Technology Integration to Improve Learning
*Essay is 5 written pages plus cover page and reference page.
*Exemplar paper and scoring rubric uploaded to files.
*The following is a description of the educational setting: St. Bonaventure School is in Huntington Beach, California. St. Bonaventure is a parochial elementary school educating kindergarten through eighth-grade students. The school is fully accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges. The classroom, 1A is one of the three first grade classrooms in this educational setting. Classroom 1A consists of 26 students (12 boys; 14 girls; ages six to seven years old). The students included two English Language Learners (ELL), both classified as advanced in their language acquisition proficiency levels. Two students receive an accommodated curriculum, one for dyslexia and one for emotional outbursts related to autism-like behaviors.
Integration of technology into a lesson plan and implementation of the plan, assessment of technology impact, and explanation (5 pages) of decisions made according to research on learning.
Integrating technology is expected in our 21st century educational settings, yet it is critical that we stop and think about why we are employing these tools, what informs our decisions about technology, and the impact they have on the student learning experience.
According to Wheeler (2015), “the search is on to discover the best ways that technology can be used to enhance, enrich, and extend learning” (p. 5). Yet a divide between traditional teaching pedagogy and the digital world exists in many schools. Technology is very much embedded in the day-to-day lives of our students outside of school. While some schools have embraced this, others have banned cell phone use and blocked social media in schools. Flipped learning and blended learning models are becoming more common in today’s classrooms.
Resources provided to you in this course address teaching and learning models as they relate to teaching utilizing technology, examining both positives and negatives to these approaches. Your assessment in this course requires you to think critically about what technology integration might be effective in your setting.
Reference
Wheeler, S. (2015). Learning with ‘e’s: Education theory and practice in the digital age. Carmathen, Whales: Crown House Publishing.
Demonstration of Competency
By successfully completing this assessment, you will demonstrate your proficiency in the following course competency and assessment scoring guide criteria:
Competency: Assess how learning with technology affects the learning process.
Integrate educational technology into teaching practices or plans for teaching practices.
Develop assessment strategies for measuring the success of educational technology integration in supporting student learning.
Support technology integration decisions with research and best practices related to how learning with technology affects the learning process.
Instructions
Choose one of the options below to complete for this assessment.
Choice 1: Technology Integration With Your Students
Leverage your knowledge of the learning process to reflect on the design and application of technology in your own teaching environment.
Complete the following components:
Create a lesson plan that integrates technology, and then teach the lesson.
Use a student survey or another format for student input that allows the students to reflect upon how the technology impacted their learning. Examples include pre/post assessment before and after the technology-integrated lesson, Twitter voting, et cetera.
Assess your technology plan and implementation through a written analysis (5 pages.)
Include the following:
Explain how your decisions about technology integration were supported by research and best practices related to how learning with technology affects the learning process.
Assess the effectiveness of the technology integration.
Reflect on the impact technology had on the learning process.
