M1A1 ISTE Standards Analysis

Geoff Brimhall 6/6/16

When reading the ISTE Standards for both Students and Teachers, I initially expected that the
Teachers portion would have a close one to one mapping to the Student sections and points, with the
Teacher version listing the skills and expectations needed to enable the Student sectional points.
I did not find this to be the case. The closest mapping I could find was in the Teachers first
section, 1. "Facilitate and inspire studnet learning and creativity", where I felt each of the sub points
provided high level guidance to each of the Students main sections:

Teacher 1.a: "Promote, support, and model createive and innovative thinking and
inventiveness". This exemplifies how a teacher should model and demonstrate the ideas
presented the Student first section, "1. Creativity and innovation", inparticular Student 1.b
"Create original works as a means of personal or group expression".

Teacher 1.b: "Engage students in exporing real-world issues and solving authentic
problems using digital tools and resources". This seemed very good modeling guidance for the
Students fourth section, "Critical thinking, problem solving, and decision making", in particular
Students 4.a, "Identify and define authentic problems and signifcant questions for investigation"

Teacher 1.c: "Promote student reflection using collaborative tools to reveal and clarify
students' conceptual understanding ...". The key for me was "collaborative tools" which is the
underlying theme with the second Students section, "Communcation and collaboration". This is
excellent teacher behavior modeling guidance for Students 2.a. "Interact, collaborate, and
publish with peers, experts, or others employing a variety of digital environments and media" in
conjunction with Students 2.b "Communicate information and ideas effectively to multiple

aduiencese using a variety of media and formats."

Teacher 1.d: "Model collaborative knowledge construction by engaging in learning with

students, colleagues, and others in face-to-face and virtual environments". This correlated to the
guidance for the Students third section, "Research and informantion fluency", where the high
level goal is that "Students apply digital tools to gather, evaluate, and use information."
For the remaining Teacher sections, "2. Design and develop digital age learning experiences and
assessments", and "3. Model Digital Age Work and Learning", I felt that these two sections outlined a
forward thinking digital classroom environment. For example, Teacher 2.a, "Design or adapt relevant
learning experiences that incorporate digital tools and resources to promote student learning and
creativity" would encourage finding ways to have math assignments and worksheets be digital. In
mathematics assignments the most important part is where the students show how they solved a
problem (ie "show your work !" ) because even if the student comes up with the incorrect answer, if
they have properly shown their work it is much easier to see in their thought process where they got off
course. I have been grappling with the idea of how to digitize this there are equavalent ways to show
a person's math work digitally using a slightly different notation than what has become standard when
solving a math problem using hand writing, and I do not know if my idea for digitally notating this has
any standards that I could use so I am not teaching students something that would only be used in my
classroom.
Other parts of the Students standards have me worried because I will need a bit more training in
order to facilitate the standard. In particular, Students 1.c "Use models and simulations to explore
complex systems and issues" has me wondering where to even start learning about online math models,
but I do feel it would be really useful for the students because there are wonderful programs such as
Mathematica that are used professionally quite a bit (Wolfram, 1) and early exposure to them will
increase their competency with these programs.

References:
ISTE Standards Students, International Society for Technology in Education, 2007.
ISTE Standards Teachers, International Society for Technology in Education, 2008.
Wolfram, Stephen, "Who uses Mathematica ?". The Mathematica Journal, Addison-Wesley Publishing
Co, 1990