Knecht About the Author

Monica Knecht Home Learn More Standards Inspiration About the Author

About the Author: Monica Knecht

Last year my whole life was turned upside down. I was going through a divorce, supporting my three boys in elementary school, and taking on a new curriculum as a Reading Specialist for three different grade levels. I was in a huge transition in my life, reevaluating where I was currently and where I was going personally and in my career.

Looking back when I was a child, about nine years old, my dad had gone back to school to get his Master’s Degree. I always wanted to follow in his footsteps, but I had three young boys at home that needed me. When the opportunity arose to apply for the Touro Master’s Program in Education, I knew that this was my time to set an example for my boys to show them that with hard work and perseverance, anything is achievable- even for a stay-at-home mom of seven years who didn’t have a clue about technology!

I have just finished my twelfth year of teaching. I have taught seven years at the elementary school level, five years at the middle school level, with a bit of part-time job share and Reading Intervention Specialist all thrown in for some growing experience.

What Drives Me?:
As a student, I really struggled with comprehension. In the sixth grade I read “Black Beauty” by Anna Sewell. I had an oral book report with my teacher after school and she asked me basic questions about the characters and the plot that I could not answer. I was very proud that I read the book in its entirety from cover to cover, but I had no idea what it was about. This experience has helped shaped me as an educator.

Helping struggling readers has become my passion. Figuring out how to best help my students in the most effective and fun way is what drives me as a teacher. I want to motivate students to want to come to school, even though they may struggle with the curriculum.

I reflected about my time in the eighth grade and how fun everything that year seemed because of the projects and game-based learning my teacher emplimented that year. I was motivated to do better and try harder academically than any other year previously. I loved games and doing projects. This style of teaching motivated me to learn in new areas.

Beginning my journey I started out focusing on the remedial readers that were two or more years below grade level in the role as a Reading Specialist. They were baseline tested and surveyed as to their reading history. It came out in my Action Research project, in the fall, that more than 80% of third graders struggled to focus in reading comprehension and learning to read activities. This sent me down a path that explored teaching Mindfulness focusing strategies with a specialist in the Napa Valley Unified School District who came weekly to teach Mindfulness lessons.

I also wanted to make sure that the students were having fun by playing games to learn and that is when I realized that what a better game than to use a video game format that students were already enjoying and was a familiar forum.

There's a Story...Of a Lovely Cohort...

I began my Action Research journey at the beginning of my Master’s program wanting to motivate and engage struggling readers by goal setting and finding out more about their reading experience through surveys and interviews with each student. The surveys and interviews lead me to find that more than 80% of students struggled with focus and attention around comprehension retention and actually learning the phonics and language arts instruction. I started to veer my path towards Mindfulness and all of the components that it offered by taking a Mindfulness Schools class to learn more while having a NVUSD professional come in and teach Mindfulness practices to my students.
As I learned more and more about my target students I discovered their interests and how much they enjoyed all kinds of games. Anything that was a game or done via technology had a higher engagement and motivational value. Students were learning more content when the “medium is the message” says Marshall McLuhan. It’s similar to when your mom tells you something and you don’t believe her and then your friend tells you something and you know it has to be true. In this case the interest is coming from the ways the students learn instead of the content being taught. So I began to experiment with visuals. I compared video media to interactive video game media around ecosystems in Science. Students were asked questions about how they learn and are motivated by learning best.

A beginning of the year class on Zoom.

An end of the year class on Zoom.

Lasting Learning from the Innovative Learning Program

Teaching and designing curriculum is my most favorite part of my job as a teacher. This program has taught me how to align my TPACK model and collaborate with like-minded educators to keep exploring, using test trials with technology and most importantly keep setting a good example for my own kids and students to push beyond thought limits of what you thought you could do. Cohort 16 has been a phenomenal resource of networking among differentiated teachers at various grade levels.

Me on a Virtual Reality (VR) mission to kill zombies. Practicing my VR skills in Las Vegas at MGM.

My TPACK Journey

I have worked really hard this year to improve my technology skills and on my own growth mindset. I have attended four NapaLearn mini lessons during the week night trainings and their big annual conference on a Saturday. While I was in New York City on vacation in June I attended a Gaming Festival for future uses of VR (virtual reality) technology. I am also planning on attending the CUE Conference in Sacramento in October 2019. I am learning to become less frustrated with myself when things present a challenge. I am embracing the process of growth and change. Taking classes and learning new and innovative ways to teach invigorate me. When I am learning it excites me, helps me create dynamic lessons and that positive learning energy rubs off on my students. When my students are loving to learn, my job is accomplished.

The learning of the TPACK model has changed how I teach and how I think about designing lesson plans. TPACK is a framework to understand effective pedagogical practices in a technology learning era. It was developed in 2006 by Mishra and Koehler to provide a framework for successful edtech integration in the curriculum. The other two components are Content and Pedagogical Knowledge. The darkest spot, right in the center of the diagram to the left is known as the 'sweet spot'. The sweet spot is the perfect amount of each Knowledge perfectly blended together.

A year ago, my technology use was constructing and sending out an e-mail. I had not used any technology in my classroom except a document reader, and I struggled with that. The TPACK model has allowed me to blossom as an educator and allowed my students an increased engagement. I started, with a challenge to myself, to create a day I called "Tech Tuesday". With all of the tools that I had been learning I needed to put them into practice, even though it was scary to commit to a new tool each week. Not only did I try, but I was successful! The kids loved it and looked forward to coming to class knowing that it was 'bring your device Tuesday'.

I started out slow, as to not overwhelm myself and the students. First, we played a few Kahoot games that had already been developed for review and trivia and later CAASPP review. Next we did games like: Google Be Internet Awesome, Quizlet (for vocabulary building), they took a reading survey that I made on Google Forms, they learned how to do a report using Adobe Spark's video maker, I used some EdPuzzle video with embedded questions for comprehension and the list goes on. This regular practice grew me and the students. I learned how to manage problem solving with a class and learned a ton of tools to share. The students learned how to use the tools to enhance their learning and were very motivated to share their knowledge with others. It was a win-win!

This past year I have transformed from a measly caterpillar that was bound to a pencil and paper into a beautiful tech savvy butterfly that has a technological growth mindset that is not afraid to learn and soar to new heights. Learning these new skills has invigorated my teaching, but especially my love for the design of the lessons using the TPACK model. along side the SAMR Model. The SAMR Model is designed to help educators support, design and infuse digital learning when utilizes technology.

Noteables: NapaLearns, Touro University GSOE, Jennifer Perkins, Laura Zinser, Pam Walton, Jennifer Lucas, Michael Lunsford and Sawyer, Jax and Gannon Knecht