Prompt
Your essay should address your experience in this program. How did the program change the way you approach your job? How did individual classes change the way you see your responsibilities? It may be helpful to look over the work you’ve completed in previous modules of this course, since so much of it is related to your master’s experience.
Your essay should address your experience in this program. How did the program change the way you approach your job? How did individual classes change the way you see your responsibilities? It may be helpful to look over the work you’ve completed in previous modules of this course, since so much of it is related to your master’s experience.
Above picture reflects how I was prior to participating in the Master of Arts in Educational Technology (MAET) program.
I felt alone in the workplace and was focused upon professional survival. |
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The picture above reflects how I feel as I exit the MAET program. I am much more confident in who I am as a professional and I have become an active voice in the workplace.
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Confidence Is King
I have always heard that the first year of teaching is all about survival, that wide-eyed idealism wavers and a sense of dread fills the void. Commonly accepted conventional wisdom suggests that, in the first year, fulltime teachers should abandon their grand ambitions and simply strive to stay afloat. This means that a series of concessions tend to be made and that innovative instructional practices fall to the wayside, in favor of more traditional lesson plans that are easier to implement.
I am not particularly proud of how I approached my first year in the classroom, because I listened to the cliché advice. I carved out a tremendous amount of instructional time to allow in-class reading time and composed structured handouts for guided note-taking, focusing almost exclusively on developing student’s traditional literacy skills and deemphasizing creative (and more engaging) literacies. I rationalized my decisions by convincing myself that my freshmen aged students would have fulfilling opportunities to creatively synthesize at higher levels of English Language Arts and that I was doing them a favor by establishing a strong foundation of basic skills but reflecting upon the experience has made me realize that I was taking the easy way out.
The Master of Arts in Educational Technology (MAET) graduate program, through Michigan State University, has helped me acquire the professional confidence necessary to venture outside of traditional educational paradigms and assert my influence within the English department in my high school. Consequently, I have been more active within my professional learning community and have been integrating technology into my classroom with greater frequency.
My first experiences in the MAET program were through a course titled Teaching for Understanding with Technology. As I understood it, the course operated under the premise that an educator cannot teach effectively with technology unless they know how to learn effectively with technology. An assignment, the Networked Learning Project, put this premise into practice; I was tasked with teaching myself a hobby while exclusively using digital sources like message forums, blogs, and YouTube videos. This assignment had a formative impact on the way that I am currently approaching my instructional practice, because the methodology used during the Networked Learning Project can be applied to learning how to implement unconventional assignments or learning how to effectively utilize an educational tool that I have no experience with. For example, I had been apprehensive about deviating from traditional education practices due to my (relatively) limited experience as a professional in my own classroom, and the misguided belief that project-based learning only worked well in Social Studies or Science classrooms. However, the technological literacy skills that I developed through the Networked Learning Project helped me stumble upon a couple of educational blogs that led me to believe that project-based learning had more utility than I had previously thought. Soon thereafter, I had the confidence to compose an implement a project-based learning opportunity in which my students created a board game that traced Odysseus’ journey from Troy back to Ithaca in Homer’s classic The Odyssey.
The Odyssey board game created several opportunities for me to, confidently, integrate technology into the classroom. First, students read the required mentor text and I sought to improve comprehension of the content by using a digital (audio) book that allowed students to listen to the material. Second, students viewed a film adaptation of The Odyssey that was shown the front of my classroom using a digital projector. Third, students were tasked with conducting independent research, using a mobile laptop cart, to learn about common tabletop gameplay mechanics. Meanwhile, I used message boards during my plan period to learn the basics of technical writing. This knowledge was then transmitted to students, who had to write out their gameplay procedures in an instruction manual. I am proud of this project-based learning opportunity, which I would not have composed without the professional confidence and technological literacy skills that I developed through the Networked Learning Project.
