Course Reflection

Through out this course the emphasis of teacher literacy was prevalent. Obtaining the skills involved with using information to accomplish goals was an objective of many discussions, blog posts, and our applications. Starting the course with creating a personal GAME plan helped create the focal point of the course. We learned the skills of evaluating, synthesizing, and communicating our own ideas to ensure successful transition of our work into our classrooms. Self-reflection was also stressed and to always evaluate oneself with the purpose of producing our best work was another task we pondered on weekly.
Working on our skills as educators, we also explored self-directed learning environments. The importance of letting students learn as independents with little teacher instruction makes for a successful classroom. Tasks such as creating problem-based learning activities helped students learn content as they learn higher order thinking skills, which promotes self-directed learners. Other benefits of lessons like these are students learn to collaborate, learn technology language, learn content deeply and then can apply their learning to new situations. Mostly importantly all of these skills can cover many standards at once.
I feel this course was a great balance of teacher and student reflection. We as teachers had to monitor our own learning and then had to share our skills with our students. We as a classroom gained much from this course. Thus far of the technology courses, this has been the course where we had to evaluate ourselves the most. I truly enjoyed this course and what it had to offer. It has enabled us to let students be self-sufficient learners while in time will make them productive citizens, which is our main goal.

Stephanie Coultrip