EDUC+5364+-+Week+5+Reflection

Final Reflection: I really don't know what further to say. I have reflected for the final assessment, on our group site, and now again. I think I will make some general comments about the readings, videos, and group project.

The readings for this course have been excellent. They have challenged me to look at my own practice as a teacher and consider what I am doing. I particularly like the textbooks. They are practical, and are ones that I can use. They provide some theory, but more the practical side of teaching. I have already suggested that our principal invest in a copy of the books, as well as the GT coordinator for our campus. I loved the quote "A teacher who incorporates technology greatly expands the pools of resources, means of instructional presentation and support, and modes of product creation available to students and is thus better equipped to meet varying student needs"(Pitler, H., Hubbell, E., Kuhn, M., & Malenoski, K. (2007). //Using technology with classroom instruction that works.// Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 217). This should be the goal of the school and the teachers in the school. It is who I want to be. The video clips that we watched from CAST and Edutopia are inspiring and provide some excellent ideas. I have already recommended the viewing of a couple of them to teacher colleagues and on my Facebook page. They challenged me to examine what it is I want for my classes, and what is holding me back. The group project was a challenge. Not because of the people, but because the task was huge for the amount of time we had, and the fact that it hit at the same time as grades were due, Thanksgiving, my husband in the hospital, and I was sick. I have high standards for myself, and I did not want to let my team mates down. I think we were very successful in meeting the needs of the diverse group of students. Realistically, you wouldn’t have that type of a group without in-class support – not that many GT students, blind and deaf and regular ed. students all together. I have many SPED students but they are spread through all my classes and the GT are in a separate class. In the two districts I have worked at in Texas, GT students were either in a straight GT class or were in a Pre-AP class. One of the things that came out of the group project was that I learned how to use Inspiration. This is a program I had not used before, and is one that I plan to use with my students in the new year. I also had not used the Rubric maker programs before and found those to be very helpful as well. So overall, I learned a lot. It was also helpful to see other teachers’ ideas. I wonder what other groups put together. Maybe we should have made a class wiki where people would post the URLs for their Google site.