My PDQP by Andrea Peacock: DOMAIN C: TPE 4, 5, 6 & 7

#1: TOTALLY AWESOME TEACHING STRATEGIES HEALTH PLAN

This lesson plan is designed specifically to engage students and reinforce life-long learning through the use of a health app by Intermountainhealthcare.org entitled "Live". This app is a great example of engaging students through the use of technology, collaboration, creative design and other education technologies using multimedia such as video creation, pod/vidcasting, blogging/journaling and gamification. I basically took a app and designed an entire lesson plan around it for our Health class here at National University. However, I have since used this lesson plan and passed it on with unbelievable success. My instructor gave me a great compliment that I can really design excellent lesson plans which no one else in the class even attempted. I base this on the my year of experience writing business plans. Link to: TOTALLY AWESOME TEACHING STRATEGIES HEALTH LESSON PLAN

#2: DIGITAL CITIZENSHIP FOUR WEEK COURSE EXAMPLE (MOODLE):

This course was designed in Moodle as part of a class here at National University on Moodle (EDT 671). I had taken a MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) for free over the previous summer and a Schoology course so this class was pretty easy for me but still allowed me to learn and grow. Both are LMS/CMS (Learning Management, Course Management) systems. I designed this course specifically to be creative and engaging. It covers may educational technology and teaching strategies including blogging, gamification, personal reflection through online journaling, and self and peer assessments. Because it is designed within an LMS platform it incorporates a strategy known as "the flipped classroom" as well. It is also a course that I believe is critical all students and teachers be required to take. Link to Digital Citizenship Course: http://www.nusoe.org/course/view.php?id=282 (Login: apeacock2367 / Password: Buster2367 or b&Z0c_BANn)

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The literature review is on an article from the International Society of Technology in education on engaging students with technology. I am a member of this vital organization and it has been an invaluable source of professional development. Link to: LITERATURE REVIEW: THE BEST OF LEARNING AND LEADING WITH TECHNOLOGY

The ability to engage and motivate students through collaboration, technology, project based learning, and student-centered learning is critical today. Students are simply wired differently than we are and it is up to us, the teachers, to catch up and adapt. I teach social science and education technology. I am always telling my students to consider multiple points of view on many issues that impact society and don't just simply rely on one source of information. When I took a group of students to London a few summer's ago I told them to gather as many newspapers as they could and meet me in the hotel lobby. We browsed through the different legitimate newspapers and crazy tabloids together. I asked them what they noticed overall about these foreign newspapers. They all agreed that there was more news about the U.S. than in the U.S. - a ton of news about U.S. politics. This sparked their interest and I pointed out that you must look at every source - just not one source in order to make good informed decisions and choices. I believe in the three R's: Relevancy, Rigor and Relationships. Content must be relative to the real world issues we are facing today, the content must be rigorous - challenging and promote critical thinking and students must have the ability to work independently, but also work in teams and groups and be willing to collaborate and share information. They really already have a great handle on this aspect of learning because they are tied to social media via Facebook or similar platforms. But even then they must learn to critically think and conduct analysis in order to make informed decisions and choices and determine fact from fiction in the real world. I like to hear my student debating issues, forming opinions, and being productively noisy.

One of the greatest moments of my student teaching was when the VP asked me why the kids like to hang out with me at lunch. One of the students spoke up and said "because we want to know about the real world and Ms. P knows about the real world." The VP was a huge advocate for relevancy so this worked in my favor. It helps having been in another profession and sharing those experiences with students.

There was a point when my mentor handed me his class while he practiced at being a future VP. You can read further details about how I engaged the kids through multimedia, small group collaboration and choice under "My Story" tab in this blog. However, one thing I did not menton is that I surveyed the students when I took over the class and asked them how they wanted to learn. They were shocked and said nobody had ever asked them that before. Their overwhelming response was that they wanted more collaboration, more hands-on projects, more technology, more relevancy, and more choice. They liked the lesson on the Cold War I had given them - it motivated them to want to learn. I knew I had tapped into something special especially given the fact that the students now felt they were a vital part of the decision making when it came to their own education - their suggestions, thoughts and opinions now mattered.

The job we face as teacher's preparing student's for a rapidly changing, uncertain global economy is daunting. We must prepare our students to embrace many cultures, know at least two languages (preferably Spanish and Mandarin Chinese), prepare for vocations and college, develop strong technological skills, have more than one job option in mind, and realize the changes facing the workforce, economy and education are imperative to their survival. The ability to adapt and change in education is imperative to our survival as educators.

I put together the following YouTube video on the cognitive developmental theories of Piaget and Vygotsky.I believe in part in both theories. My grade level is 9-12, high school. Developmentally they need to be challenged student-centered learning activities, small groups, collaboration, questioning, project-based relevant learning, social interaction, and critical thinking. This YouTube goes over the main points of these theorists and how their theories are applicable to the field of education. In addition, I go over some ideas for my grade-level in terms of developmentally appropriate teaching practices.

During my student teaching I noticed that there were many ELL students mainstreamed in the classroom. My students included a mix of Russian, Ukrainian and Spanish speaking students. The Spanish speaking students were either naturalized, and spoke both languages, but had difficulty mastering either/or one of them and Spanish students who were new immigrants facing many language hurdles. All of the student's had aides and were pulled out part-time from the class. I encouraged these students to write and share their cultural experiences with the class. Integrating technology in the classroom and having them work in small groups supported by their stronger English speaking peers really helped them feel more comfortable with their learning experience. The following artifacts represent a paper I wrote on second language development and a discussion board on assessment from a Language class I took at National University.