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Evaluate Reflection

How has the Evaluate module prepared you to meet each standard listed? Link to or provide specific examples from your work in Evaluate. What strategies will you take away from the Evaluate module and apply to your teaching?  What lessons were most beneficial for you?

I will take away several strategies from this module to apply to my online teaching. First, I will keep in mind to provide regular and specific feedback to my students.  This help will propel them to success in the course. Next, I will be sure to differentiate assessments based on student performance and needs. Upon first thought, one might think that differentiation in a virtual setting is not as important as the regular classroom setting.  However, nothing could be further from the truth.  Differentiation is paramount in the online classroom. The tools in most LMSs will help teacher build an individualized learning path for students based on assessment outcomes.  The most beneficial lesson for me in this module was building a competency structure. This reminded me of standards-based teaching and learning.  Building these specific pathways for students to demonstrate their knowledge and understanding is an engaging way to teach and learn in an online course. 

Click on each standard below to view specific examples from my work in this module:

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.

Evaluate 3 - Self Reflection

Submit evidence of reflection on your individual teaching abilities. Include artifacts, evaluation feedback, your own reflections, e-portfolio links, professional growth plans and anything else that showcases introspection into strengths and weaknesses as an online educator.

My experience with teaching includes middle school math, science, and Algebra I. As I reflect on my teaching abilities, I look back over the thirteen years of lessons learned and accomplishments.  One of the many lessons learned was the importance of integrating technology into teaching. So understanding this, I worked hard to incorporate technology and 21st century activities in teaching mathematics. This resulted in good teacher evaluations and always meeting and exceeding exceptions. Wanting to be the best teacher I could be, I began on the path of becoming national board certified teacher. This quest helped me to begin blended learning with my students.  I was one of the first teachers in my school to structure a blended learning environment for my Algebra I students. We used Edmodo as an LMS to collaborate, communicate instructional materials and videos, have class discussions, and deliver and upload work. My strengths as an online educator have developed from my experience with the blended classroom and also my experience teaching a blended virtual graduate course. The best practice is the skill of providing feedback to online learners.  Both students and adults benefit from effective feedback, and that skill develops with practice. The most growth that I have experienced is the change in my assessment practices.  I adopted assessment strategies that allow students to reassess when they miss the mark. This has made a big difference is the success of my students. 

Click Here  to view my blog that houses a few of my experiences as a teacher and instructional coach with technology integration tools and best instructional practices, which could be viewed as an e-portfolio.  

Click Here to view my entry into the National Board Certified Teacher directory. 

Evaluate 3 - Personalized Teaching and Learning

Provide sample data from student results for a course within your field. The data can be entirely theoretical and written out in text form. 

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. Answer:  How could the data be referenced to identify the needs of each student? How could the settings of the LMS be used to create personalized learning paths? How would this data change your teaching plan? How could it help with remediation or enrichment, etc.?

Above is a snapshot of results from a unit assessment. At the top, in grey the standards are listed (MGES8.G.1, MGES8.G.2, MGES8.G.3, MGES8.G.4, and MGES8.G.5). Below each column there are three colors green, yellow, and red that give me the number of students who mastered, nearly mastered, and need remediation for the standard, respectively. This is highly informative data because from this snapshot, I can see that for standard G.1, only 8 students need remediation and this could be individualized help, versus standard G5, there were 39 students who needed remediation so this would result in me having a whole group session over this standard or adding an additional synchronous class session to review this standard before the final assessment. Looking at this data and analyzing it informs my next steps as a teacher. This data is also will alert me to individualized student progress.  For instance, look at the student with arrow.  This student clearly needs a more significant path of remediation because he has not mastered three of the five standards in the unit. With this case, students with all green and yellow would have a path of enrichment with optional videos or tasks to review, but the students with two or more reds would have a learning path that requires them to do more learning activities and retest. 

Evaluate 2 - Competencies

Set up a competency structure using standards for one unit of your sample course. Associate the assignments in that unit with the competency. 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.

Hopefully, I will be teaching math, so I used the GSE standards to create the competencies for the unit. Since  "...competency...focuses on what students should be able to do after successfully completing a course instead of listing things they should have learned." I used the deconstruction of the standards to create the skills for each competency (I can statements). In order to attain the competencies in the unit, a student may go through various pathways such as, learning the unit vocabulary, partner activities, research and reporting, a webquest, self-check quizzes, video instruction, and synchronous meetings.

Evaluate 2 - Data Driven Instruction & Analysis

Review the artifacts on student enrollments and student progress in the course. How might the teacher adjust the course in the future based on the previous activity of these students? What uses does data have for online instruction? What advantages do teachers who utilize data have over those that do not?

After reviewing the artifacts shown in the lesson, I noted there are various way of viewing student participation, such as how often they are logging in to the platform and how they are progressing through the course. Knowing how often students log in or the number of completed assignments they have show how the students are measuring success. This is an imperative feature for online instructors because there is not a reporting place everyday to verbally give students a reminder or help when needed. Sometimes students don't ask for help immediately when they need it, especially middle school students.  Since analyzing data and providing feedback are two extremely important practices in e-learning, data allows teachers to modify instruction when needed or reach out to students and parents before undesirable course outcomes are at hand. This gives teachers who utilize data a huge advantage over those who don't. It is imperative that online teachers keep a contact log just as in a traditional class. I always kept a contact log in my classroom for each phone call, email, or correspondence mailed home. If the log displays that students have not completed their orientation within the first two days of class, they and the parent should be notified.  I found a great tool, Dialmycalls that will send a voicemail to a group.  I plan to use this for communication.

Evaluate 1 - Summative Assessments

Showcase an assessment created and include what method was used to assess the validity, reliability, and security. What process was used to determine the validity, reliability, and security of the assessment? What was the result?

Validity The assessment was multiple choice and the generator makes sure the choices have detractors to differentiate students who really understand the material and those who don't. There are choices that seem reasonable because they are near the correct answers.

Reliability I expect that the item analysis will show the scores of the assessment and the overall average in the course to have high correlation.

Security To maintain security, students must log into the LMS to retrieve the link for the assessments. I would like to use a tool that allow the instructor to limit the time on the assessment.  

Assessment by Angela on Scribd