I took a second course during my first semester in the MAET program, which was titled Adapting Innovative Technology to Education. This course centered around Maker Education, a relatively new movement within education that focuses on problem-based and project-based learning opportunities. I have yet to figure out a truly novel to create a “maker space” into my classroom. In the Adapting Innovative Technology to Education course, I explored various ways in which a Raspberry Pi may be used in a classroom. I experimented with the possibility of pairing a USB microphone and Raspberry Pi; teachers could record their in-class lectures and upload the (MP3) audio file to the cloud, or students with limited motor skills could speak into the microphone and speech recognition software could transcribe their words. Unfortunately, opensource software related to these possibilities are a bit cumbersome to use and I do not currently have the (proprietary) resources I would need to improve functionality. That said, my instructional practice has improved because of an assignment from Adapting Innovative Technology to Education that required me to develop a rubric for evaluating creative output.
This rubric was a “game changer”. Prior to developing a worthwhile rubric for evaluating students’ creative output, I seldom composed creative assignments because I did not feel comfortable inviting a level of subjectivity to the classroom; as a relatively inexperienced teacher I was afraid to “rock the boat”. I had become the champion of the three lowest levels in Bloom’s Taxonomy: knowledge, comprehension, and application. I subjected students to a ton of guided note-taking assignments, constructed response prompts, and (practice) quizzes. Students had an easy time in my class, and I knew the bulk of assignments were easy. Then, the rubric changed the game.
Suddenly, I possessed professional confidence due to the Networked Learning Project and a creativity rubric that I could use to confidently assess synthesis-based assignments. Bloom would have been proud. I used the rubric to help evaluate parts of The Odyssey board game project. I used the rubric to evaluate parts of a “Shark Tank” assignment, in which students developed fictional good (or service) and pitched this idea to an audience of potential investors. I even used the rubric when students composed Great Gatsby character portraits that accurately conveyed their respective emotional responses when a female character became a victim of domestic abuse. The course, and its creative rubric, were instrumental to my instructional practice as I began to venture outside of traditional education paradigms.
Technology and Leadership, another course in the MAET program, has had tremendous influence on how I function in the workplace. The content of the course heavily focused on leadership styles and the importance of considering all stakeholders when planning; this course increased my professional confidence when interacting with colleagues. Prior to taking this course, I was hesitant to interject during a department meeting or to offer suggestions to coworkers. Every single inquiry led me to inquire internally:
What if my insight lacked foresight? What if I come off as incompetent?
I am still a bit ‘slow on the draw’, but I started to actively contribute to my professional learning community after taking Technology and Leadership. When an issue is brought up by a building administrator or a department head, I carefully consider all the potential stakeholders before offering up a potential solution via email. This means that I am not one of those super teachers that stands up in the middle of a meeting and shares ‘off the cuff’ wisdom (yet), but at least I am no longer a silent observer. The Technology and Leadership has given me the confidence to contribute, as I no longer fear that my suggestions are not well thought out.
My high school building as a Quality Improvement Team (QIT) that meets every other week. The QIT is an elite assembly of administrators, instructional coaches, department lead teachers, and experienced teachers who get together to discuss how our building should implement new changes from the district’s central office, logistics of proctoring standardized tests, etc… I recently applied to be become a member of this QIT and I also recently applied for a summer curriculum writing opportunity, which would allow me to extend my sphere of influence and have a formative role as the district begins to alter their practices. I believe that I the Technology and Leadership course has given me the human capital necessary to provide meaningful contributions in these positions, as well as the leadership skills to distill the information I learn to all stakeholders. I also believe that I would be a worthwhile addition to these times because of the Technology and Leadership course, as well as Adapating Innovative Technology to Education.
There is an intersection between the Technology and Leadership course and the Adapting Innovative Technology to Education in which I believe I could make an immediate positive impact within my building. I was able to smoothly and successfully set up a Raspberry Pi in my classroom as an offline reference kiosk, which students may use to clarify meaning of unfamiliar terms. This use of educational technology improves upon the age-old classroom practice of looking up unfamiliar terms in a print dictionary because: multiple databases (Webster, Oxford, etc) may be searched at the same time, word databases are more up-to-date than dictionaries that were printed years ago, typing in a term and hitting enter is much more efficient than flipping through pages of a heavy book (especially for modern day students whose tech literacies are much greater than their traditional literacy skills). I could skills acquired in Technology and Leadership to aid colleagues in adapting this innovative technology into their classroom. This use of a Raspberry Pi in a classroom has an incredible amount of utility, as discourse specific vocabulary may be found in classrooms. I have not explored the possibility in a thorough way, but I am certain that I could teach colleagues how to create their very own database that the dictionary software accesses.
