Final Project

This is the link to my matrix: 

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0An22K3Z1cQ9gdElnOHYtREI1Wk9Sc3NvWWc3ODBYYXc&usp=sharing

For this final project, I chose to use the final project that I did in my curriculum 310 class last semester (inclusion).  For that final project I had to choose/make a lesson plan that could have been adapted to meet the needs of a student who was classified as special education. Last semester, my professor gave me a specific scenario that included what type of grade level and student I would be teaching to.  My "student"'s name was Austin and he was in ninth grade.  He was mainstreamed into regular education and was considered Autistic, but obviously on the lower end of the autism spectrum. For that project I chose to make a lesson plan that reflected on daily routines and time telling.  I figured that if I ever had a student with a form of autism or disability in my class, this would be a topic that could be useful to them in other aspects of their lives, even if we were solely focusing on it in Italian in my classroom.  

The lesson will consist of students listening to a passage in Italian and filling in the blanks with a time of the day.  The teacher will also introduce and discuss/demonstrate the typical daily routines of Italian students and compare them with the American culture routines. The purpose of this is so that I can test whether my students can comprehend and recognize the times of day by dialogue and the scenarios that are being read aloud in the dialogue. Students will also be asked to collaborate and work in groups to create dialogues in the target language that will reflect upon their daily routines and the times that their routines are taking place. (Example: At 1:00pm I do this, etc) For regular education students this lesson should not be that difficult considering that we have been reviewing the topic for a week, however Austin's disability means that certain accommodations need to be made for him, which do include new forms of technology.  Last semester while I was writing up this lesson plan, I included technology that I thought would be appropriate for this lesson and it was.  However, by completing fieldwork and taking other technological courses through this semester, I have learned of new technologies and new ways that I can use them to further improve and edit this lesson plan.  These new ways that I incorporated more technology are in my matrix. 

My matrix consists of the NJ standards that I used when writing this lesson plan.  It also has a list of the NETS-S standards that I learned about this semester(I was not familiar with them before taking this class).  The matrix also included a list of strategies and technologies that will help those strategies that I hope to bring into practice with the modification of the lesson.  Now I am going to give a step-by-step explanation of the matrix, so that it can be understood to someone who is not familiar with foreign language standards and teaching practices.  

The first three rows of the matrix all are under the Interpretive mode standards that are listed by the NJ department of education.  These three rows all involve the processes of understanding and comprehension that students have when taught certain topics (routines, descriptions) in a world language.  With these standards teachers are typically trying to teach content and assess whether students have processed the content being taught.  This is why I chose strategies such as direct teaching,  presentations, questions and answers, and guided and independent practices to use with students.  To put these strategies into effect I chose technologies such as PowerPoint, new Smartboard technologies, Wimba Voiceboards, and even tools such as Skype and GoogleTalk for students to use.  The powerpoint and smartboard will be used to demonstrate and teach new content and materials.  Wimba voiceboards are tools that students may use for both guided and independent practice because they obtain audio and visual tools that will help with comprehension of the topic and also to fill in the time tables of which I talked about in the previous paragraphs.  Extra tools like Skype and GoogleTalk can also be used in this mode because students will be able to interact with not only each other but also will be able introduced to communicate with Italian students over the web.(This will be more of an introduction in this mode because it is used more in the next mode).  The next few rows of my matrix fall under the Interpersonal mode standards that the NJ department of education lists.  These standards are designed to reflect that students are to begin exchanging, communicating, and using the content information taught.  For these next three rows of my matrix, I used similar strategies as I did in the first three(interpretive mode).  My strategies here include: Lecture, Demonstration, Explanation, Student Collaboration, Large/Small Group Discussions, Questions and Answers, Dialouge and Presentation.  The teacher will use technologies such as PowerPoint, the smart board, Prezi and portable devices to keep reviewing content that relates to the lesson of routines and time telling so that students can complete any activities that will be taught.  The point of these technologies are so they are comprehensible for the students.  For this part of the activity, students will collaborate with each other to create dialogues that include a daily routine (using time), and use the internet to collaborate via Skype or GoogleTalk to begin conversations with Italian students about their daily routines.  Students will be able to use portable devices, PowerPoint, Digital storytelling, and Prezi to begin putting all of their research together.  As for the dialogues they will be able to use Garzanti Linguistica (Italian online dictionary) and the tools I just mentioned to collaborate to create the dialogues both in and out of the classroom.  

