EDLD 5366 Week 5 Reflection

As I reflect on the collaborative webpage project I feel despite not being an Ed Tech student the process proved to be beneficial.  I was very apprehensive about creating an actual webpage with specific criteria and guidelines.  By the end of the project my apprehension was replaced with satisfaction in the success of our end product. I was very fortunate to work with a very supportive group.  By working on the webpage I learned how to create different layouts and how utilizing the C.R.A.P. design principals can positively affect the aesthetics of the page (Rundle, 2006).   I took the knowledge I learned and used it to improve upon some of the print products I previously created.  This allowed me to increase their readability and their impact.  I also benefited from learning about the Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy (Churches, 2008).  I now realize that the digital key verbs can be used in combination with content and TEK verbs to make a well-rounded enhanced lesson. 

As a learner during this project my approach was to have an open mind and not to be afraid to ask questions. There were members of my group who are more experienced than I am with creating a webpage so I asked for their feedback on my page as I was developing it.   I began the process by focusing on the specific information I needed to have on my page.  I researched content that would be most relevant to my page by searching the internet and by reflecting on things I would want to see as a parent myself.   Working collaborative with my group positively affected the outcome of the project as well as my individual page.  Everyone provided constructive feedback and we were not afraid to discuss things that could be fine-tuned or to ask for help if there was a certain area where we were struggling.  Of great benefit was that our group created an initial plan of action from the very beginning of the project which helped keep us focused and on pace despite not working face-to-face. 

While my career path is not one of a technology leader I believe that all administrative leaders must be informed about technology.  This course helped pique my interest about different ways to incorporate technology into my role as an administrative leader.  By utilizing our shared Google document and our group Facebook page we were able to collaborate continuously with immediate feedback.   The shared Google document is a tool I look forward to implementing on my campus for the many collaborative projects throughout the year.   I also believe that a shared Google document could be very beneficial for teachers as they collaboratively plan their lessons.  Self-reflection during the project was essential.  With every new activity I was able to reflect on what I learned and how I could utilize the skill in the future.  “Critical reflection is an important part of any learning process. Without reflection, learning becomes only an activity…” (Gerstein, 2011)

There really is no limit as to how websites can be implemented in the PK-12 classroom.  There are so many ways that teachers can use websites can help our students.  Some teachers are apprehensive about incorporating technology into the classroom.  One easy way teachers can implement interactive, fun educational websites into their lessons is by incorporating lessons from websites that use animation such as BrainPop.com or ones that use rap songs to teach content such as StudyJams.com or Flocabulary.com.  These websites can reinforce the concepts taught in the Math, Reading, Science or Social Studies classes in an engaging, entertaining manner.  Our students have grown up with technology and if we want to keep them engaged and learning we need to meet students where they are technologically.  By doing this it helps us deliver to students the most effective instruction possible.   In order to ensure that implementation of websites in the classroom happens effectively and consistently teachers need to be trained.  Technology Specialists can conduct weekly training sessions focusing on a different type of technology or a different educational website so teachers can discover what is available and to ease the anxiety some of the non-digital native teachers may experience. 

Gerstein, J. (2011), Where is reflection in the learning process? Retrieved from http://usergeneratededucation.wordpress.com/2011/08/16/where-is-reflection-in-the-learning-process/

Rundle, M (2006). How C.R.A.P. is Your Site Design? Learn with Treehouse. Retrieved from http://thinkvitamin.com/design/how-crap-is-your-site-design/

Churches, A. (2008). Bloom's taxonomy blooms digitally. Retrieved from http://www.techlearning.com/studies-in-ed-tech/0020/blooms-taxonomy-blooms-digitally/44988

EDLD 5366 Collaborative Webpage Assignment

Our week 4 assignment required us to work as a collaborative group to come up with an informational webpage about technology in education and digital native learners.
Here is a link to our page.

https://sites.google.com/site/teamturboteaching/home

EDLD 5366 Week 3 Assignment Animation

Alternate Logo

I tried another logo...this one without my name. 

EDLD 5366 Animation #3...this is fun.

