Deadline 16 June 2014 (Abstract from USQ Study Desk, 2014)

Part D - Evaluation and lessons learned

What

Part D of the assignment 3 specification explains what this Part requires. Go read it.

The meaning of "lessons"

When the assignment specification says (emphasis added)

You are to evaluate the integration of ICT during your Professional Experience and identify lessons you need to apply for your future teaching

It does not mean lessons as in lesson planning.

Instead it means lesson as an insight you have taken from your experience. e.g. you tried something, it didn't work and you've identified why it didn't work. You have learnt a lesson about using ICTs to enhance student learning.

Success or failure doesn't apply only to lessons

When you talk about a success (or not so successful) happening, it doesn't have to be an entire lesson. It might be just one part of a lesson.

Advice

• Use the provided essay template to structure your assignment.
• Focus on the successes, not so successful, factors and lessons that are associated with your attempts to use ICTs to enhance student learning.
• "Not so successful" doesn't mean you failed, it refers to those attempts to use ICTs to enhance student learning that didn't quite work as you expected.
• Make explicit connections between this essay and Part B and Part C where appropriate.
  
  For example, the feedback your mentor provided and your evaluations on lesson plans are good evidence for deciding whether something worked or didn't.
• Use literature and theory to support your reflections.
• Don't repeat yourself.
  
  Don't use the same (or very similar) reason to explain more than one success, or not so successful. For example,
• Search for ways you can group or abstract your observations/reflections.
  
  For example, if you've identified that at three separate times a failure of different technology contributed to problems, then these form a single factor.
• Think more about reflection and make plans for reflection during PE.
  
  Way back in week 1 of this course the learning path included some discussion on reflection. Revisit this material in the lead up to PE and make plans to develop a process by which you will reflect throughout PE. This could be on your blog, but it could be a Word document or any other format that works for you.
  Having a record of your thinking during PE will make writing Part D much easier and improve the quality.

Some comments on two of the four sample Part Ds available on the Assignment 3 specification.

Year 4/5 Queensland

Comments on this Part D include:

• Didn't use the provided template.
  This is okay to do.
• Didn't use headings or other formatting to make it clear to the marker where the different required components were.
• That said, it's well written and covers all of the necessary components.
• Well referenced with explicit links to theory to support reflection.
• Good use of evidence (e.g. comments by mentor) to identify success.
• Evidence of good problem solving of technical problems.
  
  e.g the use of an iPhone to provide a hotspot to address issues with the school's network on the day.

TAFE Hospitality

Comments on this Part D include:

• Use the provided template making it easy to identify the necessary components.
• The successes while important in the context, are not as strongly related to using ICT to enhancing student learning as might have been the case. This is somewhat recognised in Factor #2.
• Somewhat illustrate by the absence of educational literature/theory to support the arguments made in the essay.

Evaluation Successes The focus of these successes should be on enhanced student learning. Success #1 Describe the success. Does it link/align with the description of the context? Does it appear in the lesson plans you submitted in Part C? How did I know it was successful? What evidence do you have to indicate it was successful? Why was it successful? On reflection, why was it successful? Is there a theory or framework that might explain why it was successful? Was it something in the PE context? Was it something from your planning approach? Success #2 Repeat sections from Success #1

Not so successful I've avoided using the word "failure" for the following sections because you shouldn't be looking for outright failures in this section. You should also be thinking about those outcomes that seemed to be somewhat successful (or even very successful at the time) but you now believe could be made better. Note: only at most one of these "not so successful" stories can arise from situations where you have failed to plan appropriately. For example, you forgot students had to register for an online tool and wasted 20 minutes getting everyone registered. The focus here should be on student learning, not your planning. Not so successful #1 Describe the not so successful outcome? How did I know it was not so successful? Why was it not so successful? Not so successful #2 Repeat "sections" from Not so successful #1

Factors There are likely to be many factors that impacted on you use of ICTs to enhance student learning. The assignment only expects two. This is again where some effort to group factors together into broader categories. Rather than list all the technical limitations (e.g. slow Internet access, Internet filter, under-powered computers, not enough ICTs) you might group these under "Technical limitations". The learning path will go into this in more detail, but you should take care when trying to decide what it was that worked, didn't work and what factors impacted your ICT integration. For example, was it really the technical limitations that limited your ICT integration or was it some other factors? Such as not testing the technology appropriately, not knowing enough about the use of the technology, or not being able to think of applications that would have been more appropriate to the available technology. Factor #1 Does the factor arise from the discussion of successes/failures? Have you connected it to the literature, theories, and frameworks? Factor #2

What you've learned Identify three different examples of something you have learned about using ICTs to enhance your students' learning. Ensure that each connects in some way with a success, failure or factor mentioned above, which in turn should connect it to a lesson plan and/or your planning process. Make sure that these connections exist. Make sure that these lessons learned are written explicitly in terms of how you are going to change your approach to planning the use of ICTs to enhance student learning. Make sure that you have made use of theory and literature Lesson Learned #1 Lesson Learned #2 Lesson Learned #3

References You have to have references. You need to refer to theory and literature.