Personal Learning Plan Reflection

It seems like it hasn’t been that long since I started the MAET program but I feel as though I have made significant progress towards my goals.  Having reviewed my original plan from 810 just to get a sense of what my goals were when I began it seems clear that I have met many of them or a least addressed large portions.  I think one of the more interesting aspects is looking back on them and being able to see how they have evolved.  When I started the program I had two goals in mind.  The first was to learn or develop a framework for understanding how to implement technology in my classroom in a more fitting way than I was already.  The second goal was to build a skill set that would put me in a position to be a technology leader in my department, school and district.

During 811 we were introduced to the concept of TPACK, which was further considered in this class.  The TPACK framework has helped me greatly in meeting my first goal.  The seemingly simple idea that technology can and should work in the service of pedagogy and content has caused me to be considerably more aware of what to think about when using technology in a lesson.  Whereas I used to say “Wow, that’s a cool piece of technology I’m going to use it tomorrow” now I am thinking carefully and deliberately about which one to pick and for which reason.  For example, it has been very difficult to do the Wicked Problem Project (besides the time required to do it well) because I am finding that I need to be extremely careful about how I put it together.  The difficulty lies not in making technology work but in making the technology work with my pedagogy.  I don’t like to teach by telling, I prefer to teach by putting students in a situation where they need to make decisions and draw conclusions for themselves, the learning outcomes tend to be much greater for the student when the latter is used.  As such, I want to do more with my website than just have it be a list of things to read or watch.  The technology is geared toward that purpose (thinking about 810 and the difference between web 1.0 and web 2.0).  I am having to find creative ways to engage the students in the topic by integrating some web 2.0 technology.

TPACK has also served to heighten my awareness of my pedagogy.  I am now thinking about wanting students to be the center of the lesson (this was almost automatic in what I had been doing) I am finding that I am refocusing on exactly how I want my students to interact with the content and what technology I can pick to make that happen.  Even in the absence of technology I am thinking more about my teaching in terms of the PCK portion of the framework.  No doubt I am a better teacher when I do that, particularly because make so many of my own assignments.

With regard to my second goal of becoming a technology leader, I have been a little slower moving.  This is typical of my personality though as I tend to want to master something before I am completely comfortable sharing it with others.  I have certainly brought many ideas to my department and a few to other teachers.  They tend to be things that I feel comfortable with.  For example, I shared with an interdepartmental group my StAIR project about solving for x in a thoughtful way as opposed to the algorithmic way that is traditionally taught.  I was able to get a ton of feedback about it as well as see how people who were not “mathy” interacted with it.  I know others in my department have developed similar things after having learned about how to make a PowerPoint with internally linking pages from my StAIR.  
I have been working with two other teachers on developing ideas for the website which is also part of my Wicked problem project.  One of the main obstacles with this has really been finding time to get together and discuss it.  I have made some significant progress on the site, as it was non existent four weeks ago, and am looking forward to working with others to hopefully do great things with it.

I mentioned earlier that it has been interesting to watch my goals evolve as I have moved through the program.  My future focus will be to continue to work on integrating technology in my classroom.  I want to set up a class wiki page next year where my students will take turns entering day to day information about what happened in class, summarize the topics covered and list any assignments that were completed or assigned for homework.  I think that this will help them to feel like they are owners of the class in a different way.  It will also help me by reducing the work I have to do when students miss a day for whatever reason.  I plan on having the groups of students assigned in one or two week intervals to this task.  I also plan to have a second group of students who are responsible for making suggestions for alterations to the wiki.  I picture it as being a sort of review for the students while simultaneously forcing them to make sense of the mathematics we are working on and communicate their understanding to others.  I need to make sure that whatever I choose to use to do this will allow students to have an equation editor.  Otherwise it may be difficult to communicate the mathematics that we are doing in class.  While I would not be upset about students needing to use English to describe the concepts, I aslo want them to have practice communicating in symbolic math.  Wow look at that, TPACK in action.  In my opinion this is much better than the “i’ll just use some technology and hope for the best” approach that was previously my custom.

Carrying forward with the Wicked Problem Project, I really want to code the website myself.  I made a storyboard layout for it and I have found that wysiwyg interface offered by most build a website services to be inadequate for that purpose.  One of the perks of coding my own stuff is that I can make it look and behave anyway that I want.  For example Weebly doesn’t allow you to code a navigation back button.  The nav menu is too simplistic, not allowing for any interesting effects like a hover over drop down menu.  It does a marvelous job of being fairly easy to use but the cost is functionality.  Choosing to code myself does have some drawbacks however; I have concerns about the sustainability of the project if I end up not being teaching the class again.  If I am the only one who know how to code or knows what I coded than I will be solely responsible for its maintenance.  Additionally, I will need to learn a lot more about coding in order for it to function the way I really want it to.

I’ve ended my last two learning plan summaries the same way.  I have so many new ideas that I am having a hard time keeping them all straight.  My big fear is that I will end up trying to implement too many things at one time and end up doing a poor job of it because I have spread myself so thin.  As I look back on some of my early work with technology in the certificate courses I can already see how they can be improved and I look forward to being able to continue to develop as both a teacher and student of technology.