When building a home, a carpenter works off blueprints and a foundation. Ideally everything is perfect, but if you ask any carpenter, who has built for any length of time, that is not the case. Foundations can be “out of square” and blueprints do not allow for the inconsistencies of wood. Just like carpentry, teaching has its own version of blueprints and foundations. I use local, state, and national standards like the Connecticut Kindergarten Frameworks and the national Educational Technology Standards for Students (NET-S) to blueprint my curriculum. My PowerPoint on the authoring cycle of a unit on Fairy Tales demonstrates how I aligned the curriculum to the Connecticut Kindergarten Frameworks (see Appendix C). My paper comparing and contrasting the Geometry curriculum I taught and the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics standards demonstrates my ability to reflect upon and develop a plan to rectify gaps between curriculum and practice (see Appendix D).
After the blueprints have been drawn and the foundation has solidified, a carpenter starts building. Carpenters have building inspectors that routinely assess their craftsmanship. As a teacher, I have to be my kindergarteners’ building inspectors. In today’s educational atmosphere assessment is highly prioritized and has produced the “unintended side effect ... that does not take into account the practicalities of everyday teaching (that) may create a disconnect between what assessments tell us about students’ performance and what teachers need to know to instruct them” (Invernizzi, Landrum, Howell, and Warley, 2oo5, p. 610).
Case in point, our school has begun using the DIBELS assessment kindergarten through fifth grade to evaluate children’s literacy skills for Early Literacy Intervention (ELI) grouping. I can speak only for kindergarten in saying that while the DIBELS assessment can quickly and accurately aid in the formation of groups, it is entirely ineffective at specifying exactly what the children in that group specifically need. For example, when the information is presented to the teacher, we can see which children scored in the benchmark, low risk, some risk, and at risk groups on letter recognition but, not what letters they had yet to master. For the purpose of instruction, I have developed criterion based assessments like the one used to assess letter knowledge in my independent study (see Appendix E). Assessments like the one in Appendix E provide me with the data that I need to teach effectively, while the data from assessments like DIBELS provide me with the data of where to focus my resources. To revisit the building analogy with the assessment process, after the building inspector has pointed out inconsistencies in construction, the architects and carpenters work together to re-examine the blueprints and the physical structure and develop a plan of action to satisfy the building code.
Assessments are not only for teachers. A study on the effects of self assessment on kindergarten students suggests that students who self-assess are more successful than their peers (Kariuki and Wiseman, 2006). In our half-day program there is little time for formal self-assessment. On the other hand, I provide my kindergarteners with a quick and easy self-assessment that is transferable from letter knowledge, to math knowledge, to physical education skills, to just about any task they encounter. Are self-assessment is simply to ask, “Did I try my best?” After the first few weeks of school, something magical happens. Referring back the Daily Writing Program I developed (see Appendix B), the kindergarteners come in and write three words. Without fail, one child will present their words to me with an obviously less than best effort put forth. When I ask, “Did you try your best?” the student will, without complaint, attempt the task again with full attention given to their efforts. That is not the magic though, the magic lies with the rest of the class as they assess their three words and decide if those words are their best work or not.
There is another magic that helps me teach; the magic of technology. Juniu suggests “the key challenge for instructors is to effectively and efficiently incorporate educational technology into the education process” (2006, p 78). Whether it be the whiteboards used in the DWP (see Appendix B) or the interactive flash games I programmed on my school website (see Appendix A for the URL to the website and Appendix E for the research study I conducted on two of the flash games) or the audio/video editing I have done in the annual class movies as the culmination of our Fairy Tale unit (see Appendix D), when educational technology is integrated it is a magnificent motivator.
An analysis of the relationship between teachers’ professional development with regards to technology and classroom instructional practices suggest that former promotes more constructivist applications in the latter (Matzen and Edmunds, 2007). This is clearly demonstrated in the preceding paragraph. While I cannot take credit for inventing the use of whiteboards, computer programming, or audio/video in education, my own constructivist learning style pushes me to explore the possibilities of incorporating technology into education in new ways relevant to the needs of my classes.
But more than explore, my utilization of technology addresses the concern in a study by Rakes, Fields, and Cox (2006); “the availability of computers and training do not necessarily result in the widespread use of technology” (p. 422). I am lucky enough to be in a district (that up until recently) has been able to invest generous funding in technology. The technology committee has supported a number of endeavors to integrate technology into my curriculum in the classroom. Our class has been allotted a second computer with internet access to run flash games as well as extra space on the server to store the games for access outside of school (see Appendix A), a flat screen television (much larger than the dated television in my living room) that we connect and use as a monitor for our computer when doing PowerPoint or typing whole class activities, and a LCD projector for the grade level to show our annual class movie and run our movie theater for the school’s “mini-mall week” (see Appendix D). But technology is not limited to motivating learning; it can also be a valuable assessing tool. For instance in the research on my flash games and letter recognition that I conducted, using the game’s built in timer was one way to gauge improvement. The quicker the time to complete the task, the more mastery could be inferred (see Appendix E).
Returning for one final visit to the building analogy from a technology perspective, carpenters can attest that using nail guns will save you time framing a house, and some will even admit that they can be more fun than swinging a hammer. My research suggests that kindergarteners can learn letters by playing the flash games on my website, and it’s not too much too infer that they can be more fun than worksheets.
Connecticut State Department of Education, (2007). SDE:connecticut curriculum frameworks. Retrieved
February 19, 2009, from Connecticut State Department of Education: Connecticut Curriculum
Frameworks Web site: http://www.sde.ct.gov/sde/cwp/view.asp?A=2618&Q=320860
International Society for Technology in Education, (2007). The iste national educational technology
standards (net-s) and performance indicators for students. Retrieved February 19, 2009, from
The International Society for Technology in Education: NETS Web site:
http://www.iste.org/Content/NavigationMenu/NETS/ForStudents/2007Standards/NETS_for_
Students_2007_Standards.pdf
Invernizzi, M., Landrum, T., Howell, J., & Warley, H. (2005). Toward the peaceful coexistence of test
developers , policymakers, and teachers in an era of accountability. The Reading Teacher, 58(7),
610-618.
Juniu, S. (2006). Use of technology for constructivist learning in a performance assessment class.
Measurement in Physical Education and Exercise Science, 10(1), 67-79.
Kariuki, P. & Wiseman, B. (2006).The effects of self assessment on kindergarten students learning of high
frequency words. Honolulu, HI: 4th Annual Hawaii International Conference on Education. (ERIC
Document Reproduction Service No. 495 491).
Matzen, N. & Edmunds, J. (2007). Technology as a catalyst for change:the role of professional
development. Journal of Research on Technology in Education, 39(4), 417-430.
Rakes, G., Fields, V., & Cox, K. (2006). The influence of teachers’ technology use on instructional
practices. Journal of Research on Technology in Education, 38(4), 409-424.