Living and working in rural Alaska seems isolated and this is a very valid conclusion in many aspects. However, numerous school districts and individual school sites have found financial and technology resources to begin to bridge the gap between the historically isolated cultures and more modern, westernized education and lifestyles. Upon moving to Aniak, AK from Marquette, MI to teach math, this was something I learned quickly. I moved to Aniak to be the sole math teacher in a 7-12th grade Junior/Senior High School. Considering that there are only about 55 students in the school and six grades, this would equate to a seven period schedule with six classes, a prep period and less than 10 students in a period. However things were not as simple as they may seem at first glance. When I first arrived at Aniak, we had a six period schedule, which would combine two classes into one. We also had a mandatory reading period, doubling up another couple periods. On top of this, there were only four teachers, so those teacher also needed to teach elective classes. Furthermore, we used the quality schools model, based on teaching students at their own level. With a variety of student abilities this created multi-level and multi grade classes in every period. In fact, the first couple of years that I taught in Aniak, every period I taught contained students ranging four different grade levels from two to six different learning levels. Each period was very unique and complicated to prepare for. My goal when applying for a Masters in Educational Technology was two fold. One aspect of furthering my education was to aid in the educational delivery for my students and another was to help them extend their worldview beyond the village.
Focusing on the educational model of adjusting to meet each individual student’s needs, I believed, and still do, that technology can help educate students in an effective and efficient way. My undergraduate mathematics teaching education did a good job of preparing me for a standard classroom as a standard teacher. As a new educator, I was not in a role that would be considered the norm for typical junior high and high school classrooms. The affordances new educational technology provides would allow me to meet individual student needs and the needs of my classroom. While attending Michigan State University’s Masters in Educational Technology program (MAET), I learned methods and tools to help with my given circumstances.
Beyond the basic needs of my classroom, I wanted to provide additional opportunities to my students. For many individuals living in a rural Alaskan village, there are no thoughts to leave the village. I completely understand this, I moved to the village and don’t want to leave. However, there are also those that want to leave and don’t know how and those that have never thought about it. I have never wanted to push anyone out of the village, but I do want to empower those with the necessary skills to leave if they choose. I also, want students to realize opportunities and possibilities outside their community. Our student population has approximately 20% of the students moving on to secondary education, with many of those students not completing their programs. I’ve aimed to increase these numbers and in an ideal world, I would like to see students leaving the village to gain life experiences and continuing education and then return to the village with what they’ve learned.
During my time in the MAET program, I’m confident that I have narrowed the gap between my students and my goals. By no means, have I completed them in their entirety. I don’t think that completing these goals is possible as technology affordances and opportunities for young adults continually evolve. My classroom has changed significantly in the three years that I’ve participated in the MAET program. During this time, students have experienced a diversified learning environment, engaged with a variety of technologies, and learned tools expanding beyond the classroom to be used in their current lives as well as future endeavors.
To meet student needs, I began trying to group students primarily into three groups within each class. This was a process that took multiple years and a lot of schedule tweaking. The three groups allowed for a group of working with me through direct instruction, a group on independent practice without technology, and a group guided by technology. The direct instructional group frequently consists of a SmartBoard lesson or review game. It may also include going over assignment/tests on a document camera and the occasional whiteboard lesson. Independent practice has had students working on practice problems or a project. The technology group is typically working on online curriculum accompanying their textbooks, watching introduction videos, or practicing additional online practice on websites such as Khan Academy or IXL.com. The variety and flexibility technology allows has been extremely helpful to individualize and reach students needs. This is also the area that my work with Michigan State University has had the most impact.
The MAET program resides in the College of Education under the Educational Psychology and Educational Technology Programs. Courses taught in this department are labeled with the abbreviation CEP. While taking these courses I learned ways to generate my own content, access to others’ content, and help students create their own content. Through CEP 805, Learning Math with Technology, I created an Algebra Resource Library that focuses primarily on Algebra I and Pre-Algebra skills, but can also be useful for students in Algebra II needing review. Through CEP 816, Teaching and Learning Across Curriculum, I had extensive practice creating screencasts. These prove beneficial to introducing topics for students as well as a way for students to review previous lesson. Similar, practice during CEP 811, Teaching Understanding with Technology, allowed me to gain confidence creating and uploading YouTube videos for my students to access.
Students have benefitted from these learning resources that I’ve learned about in the MAET program. They have also benefitted from additional exposure to and practice with Google Docs, Excel spread sheets, websites like Prezi, Popplet, Voki, PiktoChart and Khan Academy. As my exposure and comfort level with these tools increased I tried to incorporate them into the classroom. The benefits of these tools stretch beyond the math classroom, high school, and education. These types of tools help students be successful in education, the professional world, and even their daily lives.
