Module 7

What do you feel has been the most useful thing you will take away from this course?
The most useful thing has been time to work cooperatively with my colleagues on this unit. It has been very beneficial to be able bounce ideas off of one another and really make the unit something that the students are going to be engaged in and be excited to learn about. We are able to all divide it up and work on upping the rigor and making our technology "hot"!

Do you think you will plan units that follow a similar format to this one in the future?
Yes I will definetly follow this unit plan because we wrote it just like we would be teaching it. We wanted it to be a working document that we could change as we teach the unit to best reflect what the students need.

What features from this type of curriculum design might you use again?
I like the idea of looking at all the different assessment types that we incorporate into the unit.

Is there anything else you hope to learn from this course before it is completed?
I would like to know about some more primary based websites, program, tools for kindergarten students. I would like it to break it down to the basics for them. "This is a mouse, this is what you do with it, etc"

Module 6

This module has helped me think about self-directed learners and the role of differentiation in the following ways….

• to include differing assessments throughout the unit
• kindergarten students are capable of self-direction with some intial direction for me (I am all about making students as independent as possible!)
• Use of templates, forms, and starters to provide scaffolding for students
• the vast amount of accomodations and resources that I can use with my special needs, ELL, and gifted students

Module 5

This module has helped me think about student-centered assessment in the following ways….

• to include a variety of assessments within my daily lesson to check for understand
• to include pre and post assessments in a variety of ways
• to use student created rubrics and checklists

Module 4

Technology can be used most effectively to support and assess student learning because the teacher would make it student-centered. The students would be in charge of their own learning and create technology projects that best shows their knowledge. I would give students choice through an extension menu and let them choose what they want to do to showcase their learning.

Module 3

This module has helped me think about the impact of the Internet on my students’ learning in the following ways….
1. I am more aware of the copyright and fair use guidelines and how important it is to share that information with students. Even kindergarteners can understand the concept of "fair use" and can be cognizant of the fact that everyone needs to be given credit for their own creative work.
2. It also has helped me to think about incorporating more student research in my teaching. I know now about more kid friendly search engines that are safe for my student. I plan on showing my students how I research using the Internet and then have them do some practice with searching for specific topics.

This module has helped me to think about using standards, CFQ's, or formative assessments in the following ways...
1. I have a hierarchy of how to plan units by thinking about essential questions (the overall theme) and unit and content questions that get more specific.
2. I think more about the types of assessments that I can use and the fact that I do use them and don't even realize it.
3. It has also helped me to realize how much better it is to collaborate with my team to come up with an awesome plan that uses standardsm CFQ's, and formative asssessments!

Module 1

This module has made me think about my role as an instructional designer in the following ways: I see myself as more of a facilator of the problem based learning. It is more student centered where the kids work in cooperative or whole class to solve a problem.