Curriculum and instruction explored
- 1. Curriculum and Instruction Explored By Tracie Dixon
- 2. After researching, analyzing, and evaluating my own selected curriculum, it really made me thing about all that is taken into account when devising a curriculum. The curriculum that I evaluated used formative assessments and technology. So, I chose to focus on the technological aspect of curriculum design and the formative assessment piece of curriculum evaluation. In the article, “Digital Natives, Yet Strangers to the Web”, 2015, by Alia Wong, she states that while kids are equipped with techology, they don't know how to use it
- 3. She also says that the reason why students don't use it effectively and appropriately is because educators don't know how to use the technology themselves. They are considered to be “dinosaurs”, and once they learn to use it effectively the technology has changed. With all the technology distributed through schools, some educators feel that the technology is taking away the learning process.
- 4. This article made me reflect on the evaluation of the Achieve3000 program as well as other lessons that I have taught. With the reading program, students were typing their responses to the before reading poll. The responses were poorly typed because they'd never typed before. However, as they continued to practice typing their skills got better.
- 5. As I continue to think about it, I realized that students get very little time or opportunity to hone their typing skills or any other skill that is considered basic when it comes to keyboarding. Like the article says, they don't know when to use technology. Even though technology is to be implemented in classrooms, it is replaced with expensive programs that require some students to just click a button and that satisifes the technology expectations of the school.
- 6. Technology has now drifted to the Common Core standards in the form of the Smarter Balanced Assessments. Last year 46 educators came together to contribute to a resources digital library and take what they've learned back home to other teachers who can do the same. The teachers observed a videoed lesson and evaluated it. The educators evaluated a lesson to determine if a video was a helpful resource to shape their ow lessons and to assess how well students are learning.
- 7. The feedback from the lesson was used to create the online library and also additional lessons for the now Smarter Balanced Assessment. Schools are using it for the formative and summative assessment. The Smarter Balanced Assessments have open-ended questions that students will have to answer on line. This leads us back to the issue with the use of technology. What if a student is a key pecker? With budget cuts a possibility, what will become of curriculum and assessments that require technology
- 8. Reference Page Molinar, Michele. October 2014. Educators evaluate array of formative testing product. http://www.edweek.org/ew/article/2014/10/22/09pl-formative.h34.html 34(9). 20-23 Wong, Alia. April 2015. Digital Natives, Yet Strangers to the Web. http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2015/04/digital-natives-yet-strangers-to-the-web/390990 1-13.