rights (within school rules) and the students then were able to connect the Quadratic formula to a song/jingle they liked and were better able to learn and use the formula.