The last part of my matrix includes the Presentational mode which is a section of the NJ world language standards.  In this mode students are supposed to be demonstrating their abilities to present in the target language and using other tools besides their oral skills to do so.  For the last four rows of the matrix, I again used most of the similar strategies that I have listed before, however this mode is solely student centered with the exception of some guidance(scaffolding/leading) from the teacher. These strategies include: independent practice, oral/visual presentation, explanation, homework, dialogue and student collaboration.  In this part of the lesson students are supposed to present both their dialogues and their research presentations with their Italian student to the class in Italian.  To complete these tasks technology must be used.  For the dialogues, students will be able to PowerPoint, Prezi, Garzanti Linguistica, Digital Storytelling, and Photo Story to present to the class.  Although presentation of dialogues requires speaking and acting, students will be able to digitally video themselves doing so.  As for the presentation of the cultural comparisons with the Italian students, my students are expected to use Skype and GoogleTalk to communicate with them as they are doing their research.  To present it to the class, students are expected to use PowerPoint or Prezi.  Wimba Voiceboard and Garzanti Linguistica are tools that students can use to help them improve their communicative skills besides their teacher. 

I believe that these strategies and technologies that I have chosen for this matrix and lesson plan are appropriate and an accurate way for both the teachers and students to fill these NJ Common Core Standards.

Interactivity #5

link to my spreadsheet:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0An22K3Z1cQ9gdDRacFJoX09qcGFVTE1QUmw4Wk1TcVE&usp=sharing

For this Interactivity, I chose to interview a teacher in my content area.  The teacher I chose is actually my past Italian teacher from high school.  She teaches Italian at the 10th, 11th, and 12th grade levels in the Cliffside Park, NJ school district.  I chose to interview her because she was actually my inspiration for becoming an Italian teacher.  I always knew I wanted to be a teacher, but after taking her Italian classes for three years in a row I knew that Italian was the content area that I wanted to focus on.  When I called her and explained that I needed to interview a teacher, she was fully supportive and volunteered herself before I even asked.  I think she was expecting a different type of interview then the one I had had planned (for example, what's it like being a teacher type questions, etc).

When I mentioned that the interview was going to be on both the NETS-S or the NETS-T, she looked at me with a blank face.  The first questioned I asked was if she know what those acronyms meant and her answer was no.  So I went on to explain what they meant and how the standards should have a high technology based role on school curriculum.   Since she is an older teacher (I want to say late 50's), this may be the reason why she is not familiar with all of these new standards that include all of these new forms of technology, so I was not really that surprised. I was not expecting her to be fully knowledgeable about the NETS at all actually.  Since I wasn't sure if it was her age or her work environment that caused the lack of knowledge, I decided to check if the school district incorporated or taught their teachers about these standards at all.  After doing some research, I found that the district incorporates the use of technology into their curriculum according to state standards, but has not really been influenced by these NETS standards at all.

 I think that the district should really incorporate these standards into their curriculum.  I think it's important because technology has advanced so far and if used the right way, it can really have a positive impact on the way our students learn in the classroom.  This means that teachers need to have technology available to them in their schools and individual classrooms and should be taught how to use it before incorporating it into the curriculum and their lesson plans.  As a future educator, I would try to create workshops for teachers to become educated about these standards.  Technology is still going to advance and there is something new to learn with it everyday, so I think it's important for teachers to be up-to-date about what technological tools we can use to help foster the education of our students.

Interactivity #4

Link to my Spreadsheet:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0An22K3Z1cQ9gdDRacFJoX09qcGFVTE1QUmw4Wk1TcVE&usp=sharing

