Reflecting on the GAME plan

While working on my graduate degree I was introduced to a process of self improvement known as a GAME plan. Essentially, you create a goal, plan a course of action to attain it, monitor your progress, and ultimately evaluate your growth. My experience with this process has been very encouraging. Since I started the process around 6 weeks ago I have been able to achieve almost every goal that I have set. I believe that my success is directly related to the monitoring and evaluating process of the GAME plan. I have learned a number of things that I can use to better myself as an educator. Most relate to different ways that I can integrate technology into my core content. One is to use things like wikis or blogs to encourage online collaboration. Using this will let me teach the music concept as well as technological skills. Another is to use certain technology interfaces to help specific students achieve classroom assignments. An example of this would be to use a MIDI keyboard to input notes instead of just the mouse.

I am very happy to say that just recently I have been able to propose some of these ideas to my principle who responded by providing me with the funds to start my own MIDI based recording lab. I am confident that the reason he was so willing to grant me the funds is because of all the things I have been learning through my professional learning activities, which were attended so I could become a better teacher and, truthfully, reach my GAME plan goal.

With the inclusion of the MIDI lab in my class room I will be spending a great deal of time over the summer fine tuning some project-based learning activities which will use the lab to its fullest. As for now, the year is almost over. I am planning to introduce the project-based lessons to my students within the next few days in an attempt the get them ready for what is to come next year. I am so excited about this that I can hardly wait.

GAME Plan With Students

Over the past few weeks I have been carrying out a GAME plan based on standards from the International Society for Technology in Education. I have been very engaged in the process of bettering myself by making goals, implementing actions towards them, monitoring my progress, and evaluating the results. This GAME plan process has been extremely beneficial to me. I have been able to achieve a great number of my initial goals through the monitoring and evaluating process. Since I have had so much success with this method I am considering instituting this process into my class so that my students would also receive the benefit.

To start this I would like to allow my students to see what I have been doing in my graduate school. I want for them to see that this not just some extra assignment that I am requiring to complete my course. Instead it is a authentic method used by many individuals, including their teacher, for self improvement. As I am showing the students the posts and monitoring data that I kept in my journal I would then begin to suggest that they use this as a tool for growth as well.

This process could be used for anything that the students want to grow in. I love the thought of it being used in connection with the technology standards, but I know that these method could also be used in correlation with the music standards to. I would implement this process in much the same way that it was to me I.E. the beginning of a course. As the students progress I would set aside certain times within my lessons where they would monitor and evaluate their growth. Actually, I would love to create lessons which allow the students to perform the steps of the GAME plan without them even realizing it.

Revising the GAME plan

After evaluating my Game plan I now want to take another look at the NETS standards and reconsider which areas need more attention. Since I have had so much success at meeting standard 5 (Engaging in professional growth and leadership), I think that it will be safe to completely remove this and replace it with a new standard. The next standard that I would like to focus on is standard 3 (Model digital-age work and learning).

The reason why I want to include this standard to my GAME plan is because I am music teacher and I don’t see the students as much as some of the other courses. That being said, I find it hard for me to move away from the tried and true lesson plans that I use and include moments where the students get to watch me model the digital-age learning process. Still, with the ideas and techniques that I have been learning in my professional development sessions I will be able to grow in this area by including myself in the learning process. By allowing for more problem-based learning experiences I can move out of the teacher role into the new facilitator role. This will give me the opportunity to grow and learn as the students do. My goal for this standard will be to use myself as an example of how to go about the digital-age learning and creating process.

As far as standard 2 (design and develop digital-age learning experiences and assessments) goes, I am still growing and creating. I believe that this will take me a while to achieve but I am willing to keep going. I am still doing a lot of research on the internet and having discussions with my mentor teachers. I know that when I get farther down the road all of my efforts will be worth it.