Blog Post #I- Chapter 4

After reading chapter four I found that there are many interesting concepts and topics I thought would be very beneficial to the classroom. It is important to include technology in lessons and to incorporate technology in developing a well rounded curriculum.

The first concept I would like to discuss are the three decisions by teachers that develops lessons and a strong curriculum. The first is, what to teach. The second, how to teach. The third, how to know what students have learned. All these concepts can be well supported by technology. For example. technology can help decide how teachers teach and what they want to include in their lessons. Whether it may be educational podcasts, PowerPoint, or vodcasts technology can help improve a lesson plan or create a curriculum more interesting and stimulating for the students. I think it would be a great idea to incorporate technology into my lesson plans and learn how the best way a certain topic can be taught. Technology can also help you decide what to teach, its important to find relevant topics for your students. As a future educator I would also keep track of how technology is impacting the students and their ability to retain information.

The second concept I would like to discuss is how to differentiate tests and performance methods. Teachers use these methods to measure the knowledge of students however they are both different. Technology can be a great tool to measure this knowledge, for example offering multiple ways to conduct tests and performance assessments. As a teacher I would use many online resources to measure the performance of my students. I have had many instances where I take online tests for school and I receive my results instantly, I have always found this to be very helpful. In my future classroom I would use this technique because I think it is important for my students to learn about their strengths and weaknesses. In the chapter, it also discussed how standardized testing may only measure a limited amount of student knowledge. I agree with this theory, I feel as though preparing students for standardized tests is not providing them with all the information but with just specific information.

The poster below was created with picktochart, describing the three strong concepts to evaluating students.

 

The third concept I would like to discuss is how it is important to connect educational standards to planning lessons. Teachers have to meet a certain goal as well as having their students pass assessments and tests. However teachers have to make sure their students retain information for more than tests.National, state, and local curriculum frameworks help define what academic content teachers must present to students. It is important to include these standards in lesson plans as a strong base for the students. However I also think it is important to include fun activities for students and different forms of educating other than just from a book. The video below is a short video about lesson planning! 

Resources:

Maloy, Robert, Verock-O’Loughlin,Ruth-Ellen, Edwards, Sharon A., and Woolf, Beverly Park (2013). Transforming 

Learning with New Technologies. 2nd Edition. Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc
 

Izquierdo, N (2015, November 4).Assessments and Evaluating  . Created with Picktochart.