As an educator my priority has always been to prepare students for their next step beyond secondary education. The MAET program has supported this idea by giving additional tools and strategies to obtain this goal. The three most powerful teaching/learning strategies I learned about were TPACK, Game-like Learning, and learning through a behaviorist viewpoint. In CEP 810, Teaching Understanding with Technology, the TPACK Framework was present. TPACK is the idea that technology, pedagogy, and content knowledge should not be looked at as three separate entities or areas focus, but rather ideal teaching comes together when the concept being taught is looked at through these three lenses simultaneously. When teaching a concept, the teacher should have a thorough understanding of the content. That teacher should also understand how to teach it and what technology they might use to teach it. The idea of TPACK goes beyond this to ask, what way can I use technology to support and enhance the pedagogy that will best support the concept being learned. When someone is an expert in field, that doesn’t mean that they can teach it. When someone is a great teacher, they’ll never be able to teach with depth if they lack the content knowledge to do so. Both of these can be further enhanced with the technologies available to us today, but that technology needs to be utilized in a way that enriches learning rather than using technology for technology sake.
The idea of Game-like learning that James Paul Gee speaks about (video below), amazes me with the potential power for education. Asking why people will spend hours and hours attempting to “beat” or at least progress in extremely complex video games is a phenomenal question. Sure, many individuals find these games fun, that’s the whole point of a “game,” it should be fun. So there is one aspect that should be a part of education. Complex games take hours to learn the proper ways to play and win. The complexity within these games is similar to much of education. Why then do people work at the game for hours and hours without frustration? The fun aspect is part of it, but these games also move the player along incrementally. Players beat levels and feel the success. Sometimes, even often, players lose or fail to beat a level. At this point they’re not taken back to the beginning of the game but back to the beginning of the level, where they can continue to try. The degree of punishment is often less in the game world compared to education. If students fail a test or an assignment, sometimes they can go back and redo it but often not, that grade is final. If a student fails a class, they generally aren’t allowed to go back to the parts they failed to attempt them again, they instead have to re-take the class. Education should be fun and this is not always easy. It also needs to be less punitive. The final aspect of video games is the individualized pacing. This is also very difficult in education. Video games allow the players that need more time to pass a level more time and those that don’t can move right through at their own pace. Unfortunately students are frequently moved along at the average pace of the class. Combining ideas from the TPACK framework and game-like learning could have a monumental impact on learning. Allowing the technology and pedagogy to combine for individualized more engaging content is a very powerful idea.
Finally behaviorism resonates with me as a perspective to view struggling students, students with chaotic home lives, and students that don’t see the point of school. I feel like these students respond well to the teaching of appropriate responses to stimuli combined with concrete reinforcements. This type of baseline structure helps students prepare for the deeper level thinking discussed previously. Looking at education through a behaviorist view helps a teacher add structure to their classroom. When the teacher has a system in place that students know the appropriate response to situations it helps students navigate an environment that may be significantly different than their home life. Through these structures students can learn tools and strategies to aid them when confronting more difficult and complex problems, problems that may not be as straightforward as a stimulus leading to an automatic response. By giving students tools and strategies for these difficult times, it gives students something to fall back on and rely on, ultimately making them more resilient students.
Focusing on the educational model of adjusting to meet each individual student’s needs, I believed, and still do, that technology can help educate students in an effective and efficient way. My undergraduate mathematics teaching education did a good job of preparing me for a standard classroom as a standard teacher. As a new educator, I was not in a role that would be considered the norm for typical junior high and high school classrooms. The affordances new educational technology provides would allow me to meet individual student needs and the needs of my classroom. While attending Michigan State University’s Masters in Educational Technology program (MAET), I learned methods and tools to help with my given circumstances.
Beyond the basic needs of my classroom, I wanted to provide additional opportunities to my students. For many individuals living in a rural Alaskan village, there are no thoughts to leave the village. I completely understand this, I moved to the village and don’t want to leave. However, there are also those that want to leave and don’t know how and those that have never thought about it. I have never wanted to push anyone out of the village, but I do want to empower those with the necessary skills to leave if they choose. I also, want students to realize opportunities and possibilities outside their community. Our student population has approximately 20% of the students moving on to secondary education, with many of those students not completing their programs. I’ve aimed to increase these numbers and in an ideal world, I would like to see students leaving the village to gain life experiences and continuing education and then return to the village with what they’ve learned.
During my time in the MAET program, I’m confident that I have narrowed the gap between my students and my goals. By no means, have I completed them in their entirety. I don’t think that completing these goals is possible as technology affordances and opportunities for young adults continually evolve. My classroom has changed significantly in the three years that I’ve participated in the MAET program. During this time, students have experienced a diversified learning environment, engaged with a variety of technologies, and learned tools expanding beyond the classroom to be used in their current lives as well as future endeavors.
