Blog 6 - One minute Guru

This blog is a place for you to share your ideas for tools you come across during exploration and research for your projects. In this blog post, you will have a ‘on stop shop’ list of tools, tips and tricks that you can access when you are brainstorming for lesson plans in the future. Post at least 5 tips, tricks, or tools that you and others can use later. 


Useful Teaching Tools:
1.)  National Center on Universal Design for Learning: UDL Guidelines - Version 2.0

The National Center on Universal Design for Learning website, http://www.udlcenter.org/, provides a list of helpful guidelines that allow teachers to make their lessons more accessible to students with different learning styles and needs.  If teachers get stuck, they will find lots of useful examples under "Implementation."

2.) School Improvement in Maryland: Standards: PK-8

When designing a lesson it is important to take standards into account to make sure that students are learning material that is challenging, yet age-appropriate.  These standards are specific to each state, but Maryland teachers will find the School Improvement in Maryland website a great resource for PK-8 standards.

3.) School Improvement in Maryland: Technology Standards: PK-8

In addition to providing information about standards in content area, the School Improvement in Maryland website provides standards that will help teachers incorporate technology into their classrooms. The website covers all Maryland technology standards for grades PK-8.

4.) Pam's Lessons: JPTAAR Format

JPTAAR format is useful for providing a lesson with structure and direction, and consists of six main divisions: Judges prior learning, Plans instruction, Teaches, Assesses, Analyzes, and Reflects on lesson and data gathered.  Pam's Lessons provides a link to download a JPTAAR template, as well as sample lesson plans.

5.) Towson University: Center for Professional Practice - INTASC Principles

Towson's INTASC (Interstate New Teachers Assessment and Support Consortium) Principles are a very basic set of principles that will help a teacher to design a thoughtful and meaningful lesson.  These ten principles include useful advice on learning styles, instructional strategies, and communication.

Blog 5 - Digital game based learning

Reflect on your experience of using digital games and game building, what have you learned? What are the most important issues we need to consider when adapting game based learning?  What are the challenges you’ve experienced? 

After my experiences designing games for the "Name Game" project and the Game-based Learning project, and after designing a board game, I've discovered that while games may seem simple to play, they can be a lot trickier to design.  I've learned that the most important aspect to be considered when designing a game is user-friendliness.  It's extremely important for the directions of the game and the game interface to be well thought-out so that players can easily grasp the concept of the game, because otherwise they will quickly become frustrated and will not be able to access all of the learning benefits that the game-designer intends.

I found this aspect of game design especially challenging when designing a board game because of the time constraints that our groups were faced with.  We had to design, create, and test a board game in the space of one or two hours that was easy to use and enjoyable for the player.  To meet these requirements, my group designed a board game based on Disney's The Lion King, which was a "Candy Land" style game in which players were in a race to the finish and were guided on their path by drawing cards that directed them in their journey.  Through testing this game, our group came to realize that while we found our directions to be clear and the rules of the game to be self-evident, when we viewed others playing our game, there were several places in which we could've made the directions more detailed.  Thus, the most important step in game design is having someone else test the game and make sure that both the directions and the interface are user-friendly.