Reflection of GAME Plan

The GAME plan process has been a successful and rewarding experience for me. I have learned a lot about myself as an instructor as well as the NETS-T standards. I believe that this process is relevant for many uses, that of a teacher and of a student. I will use this structure personally, professionally, and instructionally in the future.

The structure and the components of the GAME plan are the keys to successfully implementing and working toward goals. Setting goals and figuring out the resources and information you will need to meet these goals provided a firm foundation. Monitoring, evaluating, and revising are steps that I often skip, when trying to meet goals. I do not think that I skipped these steps intentionally, but did not have a good framework in mind when setting goals.

The main impact my instruction will have, is my realization through my GAME plan that students need to set goals. They need to monitor and evaluate their progress towards these goals in many different content areas, especially their new learning with technology. Teaching and planning units around real world problems will motivate and engage my students, as well as provide the need to use new technology to strengthen learning. I will definitely be using the GAME plan with my students toward their learning and behavior goals.

The immediate adjustments that I have made are to focus on the purpose of technology integration. The structure and modeling that follows is extremely important to the success of the activities. Available resources and seeking out assistance is the role I am taking currently to ensure availability for next year. I am sharing ideas and looking for ideas with colleagues constantly. I am using technology more than ever in my classroom, with the use of blogs, websites, and wikis. Digital storytelling is my next venture over the last few months of school and I am excited to see the outcome of this endeavor.

I look forward to sharing and using my new knowledge from this course and witnessing the changes in my students learning because of my new ideas and practices. I have extremely enjoyed this course!

Tiffany Hall

Using the GAME Plan Process with Students

Thinking about how I have used the GAME Plan process to meet goals related to the NETS-T standards, I could easily see the connection in using it with students to meet the NETS-S standards. Students will need a lot more guidance and support then we did as teachers, but the process is definitely worthwhile. Setting GOALS, determining ACTIONS, MONITORING your growth, and EVALUATING your progress is a good structure for all goal setting.

NETS-Standards
· Creativity and Innovation
· Communication and Collaboration
· Research and Information Fluency
· Critical Thinking, Problem Solving, and Decision Making
· Digital Citizenship
· Technology Operations and Concepts

Having students choose to standards that they would like to work on and using the GAME plan to set their goals would be a great exercise. I also would have students blog their GAME plans and progress along the way. It was very beneficial for me to share my thinking and get immediate feedback from several different people each week. As a teacher, it would be hard to read every students GAME plan each week. Having student blog and help one another along the way would ensure that students had support on a weekly basis to meet their goals. Just as we supported one another with ideas, suggestions, and challenges we had; students could do all of these things with each other as well.

Tiffany Hall

Revising My GAME Plan

· What have you learned so far that you can apply in your instructional practice?

I have learned so much about goal setting, for myself throughout this class. I realize the importance or constant reflection and modification. I would like to apply this structure to my students learning over the last few months of school. My second graders have been slacking off quite a bit in Reading. I am going to pose a reading challenge to them, but ask them to set their own goals. Each week we will graph our progress and reflect. I believe that for second graders this will be a great experience for them in goal setting. It will also be a great assessment piece for me as an educator to watch their progress.

· What goals are you still working toward?

I am still working toward the goal of using Excel with my students, so they are keeping track of and assessing their growth and learning. I have checked out the book “Excel for Dummies” and plan to read the book over the next week. Then I will share Excel with students and help them get acquainted with the program and play around with it for a few weeks. After that time, I will prepare a simple set of directions for students and see if they can use this application.

· Based on the NETS-T, what new learning goals will you set for yourself?

My new learning goal is to “Engage in Professional Growth and Leadership”. Over the past month I have attended 50 clock hours worth of free trainings through my school district. It has been challenging, especially since I am still a graduate student and work in two school districts, but I believed that the opportunities were too good to pass up. I have learned so many great things that I can use in the classroom, so I know it was worth it. I would like to prepare a quick summary of all the learning I received from these trainings and share it with my colleagues, in this way I have grown professionally through training as well as taking on some leadership.

· What learning approaches will you try next time to improve your learning?

Some learning approaches I will try this time to improve my learning is to try to focus on suggestions from others one at a time. I tried to research too many things at a time and got overwhelmed throughout this process. I want to take baby steps, research one thing, if it will work for me try it, if not then move onto the next suggestion. I tried to research everything at once this time and it did not work as well as I would have liked.

The GAME plan structure and weekly reflection has been very beneficial to me and something that I will use with my students immediately!
Thanks for your ideas!
Tiffany Hall