EDLD 5366 Week 3 Another animation

EDLD5366 Week 3 Animation

EDLD 5366 Personal Logo

I had to create my personal logo for a graphic design class I had to take as a substitute for a leadership class that I took on my own in August...(a leadership class that is now being offered as part of our degree program. Ugh!!) Anyhow, I can't say I ever thought of self-branding prior to this class. Here's what I came up with for my logo.

EDLD5366 Week 1 Reflection of the Bible of Ethiopia

1) My first impression of the Bible of Ethiopia was that it was created with great care and with purpose. The elaborate designs clearly mean it is intended to be held in high regard. The cover appears to be leather with a colorful cloth inlay in the cover. The text is carefully and neatly written. It appears to be a very important and treasured bible. The pictures appear to tell a story that corresponds to the text. 2) The design element of Contrast is evident in the black and red colored text. Contrast is also being utilized with the pictures with the colors yellow, red and green. There is quite a bit of repetition within the bible not only with the repetition of similar shaped pictures and drawn scrolls but with the colored text repeating in each column of text. The oval shape around the heads of the people in the pictures is repeated throughout. The text is neatly aligned using full-justification. Text surrounding the pictures is aligned to the left as is the text within the small squares on some of the pages. The element of proximity seems to be evident with red text around the pictures; I would assume the text is describing the pictures. 3) The vibrant colors of the hand drawn pictures indicate this bible should be held in high regard. The entire bible is full of regal colors of gold and red which imply a sense of importance. The pictures and text seem to be telling a story that was significant enough to document.

EDLD 5366 Week 1 Teaching Product and Reflection

The teaching product I created was a flier I will send out to all parents of students who are attending the school tutorial program. After the Christmas Break several students were not attending and it became apparent that some parents were under the impression that tutorials were no longer being offered after the break. I can use this flier as a teaching product using the C.R.A.P. components. This product demonstrates Contrast by using bold print in several areas to distinguish important points to be reviewed. Contrast is also reflected in the all capitals in the word “NOT” at the bottom of the flier to call the parents attention to the days tutorials are not in session. Repetition is evident in similar design elements within each of the segments of the flier as well as the use of the same font for text and same font for headings. Related sections of information are grouped together to indicate they belong together which is evidence of appropriate Alignment. And Proximity is shown where the information related to the tutorial days/times are listed directly below the headings and in the clip of the teacher helping the child with the reminder that students receive small group instruction.

EDLD 5397 Week 3 web conference reflection

We had brief technical difficulties at the beginning of the conference. Dr. Borel managed to log in using two computers to make it work. She’s a problem solver. She ended up using a PPT from another session. My principal did not print a copy of the results of the surveys that she filled out for me. Dr. Borel said that if I send her an email she will get the results to me so I can reflect. Campus embedded report…if using an old form do not reflect together…reflect on each of the 38 leadership skills separately. You break up the activities but still reflect on all 38 leadership skills. Collaboration: meeting to … Decision Making: we made decisions to do…. Use the action research plan template. The action research project is not a rough draft. Complete sections 1, 2 and 3 plus the reference section and title page. Do not do Sections 4 and 5 yet. APA Activity Examples: According to Pink, “A sense of autonomy has a powerful effect on individual performance and attitude” (Pink, p.88) According to Pink (2009), “A sense of autonomy has a powerful effect on individual performance and attitude” (p.88) Page 177 of APA manual. Double space everything. In a study by Lear, Ansorge, & Steckelberg (2010), creating a community of ……..(Lear, Ansorge, and Steckelbert, p. 75) In a study by Lear, Ansorge and Steckelbert (2010), creating a community of…. Put “and” if in text and “&” if at the end. Hanging margins (5 spaces) with references Not in-text citations. Chapter in the book…back cover tells chapters of books. Pg. 204 Barbour, M., & Ferdig, R. (2012). Name of the chapter. In S. McLeod & C. Lehmann (Eds.), What school leaders need to know about digital technologies and social media (pp. 53-66). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Correct: According to Lamar University, “We are a nationally recognized leader in quality, affordable online education” (Online Learning, para. 1) Action Research Report – use template and rubric…you’ll have no trouble. Review of the Literature section (minimum 6 current references) several to pages to many pages. ERIC, Ebscohost, Proquest, JSTOR, Educational Leadership Review. Go to Lamar Library and go to databases. She strongly suggests we complete the Review of the Lit this week. Design Section – procedures, who, when, what steps, whose involved, how are we going to collect data? Surveys, number of referrals. Reference section is citing references. Despite the brief technical difficulties this has still been a good web conference.

