To infinity... and beyond!​
I have always loved learning. I looked forward to going back to school each August and enjoyed tackling new challenges with each passing school year. In the fifth grade, I knew I wanted to be a teacher, and that love for learning continued as I worked through high school, college, and graduate school. I had some fantastic teachers and some downright awful teachers and I kept a mental list of what I would do in my own classroom someday. In my eight years of teaching, again I look forward to each August and a fresh set of faces in my classroom. I also look forward to trying out new ideas, reorganizing and restructuring my lessons, and collaborating with colleagues, old and new. Each new school year is a chance to start over, to try that tricky lesson a little bit differently, to update policies and procedures to hopefully make everyone’s lives a bit easier.
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I also have never been a person who is comfortable with one thing for long, though. I start to get bored and crave a change. In 2016, I had a yearning for formal education and to grow professionally in more ways than just what was offered at my school’s professional development once a month. I searched high and low for a graduate program that met my unique needs. I took the 2016-2017 school year off from teaching because I was expecting my third child. I knew that when I began this graduate program in the spring semester of 2017, I needed it to be entirely online so I could work around my family’s schedule. I had taken some online classes before, when I was in undergraduate school and working on my first master’s degree, and thought this would be an excellent option for me. I knew that juggling online classes with a new baby (and her two older brothers) would be a challenge, but I am so thankful that I began this adventure.
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Upon entering the Master of Arts in Education program at Michigan State University, I grossly underestimated the impact it would have on my professional life. I figured I would learn a few new things, maybe make a few new connections with classmates. I never realized that I would discover passions that I did not even realize I had and meet classmates that I would later consider friends. I was forced to think outside the box and consider ideas that had never before crossed my mind. Prior to applying to MSU, I had spoken to several colleagues who are alumni of the university and they had only positive things to say about their experiences, so I knew I had stumbled upon an excellent program. I turned in my first assignments only two days before my daughter was born and I knew from reading the first few syllabi and class descriptions that this was going to be an incredible experience.
One course that had a significant impact on my growth as an educator was EAD 824, Leading Teacher Learning. It opened my eyes to the explicit qualities of good leaders and made me realize that administrators and previous supervisors were not actually as good of leaders as I once thought they were. Through the main project in the course, the Year-Long Proposal for Teacher Learning, I developed a plan for what I feel would be an incredible professional development opportunity that would ultimately improve morale and teacher retention at the brick-and-mortar school where I was working. I had previously viewed leadership as something “someone else did,” and I never really considered myself to be a school leader. However that is now a goal of mine; I want to lead not only my students, but also my colleagues. I have a passion for this work and a creative mind, and EAD 824 helped me realize that I do, in fact, have the qualities an effective leader must possess.
In the fall of 2017, I experienced formative assessment for the first time in CEP 813, Electronic Assessment. I had heard of “formative assessment” before, but never used it and never participated in it. What an incredible learning opportunity! I had never considered not “grading” something and merely giving my feedback to allow a student to learn and grow from the assignment. In addition to learning how to create excellent assessments, I also saw firsthand what a student should experience with feedback. The courses with MSU where I’ve been given the opportunity to revise my work before receiving a final grade have been, by far, the most meaningful and impactful of all of my courses, and this was the first of one of those classes. I liked it so much that I started giving feedback to my students in the same way. I used some of the wording that my instructors used—assessments for learning, assessments as learning, and assessments of learning—and I believe it helped take some of the pressure for perfection off some of my students. CEP 813 also led me to several different content management systems that I’d never encountered before and I discovered that the rubrics I thought were effective, were not, really. At times I felt as though I was doing the same assignments over and over again, but when I sat down to stretch my brain and think about how I can take this a step further, I feel as though I was able to create some excellent work. My use of rubrics in both my evaluations of my students and asking them to evaluate themselves has strengthened the quality of my instruction.
