Jim's USF Tech Cert Blog

EEND 679 Module 4 Discussion Jim Nielsen The idea of personalized learning has been around for a long time.   I mean, it sounds like an amazing idea!   Cater all learning to the individual that is doing the learning- makes sense!   The problem is how do we do that in a class of 30 students?   Or an entire course load of 150 students over the course of the day.   Where do we focus our personalized learning goals?   Is it to struggling students, social economic disadvantaged students, students from different races, students that are advanced and need to be pushed?   I have heard all of these groups singled out at different times in my career for personalized learning.   As an educator, how can we streamline this process, and how does technology aid us in this borderline impossible task? I teach co-taught biology and have taught this class for 10 years now.   I feel comfortable saying that I have one of the most diverse classes in the ...

EEND 679 Module 3 Jim Nielsen This week we are focusing on assessment strategies and the use of technology to deliver assessments.   For the discussion, we were able to watch a number of videos discussing the validity of assessments and how to make sure you are really assessing what you want from the students. The first video by Rick Wormeli was one that I have seen before.   In fact, I have seen a couple of videos from him at different faculty meetings.   This is mainly because our school has adopted Mastery Learning as the main driving force of our curriculum.   So much so, that all classes are required to have a retake policy on assessments.   At first, I feel like the staff in general did not like the idea of retakes for mastery.   This could be for many reasons including the fact that we don’t get do-overs in life, why should students in school.    Also it is a lot of work to prepare for retakes and making a second assessment th...

EEND 679 Module 2 Jim Nielsen For this module we were asked to discuss a current formative activity we use in class, and how it could be improved or enhanced with technology.   I decided to look at activities I did this week in my biology and anatomy classes to pick out a formative assessment tool that could be improved or enhanced by a tech tool.   This week students in my Anatomy class had the opportunity to dissect a heart.   It is a great lab that gives the students a hands on opportunity to view, dissect, and learn about the different structures found in a mammalian heart.   On top of that, I use it as a formative test to see if the students are comfortable with common medical and directional terms.   I don’t use common language with the directions like top, bottom, left, or right.   Instead I assess their understanding of medical terms like superior/inferior, medial/lateral, deep or superficial.   The lab itself is a great tool for asse...

Hey class, I have to admit that coming into this class I realized that I have a lot of room for growth when it comes to assessments.   Honestly, I focus very little on my assessments, and often refer to them as a necessary evil.   As a life science teacher, I really value experiences or labs and authentic real world examples as my main delivery tool for the curriculum.   I tend to view my traditional assessments as an end game to determine how much info the students retained.   I am glad to see a push in education to include non-traditional tests and quizzes as assessment tools as these are already a huge part of my delivery.   I am excited that this class might help me determine tech tools that will help me deliver these formative assessments to the technologically comfortable and often times savvy group of students I get every year. As a student, and now as a teacher, I have never been a fan of traditional summative assessments.   I really like ho...

Hello class, My name is Jim Nielsen and I teach Biology and Anatomy at Waubonsie Valley High School. Teaching was a 3rd career change for me as I worked previously as a zookeeper at Brookfield Zoo, and did medical research at University of Chicago for 5 years as well.  I am currently in my 12th year of teaching and truly get excited to come to work everyday and spend time talking about the study of Life with young adults.  The two courses I teach are extremely diverse in learning levels as I teach freshman co-taught biology and Senior Anatomy.  It really creates a fun challenge to create material that works for all learning levels.  Because of this challenge, and our districts move to 1:1 instruction next year, I decided to enroll in the Educational Technology courses at St. Francis.  This is my 3rd course at St. Francis, and my favorite aspect so far is that I am actually able to utilize many of the lessons in class. When students leave my classroom...