This blog post is to reflect upon what was learned in the Evaluate Module and the following standards:
Standard D: The online teacher promotes student success through clear expectations, prompt responses, and regular feedback.
Standard G: The online teacher demonstrates competencies in creating and implementing assessments in online learning environments in ways that ensure validity and reliability of the instruments and procedures.
Standard H: The online teacher develops and delivers assessments, projects, and assignments that meet standards-based learning goals and assesses learning progress by measuring student achievement of the learning goals.
Standard I: The online teacher demonstrates competency in using data from assessments and other data sources to modify content and to guide student learning.
Standard D was best met in the Quality Feedback post. This post focused on giving quality feedback that focused on encouraging student growth and mastery of standards. The positive and corrective feedback to students will lead to greater learning and student achievement.
Standard G and H were best addressed in Summative Assessment and Personalized Teaching and Learning. This post helped to ensure that the instructor is creating assessments that are reliable and valid. By focusing on the on assessments that met standards, the instructor is able to create assessments that will lend data to the direction of the lesson. I also found value in the lesson that focused on the security of test.
Standard I was also met in Personalized Teaching and Learning. I really felt this lesson prepared me to better use data for assessments. By focusing more using the data from formative and summative assessments, the teacher is able to use differentiation and remediation to assist the student in achieving mastery of the standard.
What strategies will you take away from the Evaluate module and apply to your teaching?
This module had several lessons that had excellent points. I think the best strategy I will take away is to continue using data to support assessments. By planning assessments that align with standards and having assessment tools in place, such as rubrics, the student understand the objectives and the subjectivity of grading will disappear.
What lessons were most beneficial for you?
The lesson I felt most beneficial was the lesson on Quality Feedback. Too often teachers are overwhelmed with the amount of grading that has to be done, or the depth of the material that needs to be graded that we don't put enough value in feedback. I will spend more time in the future focusing on feedback.
Artifact: Submit evidence of reflection on your individual teaching abilities. Include a minimum of (2) two artifacts: evaluation feedback, your own reflections, e-portfolio links, professional growth plans, recommendation letters, stakeholder feedback and anything else that showcases introspection into strengths and weaknesses as an online educator and document all in your individual blog.
At this time, I am not an online educator so I am providing artifacts from my classroom teaching experience.
This document is from my self assessment portion of my yearly evaluation. I feel that I excel in areas of professionalism and subject knowledge. With a focus on communication, I felt that I could improve from where I was they year before. It is easy to spend time communicating with students and parents when there is a negative issue, but we forget how important it is to communicate with the positive issues as well.
The artifact is the section from my annual evaluation.
What are your teaching strengths?
I feel that my best teaching strength is my content knowledge. I teach public safety and have spent nearly 20 years as a police officer. I have had valuable opportunities to learn and attend classes that takes years to acquire.
What are your teaching weaknesses?
I feel that learning the online delivery is my biggest weakness. Having not taught online before defiantly makes this the area that I can improve the most on.
Provide a reflection on your teaching abilities, philosophy and how Evaluate has prepared you to teach online.
I have really enjoyed this lesson. I have learned and relearned many things about the evaluation process and how evaluation is an integral part of the education system. I have always been an advocate of using data to direct the lesson. I feel this entire module has better prepared me to plan, deliver and conduct assessments.
Artifact: Provide sample data from student results for a course within your field. The data can be entirely theoretical and written out in text form.
Create: Examine your sample student performance data. Create an action plan that you would implement in your classroom to personalize teaching and learning. Provide both a class and individual approach in your plan.
For this section I have already shown the required documents in Summative Assessments.
How could the data be referenced to identify the needs of each student?
By matching the questions with the standards for the lesson, the teacher is able to use the item analysis to determine which standards the student needs the most attention on.
How could the settings of the LMS be used to create personalized learning paths?
The instructor can create assignments within the LMS that are standard matched. By having instructional tools in place that meet standards and divided by standards, the teacher can apply those learning tools to individual students. Not all LMS are instructor friendly allowing the instructor to set individual learning plans in place.
How would this data change your teaching plan?
By effectively putting data to use the teaching plan will become more customized to the individual students. This method is the most effective delivery method for each standard.
How could it help with remediation or enrichment, etc.?
I feel that remediation and enrichment is the area most often forgotten in the teaching environment. If a student fails to show mastery of a standard the teacher is able to use the provided data from the summative assessment to return to the lesson and create new activities that will reinforce those standards.
Create: For this section, set up a competency structure using standards for one unit of your sample course. Associate the assignments in that unit with the competency.
Artifact: Submit both a screenshot of the structure and a detailed explanation of why you created the structure that way. Include a discussion of the various pathways a student may go through to attain the competencies in the unit and document all in your blog.
Intro to Law, Public Safety, Corrections, and Security
ELACC9-10SL1: Initiate and participate effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and teacher-led) with diverse partners on grades 9–10 topics, texts, and issues, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly and persuasively.
ELACC9-10SL4: Present information, findings, and supporting evidence clearly, concisely, and logically such that listeners can follow the line of reasoning and the organization, development, substance, and style are appropriate to purpose, audience, and task.
The student will participate in a planned emergency drill. The student will meet the standards of the course by preparing for the activity, participating in the activity, being professional and the reflecting on the activity. This activity may be used as a formative exercise or a summative assessment.
This blog post was written to discuss nine data images that were shown in the data driven instruction and analysis lesson.
How might the teacher adjust the course in the future based on the previous activity of these students?