Formative vs Summative by @bryanMMathers is licenced under CC-BY-ND
In TE861C, Action Research in the K-12 Science/Math Classroom, I wrote an action research proposal regarding the impact that the implementation of a “Module 0” would have on virtual high school students. After my year off of teaching and being inspired by many of the courses I’d been taking with MSU, I found and was offered a job teaching at a virtual high school. One of my biggest frustrations was how unprepared my students were for an online course, and I felt as though they would do so much better if only they had adequate preparation and clearly understood what was going to be expected of them. My research for my proposal led me to realize that implementing a “Module 0,” (much like many of my MSU professors did!) would be an excellent way to help my students get started on the right foot. CEP 820 (Teaching Students Online) was the very next course I began following my Action Research course, and our major project was to create an online course module. While I was writing my action research proposal, I had actually planned to carry out making my Module 0 and complete some informal observations and conclusions about its effectiveness. Throughout CEP 820, I learned the most effective and engaging ways to create this online module and have a product that (at the close of the summer semester) will be ready to implement for this upcoming school year. I will use the skills I learned in both CEP 820 and TE861C to evaluate, update, and implement my Module 0 (and repeat the process as many times as necessary to fine-tune and tweak the entire chapter). As of this writing, I have not yet implemented the module so do not have any data I can draw from right now, but I plan to pay close attention to how the Module 0 affects the success rate of my students.
Another course that has made a significant impact on my professional development and goals is the Capstone Porfolio (ED 870). I have experimented with basic website building software and hosting sites before, but have really grown throughout this particular class. The amount of feedback (without grades… I feel that is absolutely crucial to my individual growth!) I’ve received has been incredible and as a result, I am extremely proud of the product I have created. I felt very encouraged by the policy my instructors had of constantly revising and tweaking my site until I was happy with it. Often, I have had my own students turn in a piece of a multi-step project and they’ve received a grade on that piece. Then they move onto the next piece, until ultimately they turn in the final project and get one big grade. By withholding grades, so to speak, it is more encouraging to consider carefully each piece of feedback I have received, to truly end up with the best final product possible. I plan to implement a similar policy with several projects this school year and I am excited to see how that affects my students’ perceptions and effort over the year.
The quality and type of feedback I have received over the course of the program is likely what has helped change me the most. I am a perfectionist who always strives to earn the highest marks possible. I entered this program with the mindset that I was going to put every effort into every assignment and that I would not be so focused on my grades as I was the end result: learning. At first, it was difficult; my numbers-brain didn’t like not knowing precisely where I stood in each class. However, as I progressed through classes and realized how meaningful they were each becoming, I knew this was the way I needed to grade my own students. How transformative that will be for my high schoolers to focus on what they’re learning rather than on what grade they’re earning. Who cares if you made an A if you can’t describe and apply what you have learned? Have you truly earned the A, then?
Prior to the MAED program, I considered myself to be pretty tech-savvy. I am part of the generation that was born with a mouse in my hand, after all. However, I realized that I was using technology as just a substitution or augmentation of my basic instruction. Thanks to my experiences over the last twenty months, I now know that without a doubt, I can transform my teaching by modifying and redefining what it means to learn and demonstrate mastery and knowledge. I’ve been inspired, encouraged, and led down a path of technological enlightenment. I feel ready and prepared to help my students learn math in ways they never expected. I have a toolbox of tech tools and resources that I will share with both them and my colleagues. I will continue learning and growing and pushing my students and myself to new heights, and I credit Michigan State University with giving me the launch pad for these changes. I’ve seen firsthand what an excellent online teacher should do and how organized (and unorganized!) communication can have an impact on student learning. I see virtual education as the future of education in our country; more and more industries are become automated and education is not immune to this evolution. I want to use what I’ve learned in the MAED program to prepare my students for life in a digital world and one day, teach teachers how to be effective facilitators of online courses. I know that I can be an impactful voice in shaping the next generation of online learners.
Image from https://rdbl.co/2LJZTcJ
I can’t wait to take everything I’ve learned and put it into my own classroom. Especially since my classroom doesn’t have walls and I have never seen many of my students in-person, I can take the lessons and skills I’ve learned throughout this program (both the explicit ones I learned in class and the behaviors I learned from “watching” and paying attention to the behaviors of my instructors) and apply it to my virtual courses. I have no doubts that I can take my instruction to new places, thanks to this program! I plan to take it to infinity… and beyond!