Assessment of Student Learning

Travonta Burges

July 16, 2018

Introduction

Over this summer semester I took the course MEDT 7462 taught by Dr. Baylen. In

this class I got to learn about different internet tools and applications through a variety of

ways such as discussions, exercises, and projects. In this paper I will reflect on what I

learned throughout this online course. I will discuss how prepared I am to take my learning

from this course and apply it to my own teaching. I will discuss the different lessons I

learned throughout this course. I will also talk about the common themes I saw in the

projects I created. I will talk about things that I would have done differently in this course

as well.

How prepared am I after taking MEDT 7462?

Now that I have taken MEDT 7462 I feel confident with the content and processes.

Coming into this course I really didn’t know what this course was going to be about. I knew

that is was called internet tools, but when I thought about tools I thought about different

tools that we use on the internet such as the browser and google search. To an extent I was

correct because those are considered tools. Before coming into this class I felt that I knew

about different tools and applications that I could use in my classroom to help my students,

but through this course I was able to expand on what I refer to as my teacher “tool box” by

having the opportunity to learn about different tools and applications that I can use in my

own classroom to help guide instruction and help my students apply themselves. One thing

that I appreciate about this course is that the students to share with one another not only

tools and applications that they learned about, but they also describe how they would use

the tool. This for myself was huge. I’m always looking for ways to grow as a teacher, and

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being able to look at how someone else uses the same tool or application that I use in my

class really gave me ideas of using that tool or application differently.

This class has equipped me with the knowledge of things such as knowing how to

teach my students digital and visual literacy and the importance of teaching digital and

visual literacy. With these literacies’ I can now teach my students how to decode

information, look for bias, and make inferences. This is done by something called knowledge

management. Knowledge management is defined as the process of capturing, distributing,

and effectively using knowledge (Kirsch, Marlow, Pingley, Leonhirth & Lownes, 2016). Not

only did I learn how to hone in on my students’ literacy, I also learned how to bring

creativity out of my students by the use of different applications. I honestly feel that taking

this course has made me a better teacher. The knowledge I have now is way greater than

the knowledge I had before taking this course in terms of internet tools and applications. I

feel confident enough to go out and teach other educators about the content I learned in

this course. I plan on taking many of the applications and tools and using them in my

classroom when school starts back. In fact, I have already been working on a Wix website

for my classroom for this upcoming school year.

Challenges I faced

Just as with any course there are going to be challenges faced when trying to

complete the course. This is due to many of us having jobs while at the same time juggling

family and school. An internal challenge for myself is that I am not the most tech savvy

person. I always tell people when it comes to technology I know how to do just enough to

get by. When it came to looking up different resources for discussions and projects I really

had to do my research. I didn’t want to use resources that I was already familiar with

because I wanted to gain something from this course. Although I don’t consider myself to

be a technology wiz I was able to learn about a great deal of different resources. Another

internal challenge that I had with this course was that before taking this course I was

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unfamiliar with APA. Throughout my schooling I have always been taught by using MLA

when writing papers and researching information, so using APA formatting was a little

foreign to me at first. Luckily Dr. Baylen included a APA protocol resource that served as a

“cheat sheet” that helped me with formatting m papers and citing sources. One external

challenge that I had while completing this course is time management. I have a three-year-

old daughter and another child due this November. So one of the external challenges that I

had was trying to complete school work while at the same time participate in family

activities such as vacations. Another external challenge that I faced with trying to complete

this course in terms of time management is trying to balance school and work. Although I

am out for summer break I am pretty busy as a high school football coach. We practice four

days a week. This takes up a lot of my time. I learned that making a schedule to complete

discussions and project helped me with this. Something else that helped me with this is

going to the library helped me focus when creating projects and discussions. Aeon and

Aguinis (2017) describes this a quiet time when a person finds a place to work

independently without distractions. Lastly, one thing I can say helped me with both my

internal and externa challenges was the fact that I could both email and instant message

my classmates when I had a question.

Lessons Learned

Taking this course I learned a lot of different lessons. One of the biggest professional

lessons I learned from communicating with Dr. Baylen was there is a difference between an

internet tool and an application. Honestly coming into this course I thought the two were

one in the same. I was sadly mistaken. I learned that a tool is something that a teacher

uses to instruct a student when teaching them material. An application is different from a

tool because it allows for students to apply what they have learned by creating different

material. For example, if I wanted to play the game Jeopardy in which I created it would be

a tool because myself as the teacher created it to teach my students about a certain topic. I

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can easily transform that internet tool into an application by having my students create their

own jeopardy game because they will be creating questions themselves from learned

material. I have come to value you applications more than tools because I personally feel

that applications involve and engage students much more in the learning process because it

is something that they created themselves. Another professional lesson that I can’t say I

necessarily learned, but I can say I learned more about was how important collaboration

amongst students is in education. I learned that when students are able to collaborate with

one another it really allows for them to display their creativity. As a math teacher

sometimes I struggle with having my students work independently too often. I learned that

by having my students work together not only will they be able to hone in on their

creativity, but it will also open the door for students to have better discussions with one

another. As an educator I know that having students discuss and share their views is one of

the key ingredients to having a positive learning environment. One of my biggest take-a-

ways in terms of collaboration was peer review. Clapp & Swenson 2013 stated in their

article The Collaborative Classroom: New Technology Brings New Paradigm that Peer review

is an important collaborative technique that allows students to share their work and ideas

for the purposes of improvement and shared learning. Sometimes hearing feedback from

a peer can be more valuable to a student than hearing it from their teacher. On a

personal note one lesson that I learned was that technology can have a negative effect

on students. When Freed talked about this is his book this really hit home for me as a

parent. I’m not ready to throw technology away completely, but I do think as Heitner I

says in her book that I may need to do a better job of mentoring my child and students. I

guess you can say the lesson learned was that there should be a balance with the use of

technology. Another personal lesson that I learned from this course was how valuable

communication with peers is in education. While participating in the different discussions

in this course I was able to view the opinions of others and share my own.

