Reflective+Paper

=Reflection Paper =  **The portfolio will change what I currently do in several ways**. The key is the organization of the portfolio into Pre-reading, During reading, and Post reading. I can take an activity I already do (or a text I already use) and pull strategies based on where I am in the lesson. For example, if it is the day I introduce a text, I go to the pre-reading section of the portfolio. I would like to think that the portfolio will also help me in my personal journey to be a more organized teacher. If I can keep up with the wiki, the portfolio will allow me to have strategies at my fingertips instead of trying to remember in what unit I usually do the strategy and dig through that unit’s folder, pile, or binder. Finally, I think the portfolio will offer professional development opportunities in our middle school building. Our Language Arts department is exploring how to best share our “best practices” and a wiki is a great tool. Several teachers (and one administrator) have already asked to see the wiki. I love the idea of having one place for links, ideas, documents, videos, PDA materials, and communication. For example, if I hear about a teacher’s cool exit ticket, I can ask her to post it to the wiki instead of going through the usual emailing back and forth with attachments. Or I was the only Language Arts team member to attend the Illinois Reading Conference this year; I could create a page to record my thoughts, post links, and upload documents. Or we are all always reading books, but we don’t have a forum to share. One wiki page could be devoted to book reviews/recommendations and the discussion page would be a natural place to post questions and comments. Okay, that’s enough, but you get the idea. I think the portfolio through the wiki is a powerful idea. And not to get wiki crazy, but middle schools team and it is always a challenge to effectively communicate to the team members. For next year, my new team is poised to create a wiki. So far we want the wiki to be a collaborative portal for ideas, documents, and links as we plan interdisciplinary units; we want to upload housekeeping letters and forms; and we want to upload pictures and video of students so all teachers have access.


 * My goals as I put this into action include**: keeping up with the wiki and continuing to add strategies and creating (or co-creating with a colleague) a Literacy wiki to serve as a portal for literacy ideas that our whole middle school will have access to. Our building already has a reading comprehension strategy a quarter that is taught across content areas. I think it would be much more effective to disseminate this strategy through a wiki instead of a paper copy. In the wiki, the strategy could be documented, resources could be linked, and documents could be uploaded. And then my favorite part would be sharing how we all used the strategy. We usually orally share at a faculty meeting. But how much better would it be to share through discussion on the wiki?! My ultimate goal is to share literacy information to the staff. I am always coming across a strategy, novel, article, link, or media clip that I think is useful to a content area teacher. But, I am also always forgetful to pass it on to everyone. I think we all are. By committing to creating the wiki and offering staff development on wikis, the entire staff can participate.


 * This project helped me reach diverse learners and use technology and instructional grouping** because it made me more aware of the efficacy of my lessons for all learners. Taking the time to reflect made a big difference. As I look at the strategies as a whole (all twenty) I can see where I am missing groups of learners. Now I can make plans to choose new strategies that will target those “forgotten” learners. I also think that having the diverse learner as a category will help me more easily choose a variety of strategies throughout a unit that will encompass all learners. In the same way, flagging the technology and instructional grouping strategies helps me purposefully plan lessons to reach every learner.
 * As for changes to the project**, I would like to see the same required fields for our implementation strategy and our personal wiki strategies. This would make it easier when I transfer from class wiki to personal wiki. Also, for me personally, a deadline half-way through would have been beneficial—or perhaps just an informal night in the lab to share frustrations and successes. A big part of the battle is to figure out how each page is going to look, what the twenty strategies are going to be, and becoming comfortable with the tools available on the wiki. If I had done these things earlier, the entire project would have gone more quickly. I wouldn’t really change much else. I love my finished product.

**If I were do the project over again** I would do just a couple of things differently. I would figure out earlier in the process that working from my home computer (Vista/Windows 2007) seems to cause more errors on the wiki than working from my school computer (old). I would also more closely analyze the strategies that I chose before writing them up. I feel I was a little heavy on paper/pencil activities. I only noticed this as I went through the process and looked at diverse learners and potential issues. Had I noticed earlier, I would have consciously sought out more activities for visual, auditory, and kinesthetic learners.