I feel as if, after my first full-year of teaching in my very own classroom, I was a hollow survivor. I had been successful in most measurable metrics: I had no challenging interactions with building administrators or parents, my students had improved their reading comprehension and expanded their vocabulary (as measured by a lexile test), and I had received an effective rating in the teacher evaluation rubric. However, I did not feel like I grew over the course of the year; I almost exclusively acquired experience with timid, traditional teaching practices and was inactive within the school. Ultimately, I completed my first year of teaching without feeling as if I had agency.
I simply reacted. No ownership, no innovation, no risk taking.
The MAET graduate program fundamentally altered my perspective in the workplace. My focus has shifted from personal survival to ensuring that others survive. My goal has shifted from ‘flying under the radar’ to asserting my influence. My doubts have largely dissipated, and the void has been filled with, at the risk of being repetitive, professional confidence.
I am not particularly proud of how I approached my first year in the classroom, because I listened to the cliché advice. I carved out a tremendous amount of instructional time to allow in-class reading time and composed structured handouts for guided note-taking, focusing almost exclusively on developing student’s traditional literacy skills and deemphasizing creative (and more engaging) literacies. I rationalized my decisions by convincing myself that my freshmen aged students would have fulfilling opportunities to creatively synthesize at higher levels of English Language Arts and that I was doing them a favor by establishing a strong foundation of basic skills but reflecting upon the experience has made me realize that I was taking the easy way out.
The Master of Arts in Educational Technology (MAET) graduate program, through Michigan State University, has helped me acquire the professional confidence necessary to venture outside of traditional educational paradigms and assert my influence within the English department in my high school. Consequently, I have been more active within my professional learning community and have been integrating technology into my classroom with greater frequency.
My first experiences in the MAET program were through a course titled Teaching for Understanding with Technology. As I understood it, the course operated under the premise that an educator cannot teach effectively with technology unless they know how to learn effectively with technology. An assignment, the Networked Learning Project, put this premise into practice; I was tasked with teaching myself a hobby while exclusively using digital sources like message forums, blogs, and YouTube videos. This assignment had a formative impact on the way that I am currently approaching my instructional practice, because the methodology used during the Networked Learning Project can be applied to learning how to implement unconventional assignments or learning how to effectively utilize an educational tool that I have no experience with. For example, I had been apprehensive about deviating from traditional education practices due to my (relatively) limited experience as a professional in my own classroom, and the misguided belief that project-based learning only worked well in Social Studies or Science classrooms. However, the technological literacy skills that I developed through the Networked Learning Project helped me stumble upon a couple of educational blogs that led me to believe that project-based learning had more utility than I had previously thought. Soon thereafter, I had the confidence to compose an implement a project-based learning opportunity in which my students created a board game that traced Odysseus’ journey from Troy back to Ithaca in Homer’s classic The Odyssey.
The Odyssey board game created several opportunities for me to, confidently, integrate technology into the classroom. First, students read the required mentor text and I sought to improve comprehension of the content by using a digital (audio) book that allowed students to listen to the material. Second, students viewed a film adaptation of The Odyssey that was shown the front of my classroom using a digital projector. Third, students were tasked with conducting independent research, using a mobile laptop cart, to learn about common tabletop gameplay mechanics. Meanwhile, I used message boards during my plan period to learn the basics of technical writing. This knowledge was then transmitted to students, who had to write out their gameplay procedures in an instruction manual. I am proud of this project-based learning opportunity, which I would not have composed without the professional confidence and technological literacy skills that I developed through the Networked Learning Project.
I took a second course during my first semester in the MAET program, which was titled Adapting Innovative Technology to Education. This course centered around Maker Education, a relatively new movement within education that focuses on problem-based and project-based learning opportunities. I have yet to figure out a truly novel to create a “maker space” into my classroom. In the Adapting Innovative Technology to Education course, I explored various ways in which a Raspberry Pi may be used in a classroom. I experimented with the possibility of pairing a USB microphone and Raspberry Pi; teachers could record their in-class lectures and upload the (MP3) audio file to the cloud, or students with limited motor skills could speak into the microphone and speech recognition software could transcribe their words. Unfortunately, opensource software related to these possibilities are a bit cumbersome to use and I do not currently have the (proprietary) resources I would need to improve functionality. That said, my instructional practice has improved because of an assignment from Adapting Innovative Technology to Education that required me to develop a rubric for evaluating creative output.