Update on my research action plan

My bus incentive action research project has been running smoothly. The first incentive will be given to students on Monday. The first 15 buses of students have earned 15 days of “thumbs up” behavior. I look forward to giving the students their “Free Dress” stickers tomorrow. I’m sure they will look really nice in their regular clothes instead of the boring uniforms. The students have been very excited and every time I’m walking down the hall I have students stop me to ask a question about the incentive program. It is good to see them participating. There are 5 buses that did not earn the incentive yet. I suspect that four of them will earn in in the next week or so. I rode a school bus during the afternoon run last week. This bus has not earned the incentive yet. I spoke with some students about how they feel about the bus incentive and the majority of the students point the blame at a select few students. The bus drive confirmed these statements. I need to come up with some individual incentives for those students so the entire bus doesn’t continue get penalized for the behavior of a select few. Perhaps I can devise a bus behavior improvement point sheet similar to the ones we have for student behavior in the classroom? I could give them small incentives including pencils, stickers, and of course, praise and attention. I know a few of the students and their home life…a little positive attention could go a long way with them. I will pull those students on Monday and work something out with them.

Week 4 Community Math Night Presentation

School-Community Partnerships Week 3 timeline

Task	Who?	What?	When?
Initial approval	Administrators	Obtain initial approval to explore the partnership	March 2013
Planning committee	All stakeholders represented:  Math Specialist, teachers, students, community businesses, parents, administrators, teacher aids, counselors	Organize a planning committee consisting of teachers, student representatives, parents, community business partner and an administrator to explore process and brainstorm ideas	March 2013
Participants commitment	Teachers, students, businesses	Commitment from teachers, select students, and selected community businesses to participate	May 2013
Function Dates	Planning Committee members	Consensus on dates  of Fall and Spring function	June 2013
Math Agenda and Activities	Teacher participants, student participants, community businesses with Math Specialist	Determine the math activities and related math concepts	May – July 2013
Fall Advertising and Family, Community Call out	Teacher, parent volunteers	Advertise the function to students and parents via take home flyer, website notice.  Conduct a call out session; calling parents, community members to inform them of the function	Late September 2013
Fall participants survey	Parent, student and community business participants	Parent, teachers, student, business  participant survey: level of satisfaction with the length of activity, type of activity, and understanding of concept taught and relevance to real-world application shows an Above Average rating. Ratings calculated on scale of Above Average, Average or Below Average	October 2013
Analyze survey results and create math night agenda and activities	Teacher participants, student participants, community businesses with Math Specialist	Based on results of surveys determine the math activities and related math concepts for Spring function	December 2013
Spring Advertising and Family, Community Call out	Teacher, parent volunteers	Advertise the spring Math Night function to students and parents via take home flyer, website notice.  Conduct a call out session; calling parents, community members to inform them of the function	Late February 2014
Spring  participants survey	Parent, teacher, student and community business participants	Parent, teachers, student, business  participant survey: level of satisfaction with the length of activity, type of activity, and understanding of concept taught and relevance to real-world application shows an Above Average rating. Ratings calculated on scale of Above Average, Average or Below Average.	March 2014
Data analysis	Math Specialist, administrators	Analyze change in student achievement on math district and state assessments	March – May 2014
Report achievement to stakeholders	Math Specialist, administrators, committee members	Report evaluation results to students, parents and community businesses	June 2014

School-Community Partnerships Week 2

Current Reality: Identify a current student issue or need that interferes with academic achievement at your school. Cite data that supports the need. This could be data that relates to academic achievement, student attendance, discipline, or other sources. Look at trends of data and disaggregated data, where available.

