Program Outcome 8: "Demonstrate the ability to make informed decisions regarding the use of technology in support of learning and leadership."

 

 

The most important part of our Program Learning Outcome eight is the phrase “the ability to make informed decisions.” The emphasis on making informed decisions is something that has truly helped me as an educator to bring technology successfully into my classroom. I am not afraid to admit that I used to plan my lessons around the different technologies. For example, I would have the students play on a Math app for twenty minutes because it pertained to the lesson I was teaching. It was a spur of the moment decision and was not planned out carefully using the instructional design principles that I have learned in my graduate courses. The technologies were not being used appropriately and no differentiation was occurring. I quickly took notice to this as I dived more into my graduate course study. My students were motivated and entertained, but I was not supporting their learning using that particular technology.

 

The project that I would like to share that demonstrates this program outcome is a Wix website that contains a lesson plan for a unit on the solar system. In this lesson, I used the Universal Design for Learning principles to make informed decisions about the technology that I would use to support learning and leadership for that particular lesson. Please find my website below.