Teaching adjectives are a big part of teaching grammar and vocabulary in a foreign language.  Usually when people are learning a new language nouns and adjectives are the first types of words they look for to try to comprehend meaning.  This is one of the reasons why I chose this type of lesson.  The lesson I chose focuses on 9th-10th grade adjectives that students need to understand or become familiar with in order to be able to move onto more advanced vocabulary.  There were not many written lesson plans found online with the Italian language (many with Spanish and French), so this was the closest I could find.  I like the idea that the teacher has planned for this activity for her students, however I think there are a lot of things that can be modified to make it better.  It does not say how long ago the lesson was written, but from what I have observed it was either written when technology was still fairly new or the teacher is not familiar with other forms of technology that can be used for both relaying the material to students and having students use these different forms for their activities and projects.  Also, this lesson plan was written to adapt to Illinois State curriculum standards, so the lesson may have been written to adapt to them which means they may be entirely different from New Jersey standards for foreign language curriculum.  If I had to modify this lesson, I would incorporate more modern technologies to teach content.  Instead of using the blackboard and textbooks as primary tools to teach the lesson, I would incorporate PowerPoints or use a smart board (if available to me).  For teacher preparation, I would prepare PowerPoints with the necessary vocabulary and examples of pictures of that vocabulary so students would be able to have both a visual and accurate information for note taking.  Having students read in the textbooks independently about words that they do not know does not seem like a proper way of learning content.  The classroom should be student centered, but using a textbook and having students teach themselves does not seem like the right way to do it to me.  I think the teacher needs to teach what is necessary and also needs to establish what he or she is looking for in terms of completing activities and projects, etc.  Students would have a table(created by the teacher beforehand) to fill in while the teacher is explaining the meaning of the adjectives to the class.  As far as technology is concerned with completing the activity, I think that other programs besides Paint can be used to complete them.  Technology has advanced since the days that Paint was heavily used.  Programs such as Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, Photoshop and other picture programs have been introduced and can be used in curriculum.  I think that this lesson plan is a good example of what Italian teachers should teach their students, but is also a good example of how modifications in more advanced technologies can be made to make it more efficient.

NJ Standards for Foreign Languages

My area of study is world language, to be more specific, Italian.  Compared to many other majors and subject areas, the standards for world language are very long and have many different categories.  All foreign language programs in public schools are forced to adapt their curriculum by these standards and of course to the content areas (Italian, Spanish, French, etc.).  There are three strands that the curriculum must follow:  Strand A; Interpretive Mode, Strand B; Interpersonal Mode and Strand C; Presentational Mode.  Each strand comes with a set of standards that content area and curriculum must abide by.  Since it is a foreign language, each standard must match a novice to expert level of a student learner.  It is the teacher's job to make sure that the curriculum that he or she is teaching both meets the standards and also meets the students' levels of abilities in the target language.  Here is a record of what the New Jersey Standards for world languages look like:  http://www.state.nj.us/education/cccs/standards/7/7.1.htm.

 

Interactivity #3

            The group process required by this interactivity was both authentic and collaborative.  Besides this assignment being labeled as a group project by the professor, I think there was good communication between all of the group members (through emails, etc).  I also think that everyone completed their share of the spreadsheet and worked well together, considering that it was an online collaborative project with almost no face to face meetings.  The final inventory that emerged from the spreadsheet made was useful and beneficial to all content areas, more specifically world language, art, and history.  I feel that the technologies that I listed, which all pertained to world language, could also be useful in other content areas and vice versa. Many technologies that were listed by both the history and art majors were technologies that I was never familiar with, but could definitely be useful for lesson plans and activities in my content area.  I think that creating this spreadsheet was a good opportunity for us future teachers to learn from each other and improve teaching methods through technology.  I believe that no teacher is perfect and there is always room for adjustment and improvement, and collaborating to form a final list for inventory technologies is a good way to do it.  This list of inventory not only serves the purpose of future methods and lesson planning as professionals but can also be useful in other courses throughout the semester.  These technologies, especially the ones that are new to me (possibly to other group members as well), can be used as tools to help complete homework and other major assignments in my other courses.  This type of work may include producing lesson plans, completing papers, and even note taking and studying for exams.  I think this interactivity was a great way to learn about new technology that could help us as both the students and the teachers in the classroom environment.

The History of Technology in Schools

Since the 1820's technology has come a long way in classrooms all across the United States.  Over time, all subject areas have improved and modified their particular curriculum to incorporate activities and even add new standards that involve the use of technology.  During this historical time period, more particularly during the 1960's, language labs were introduced into foreign language classrooms.  These labs were a huge break through for foreign language teacher's classroom environments and for their content materials and activities.  From then on foreign language teachers were no longer limited to using lectures, chalkboards, and textbooks to teach grammar and culture.  With the use of language labs, students are now able to audio sound and images to help with language acquisition.  The use of  computers in these language labs has also opened up a bigger spectrum of possibilities to learn about the culture of the target language as well.  Over time the technologies and other types of media used in language labs have improved, which means that learning a new language has become easier and more fun then the traditional (lecture/textbook based) classroom environment that was used before language labs were introduced in the 1960's.

Interactivity #2: The History of Technology in Schools

Foreign Language Labs:  A step into language acquisition and foreign cultures