MrD and EDT 598

Welcome to my EDT 598 page. Content for this page will be exclusively for EDT 598.

My email:theodarvis at hotmail dotcom 

Reflective essay 1. Do I know anything about research?

I have to be honest my knowledge of research is limited. I have some experience with research because teachers in New Britain have to use it in their everyday teaching. Research in New Britain is being used to find areas of weakness in classroom teaching and to drive instruction. Data is collected through various assessments, analyzed, categorized, and disseminated to the faculty.  We actually attempted to find what is causing low test scores in reading and math. We gave kids common formative assessments and used the results to find areas that our students really needed to work on and created a morning activity called academic acceleration. We would teach for several weeks and retest. We would look for any positives and/ or negatives, adjust curriculum accordingly and teach again.  This process has gone on now for several years. We also used this kind of research on a local level. For example, in my classes after I give an kind of assessment I have to record the overall results and results based on each section of the assessment. I would then break down the data that comes from those results and use that data to find holes in my teaching. I actually enjoyed researching myself and my teaching because I wasn't observed at all this year and this was the only way that I can obtain any kind of hard facts as to what is working well in my classes and what areas of my instruction that need to be developed.

What the research said about the low reading and math scores.

After several years of doing academic acceleration, the district decided to move in a different direction. During the first couple of years of doing academic acceleration students showed signs of growth in the their test results. As time went on the students plateaued and positive growth came to a stop. In some instances student assessment scores in reading and math would actually go down. Several strategies were brought to the table but proved to be ineffective. Their was a general consensus among teachers that students had testing fatigue (this year especially) and didn't care to take the assessments seriously anymore, even if they knew the correct answer to a question on a test.

Personal opinions on the research used during the year.

The type of research we used proved to be very taxing on our students and teachers. We were making our students take common formative assessments once a month in addition to preparing for the Connecticut mastery test. Teachers would have to take those extra assessments home and grade them in addition to their regular class work. Teachers would then have to spend hours breaking down that data and trying to figure out what should be done for future instruction. I feel that our students indeed got burnt out. I also feel that our teachers got the passion to teach sucked out of them  because we were forced to teach to the state mastery tests. I think research is good to improve instruction and to make one better at what they do but not to the point where it compromises ones craft.

 June 15th Stuff

I added this video of a gentlemen demoing  google maps on a smart board because I like the fact that the smart board has a touching interface. Kids like to touch and move things on a computer with their fingers. I created a flash based facts teaching tool that I can use the smart board with to label the different parts of a bicycle. The actual flash file is located here. Student can point to each bicycle part with their finger to find out each part name. 

 June 21st Stuff

http://www.smarteduhelp.com/flash/wq1.php 

Above is the link to the webquest I found on graphic design. On the rubric I gave it a 40/50 becuase the webquest didn't specify goals and objectives for the particular unit. It also didn't give any review to prior knowledge on graphic design. I would have prefered the the webquest to have multiple pages perhaps with some color and animation to to really give a feeling of going on a journey. That being said I love the idea and I teach something similar in my graphic design classes. This web quest gave me some great ideas on how to improve my own personal website and turn it into a webquest so to speak. I have the rubric posted below.

Webquest and CSCL

Below are my thoughts on including a WebQuest as an example of CSCL. 

Searching for articles used in Learning from Webquests 

I have to honestly admit I have completely forgot how to find articles using the library. I am going to need a review! :)