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No matter what subject I teach, I always make time to teach my students Sean Covey’s 7 Habits, especially the first two: “Be Proactive” and “Begin with the End in Mind” (Covey,1998). I am amazed at how much my students seem to take these ideas to heart. Habit two is especially important for teens; kids have to know where they want to go in life or they end up getting pulled along, sometimes in the wrong direction. In my classes, we set life goals and academic goals. We set reading goals to plan where we want our reading to take us. We set writing goals to determine how we want our writing to grow over the year. Professionally, I set goals for myself each year in order to be assessed by my principal.
This summer, I have been writing a new type of professional goal for myself. Gearing towards becoming a teacher of technology, I have been reshaping my lessons to fit with the ISTE’s National Education Standards for Teachers (NETS-T). To reach my goals, I have used the GAME plan presented by Cennamo, Ross, and Ertmer in Technology Integration for Meaningful Classroom Use (2009). There is value in mapping out the methods you will take to achieve goals. The GAME plan forced me to plan my action steps, constantly monitor my progress, and reflect as I reached each goal (Cennamo, Ross & Ertmer, 2009, p. 14). Thanks to the GAME plan, I have come a long way towards rewriting most of my lessons so that I can enrich my students with technological experiences.
This week, I took some time to reflect on my progress by comparing the NETS-T with the standards for students (NETS-S). In order to truly be digital age learners, our students have a lot to learn. I have no time to waste. I plan to begin our school year by sharing the NETS-S with my students. We can then engage in discussion about what a digital age learner looks like. How far do my students have to go? I will then ask the class to start their own GAME plans, setting goals for themselves based on the national technology standards we must reach. We can monitor our progress throughout the year, evaluating and changing goals as we learn. Giving my students an opportunity to “keep the end in mind” will set them up for success on their route to 21st Century learning.
Cennamo, K., Ross, J. & Ertmer, P. (2009). Technology integration for meaningful classroom use: A standards-based approach. Mason, Ohio: Cengage Learning.
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Your intention of jumping right in and getting students immersed in the standards and goal setting is the right attitude. I tend to sit back and plan everything down to a 'T' and with technology's rapidly changing pace we just need to jump in!
ReplyDeleteI am going to follow your advice and have my students create their own GAME plans. However, I work with eleven year olds, so perhaps I'll need to write a few sample goals for them to choose from. What do you think about creating a class GAME plan to start with before moving on to individual GAME plans? Perhaps developing collaborative skills for tru collaborative projects would be an ideal GAME plan for the entire class (Laureate, 2009)