Reflective Capstone Curation by Jonah Doster

Classroom Assessment and Data Literacy (EDUF 7134)

jd32760 — 2024-04-11 00:23:21 UTC

I chose this artifact because I felt that it helped me to develop better assessment strategies and opened my eyes to data usage. While learning about assessments in the classroom, I was able to gather that it is more than just testing students on the facts and content. It is about testing the whole student which I feel involves three different components: 1) knowing your students/build relationships, 2) use informal assessments (non-graded), and 3) test students on more than knowing facts/memorization, but true content knowledge and what they can put into practice through selected responses that are not obvious to the test taker. These three components have in turn helped with assessment scores increasing and allowing my students to enjoy the learning process along the way.

Educational Research (EDUR 7130)

jd32760 — 2024-04-11 00:24:06 UTC

I chose this artifact because I felt this was the first time I truly only had to focus on research and put all my efforts into this one assignment. This definitely put me outside of my comfort zone and forced me to focus on many different aspects I never knew until I took this class. Even the ideas and concepts I thought I knew about research (qualitative and quantitative), it turned out there was a lot more to learn than what I originally knew. However, I believe taking this class and doing this assignment definitely prepared me for my other research classes in my master's program and future research classes if I decide to pursue my specialist's degree.

Learning, Theories, and Applications (EDUF 7130)

jd32760 — 2024-04-11 00:25:54 UTC

I decided to include this artifact due to emphasis of how much there is to teaching than just creating good lessons with the proper content and curriculum. When I began teaching, I wanted to make the best lessons possible (which I still do), but never really focused on the delivery of the lesson. Therefore, I would make a good lesson, but students were not intrigued and just mindlessly went through the motions of the lesson. As frustrating as it was, this class and project helped me to rediscover previous theories that would help me in teaching my lessons and having more engagement throughout the class.

Foundations of Technology-Enabled Learning (ITEC 5233)

jd32760 — 2024-04-11 00:26:56 UTC

I chose this artifact based on the fact it has helped me to become better at creating digital content and putting everything together into a curation (like this assignment at hand). At my school, we use the same digital platform Georgia Southern uses (D2L but we call it eClass). Even though I used Padlet for this assignment, I was able to transfer a lot of principles and ideas over to my eClass page to improve it through organization, including more resources, and giving important information to students without them having to look all over my page. I do not have nearly as many students having trouble finding important details and resources on my eClass which in turn helps them stay on top of it in my class and achieve at a high level.

Teaching Middle Grades and Secondary Mathematics (MSED 7535)

jd32760 — 2024-04-11 00:27:46 UTC

I included this artifact because this helped me to create a lesson in a real-world context while also focusing on volume. This activity challenged me to find different ways Geometry content could be used in different spectacles of life. As we all know, our students ask the infamous question of, "When will we use this in real-life?" Thankfully, this is a situation where this can be used in real-life and bring awareness to a national/global pandemic that a lot of people face in today's times. Since this assignment, I have been looking for different to implement other Geometry ideas/content into other lessons with a real-world emphasis on them in order to allow students to see how the content can be used and how it plays a role in everyday life.

Readings and Research in the Content Areas (MSED 8333)

jd32760 — 2024-04-11 00:28:37 UTC

I chose this artifact because this was something I wanted to research due to the fact that our school was putting a big emphasis on small group instruction. This gave me a reason to dig deeper on small group instruction. Even though I was familiar with small groups and have used them in my class before, I was able to gather a lot of information from this artifact and implement a lot of it in my classroom today. One idea I want to implement in the near future is project based learning. I believe this would be more impactful than just doing small groups because students are exploring and learning together rather than being guided by myself or another teacher. One of my professors in my undergraduate program used this technique each day, and I found it to be more impactful and lasting compared to just working in a group on a task.

Enhancing Student Performance (ESED 7131)

jd32760 — 2024-04-11 00:31:17 UTC

I included this artifact into my curation due to the effectiveness of the informal assessments I performed and are still trying to implement in my class today. My biggest struggle is with student engagement which affects students' performance tremendously when it comes to quizzes and tests. Therefore, using these 5 different methods in my class helped my students improve their content knowledge and prepared them for quizzes and test for that unit. These different forms of assessment and methods of checking for understanding forced the students to do the work and work together in order to reach a common goal of passing/achieving better grades on formal assessments. Also, I believe my students enjoyed the change from guided notes with a lecture which helped students' performance even more so.

Trends in the Content Areas (MSED 8331)

jd32760 — 2024-04-11 00:32:04 UTC

I included this artifact because this brought me back to what I believe is a massive part of being a teacher. As much as it is to build and develop relationships with our students, it is also important to develop solid lessons that cover the content. In this artifact, I was required to include all pieces of the lesson (warm-up, body of lesson, ticket-out-the door, differentiation, etc.) in order to ensure everything was covered and nothing was left behind. This reminded me of my days in my undergraduate program where I had to make fully detailed lessons early on in order to know what to include in my lesson. Over time, I have been able to cut some corners and be fine, but this assignment definitely brought me back and reminded me of certain aspects I need to be more clear and focused on when developing future lesson plans.

Purpose behind Curation

jd32760 — 2024-04-11 00:36:17 UTC

This curation was designed to share artifacts from my time at Georgia Southern University during my master's program. Also, it has been created to reflect on my development in my career as an educator and where I have made major progress.