Reflecting on promoting positive online communities

Video Transcription

Hello, everyone. I hope you're having an excellent day today. Today, we're going to look at the concept of how we as teachers can reflect on what we're doing to promote positive online communities. For today's lesson, I've chosen a quote by Confucius, who says, "we may learn wisdom first by reflecting." As I've gone through my years of teaching, I've noticed that the number one and consistently best practice that I can use isn't necessarily something that I got in school or from a certain textbook or study, but rather it's my own ability to reflect on what it is that I'm doing.

And so, today, we're going to be looking at reflecting on the ways in which we as teachers promote that positive online community. By the end of the lesson today, you are going to be able to first describe the International Society for Technology and Education Standards for teachers. Next, you'll be able to describe the International Society of Technology and Education standards for students. And, finally, you will learn some practices for reflecting on promoting a positive online community through the ISTE, International Society of Technology and Education, the Digital Citizenship and 3C's Frameworks, and using Marzano's Teacher Evaluation Model.

So let's go ahead and look at what the specific ISTE standards are for teachers. The first standard is that we facilitate and inspire student learning and creativity. One of the best ways that we can do this is knowing our own students and making sure that we're reaching them where they need to be taught and then helping to work within the diverse communities that we're in to make sure that our students find what we're doing inspiring and feel free to create.

Next is to design and develop digital age learning experiences and assessments. Are we going back over the elements that we have in our lesson plan and updating it into the digital age? Are we developing new ways of students to test their knowledge using some of those digital means?

Three is model digital age work and learning. We can't just expect our students to know how to use these digital elements. We as teachers need to be modeling what it looks like to work with these various technologies and resources and also how to learn new technology and resources as they arise.

The fourth standard is to promote and model digital citizenship and responsibility. This is not only showing how to use those technologies but also the best manner in which we use them. Are we being responsible?

Are we following those nine elements of digital citizenship? And can our students see us doing this so they can then put it into practice themselves? Finally, the fifth standard is to engage in professional growth and leadership. We want to make sure that as teachers we are continuing to put ourselves into positions to learn about the newest technological and digital elements and that we can help be leaders and give examples to other teachers in our schools and in our districts when they can't make it to such professional growth opportunities.

The ISTE also has a number of standards for students. These standards include, first, creativity and innovation. The goal isn't to have students that are just reproducing the work that someone else has done. Our hope is that students are getting involved and interested, creating new things, being innovative with the technologies we give them so that we aren't static but rather growing in the field of digital citizenship. The second standard for students is communication and collaboration.

Students shouldn't be living within the internet as an individual. They should be there as a community. And we can help facilitate this in the classroom by requiring them to engage with other students both in our school and across the world as they work digitally.

The third is research and information fluency. We as teachers need to be responsible for making sure that when our students leave the classroom they are able to confidently research and find information online. Fourth is critical thinking, problem-solving, and decision-making. It's good for teachers to be available to students when they have questions, but the ultimate goal is that the students are able to ask the questions to themselves and figure out a way around it or know when and who to go to in order to solve those problems.

The fifth standard is digital citizenship. We really want students to feel like they are strong in all nine elements of digital citizenship so that they are out there and active in a positive way in the online community. And the final standard is technology operations and concepts. This is honing in and making sure that students are fully aware of how various technology works and the concepts behind that.

So now let's take a look at the element of reflection, specifically ways to reflect using the different elements that we've discussed. First, we're going to look at reflection according to the ISTE standards. One of the ways in which you can go about doing this is to check in with yourself and see am I promoting positive online work with my students?

Oftentimes, I will set up various dates in the trimester, or the semester, or the year to go back and check in with my materials and say is what I started out to do consistent with what I'm doing now? Am I continuing to provide those experiences for my students, inspiring that creativity and developing new lesson plan that helped to fit the current models and what I'm learning in my professional development programs? I can also look at the ISTE standards for students and say, are the goals that I'm establishing for my students helping to meet and are consistent with these standards? If not, then I go back and adjust to make sure that I am really being as successful in the classroom as I can.

You also can reflect on your teaching according to the 3C's Framework and the elements of digital citizenship. Here what you're really going to look at is am I consistently showing my students what it means to be a solid digital citizen, and do the assignments that I have in class reflect those three major prongs of the 3C's Framework? The way that that framework was developed is in theory to work directly with the various state standards that you have. So it should be fairly easy to go back to your assignments and your units and say, where can I ensure that these 3C Framework standards are being implemented along with my state standards?

Finally, it's really important to reflect on the work that you're doing when looking at Marzano's domain, especially domain number 2, element 5, which looks at the professional growth and development that you as a teacher are doing. The evidence for element 5 of domain 2 can be anywhere from teachers partaking in teacher-led professional development or teachers leading that professional development all the way to teachers getting some sort of financial assistance or investing their own time and money into going outside of the school or the school district in order to get that professional development. When reflecting on this, you really want to look back and see what kind of time am I giving to ensuring that I am learning as a teacher? Is there any data that I can collect personally about the connection between what I am putting my time in to learn and what my students are seeing?

Now that we've reached the end of the lesson today, you are able to describe the International Society of Technology and Education's standards for teachers. You should be able to also describe the ISTE's standards for students. And most importantly, you're now able to reflect on how you are promoting a positive online community.

I would like to take just a moment for reflection. As you look back over all that you have learned in this unit, what do you think will be the hardest part of implementing these elements of reflection in your own teaching? It's your turn now to apply what you've learned in this video. The additional resources section could be super helpful to you. This section is designed to help you discover useful ways to apply what you've learned here. And each link includes a brief description so that you can easily target the resources.