LEARNING//GROWING//CHANGING
As an educator I have the opportunity to be constantly surrounded by learning. That learning is comprised of the learning that takes place both inside and outside of my classroom; with both student and teacher learners, including myself. Making the decision to be a part of Michigan State University’s (MSU) Master of Arts in Education (MAED) program has allowed me an additional opportunity to expand my learning. In the beginning of this program was most excited to gain insightful knowledge, to have the opportunity to share it with my colleagues, and to apply it to my everyday teaching practices for the benefit of my students. Reflecting upon the past few years of this program has allowed me to see the change that has happened within my own teaching. I have studied and integrated research-based best practices into my teaching and overall teaching philosophy. This program has helped me to see how my job as an educator is not merely to teach to content, but to share the learning and teaching experiences with students and colleagues. This job is an opportunity to grown and learn from one another. I now look at the classroom teacher as almost equal colleagues to the students in the room. With the changing world and demands, there is often so much knowledge I gain from my students each day as we embark on this learning journey together.
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Each course I took throughout my MAED program challenged me in a new way, introducing me to new topics in education and allowing me the opportunity to apply that knowledge into my current classroom. While I have benefited form each and every class that I have taken to complete my degree, TE 855, TE 861C, TE 831 and CEP 810 are courses that have had the most impactful changes on my learning and teaching. The two areas that stuck out to me the most were my course that discussed mathematics and those that discussed technology.
Synthesis Essay
Mathematics
Teacher Education (TE) 855: Teaching School Mathematics
This was one of the first mathematics courses I took within my master’s program. This course really helped to set the baseline of teaching with math. I was exposed to the most recent literature that helped me to understand best practices in mathematics. There are a few key ideas which have stuck with me throughout my teaching from the course. The first is the types of discourse that could occur in my classroom between students. Understanding the ideas behind student sharing made it easier for me to try and incorporate this into the learning of my students. Increased discourse was a goal I created for myself after this course. The knowledge I gained about discourse from this class guided my research for another course within my program. The second thing I learned about was the different types of positioning students could take within my classroom. This focused on student behavior and how that ties into and affects their academic learning. I never realized all the different types of positions and stance students could take to demonstrate their behaviors and learning. This allowed me to better interpret the actions of my students in terms of their engagement and understanding. The third items which helped to shape my teaching philosophy was the research paper I conducted about connecting mathematics to real life scenarios. This pushed me to find valid research that talks about the connection between mathematics and relating it to real life situations. This stemmed from observations I have conducted in my classroom with relevant mathematics topics that are easily used in the real world and those that seem more abstract. This research allowed to me add more student power into my classroom. Instead of always giving students the why to questions they ask I read about giving students the power and resources to look the information up themselves. My students were able to take control of their own learning and search how certain Common Core standards were relevant to their lives. The students found that they could not always find concrete reasons for each standard, but their research guided them to a clearer understanding of the standards they were learning about. This research paper created a huge shift in the power dynamics of my classroom, allowing me to give up more control and allowing my students to guide their own learning and understanding.
Teacher Education (TE) 861C -Action Research in K-12 Science and Mathematics Classrooms
This course taught me about the foundations of educational research. I had to complete a research verification course which taught me about the ethical sides of research and how to conduct research while complying with these ethical ideas. I was exposed to the backside of research in education. I was brought to understand why research is conducted and how one begins this process. I was able to read and interpret the research of many educators about topics that were relevant to my current teaching practices. The most beneficial part of this course was being able to plan and conduct a research project of my own. Action research is one way that professionals stay up to date with inquiry through the use of personalized research within their own classroom. I was able to examine a topic that was useful to my current group of students and conduct the research in conjunction with current evidence-based data. What was most helpful in the process was the initial breakdown of each component within conducting action research. For my project I chose to research the effects that open-ended, collaborative tasks have on student discourse. Completing each component of this project allowed me to see how much work goes into conducting research. I began to see how beneficial this research is to me because I was able to tailor it the direct needs of my students. Conducting this allowed me to be reflective in my teachings practices, as I was able to see how the actions I took effected the learning outcomes of my students. This course allowed me to see how bias could occur in research and how one finding may not be accurate for all learners. I was able to collect evidence from other researchers and compare it to the findings I had with my students. I found it interesting how students from different ages, backgrounds and family situations were affected differently by the same research ideas. I am grateful to have had the opportunity to experience conducting personal research for the benefit of my students. While I was able to publish this, if I wanted to, I choose to use my findings to guide my teaching practice to benefit my students in the long run.