To meet student needs, I began trying to group students primarily into three groups within each class. This was a process that took multiple years and a lot of schedule tweaking. The three groups allowed for a group of working with me through direct instruction, a group on independent practice without technology, and a group guided by technology. The direct instructional group frequently consists of a SmartBoard lesson or review game. It may also include going over assignment/tests on a document camera and the occasional whiteboard lesson. Independent practice has had students working on practice problems or a project. The technology group is typically working on online curriculum accompanying their textbooks, watching introduction videos, or practicing additional online practice on websites such as Khan Academy or IXL.com. The variety and flexibility technology allows has been extremely helpful to individualize and reach students needs. This is also the area that my work with Michigan State University has had the most impact.
The MAET program resides in the College of Education under the Educational Psychology and Educational Technology Programs. Courses taught in this department are labeled with the abbreviation CEP. While taking these courses I learned ways to generate my own content, access to others’ content, and help students create their own content. Through CEP 805, Learning Math with Technology, I created an Algebra Resource Library that focuses primarily on Algebra I and Pre-Algebra skills, but can also be useful for students in Algebra II needing review. Through CEP 816, Teaching and Learning Across Curriculum, I had extensive practice creating screencasts. These prove beneficial to introducing topics for students as well as a way for students to review previous lesson. Similar, practice during CEP 811, Teaching Understanding with Technology, allowed me to gain confidence creating and uploading YouTube videos for my students to access.
Students have benefitted from these learning resources that I’ve learned about in the MAET program. They have also benefitted from additional exposure to and practice with Google Docs, Excel spread sheets, websites like Prezi, Popplet, Voki, PiktoChart and Khan Academy. As my exposure and comfort level with these tools increased I tried to incorporate them into the classroom. The benefits of these tools stretch beyond the math classroom, high school, and education. These types of tools help students be successful in education, the professional world, and even their daily lives.
As an educator my priority has always been to prepare students for their next step beyond secondary education. The MAET program has supported this idea by giving additional tools and strategies to obtain this goal. The three most powerful teaching/learning strategies I learned about were TPACK, Game-like Learning, and learning through a behaviorist viewpoint. In CEP 810, Teaching Understanding with Technology, the TPACK Framework was present. TPACK is the idea that technology, pedagogy, and content knowledge should not be looked at as three separate entities or areas focus, but rather ideal teaching comes together when the concept being taught is looked at through these three lenses simultaneously. When teaching a concept, the teacher should have a thorough understanding of the content. That teacher should also understand how to teach it and what technology they might use to teach it. The idea of TPACK goes beyond this to ask, what way can I use technology to support and enhance the pedagogy that will best support the concept being learned. When someone is an expert in field, that doesn’t mean that they can teach it. When someone is a great teacher, they’ll never be able to teach with depth if they lack the content knowledge to do so. Both of these can be further enhanced with the technologies available to us today, but that technology needs to be utilized in a way that enriches learning rather than using technology for technology sake.
The idea of Game-like learning that James Paul Gee speaks about (video below), amazes me with the potential power for education. Asking why people will spend hours and hours attempting to “beat” or at least progress in extremely complex video games is a phenomenal question. Sure, many individuals find these games fun, that’s the whole point of a “game,” it should be fun. So there is one aspect that should be a part of education. Complex games take hours to learn the proper ways to play and win. The complexity within these games is similar to much of education. Why then do people work at the game for hours and hours without frustration? The fun aspect is part of it, but these games also move the player along incrementally. Players beat levels and feel the success. Sometimes, even often, players lose or fail to beat a level. At this point they’re not taken back to the beginning of the game but back to the beginning of the level, where they can continue to try. The degree of punishment is often less in the game world compared to education. If students fail a test or an assignment, sometimes they can go back and redo it but often not, that grade is final. If a student fails a class, they generally aren’t allowed to go back to the parts they failed to attempt them again, they instead have to re-take the class. Education should be fun and this is not always easy. It also needs to be less punitive. The final aspect of video games is the individualized pacing. This is also very difficult in education. Video games allow the players that need more time to pass a level more time and those that don’t can move right through at their own pace. Unfortunately students are frequently moved along at the average pace of the class. Combining ideas from the TPACK framework and game-like learning could have a monumental impact on learning. Allowing the technology and pedagogy to combine for individualized more engaging content is a very powerful idea.
Finally behaviorism resonates with me as a perspective to view struggling students, students with chaotic home lives, and students that don’t see the point of school. I feel like these students respond well to the teaching of appropriate responses to stimuli combined with concrete reinforcements. This type of baseline structure helps students prepare for the deeper level thinking discussed previously. Looking at education through a behaviorist view helps a teacher add structure to their classroom. When the teacher has a system in place that students know the appropriate response to situations it helps students navigate an environment that may be significantly different than their home life. Through these structures students can learn tools and strategies to aid them when confronting more difficult and complex problems, problems that may not be as straightforward as a stimulus leading to an automatic response. By giving students tools and strategies for these difficult times, it gives students something to fall back on and rely on, ultimately making them more resilient students.