Student interest, engagement and academic achievement in math are a concern in our school.  Teachers continue to struggle with how to increase student’s interest in math and their ability to demonstrate mastery on the recently implemented rigorous state math assessments. Our campus did not meet AYP goals during the first year implementation of the new state standardized math test, STAAR.  AYP goals had been met in the previous twelve years with previous state assessments.  This demonstrates a need to reevaluate how math skills are being taught to our students to meet the more rigorous requirements and the activities we offer to stimulate student interest in math.  More teachers have expressed concerns of an increased level of apathy and lack of student engagement in math class due to lack of achievement on math assessments.  Student scores on district and local assessments decreased by an average of 9% and 11%, respectively from last year to this current school year. Students are not making the connection between math ability and the effect on their future careers.  Despite incorporating multi-step word problems into daily instruction, student scores on both campus and district common assessments reflect that students are still struggling.  The frustration and lack of success is causing increased apathy and lack of interest in math class and of math in general.  The emphasis on careers that utilize math skills is minimally advertised on our campus.

Vision: How will the family-school-community partnership that you are proposing resolve the issue by meeting the demonstrated need, and how will it support student achievement?

Our goal is stimulating a student’s interest in math by helping students understand the relationship between math and a future career, their focus and interest in learning math skills in school could increase; resulting in an improvement in math grades and academic growth on local assessments and growth on the new more rigorous state STAAR assessment.   Holding at least two Math Night functions throughout the year where parents and students are able to work together on math activities connected to the TEKS could improve parent knowledge of the higher academic expectations as well as lessen the feeling of inferiority for our parents with an aversion to math.   When parents begin to understand how to solve the problems themselves they’ll be more willing to encourage and assist their children.  Their perception of education could also become more positive.  The hope is the emphasis from parents on academic success and understanding will translate to better understanding, patience, interest, and dedication on the part of the student in the classroom and on the assessments.  It also could be beneficial during Math Night to have some high achieving students assisting with the activities with the parents.  This will bring the community of families within our school together in solidarity with a common goal of a successful school of learners. An additional focus of the Math Night would be to include business members of our community who work in fields that require math skills to discuss how math is used within their career.  Students and parents will apply math skills from the activities they participated in with the teachers and students to a real life work situation. The emphasis would be on careers that are not primarily math based like accountants and financial planners but other jobs students want and that are within their reach.  These are the types of jobs that the parents of our student population have. This would allow parents and community businesses to become more involved and allow them to build meaningful connections with the school.  Our school is in a lower income area and the prospect of becoming doctors and lawyers, while not out of reach for all, is unlikely for most.  By highlighting the professions that may not require a four year university degree as relevant and well respected career paths, we could build interest in some of the students who have not felt connected to any particular future career path while building the connection to math in the classroom.  For instance, police officers use geometry when analyzing a vehicle accident scene, landscapers and agriculturalists use math when they calculate the appropriate amount of soil, fertilizer and pesticides to use, and trade school professions such as carpenters, plumbers, electricians and mechanics all use math when calculating the costs to complete a job including determining the appropriate amount of labor to hire.

 Week 2 Assignment, Part 2: Initial Partnership Proposal

The first step in establishing either a new family-school-community partnership, or strengthening an existing one, is to clearly articulate your idea. While your idea will probably evolve as stakeholders contribute their perspectives, you will use this assignment to solidify your initial concept.

To complete this assignment, fill out the chart.

Describe the need for the new or improved school-community partnership. Summarize the strategies/ activities you are recommending.

As the expectations and the complexity of math problems increased with the new state math assessment, student achievement and grades have declined.  The decline in student grades is a cause of concern for teachers and parents, especially the parents of the students who have achieved academic success in the past with the lower expectations of the TAKS test.   There is a need to increase student interest, comfort level and achievement of math skills.  We need find a way to increase student’s interest in and the understanding and purpose of mathematics as well as creating a sense of awareness to the connection of math skills to everyday professions.

