CSE 624 Professional Development Plan

 

Goal #1: Improve my personal skills in using technology---focusing in areas related to ISTE’s NETS standards for teachers.

            Steps to take:

·        Become an ISTE member. This will provide me with access to a community of educators who are looking to promote technology in the classroom. There are social networks, book discounts and conference information available this way.

·        Attend conferences/workshops with a technology focus. In the past, I have chosen workshops with a literacy or math focus and considered technology to be a fluff item---something it would be nice to focus on when other things are taken care of. Now I feel that technology conferences need to take a front seat.

·        Try to design a webquest. 

Goal #2: Incorporate ISTE’s NETS standards for students in content lessons in my classroom.

            Steps to take:

·        Print the ISTE’s NETS for students and hang it on my wall next to my other standards. This sounds simple, but I think the act of putting these standards up where I reference the others shows that these standards deserve the same amount of attention.

·        Bring copies of the ISTE’s NETS for students to my team meetings. We currently choose standards from the other areas to focus on and commonly assess. I would like us to do the same with technology standards.

Goal #3: Add computer-based lessons to units of study I have already created.  

            Steps to take:

·        Begin with math strands. I already have a solid start with the mini unit I did about money. As each math strand approaches throughout the year, I will work to incorporate websites that go along with the strand.

·        Focus on social studies and science units. Because we stay with a math strand for a few weeks (usually) I should have sometime to add technology into social studies and science units as we begin them (never at the same time). Each unit usually last about a month, so I should have plenty of time to add this component.

It should be easy to identify whether or not I have met both goals 1 and 3. At the end of the year when I turn in my professional growth plan and PDU’s to my principal, I will know if I have increased my technology-related conference attendance. Over the summer I will try my hand at a webquest, and I will know I have paid my ISTE membership fee. I will know I have met goal 3 when all math strands and science and social studies units have at least some web-based technology incorporated.

Goal 2 will be harder to track because it involves assessing the students in the NETS areas. This will require developing common assessments with my team. I will know I have met part of the goal when common assessments have been written, and the other part when students score well on the assessments.