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 What would I do differently

In this course we got to display our understandings of internet tools and applications

in a variety of ways that include discussions, exercises, and projects. Although I am pleased

with the material I created, I always feel there is room for improvement. There are some

things that I would do differently if I had the opportunity to resubmit a project. One of the

first things I would do differently is make sure that I look at the writing and APA protocols

before working on discussions and projects. These were two things that really were causing

me to have unsatisfactory grades at the begging of the semester. I was completing all of

my work, but I wasn’t formatting and citing my sources correctly. I got better with

formatting and citing sources as the semester went on, but I am disappointed in myself that

I didn’t do this on earlier assignments because it caused me to lose points. One thing that I

would have done differently in project 3 was choose a different application other than

Storyboard That. It’s not that I don’t think that this is a great application because I do. I

was disappointed that I couldn’t find a true article that used this specific application in it. I

eventually had to settle with an article that talked about using comics instead. What I

learned through this is that when you are going to research something you need to look for

articles first. Something else that I would do differently if I could would be to look at the

course schedule more often. Not looking at the course schedule as often as I should really

hurt me in project 1. I thought the project was due on a Sunday but it was due on a

Monday instead. This caused me to complete the project really quickly and probably not do

my best work. One thing that help me get better at this was using one of the applications

that I researched titled MindMup which helped me organize due dates and assignments.

Concept map applications such as MindMup are great because they allow for a person to not

only make connections between facts and ideas, but they help with teaching procedures

increases that person ability to remember a certain concept. (Canas & Novak 2017) Lastly,

one thing that I would do differently in this course is explored more of the tools and

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applications that my peers shared in their discussion posts. Due to time I only focused on

the tools and applications presented by my peers in which I replied to in my discussions.

Many of my classmates offered great resources, but I wasn’t able to explore them. The

reason why I wish I would have done this differently is because not looking at all of the

resources my classmates presented is a missed opportunity for my me because someone

could have introduced a tool or application that could help me in my own teaching career.

Common Denominator

When looking back to the different projects we created throughout this course one

thing that I can say was the common denominator was student academic success in terms

of using internet tools and applications. The reason why I say this is because through each

of the projects we created what we were learning and describing was for the benefit of

students. As both Freed and Heitner discussed in their books, technology is something that

doesn’t seem to be going away anytime soon. This was evident when Heitner (2018) stated

that today’s kids use technology create media, and not just consume it. As I was creating

each of my different projects this semester I could help but think to myself how this would

be helpful to the students I teach. Although each project was different in what I had to

create the fact still remained the same that I was creating it to help me be a better teacher

for my students. Project 1 involved creating a Weebly website that offers different resources

in the form of tools and applications for teachers and even parent to use for students. This

was different from all of the other projects because in my opinion it served as a resource

that allows for students to find tools and applications they need when trying to create

material for a particular class. I say this because the site offers resources for different class

subjects. Projects 2 and 3 were similar because I had to find resources, perform a write-up

on those resources, and find tutorial videos that students could use to take advantage of

those resources. Although these two projects were similar they were still very different. In

project 2 I focused on internet tools that teachers could use to help instruct their students,

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but in project 3 I focused more on applications that students can use to show their learning.

The difference in the two projects was that project 2 offer tools that were teacher led while

project 3 focused on student led applications. One thing that they do have in common and it

brings back up the common denominator which is both projects were about tools and

applications that were catered to student success. In project 4 I got the chance to compare

the two texts Wired Child written by Richard Freed and Screenwise by Devorah Heitner. This

project was different from projects 1, 2, and 3 because it didn’t focus on internet tools and

application. Project 4 focused on showing the prevalence of technology and providing

parents and teachers with different strategies to help student in terms of technology.

Freed’s book discussed how the overuse of technology was hurting students’ academic

success while Heitner discussed that teachers should serve as mentors when showing

students how to use internet tools and applications. Although both authors had a different

stance on technology they both placed an emphasis on students’ academics.

Conclusion

As I stated earlier taking this course made me a better teacher in my opinion as I

stated earlier. Through this course I was able to learn about a slew of different internet

tools and applications through both research and my peers. I also got the opportunity to

evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of technology and the effect that it has on students.

I was able to really learn how to incorporate technology into my class through completing

each of the projects. Although there were challenges in this course, I was able to meet them

head on. I look forward to learning more about different tools and applications as mu

teaching career progresses. I look forward to incorporating some of the tools in applications

I learned in this course in my classroom when school starts back in August.

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 References

AEON, B., & AGUINIS, H. (2017). IT'S ABOUT TIME: NEW PERSPECTIVES AND INSIGHTS

ON TIME MANAGEMENT. Academy Of Management Perspectives, 31(4), 309-330.

doi:10.5465/amp.2016.0166

Cañas, A. J., & Novak, J. D. CONCEPT MAPPING IN MIDDLE SCHOOL

MATHEMATICS. Retrieved July 1, 2017.

Clapp, B., James, & Swenson. (2013). The Collaborative Classroom: New Technology

Brings New Paradigm. Atlantic Marketing Journal, 2(3), 60-68.

HEITNER, D. (2018). SCREENWISE: Helping kids thrive (and survive) in their digital world.

S.l.: ROUTLEDGE.

Kirsch, B., Marlow, D., Pingley, A., Leonhirth, D., & Lownes, S. (2016). Improving

Student Engagement with Technology Tools. Currents In Teaching & Learning,

8(2), 50-61.