Teachers use their knowledge of subject matter, teaching and learning, and technology to facilitate experiences that advance student learning, creativity, and innovation in both face-t0-face and virtual environments.

​​            a.  Promote, support, and model creative and innovative thinking and inventiveness

            b.  Engage students in exploring real-world issues and solving authentic problems using digital tools and resources

            c.  Promote student reflection using collaborative tools to reveal and clarify students' conceptual understanding and thinking,

                 planning, and creative processes

            d.  Model collaborative knowledge construction by engaging in learning with students, colleagues, and others in face-to-face and

                 virtual environments

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My Personal Definition of the Standard:

This standard allows students to be creative learners, both in online and offline worlds. Teachers need to provide these experiences for students through authentic problems, collaboration, and student choice. Many times, math is thought of as being very linear and having no room for creativity. In reality, it is quite the opposite. Students can use math concepts to create new products, solve real-world problems in different ways, and reflect on their learning. Several artifacts that I created for this cohort promote this type of creativity and real-world thinking and learning.

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Artifacts that Align and How They Address the Criteria of the Standard:

Exploring Issues and Trends in Instructional Technology

There were two artifacts during this course. The first artifact was my argumentative paper on STEAM education. STEAM education encourages and fosters creative thinking and innovativeness with the use of technology.  It also involves students making connections among subjects and to real-world contexts, possibly through problem-based learning which provides students with authentic tasks so that they can make those connections, and allows for multiple collaborative opportunities. The authentic tasks and real-world contexts involve all 5 content areas (science, technology, engineering, arts, and math) coming together, and technology is used to learn about, create, and/or present their final product. Through this paper, I am promoting creative thinking in my students and advocating for this type of curricula to be implemented.

In the team project, the learners are professional colleagues, but the promotion, support, and modeling of creativity and innovative thinking and inventiveness is still very present.  Many adults do not think of Twitter as anything other than a social media site where people can post updates about their lives and communicate with others. We present Twitter as a way to engage in professional conversations, learn about ways to better ourselves as teachers, and even use Twitter in the classroom with our students.  To use Twitter in these ways demonstrate creative and innovative thinking, especially when using Twitter with students. Teachers can use ideas that we present, or get ideas to help create their own innovative ways of using Twitter with their students.

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Planning and Producing Instructional Media

The intent of this video is to have my golf students can watch it to learn how to use proper technique in their golf swing. If they are not hitting the ball straight, they can refer back to this video to troubleshoot their swing mechanics and use it for practice purposes. The golf team has been growing the last couple of years, so I cannot spend a lot of time with each person every day. This video is a great way for them to learn from me without me being physically next to them. They solve their swing problem on their own after watching the video. It is on YouTube, so it is easily accessible to students via the computer or their phones. Students will want to practice while they are watching the video, or after, so they can use their computer while in an indoor space, or their phones if they don’t have access to Wifi. After watching the video, students can work with partners to ensure they are using the proper techniques. This can be done during structured golf practices, as well as outside of practice times since they will have access to the video at all times.

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Selecting and Integrating Instructional Technology

The artifact for this course promotes creative and innovative thinking in my students by giving students choices. They have the choice of who to interview, and also how to present what they learned in their final projects. Part of the project also involved creating learning spaces for the students. In these new spaces, students have the freedom to move the furniture and use whatever tools they need in order to create an environment best suited for the job, while also promoting creativity.

 

In addition, the central question of the unit used for the artifact was “How have major events, such as wars, natural disasters, and immigration, affected your families, communities, and countries?” Students will be conducting interviews and working with their global partners to answer this question. Digital tools used include, but are not limited to,  Zoom (to collaborate with their global partners as well as same-school partners), videography equipment for recording their interviews, and Google apps/other presentation tools to present their final projects. Their project would not be able to be completed without collaborative knowledge construction, and teachers will be modeling and facilitating this with the students.

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Leading Change Through Instructional Technology

Within the artifact for this course, my group discussed how technology would be used with our learners (other teachers) within our change implementation of co-teaching. We discussed that teachers would have access to a Google Drive folder that would include resources related to co-teaching. Co-teachers would also collaborate through Google applications, video conferencing, and other communication tools. Teachers would also have access to different trainings through the AEA and would be able to collaborate with their teaching partners, as well as gain ideas from others, through these trainings.

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Understanding Instructional Design

The artifact for this course promotes creative and innovative thinking and inventiveness in my students by allowing them to apply their knowledge in a new situation, rather than just having them solve textbook-like problems without any context.  They won't be just going through a problem using a specified algorithm, but instead will have to analyze the situation, determine the best way to go about solving the problem, then use the tools they were given to solve it. In math, there is a correct/incorrect answer (most of the time), but there are multiple ways to go about getting that answer.  This project allows for that creativity and freedom for them to choose whichever path they would like in order to solve the problem. The learning of the content and the demonstration of their learning would be done with and without using digital tools and resources.

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Using Digital and Social Media in Education

Google Forms is usually thought of as just being a way to send a quick survey, or do a quick quiz, but the artifact for this course shows that it can be used for much more. There are multiple parts to this Google Form, and students are given immediate feedback from the way they answer. It is a different and creative way for students to review their knowledge of systems of equations.

 

After creating the projects, I shared them with one of my students to do as a test run. He was one of my higher level students, and I thought he would fly through it, but he got stuck on one of the problems. After some discussion, he gave me some ideas on how to make the problem a little more clear so there wouldn’t be any confusion about how to answer it. My other students gave some suggestions as well after they went through it, so I was able to learn about the process along with them and make some changes based on our discussions.

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Developing and Designing Online Learning

One of the online activities in the artifact for this course requires students to have an online discussion (housed on Google Classroom) about how lines and linear equations are used in the real world. Many students do not think that they would be doing any writing in math class, so this is a new way of thinking for them. They will also need to be creative in their responses. They will be doing some research as to how these equations are used, but then will need to respond to their peers and add on to their conversations. This means they will need to think about exactly how equations are used in the real world, not necessarily just by looking it up. The final project for the unit in this artifact also will involve them using their knowledge of the different types of equations to apply it to a real world situation.