My Personal GAME Plan

In my professional life I have had many game plans, but I haven’t written many of them down. I will now endeavor to articulate a GAME plan as described by Cennamo, Ross, and Ertmer (2010). GAME is an acronym in which the G stands for setting goals, A involves the actions one must take to achieve those goals, M is the process of monitoring those actions, and E is the necessary evaluation that must occur to determine the strengths and weaknesses of your GAME plan.

The articulation of this GAME plan is not voluntary. I must admit it is a class requirement based on the five 2009 NETS-T Standards. Thoughtful analysis and reflection is always a practice that encourages growth. So, like taking castor oil, I will do the best I can to improve my professional practice and grow. First, I need to choose two indicators of the five standards that will have the greatest influence in improving my professional practice. The standards and indicators are listed below:

Standard 1-
Indicator C- Teachers promote student reflection using collaborative tools to reveal and clarify students’ conceptual understanding and thinking, planning, and creative processes.

Standard 5-
Indicator A- Teachers participate in local and global learning communities to explore creative applications of technology to improve student learning.

Goals-
Standard 1C
Any academic or creative process will be a richer, deeper experience if it is accompanied with some sort of reflection. My first goal is to create a student blog using ANGEL, our blended learning management system. I will utilize this blog to encourage them to reflect on each other’s artwork, and famous artworks, as well.

Standard 5A
My second goal is to become involved in professional blogs on quality Web sites, such as, http://arted20.ning.com/ I have just begun to explore the site and it promises to be quite informative. Locally, I will increase my activities in our local HEART (Henry Educators of Art) Association.

Action-
Standard 1C
Often, in my rush to begin a new project, I neglect that very important step of reflection. To use the collaborative potential of technology would, not only, increase student enthusiasm in the reflective process, it would also, reduce the demands on studio time. Creating blogs for students to share ideas would add depth to the visual arts curriculum. Ideally, students would post a photograph of their finished project, and then add a reflection of the work in ANGEL. Then, students would need to respond to two or three responses of other’s posts to complete the reflection assignment. This reflective blogging would occur approximately once a month, as that is the average length of a project.

I would also; display famous artworks in ANGEL, and students would be required to post and respond once a month, in much the same manner as is explained above. In reflecting on their own artwork, and that of a famous artist, students could have meaningful reflective communication using the collaborative tools provided by our school through the process of blogging.

Standard 5A
Locally, we are sponsoring an Arts Festival in March of 2010, and I have agreed to enlist local businesses to volunteer items to sell in our silent auction. The money contributed to the HEART Association during the silent auction will help to purchase art supplies and equipment for the public schools. Hopefully, these contributions will also help train teachers and equip art rooms for the demands of the future. Globally, I will continue to explore new Web sites and collaborate on-line with communities of art educators, beginning with the afore mentioned, http://arted20.ning.com/

Monitor-

Standard 1C-
Every two weeks, I will assign a blog in which the students will respond. The first blog entry will be a reflection of their first project. Two weeks later, I will assign a reflection on a famous work of art, and this pattern will be maintained through the 12-week session. I will commit to this by making it part of my lesson plans that are submitted on ANGEL for administrative approval. The process of monitoring student blogs is already incorporated in the ANGEL system. Blogs automatically are submitted to the teacher for approval before they are released for all students to read. In this way, I can manage and record student progress.

Standard 5A-
By staying involved in our local HEART association, and assisting with committee work to make the 2010 Arts Festival a success, I plan to not only, stay engaged in our local learning community, but also, raise money for the improvement and expansion of the fine arts departments in Henry County. I will make a commitment to attend all meetings held by the HEART association, and try to attend any state conferences that are offered.

To become involved with global communities, I plan to add to my weekly calendar a block of time each week devoted to revisiting familiar blogs and wikis. During that time, I would also take time to explore new alternatives, as well.

Evaluation-

Standard 1C-
Administrators, parents, and students alike will conduct the evaluation of the visual arts blog site. Student performance will be evaluated with a rubric created by the teacher and students agreeing upon what expectations need to be met to achieve excellence.

Standard 5A-
In order to keep track of the time spent with local and global learning communities, I will need to record, in my calendar, planned commitments for the month, and also, record the “real time” spent on each activity. My measure of success will be if my planned time aligns with the “real time” I have spent on each commitment. Each month I will assess whether the amount of time spent on collaboration needs to be adjusted to better fit my schedule.

In developing a simple GAME plan, my hopes are to improve as an educator, rather than utilizing my usual random efforts in pursuing excellence. As a result, I am, actually, looking forward to analyzing the results of my more organized plan of action. Here’s to organization!

Cennamo, K., Ross, J., & Ertmer, P. (2010). Technology integration for meaningful classroom use: A standards-based approach. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.

National Education Standards for Teachers (NETS-T), Retrieved November 12, 2009, from http://www.iste.org/Content/NavigationMenu/NETS/ForTeachers/2008Standards/NETS_T_Standards_Final.pdf.