6.3: Field Experiences
Candidates engage in appropriate field experiences to synthesize and apply the content and professional knowledge, skills, and dispositions identified in these standards. (PSC 6.3)
Artifact: Structured Field Experience for ITEC 7430 - Internet Tools in the Classroom
Reflection
I am a Geographer, first and foremost. The idea of field experiences comes completely naturally to my approaches to teaching and learning. It is an organic mainstay of any Geography teacher. The idea behind fieldwork is the teaching of the model, the concept or the theory that is played out in an academic environment that can be seen in the real-life context – studied, documented and measured with clear conclusions and outcomes. As each course in this Masters programme opened, I consistently opened up a new field experience document on my desktop and diligently added to the standards over time to demonstrate an ability to use daily field experiences to synthesize and apply the content being learned to my classroom practice to inform my progress as an instructional technologist. This reflection is drawn from just one of many field experiences to demonstrate the mastery of professional knowledge, skills and disposition required by this standard. Click here to see the others.
I chose to reflect on the structured field experience associated with ITEC 7430 – Internet Tools in the Classroom. This was a field experience where many of the tools that had been learned and practiced in the academic setting were deployed in the classroom for teaching and learning with students in my 8th Grade Geography class. The content was the assigned content that had been taught to the 8th Grade in this context for many years – The Millennium Development Goals (MDG). However using a Google Site, and many of the tools that I had learned about in this course, I designed an interactive learning experience for the students to master this content using the technology tools that they had available to them in their 1:1 laptop setting as part of a Google Apps for Education (GAFE) school. In addition, tools like Audacity, VoiceThread, Today’s Meet and iMovie were used.
As the course rolled out each week, there was a new tool to explore, practice and demonstrate mastery in. In using these in the classroom setting, it was tempting to use many. However, I curated the ones that would be most conducive to the student mastering the content rather than being allured by the shiny technology. This culminated in deployment of a planned Unit of Inquiry with my 8th Grade class over ten hours where they completed a summative assessment on the MDGs aligned to the assessment objectives published in the International Baccalaureate (IB) Middle Years Programme (MYP) subject guide for Individuals and Societies. This allowed me to practice; in a real “field” setting some of the “theory” that had been introduced through my own academic learning.
I learned that there is an authentic reason why we, as Geographers love the field experience. It is the sense of “use it or lose it” that drives that real-life demonstration of anything that is learned inside the four walls of a classroom. Research consistently suggests to us that students (and indeed, ourselves) learn best when there is a real life application to what is learned. And it is that real life application that helps this new knowledge to “stick”.
The field is also a place where one can practice the acquisition and honing of skills. In some disciplines, this is a very particular set of skills that, if practiced in context, helps the student to master the content knowledge. Documenting experiences (and aligning to a pre-existing sets of standards like the International Standards for Technology Education (ISTE) or the Professional Standards Commission (PSC) are also helpful in generating snapshots of good practice that can be shared with the wider educational community. It was from this field experience that I drew my application to present at ISTE 2014 in Atlanta to showcase the work that my students had done. Not only did this give me wider experience in mastery of skills, but gave my students an experience in participating as presenters in an international conference to demonstrate their mastery of the content knowledge in their Geography programme using technology tools. That was where this artifact really helped school improvement as more and more discussions about how we can involve our students in fostering our professional development as teachers has emerged over the last number of months.
I have, on reflection, one piece of this field experience that I would change. As I was documenting the creation of this interactive lesson plan for the students and building the resources for learning in the classroom, I did not get them to document their process in completing the assignments in the same way. Had I have done that, I would have also been able to assess them in the Individuals and Societies objective for assessment B: Investigating, which is, after all, at the heart of field experiences.
I am a Geographer, first and foremost. The idea of field experiences comes completely naturally to my approaches to teaching and learning. It is an organic mainstay of any Geography teacher. The idea behind fieldwork is the teaching of the model, the concept or the theory that is played out in an academic environment that can be seen in the real-life context – studied, documented and measured with clear conclusions and outcomes. As each course in this Masters programme opened, I consistently opened up a new field experience document on my desktop and diligently added to the standards over time to demonstrate an ability to use daily field experiences to synthesize and apply the content being learned to my classroom practice to inform my progress as an instructional technologist. This reflection is drawn from just one of many field experiences to demonstrate the mastery of professional knowledge, skills and disposition required by this standard. Click here to see the others.
I chose to reflect on the structured field experience associated with ITEC 7430 – Internet Tools in the Classroom. This was a field experience where many of the tools that had been learned and practiced in the academic setting were deployed in the classroom for teaching and learning with students in my 8th Grade Geography class. The content was the assigned content that had been taught to the 8th Grade in this context for many years – The Millennium Development Goals (MDG). However using a Google Site, and many of the tools that I had learned about in this course, I designed an interactive learning experience for the students to master this content using the technology tools that they had available to them in their 1:1 laptop setting as part of a Google Apps for Education (GAFE) school. In addition, tools like Audacity, VoiceThread, Today’s Meet and iMovie were used.
As the course rolled out each week, there was a new tool to explore, practice and demonstrate mastery in. In using these in the classroom setting, it was tempting to use many. However, I curated the ones that would be most conducive to the student mastering the content rather than being allured by the shiny technology. This culminated in deployment of a planned Unit of Inquiry with my 8th Grade class over ten hours where they completed a summative assessment on the MDGs aligned to the assessment objectives published in the International Baccalaureate (IB) Middle Years Programme (MYP) subject guide for Individuals and Societies. This allowed me to practice; in a real “field” setting some of the “theory” that had been introduced through my own academic learning.
I learned that there is an authentic reason why we, as Geographers love the field experience. It is the sense of “use it or lose it” that drives that real-life demonstration of anything that is learned inside the four walls of a classroom. Research consistently suggests to us that students (and indeed, ourselves) learn best when there is a real life application to what is learned. And it is that real life application that helps this new knowledge to “stick”.
The field is also a place where one can practice the acquisition and honing of skills. In some disciplines, this is a very particular set of skills that, if practiced in context, helps the student to master the content knowledge. Documenting experiences (and aligning to a pre-existing sets of standards like the International Standards for Technology Education (ISTE) or the Professional Standards Commission (PSC) are also helpful in generating snapshots of good practice that can be shared with the wider educational community. It was from this field experience that I drew my application to present at ISTE 2014 in Atlanta to showcase the work that my students had done. Not only did this give me wider experience in mastery of skills, but gave my students an experience in participating as presenters in an international conference to demonstrate their mastery of the content knowledge in their Geography programme using technology tools. That was where this artifact really helped school improvement as more and more discussions about how we can involve our students in fostering our professional development as teachers has emerged over the last number of months.
I have, on reflection, one piece of this field experience that I would change. As I was documenting the creation of this interactive lesson plan for the students and building the resources for learning in the classroom, I did not get them to document their process in completing the assignments in the same way. Had I have done that, I would have also been able to assess them in the Individuals and Societies objective for assessment B: Investigating, which is, after all, at the heart of field experiences.