4. Collaborator

Educators dedicate time to collaborate with both colleagues and students to improve practice, discover and share resources and ideas, and solve problems as indicated in the following: The program shall prepare candidates who:

• Dedicate planning time to collaborate with colleagues to create authentic learning experiences that leverage technology;

• Collaborate and co-learn with students to discover and use new digital resources and diagnose and troubleshoot technology issues;

• Use collaborative tools to expand students' authentic, real-world learning experiences by engaging virtually with experts, teams, and students, locally and globally; and

• Demonstrate cultural competency when communicating with students, parents, and colleagues and interact with them as co-collaborators in student learning.

As a collaborator, I dedicated time to create a vault of resources using the digital tool Wakelet. This collection includes a plethora of  digital tools, educational blogs, webinars, gamification ideas, and more. This Wakelet was created to assist user in creating  elevated lessons with authentic learning experiences for students.  It is shared with colleagues, aspiring educators, and others educational stakeholders. 

I created a curated collection of digital media tools in a Symbaloo. The Symbaloo included tools used for web and graphic design, audiovisual presentations, and editing. 

This artifact demonstrates a collaborative effort to instruct students in Mathematics. The WebQuest is a educational and fun activity for students that may be married with other web tools. I believe that many students learn by teaching. In this part of the lesson, we provided the students with the ability to teach the lesson while learning.  The lesson further expanded the real-world learning experience for our students.

Reflection: I truly enjoy working in collaboration with other educators. I learn, experience, practice, and grow through these processes, and emerge a better-informed educator. In this section, you will view my digital collaboration efforts.

One such effort involved the design of two assignments aligned with standard for second grade involving three-digit addition.  We discussed at length how we would engage our students, maintain engagement, assess, instruct, and assess again. After much conversation, research, review of resources, we decided upon the use of a WebQuest created to provide a real-world experience and gamification via the Nearpod learning application.  We wanted to create an instructional assignment with tasks that would provide students with a real-world experience.  We discussed engagement and decided to select items that were popular with today's youth. Our students were prompted to image a shopping trip where they could purchase items from a mall. Their purchases, the addends, were assigned a monetary value in whole numbers. They began with a budget. Next, they were asked to shop for their desired items without spending all of their monies.  

While working to create these two lessons, we discussed the booming, innovative industry of gaming. Students love gaming and there is no way around it. What better way to engage and maintain our students while they learn?  Gamifying some instruction is a wonderful tool when created, presented, and used properly. Students participate in their own instruction and enjoy themselves in the process. With this in mind, we created a game using the Nearpod gaming application aligned with the same standard. You may view those lessons below. 

Another collaborative effort involved planning our lessons with the Universal Design for Learning. This important process ensured equitable learning opportunities for all students through engagement, representation, and expression.  The Universal Design for Learning (UDL) requires educators to delve into the standards for learning, ensure proper alignment with said standard (s), and plan accordingly. To this end, we ensured that our assignments were easily differentiated to meet the needs of all students. We were careful to ensure representation for all students and discussed at length how best to present the instruction. I am pleased with the results.  It was one of my first collaborative efforts in the master's program with instructional technologist.  This program has provided innumerable opportunities for my growth as an educator. I continue to learn. I am more confident, and I both enjoy and appreciate the level of work that is required to properly design, present, and evaluate a professional lesson.