Technology
Teacher Education (TE) 831: Teaching School Subject Matter
with Technology
This was one of the first courses I took that helped introduce me to technology in education. Before this course I knew that technology was used, but I wasn’t aware how deep it truly went. This class began by introducing me to different technology theories including TPACK (Technology, Pedagogy and Content Knowledge) and SAMR(Substitution, Augmentation, Modification, and Redefinition). TPACK helped me to understand that it is not technology alone that impacts student learning, but the intersection of technology, content knowledge and pedagogy that truly changes the way that students learn and gather knowledge. SAMR taught me about the different methods of technology integration and the impact those have on student learning. Another key component in this course was the exploration and use of the ISTE (International Society for Technology in Education) for both teachers and students. Before this I hadn’t known that these existed. I began to use these in my everyday teaching, helping the 21st century learners in my classroom to become active digital citizens. I was challenged to explore and utilize new technologies in this course that supported technological teaching theories and included the ISTE standards within them. The biggest impact this course has made on my teaching would be the understanding that technology is not constant. Our digital society is forever changing, and I am teaching to digital natives (students born into a full-blown media society) who are constantly engrossed and surrounded by technology. I gained the understand that complete mastery is not necessary for learning to occur. Once I got past this idea, I began to intentionally implement technology that would be impactful for my students, allowing them to become the teachers. I found greater learning to take place when I did this. The students utilized communication and collaboration to learn from and teach one another, myself included. I saw student engagement rise, alongside their confidence and overall learning applications. While my job is to teach them content, this course helped me to see the importance of educating students to be globally and digitally competent in today’s society.
Counseling, Education and Psychology (CEP) 810: Teaching and Understanding with Technology
Another technology focused class of mine was CEP 810. This class really challenged me by making me become the student with technology. Instead of learning about new technologies to utilize in the classroom I had to use new technologies to conduct and showcase my learning. I had the opportunity to examine my professional learning network (PLN). This helped me to understand the resources I utilized to find and share new information. It is through completing my initial PLN that I realized the lack of technology I utilize to collaborate with others. This class pushed my technology usage in two major ways: Twitter and Blogging. Each week I was required to tweet about my work and learning for the week. I had tasks in Twitter to complete that helped to me to become familiar with he new technology. I was able to see how useful this tool could be. As an educator I could connect with others and share ideas about classroom content and ideas. I also was opened to the possibilities of how I could use this with my students as a way to increase discourse within the classroom. The second technology I used each week was blogging. Being reflective in my practices is a goal I set for myself. I have found that creating a blog and sharing my learning experiences have forced me to become reflective on a weekly basis. This allowed me to take the time each week to examine my learning and to share those experiences with others through my blog. One of the most impacted lessons I have learned from this course was how transparent learning can be. I was challenged in this course to learn a new skill using only YouTube Videos and help forums. Blogging helped me to be reflective about this learning process and it allowed me to share with others. This was one of the most rewarding experiences I had in my program. I chose to teach myself how to do a muscle-up and by the end of the course I had achieved my goal. This allowed me to think about where and how we are learning. Learning does not necessarily take place within the classroom walls. We live in a digital society where students are constantly learning in online formats. This opened my eyes to the importance of teaching students how to learn from technology and how to interpret what they learn. This pushed me to use the ISTE technology standards within my classroom and teaching them alongside digital citizenship, giving my students all of the tools they needed to utilize any technology to learn. This course opened my eyes to the possibilities that technology could offer.
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One of the most impactful parts about my master’s program was completing it while I was teaching. This allowed me directly to apply the new knowledge and practices I learned about in my courses in my classroom. This provided me with direct experiences that I could use as a reflection in each course. Many of my colleagues were in similar situation, which allowed for us to be reflective with one another, sharing our successes and failures. I was able to benefit from applying what I had learned in one course to my understanding of another. The practices and lessons I have gained from this program have definitely helped to shape and guide my teaching philosophy and methods I use within my classroom.