Reference the research that supports the strategies/ activities you are recommending.

In Rutherford, B., & Billig, S. H., Eight lessons of parent, family and community involvement in the middle grades, they discuss how in Fort Worth ISD they had a program called Vital Link where sixth grade students were placed in businesses for a one-week internship.  During this internship students worked in the businesses to get an idea of the career opportunities within the fields.  By having our community businesses come to our school and offer hands-on business related activities that link to actual required math skills we are meeting the Vital Link goal which states “the goal of the program is to understand career opportunities in a variety of fields through hands-on experience.” (Rutherford & Billig).  By arranging for the activities to be available for both parents and students to explore together we are not only cultivating the relationship between school, family and community but also improving the connection between parents to students. The math activities in our Math Night will be designed to increase student interest in math. “Inspiring children’s interest in math and science at a young age is critical to nurturing a lifelong interest.”  Retrieved from http://www.maconferenceforwomen.org/raytheon-inspiring-enthusiasm-for-math-and-science/

Compose three or more measurable goals for the school-community partnership.

Participation levels (total participants, parents or students, grade level, specific student names, math teacher of students attending ) Attributes of activities (type of activity, length of activity, end of activity short survey results)  Participation of community businesses (total participants, types of businesses, other interested participants who could not commit to function date, repeat participants) Documented change in students mathematics grades both in class assignments and local and state assessments Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) results

How will the school-community partnership increase student achievement?

The Math Night function will increase student achievement by increasing the students’ sense of confidence and self-worth regarding math. As students interest and confidence in math increases so will the engagement level in the math classroom.  Scores on math assignments and on local and state assessments should increase as a result of this increased student engagement.  Math Night will also increase parent awareness of student’s math responsibilities and the parent’s knowledge of the skills students are required to master.   This increased awareness should help foster a better parent-student schoolwork relationship at home which should result in more completed homework assignments and better understanding of math concepts taught in class.

Identify the school-community partnership’s stakeholders.

Teachers Students Community business representatives who use math in their jobs (Math Night participants) Parents

What are the steps to approval and implementation of the partnership? What are possible sources of funding?

Initial approval to explore the partnership from campus administration Organize a planning committee consisting of teachers, student representatives, parents, community business partner and an administrator to explore process and brainstorm ideas Commitment from teachers, select students, and selected community businesses to participate Consensus on date of function Determine the math activities and related math concepts Organize a set-up committee to organize the set-up/tear-down processes for the function Advertise the function to students and parents. Conduct a call out session; calling parents to inform them of the function Hold Math Night Teacher survey of change in level of student engagement, suggestions, comments, concerns to address at future Math Night events Parent and Math Night business speaker survey requesting suggestions, comments, concerns Analyze change in student achievement on math assignments and assessments There will not be a large expense for this function.  The school provides the location so there are no facility fees.  The community businesses provide their own supplies and materials relevant to their activity.  The Math Department budget will incur the costs of the math activity packets, paper, pencils and other basic materials for the school activities and the flyers.

What resources are required for the partnership?

The majority of the resources are in the form of human labor, i.e. teachers, parents, students and community business working after hours.  There are little financial resources required. Participation from teachers, parents, students and community businesses. Access to the school building after school hours. Tables, chairs, other materials for business speakers teaching areas. Advertisement flyers, school website presence.

How will you market your school-community partnership idea?

Flyers will go home with students, be posted throughout the school and be advertised on the school website.  Students will continue to be reminded throughout the school by classroom teachers and on morning announcements.  Parents will receive a call from the school informing them off the Math Night function.

How will you evaluate your partnership’s outcomes?

The outcomes of the Math Night school, family and community partnership will be evaluated by the evidence in the level of student’s math interest and engagement in the classroom, math assignment and report card grades and growth on the local and state math common assessments. By holding Math Night more than once a year, level of participation by parents, students and community businesses will also be a sound evaluation element.   Teachers will be surveyed on levels of student engagement and academic progress on class assignments and assessments.   State assessment scores will be evaluated for individual student growth for students who attended the Math Night functions. Evaluation of AYP results.