Dear Parents,
Welcome to my classroom! I feel so excited about the fun things that we are going to learn this year in 1st Grade! Prior to my becoming a teacher, I worked for nearly 20 years in the IT Field, so I have a great interest in integrating technology tools and resources within our classroom. The intent of this letter is to communicate what is planned for this school year as it pertains to technology integration strategies and how those will line up with my teaching philosophies, as well as the mandated state standards.
With that being said, while I want to integrate as much technology is possible, I do also recognize that there are some learning situations where plain old paper and pencil will be the most effective. I see my job as your child's teacher to determine which technologies in which lessons will have the most impact on their learning. We may try some new technologies that fail, but we will also test out some that will be a huge success.
In our class, we will do alot of work and instruction using the installed SMARTboard in the room. I think having students actively participate in the lesson will help to keep them engaged and interested - plus, it keeps it FUN! I will also look to engage you, the parents, into our classroom activities, using the Remind App for communications, as well as optional access to our Google Classroom so that you can stay up to date on what lessons we are working on!
Now onto the learning/educator lingo! As your child's teacher, there are certain teaching philosophies that I'll be implementing. One in particular is Gagne's Nine Events of Instruction. I've chosen this philosophy because much like technology, it is constantly engaging the learners. The steps are as follows: (Gutierrez, 2018)
Gain Attention. This is where a silly video, song, or other random stimuli grabs their attention and engages their brain for the lesson.
Inform Students. I'll now inform them of the objective of the lesson (now that I have their attention)
Stimulate Recall. Another engaging step, I will attempt to relate them back to any prior learning or memories they may have of this topic.
Present the Content. This is the "teaching" part of the lesson. I'll be sure to differentiate the way I present it, as well as break it up into small chucks of info.
Provider Guidance. This is where I will guide them with examples. Perhaps they are all performing it on their iPads, while I demonstrate on the SMARTboard.
Elicit Performance. This is the test portion. We will engage the students with many different activities at this point, all of which will serve the purpose of recalling information and evaluating successes. One example would be the use of a Google Form to submit an assessment.
Provide Feedback. In this step I will reinforce their performances with feedback. This can be done with the class as a whole, or individually. This will include positive feedback, as well as negative feedback (which will be offered with some coaching)
Assess Performance. This will serve as a final, summative test of performance, compared to established criteria.
Enhance Retention. Perhaps the biggest step! I want to to retain what we learned. We can use context retention strategies and summaries to help retain the information. I would also plan on using this step to review any areas that the students still seem to be struggling with. (Gutierrez, 2018)
As you can see, this philosophy is highly engaging with all of its steps, which is my reason for selecting it, as I believe it would fit right in with technology integration.
Being a 1st grade classroom, I think one other technology related topic that must be covered would be that of digital citizenship. This standard is part of the ISTE Standards for Students, and covers areas like recognizing your rights, responsibilities, and opportunities of living, learning, and working in a digital world. In short, it is how you should act, behave, and conduct yourself online. For young children growing up in this tech world we live in, this, in my opinion, is a necessity.
Some of the elements of digital citizenship that I would see as most important include:
Digital Access. There definitely exists a digital divide in our world today; a difference between Internet service access for students depending on their background, culture, or socioeconomic status. All over the country, we see students without proper access at home, but still are expected to complete the work. The goal in my classroom would be to quickly identify these students/families, and through the support from the school district, try and find solutions for them to get the access they need so that their child has a fair shot just like his/her classmates.
Digital Law. Kids need to be taught that just because its online, and it may seem free, it is not. Copyright laws protect individual's intellectual property just the same on the Internet. Students in my class would be taught the value in taking responsibility for your actions and deeds online, which would include NOT using file-sharing sites, pirating software, or hacking networks.
Digital Communication. Above I mentioned the Remind App - this is a safe, fast way to communicate with parents and students via a messaging platform that does not reveal cell phone numbers. My policy would be to never have unattended, private text message conversations with a student. We also would educate in our room the zero tolerance policy that we have with cyber bullying (as well as in-person bullying). Not only is it cruel and not needed, but it goes against everything our 1st graders will strive towards to become good digital citizens.
More information on the remaining elements of digital citizenship can be found online at the resources listed on this page. (Ribble, 2015) Again I thank you for the opportunity to be your child's teacher. Please do not hesitate to reach out to me if you have any concerns, questions, or suggestions!
Sincerely,
Mr. Busch Resources Ribble, M. (2015). Digital citizenship in schools: Nine elements all students should know. Retrieved from https://wgu.idm.oclc.org/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=cat07141a&AN=ebc.EBC4395774&site=eds-live&scope=site
Gutierrez, K. (2018, May 18). A quick guide to four instructional design models. Shift: Disruptive elearning[Blog post]. Retrieved from https://www.shiftelearning.com/blog/top-instructional-design-models-explained