Standards 6.2 Reflection
Candidates regularly evaluate and reflect on their professional practice and dispositions to improve and strengthen their ability to effectively model and facilitate technology-enhanced learning experiences.
Artifact:
Reflection:
Standard 6.2 is one of the most important standards of graduate school. I decided to use several artifacts because I felt it was important to show my mastery in many ways. Standard 6.2 states that candidates regularly evaluate and reflect on their professional practice and dispositions to improve and strengthen their ability to effectively model and facilitate technology-enhanced learning experiences. Early in my graduate school career, I began reflecting in blogs, reports, summaries, logs and journals. It continued throughout ever class preparing me for this final capstone class which consisted of reflections of the past two years.
The first artifact is the portfolio blog that I used to reflect on classes, assignments and topics. For instance on April 16, 2013 I reflected on Equitable Access. By completing this reflection, I was able to research, understand and reflect on the importance of equitable access and closing the gap between students with and without technology. Working for public schools for the past 15 years I became spoiled with technology and did not realize the hurdles teachers had to jump to have the smallest bit of technology in their classroom. By doing this research and reflection I was able to learn more about those hurdles and the huge gap of technology access for students in public and private.
The next artifact to show mastery of this standard is my portfolio of all of my reflections of standards. I believe writing twenty eight reflections not only improved my ability to write but also strengthened my ability to evaluate and reflect on my personal practice as an instructional technologist. When I first began to write these reflections, I did not get a clear understanding that I must thoroughly reflect on all the points of the standard. With my professors help, she explained to me that to reflect I must cover all the points of the standard and show examples of each. For Standard 1.1, shared vision, I wrote the basics of what a shared vision was without giving any examples of my own vision. After rewriting this vision, I gave a true reflection on what my vision was and how I was to accomplish it. By the time I had written a few reflections on my standards, I was receiving them back from the professor with very few corrections.
The final artifact I wanted to reflect on was my coaching journal. This artifact allowed me to connect with a faculty member for one-on-one sessions and coach them through their learning experience of technology use and integration. The journal allowed me to make entries to reflect on my sessions with the teacher. With this journal and reflection, I was able to help the teacher set goals and make progress with their technology use in the classroom. These reflections also allowed me to set goals for myself as far as following through with the faculty member to see if they were making progress, give them more instruction and guide them through the next phase of integration and curriculum development with technology.
All of these artifacts helped me to understand the importance of including reflective practices in my professional career. By reflecting often, I have helped so many teachers to use more technology to create blended learning environments for their students. The school has been highly impacted and a very high percentage of our teachers are now flipping their classroom, using the learning management system for all their assignments, as well as incorporating web 2.0 tools for their teaching and learning. It has allowed me to develop more professional learning opportunities and align more with the schools improvement plan for the future.
The first artifact is the portfolio blog that I used to reflect on classes, assignments and topics. For instance on April 16, 2013 I reflected on Equitable Access. By completing this reflection, I was able to research, understand and reflect on the importance of equitable access and closing the gap between students with and without technology. Working for public schools for the past 15 years I became spoiled with technology and did not realize the hurdles teachers had to jump to have the smallest bit of technology in their classroom. By doing this research and reflection I was able to learn more about those hurdles and the huge gap of technology access for students in public and private.
The next artifact to show mastery of this standard is my portfolio of all of my reflections of standards. I believe writing twenty eight reflections not only improved my ability to write but also strengthened my ability to evaluate and reflect on my personal practice as an instructional technologist. When I first began to write these reflections, I did not get a clear understanding that I must thoroughly reflect on all the points of the standard. With my professors help, she explained to me that to reflect I must cover all the points of the standard and show examples of each. For Standard 1.1, shared vision, I wrote the basics of what a shared vision was without giving any examples of my own vision. After rewriting this vision, I gave a true reflection on what my vision was and how I was to accomplish it. By the time I had written a few reflections on my standards, I was receiving them back from the professor with very few corrections.
The final artifact I wanted to reflect on was my coaching journal. This artifact allowed me to connect with a faculty member for one-on-one sessions and coach them through their learning experience of technology use and integration. The journal allowed me to make entries to reflect on my sessions with the teacher. With this journal and reflection, I was able to help the teacher set goals and make progress with their technology use in the classroom. These reflections also allowed me to set goals for myself as far as following through with the faculty member to see if they were making progress, give them more instruction and guide them through the next phase of integration and curriculum development with technology.
All of these artifacts helped me to understand the importance of including reflective practices in my professional career. By reflecting often, I have helped so many teachers to use more technology to create blended learning environments for their students. The school has been highly impacted and a very high percentage of our teachers are now flipping their classroom, using the learning management system for all their assignments, as well as incorporating web 2.0 tools for their teaching and learning. It has allowed me to develop more professional learning opportunities and align more with the schools improvement plan for the future.