I think that it is important for teachers to constantly grow each lesson and change to ensure the most student success is being accomplished. By constantly reviewing data and student performance based on a comparison with similar learners we are able to differentiate material for each student. Use a spreadsheet that focuses on the impact of student learning. During formative assessments if I see a student, group of students, or the class is weak in a standard, then I change the direction of the lesson to focus on mastery of that standard. If a summative assessment reveals that students are not showing a mastery of a standard, then the focus is on remediation.
What other uses does data have for online instruction?
With online instruction, the teacher has to pay close attention in an asynchronous learning environment to ensure students are meeting standards. Differentiation takes on a new look for teachers that normally have a face-to-face meeting with students. Through time teachers can plan effective differentiation for students based on data that is collected from the class.
What advantages do teachers who utilize data have over those that do not?
This is a difficult question because I cannot imagine teaching without the use of data. Teaching with data provides teachers with a clear indication of which students are meeting standards and which are not. This allows the teacher to change their methods to be able to transfer information to more students, conduct better formative and summative assessments, and provide classroom differentiation. Teachers that are not using data are not providing everything they could be for their students.
This blog post I am focusing on the validity, reliability, and the security of the assessment. When determining the summative assessment for a lesson it is important to make sure that the material used is connected to a standard.
This above document is an example of the standards used to determine the validity of the summative assessment.
After matching the standards with the lesson, test question can be developed.
The above document document is an example of a test made using Quia. Quia many features that helps the teacher to measure reliability. Test reports and item analysis are valuable tools.
The above picture is a copy of a class test report.
The above document is a copy of a test item analysis. This tool helps to ensure question reliability with the lesson.
Quia has many security features including separate teacher and student login, having a security word for starting the test and limited time windows for testing.
This blog post focuses on Quality Feedback. I have attached below several artifacts for to illustrate feedback.
This is a copy of an assignment on Rehabilitative Programs given to a student.
This is an example of the students work that was turned in for a grade.
This is an example of feedback provided for the assignment.
It is important for an instructor to consider student performance data when providing feedback so that the student is evaluated on their own personal growth and mastery of the standards. Feedback can be both observational and instructional. Feedback can focus on the effort the student has put into the work and acknowledge the quality, and feedback can help to point the student in the direction of where they can find answers or improve upon their work. Feedback is a valuable part of learning.
For this blog I have created a formative assessment using Quia. I took material that is discussed int the lesson on the History of the American Jail, and I created a battleship game.
This is the home screen for the student that allows them to select the skill level and reposition their ships.
This is the screen the student sees when they play the game. When the click on a box it will alert the student if the get a hit. When the student gets a hit they must answer a question for the hit to count in their favor.
This picture shows a list of questions I have created for the game.
Students may play the game as many times as they would like. Each game will tell them if they have won or lost. Student are encouraged to raise their skill level until they have mastered the game. The teacher is able to monitor student achievement through exporting a student grade sheet. The grades can be broken down into which standards the student is having the most difficult time with. Based upon the students mastery of a standard, or lack of mastery, the teacher can focus more time on the weaker standards. This is an excellent time to focus on differentiation.
This blog post is to reflect on what I have learned while completing the Create lesson. The following standards were addressed during these lessons:
Standard B: The online teacher understands and is able to use a range of technologies, both existing and emerging, that effectively support student learning and engagement in the online environment.
Standard C: The online teacher plans, designs, and incorporates strategies to encourage active learning, application, interaction, participation, and collaboration in the online environment.
Standard E: The online teacher models, guides, and encourages legal, ethical, and safe behavior related to technology use.
Standard K: The online teacher arranges media and content to help students and teachers transfer knowledge most effectively in the online environment.
There have been many lessons in this module that have helped me to meet each standard. Standard B and Standard C were met in Create 2 - Web Tools for Differentiation of Teacher Instruction and in Create 2 - Web Tools both of these lessons provided me with the information to support student engagement in a fun and interactive online environment.
Standard E was met in Create 3 - Open Educational Resources this section, I feel, prepared me to show students how to use resources in an ethical and legal way. I will also be able to share information that is safe for my students.
Standard K was met in Create 4 - Aggregating Lesson Material where the focus was to help students by having information in an easy to follow LMS. Without delivery the students will never learn.
The strategies I will take away from create are; how to find save material to deliver to students, and how to create learning objects to make learning more engaging. Throughout the lesson one of the most useful items was the learning maps. The maps make lessons easy to follow for the instructor and the student.
Searching for a LMS that can aggregate lesson material can be an overwhelming task. I have done some research and testing and found two that seem to work well. The first is Litmos. Litmos is a SAAS/Cloud platform for e-learning, also known as a learning management system or LMS, based in Silicon Valley, CA, USA. Litmos is used for employee training, customer training, channel training, and compliance training. The virtual classroom is easy to navigate and a huge plus is the phone application. This means students can complete work and learn along the way. There is a free trial in place that will let you examine the site for yourself. The top of the price bracket that has all the bells and whistles is only $15 per month.
The second LMS I found that can aggregate lesson materials is BluVolt. BlueVolt has some nice amperage with extended enterprise LMS distribution. This company gets it, and effectively marries learning with marketing. Manufacturers, distributors, associations and service companies use the BlueVolt LMS to develop and deliver highly effective online training. There are a few problems with BlueVolt; there is not free demo and there is limited access until you pay to use the LMS. This is a sleek and easy to navigate LMS but it is not intended for instructor-led classrooms.
My name is Kris Martinez and I blog about learning public safety.