Blog Journal #10

I think that the excel data collection tools can be used best for self evaluation as an educator. if you were to enter your grades and see a majority of lower scores, it can be helpful to see where your students are. If your students are getting a low average, you may have to start reflecting to see what you can change in order for this average to go up. Another thing excel data collection does it la everything out for you. Once you can visually see a list of your students scores, it can make it easier to visualize what they may need to improve on and what you can improve on as a teacher. It directly lays out what your students scored lower on and are therefore probably struggling with. For example, if you're teaching 10th grade psychology and you see your average scores for the chapter one test on intro material is high, you know you taught it well and it is probably a relatively easy chapter. On the other other hand, if you're teaching the chapter on neurotransmitters and you see lower scores- you'll be able to conclude students struggled grasping this concept as a whole. On the other hand, to can also help you point out which students are struggling if they have outlier scores and you can then put in the extra effort to see if they need help in order to build that parent teacher relationship. Overall, excel data collection can be great for self evaluation in education.


One of my favorite things on Megan's blog was her powerpoint project on ocean animals. Reading her summary on it and also seeing it in class, it was a new idea and perspective. She was really creative in her setup of it and you can really tell she put a lot of time into it. It was my favorite solely due to how impressive it is. Using something like that in a first grade classroom would be a high leverage teaching practice that would certainly keep students paying attention.

Another technology related skill I would like to learn is 3D printing. I know we have discussed this a lot in class and how it can be used but it is definitely something I want to learn how to use. I think it can be great for hands on activities and can be great especially in psychology when teaching about the eye or the brain. The best part about this goal is that it is easily attainable due to resources such as the technology sandbox. I plan to start visiting there more to become more familiar with 3D printing.