Work in Progress

Now that I have a specific plan of action for my GAME plan, it is time to take action and get rolling.  In regards to my first goal, it is a little hard to take action until the school year gets rolling.  I am also anxiously anticipating a meeting in August where we will discuss the changes in our curriculum that has been mapped out by other teachers, so I cannot work too far ahead until these changes are rolled out.  I did however, join a learning community and read some articles on Edutopia to discuss with other teachers about the success (and challenges of implementing project-based learning) with young learners.  The article that I read included examples about building buildings, looking at the stock market, plants, etc. (Ravitz, 2013).  By reading these ideas, it is easier to foresee project-based learning come to life in my classroom.  However, I do see one difficulty in implementing PBL in my classroom.  Ellwood (2009) describes project-based learning as never having a hard start and beginning to subject areas, instead, hitting all content areas through the use of a project.  This becomes difficult for me because I have different groups of students for reading and mathematics, depending on their needs.

If you are interested in following the blog for project-based learning at Edutopia, the link is http://www.edutopia.org/blogs/beat/project-based-learning

 

For the second part of my GAME plan, I have begun major overhaul on my web-site and organized games and resources according to their objectives.  You can see my work in progress here:

https://sites.google.com/a/parklandsd.net/geigerk/

I am still in the process in uploading resources, and will continue to do so throughout the year as I engage in some other units of study.  While this has been time consuming, I am pleased with the look of it and think it will be a great resource for my students.  One of the major blocks I have faced in the past is that a lot of educational sites organize their resources by grade level.  Since many of my students are at least 2-3 years below grade level, they almost always end up in games that are too difficult for them. 

The one area I am still playing around with is the links to the other pages.  I don’t want a ton of information on my home page, but I would like the links to the other pages (LEAD 21 Reading, Mathematics, and Reading) at this point in time to be more prominent.  I am thinking about adding them underneath the video. 

I am also having difficulty with the video on the first page—it  use to be a picture tour of my room and when I started deleting and adding things it malfunctioned.  However, I will update it once I get my classroom in order this year, since it will look different from last. 

The final area I would love to add is a place to feature student work.  However, I’m unsure of my district’s policy on posting work (and/or pictures of students) online, so that is still on my to-do list for now. 

 

I would love it if you took the time to visit my site and provide feedback.  As I mentioned before, it is under construction so now is the best time for me to rearrange.  Thanks!

 

References:

Ellwood, H. (2009, November).  Project-based learning with early learners and SMART products.  EDCompass Newsletter, p. 1-4.

Ravitz, J. (2013, March 27).  Math, PBS and 21^st Century learning for all students.  [Blog message].  Retrieved from http://www.edutopia.org/blog/math-PBL-21st-century-learning-jason-ravitz