Throughout the Instructional Technology program at Kennesaw State

University, I was part of several field experiences each semester. These field
experiences included going coaching teachers, presenting in front of my peers
about new ideas, and working with ELL students with new technology to improve
their writing skills. Each field experience was between five- twenty hours for a
course. These hands on experiences and lesson planning experiences were the most
crucial part of the program since the field experiences brought real world
application to the courses that I was completing.
In two years in this program, I completed ten field experiences that had me
working with teachers, administrators, special education, gifted, and ELL students
to enhance our schools use of technology in the classroom. I engage in these field
experiences to synthesize and apply what I had learned in my program. I did
this for example when I needed to create an online experience lesson for one of my
classes- I completed an online web quest that was also project based learning.
There was also a class where I learned about the various ways of collecting data
and what data was productive data and what wasnt productive data. I applied
synthesize and applied by trying new ideas with our data team such as Data walls
and Data talks with teachers in the same subject areas meeting to discuss data on
common assessments.
I learned from completing all of my field experience that applying what you
learn in the field is the best practice. Learning about a tool or completing a lesson
plan then implementing those ideas and lessons allowed me to see what worked
and did not work in my classroom or school. The field experiences that involved
speaking in front of my staff gave made me feel that I could be a school leader or
technology coach. I felt that I could get anyone on board with my ideas since most
of my experiences have been positive. I think the one thing that I would have
changed in my field experiences, is that I need to be more familiar with professional
research. What I mean by this is that when I present on a topic such as Edmodo or
the development of a data team at my school, I need to have more academic
research to drive my point across to the other teachers at my school with real
evidence that it works.
The field experiences I think helped school improvement and faculty
development. The school improvement could be assessed through the
implementation of all teachers at my school using Edmodo allowing for more
teacher- student interaction and collaboration as well as a very organized tool for
both the teacher and the student. I think coaching teachers to better their lessons
with new technology ideas that improves faculty development because the teachers
are learning new innovated ideas that continue their growth in their profession.