I’ve introduced my students to the GAME plan approach as many of them face challenges keeping their ideas and materials organized. Others have difficulties prioritizing their goals and tasks. The GAME plan is a direct plan, easy to remember and what I like best encourages the user to continually monitor their progress. I’ve found that the GAME plan helped me to eliminate distractions as I monitored how close I was to achieving my goals and what I needed to revise.
The GAME plan will assist students to meet the NETS-S standards: creativity and innovation, to use digital media and environments to communicate and to work collaboratively, and use critical thinking skills to plan and conduct research, manage projects, solve problems, and make informed decisions. As students plan, collaborate and complete projects, the GAME plan approach provides a framework for students to set goals, develop an action plan, to monitor their progress (or lack of it), and to evaluate and extend their plan.
Set Goals: The initial step is to set goals. Students ask what do I want to achieve. The goal is the “what” of the plan and addresses the standard of creativity and innovation. Students use prior knowledge, KWHL charts to brainstorm ideas for projects and products.
Action: As part of the action plan, students use creative thinking skills, digital media and their ability to work collaboratively. Collaborative groups plan their product, complete graphic organizers to organize ideas and determine the appropriate digital media. Students also apply the creativity and innovation standard when they develop their artifact and experience authentic learning.
Monitor: In this step, students determine what works, what revisions do they need to make. Do they need to access additional resources and materials? How well does the group interact with each other? How well are the students able to solve problems and make decisions? Unfortunately, it is easy to overlook this crucial step. Many students are confident that they will reach their goals as planned, or they abandon the plan and develop a new, more workable one. However, developing steps to make the appropriate revisions may guarantee that a plan will work.
Evaluate: Students will need to reflect, to judge how well the plan was developed is another essential step. Students decide if they reached their specified outcomes, review their KWHL charts and other organizers.
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Karla,
ReplyDeleteEstablishing a GAME plan with students could help them become more focused and organized when completing assignments. Do you think a simplified version could help them with 'smaller' projects? I really like how you broke the GAME plan down for students. Good Post!
Leilani
Karla,
ReplyDeleteI like how you emphasized the importance of the monitoring step. It's easy to set a goal, but the monitoring step keeps the focus on meeting the goal - the ultimate result. As students monitor their progress, they may realize revisions are needed. This step enforces the idea that it's ok to change the actions supporting the goal if needed. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
Carolyn Doyle
Carolyn Doyle
Karla,
ReplyDeleteNice, concise, and very easy to access cognitively. You did not use the word, but you have captured the idea that, while students may do some of these things instinctively, it is important to INTENTIONALLY direct them in these steps. For those that are already doing it, they can see the purpose more clearly, and for those that are not doing it, well, they now have a tool that will provide a systematic way to attack any problem or task that presents itself.
Leilani:
ReplyDeleteI've used the GAME plan to help students to organize their materials for the next class, something as simple as developing a plan to remember their homework and using the plan to approach a challenging problem.
Thanks for the encouragement!