Professional Knowledge and Skills:
Candidates design, develop, implement, and evaluate technology-rich learning environments within a supportive community of practice.
4.1 Collaborative Practice. Candidates collaborate with their peers and subject matter experts to analyze learners, develop and design instruction, and evaluate its impact on learners.
When designing the Instructional Design project, I collaborated with both peers and subject matter experts. Through my peers, I determined the need for an instructional unit that targets both science and informational text to supplement the third grade curriculum. I was also able to collaborate with library experts to utilize the most effective databases for this information with UDLibSearch. With their expertise, I was able to develop and design this unit, which embeds assessment throughout to evaluate the impact on student learning.
4.2 Leadership. Candidates lead their peers in designing and implementing technology-supported learning.
The School Technology Plan outlines the necessary procedures in order to implement the Curriculum Project, which is an instructional unit grounded in technology-supported learning. This artifact provides my peers the necessary steps that would need to be taken so this unit could be taught to students in third grade. My peers are provided with an overview of the project, the current problem the unit addresses, the stakeholders involved, the technology tools needed to implement, possible obstacles that may need to be overcome, management of those implementing the unit, and how the unit targets all learners.
4.3 Reflection on Practice. Candidates analyze and interpret data and artifacts and reflect on the effectiveness of the design, development and implementation of technology-supported instruction and learning to enhance their professional growth.
This e-portfolio analyzes all of the major projects from my course work throughout the Masters program. Writing the abstracts and reflections for each of the AECT standards has given me the time to contemplate and reflect on the effectiveness of the artifacts, and their contribution to the field. It has also allowed me to reflect on areas I would still like to learn more about.
4.4 Assessing/Evaluating. Candidates design and implement assessments and evaluation plans that align with learning goals and instructional activities.
The Curriculum Project utilizes assessments and evaluations throughout the project that align with learning goals and instructional activities that I have designed and implemented. In parts 1 through 5, students need to summarize what was read and add their new learning to a KWL chart at the end of each part. In part 2, in addition to the summary and KWL chart additions, students are asked to make connections to learning from the previous part. In part 6, students use their learning to complete an informative writing piece answering guiding questions. In part 7, students create a presentation using the information from their writing pieces. Based on the student's written responses, verbal responses during class discussions, formal informational writing piece, and presentation, the learning goals and instructional activities are assessed and evaluated.
4.5 Ethics. Candidates demonstrate ethical behavior within the applicable cultural context during all aspects of their work and with respect for the diversity of learners in each setting.
The School Technology Plan highlights the inclusivity of all learners across settings. The artifact references the instruction provided based on the cognitive theory of multimedia learning, which allows the learner to build on prior knowledge through both the auditory and visual channels in the brain. This allows the learner to process more information in their memories. Additionally, to assist learners with special needs, the videos used on Discovery Education also have full transcripts that can be used if needed. Furthermore, with the use of Chromebooks, students can adjust the view size to enlarge sites as needed to assist with any vision impairments. Moreover, Chromebooks have other accessibility features that can be turned on if needed. For example, text-to-speech for a screen reader, display to turn on high contrast mode or screen magnifier, keyboard to turn on features like sticky keys or highlighting, mouse and touchpad features like tap dragging, and audio features to play all sounds together through all speakers.