Reflection 2

My decisions in this process have been an example of teacher creativity because I was working on finding ways that would get my students more engaged about alliterations but also maintain that engagement throughout the period. The lesson was effective in teaching about alliteration because the students are granted a period of time to practice at creating their own alliterations. This is why the lesson will be whole because the students aren’t just exposed to alliterations, but they are also creating some themselves.

In order to look at the novel nature of this project it is necessary to compare it to how  I would have previously taught this without  integration of technology. The old way would have emphasized student presentation with paper posters, power point at best and probably lots of copious writing and more teacher activity. The depth of work would probably not be as comprehensive and enriching as that which is driven by technology because it is more tedious looking for information from the library compared to researching on- line using google or google scholar.  ‘
Teacher Creativity
First and foremost, I would like the project to look more like a seminar than a normal class. As I put the students into groups they learn to play to their strengths and natural leaders emerge from the groups. In thinking through the lesson delivery, questions to be asked must include, what technology applications can be integrated to enable the lesson come alive. While I selected a collage, short video clips and  social media for the final presentations, it is prudent to allow the students to come up with their own improvisations that may even supersede what I have in mind since young people tend to be more tech savvy than teachers sometimes.
In designing a lesson such as this it is also necessary to focus on the core points of the lesson which is the impact of the Trans- Atlantic slave trade on the USA. The slave trade is intrinsically linked with the history and struggles of black people in the United States and therefore the teacher would have to skillfully use relevant You tube videos to trace some of the current struggles of black people including police brutality, incarceration and deprivation in some black communities that have their roots in the plantation fieldwork. A virtual tour of some of the monumental edifices of the slave trade could also be added (Some of these are World heritage centers). This would demand a lot of planning and creativity regarding videos that would provoke a lot of thought and discussion. Overall, the focus should be on how the students process the causes of the trade and the perspectives of all the various actors as well as the ramifications for society today. In order to reach this point a lot would depend on effective planning, how the students would be engaged especially with the technology and eventually their presentations.    

As a teacher my goal of the assignment like this was to start creating students who can think on a deeper level and can identify important things without being directly told. I believe it’s creative in the eyes of both teacher and student because the teacher has to put work into what the final product needs to include and what it needs to look like while understanding resources that will help guide students. While students are getting that experience to create their own learning by deciding what to them is important and what information needs to be known and then throwing it into a lesson created by them in a manner that they see will best provide clarity to other students. It creates a well-rounded student who is less robotic than a student who is in a teacher driven environment.

The process of integrating CHCS, AHLTA, and DEERS into my records management course is somewhat novel. Our lesson plans for retraining military members into the medical career field did not incorporate technology other than PowerPoint. However, at the tech-school level (those not cross-training, but entering the career field at the beginning of their military careers), instructors have been using laptops and having students access these systems to enhance the lesson. After hearing of this, I decided to use a similar approach for my "re-trainers". I did, however, personalize my lesson plans (with higher-level approval) to mesh this into my lesson. 

I did seize the opportunity to allow the students to be creative when building their "dummy" medical records. Students' interest intensified when they had the freedom to create patients with funny names, injuries, and diseases. I also tasked the students with searching for, and adjusting the fictional patients created by their classmates. There is much more opportunity here for me, and other instructors, to improve upon this design.

The decision to use this technology proved effective. At every course's end, the students have an opportunity to critique the course and the instructor. All feedback regarding the medical records lesson has been positive.

Instead of merely distributing knowledge, I looked for a way for students to understand the importance of budgeting and internalize it effectively.  It is novel in that it is a new idea, using an interactive game to teach budgeting (though I did find it online so it could be argued that it is not very novel).  It is effective since it lets students see the importance of budgeting and the consequences of poor money management.  It is whole since it references many aspects of budgeting and financial literacy that have been taught in pervious lessons in this unit.  

I feel as though many of the decisions I made forced me to think harder about what each activity is really doing, and helped me to think outside of the box in order to think of activities at each level of SAMR. Having to think about different ways to alter a lesson illustrates how teachers have to be creative when it comes to lesson planning. 

My lesson is Novel because I feel as though it is relatively creative and unique. The lesson is Effective since it encourages student-based learning, and includes multiple uses of technology to help the students learn about geometric models. The lesson is Whole since it covers geometric models, their different aspects, and how they relate to real world examples. 

My decisions in the process have been examples of the teacher as a designer since I had to think of and create different ways to construct the lesson plan so that it would meet the different levels of SAMR. All of the decisions for my final lesson plan were made carefully in order to ensure that the lesson would still be effective while being student led. 

Creativity has three components: novel, effective, and whole. As a teacher, I can be creative about the way I decide to teach a lesson. I got to be creative when deciding how I would teach students how to solve a system of equations. I was able to determine in what way I wanted to present the content to my students and through what technologies. My lesson is novel in the way that I came up with it as an original lesson. The lesson is effective in the way that it will teach my students how to solve for a system of equations. Lastly, my lesson as a whole will allow students to understand the topic through direct instruction with some technology. I designed this lesson based off of my current knowledge of the content and technologies. My decisions are an example of how a teacher is a designer. As a teacher, we lesson plan and design what and how we are going to teach.

My decisions in the process has been an example of teacher creativity because I had to come up with different ways and methods to explain the same topic.  I had the students do different things such as write a response, write a discussion, and create a video. 
The lesson is Novel in that it is unique and is useful for the students to understand how the electoral college is formed.  It is effective because the students would be able to after being told about the electoral college in the lecture have to prove what they know in their discussion post.  The lesson is whole in that the students learn about the college and then prove they've learned about it by submitting an assignment that will be graded.
My decisions in the process have been an example of a teacher by designer because I came up with the lessons myself.  I chose what I wanted the lesson to start with a teacher-centered approach and move to be more student-centered approach.  

Well when it comes to content, there really is no teacher creativity because they are standards set at the national and state level. But pedagogically and technology are where a teacher has total creativity. No two lessons have to be the same because their are an endless amount of options to choose from when taking a certain pedagogical approach with some piece of technology. When teaching a topic, you could use direct instruction or a student based learning project. You also have options like "Think-Pair-Share" and small group work. Technology has options like calculators, Smartboard's, and powerpoint. You also have Khan Academy, Study Island, and Kahoot/Quizziz. There are a multitude of apps that are available to you to use and most for free. The decisions I have made during the process is an example of a teacher being a designer because we are tailoring a lesson to be effective. Like I said earlier, not all lessons are done the same way and they shouldn't, so this is how teachers are designers. They create something different for the purposes of their learning. The lesson is novel because this should be the first time students are exposed to this topic and it uses Desmos which is not that commonly used among middle level schools. This lesson is effective because students learn how to calculate slope and graph basic equations. The lesson is whole because the topic is introduced, explained, and then students are showing they are proficient in it if they are getting the examples right.

My creativity has shown in the guided notes I’m designing to be recorded and presented in a “flipped” model. Teaching via math lecture is not novel, however, the idea that students can review the lecture as often as they need is. It has also been effective to have students completing their “independent” practice in class where I am available to assist them. I had to be creative to make their review a little more interesting. The idea of collaborating on a Google Doc caught my attention when reading this week’s chapter. I have also heard of teachers having positive results when having students create their own videos via FlipGrid. I have always believed that a student knows content well when they can teach it to someone else and what a great way for them to share strategies that may speak to someone else. Sometimes in math that small change in language can be key to mastery!