This rubric was a “game changer”. Prior to developing a worthwhile rubric for evaluating students’ creative output, I seldom composed creative assignments because I did not feel comfortable inviting a level of subjectivity to the classroom; as a relatively inexperienced teacher I was afraid to “rock the boat”. I had become the champion of the three lowest levels in Bloom’s Taxonomy: knowledge, comprehension, and application. I subjected students to a ton of guided note-taking assignments, constructed response prompts, and (practice) quizzes. Students had an easy time in my class, and I knew the bulk of assignments were easy. Then, the rubric changed the game.
Suddenly, I possessed professional confidence due to the Networked Learning Project and a creativity rubric that I could use to confidently assess synthesis-based assignments. Bloom would have been proud. I used the rubric to help evaluate parts of The Odyssey board game project. I used the rubric to evaluate parts of a “Shark Tank” assignment, in which students developed fictional good (or service) and pitched this idea to an audience of potential investors. I even used the rubric when students composed Great Gatsby character portraits that accurately conveyed their respective emotional responses when a female character became a victim of domestic abuse. The course, and its creative rubric, were instrumental to my instructional practice as I began to venture outside of traditional education paradigms.
Technology and Leadership, another course in the MAET program, has had tremendous influence on how I function in the workplace. The content of the course heavily focused on leadership styles and the importance of considering all stakeholders when planning; this course increased my professional confidence when interacting with colleagues. Prior to taking this course, I was hesitant to interject during a department meeting or to offer suggestions to coworkers. Every single inquiry led me to inquire internally:
What if my insight lacked foresight? What if I come off as incompetent?
I am still a bit ‘slow on the draw’, but I started to actively contribute to my professional learning community after taking Technology and Leadership. When an issue is brought up by a building administrator or a department head, I carefully consider all the potential stakeholders before offering up a potential solution via email. This means that I am not one of those super teachers that stands up in the middle of a meeting and shares ‘off the cuff’ wisdom (yet), but at least I am no longer a silent observer. The Technology and Leadership has given me the confidence to contribute, as I no longer fear that my suggestions are not well thought out.
My high school building as a Quality Improvement Team (QIT) that meets every other week. The QIT is an elite assembly of administrators, instructional coaches, department lead teachers, and experienced teachers who get together to discuss how our building should implement new changes from the district’s central office, logistics of proctoring standardized tests, etc… I recently applied to be become a member of this QIT and I also recently applied for a summer curriculum writing opportunity, which would allow me to extend my sphere of influence and have a formative role as the district begins to alter their practices. I believe that I the Technology and Leadership course has given me the human capital necessary to provide meaningful contributions in these positions, as well as the leadership skills to distill the information I learn to all stakeholders. I also believe that I would be a worthwhile addition to these times because of the Technology and Leadership course, as well as Adapating Innovative Technology to Education.
There is an intersection between the Technology and Leadership course and the Adapting Innovative Technology to Education in which I believe I could make an immediate positive impact within my building. I was able to smoothly and successfully set up a Raspberry Pi in my classroom as an offline reference kiosk, which students may use to clarify meaning of unfamiliar terms. This use of educational technology improves upon the age-old classroom practice of looking up unfamiliar terms in a print dictionary because: multiple databases (Webster, Oxford, etc) may be searched at the same time, word databases are more up-to-date than dictionaries that were printed years ago, typing in a term and hitting enter is much more efficient than flipping through pages of a heavy book (especially for modern day students whose tech literacies are much greater than their traditional literacy skills). I could skills acquired in Technology and Leadership to aid colleagues in adapting this innovative technology into their classroom. This use of a Raspberry Pi in a classroom has an incredible amount of utility, as discourse specific vocabulary may be found in classrooms. I have not explored the possibility in a thorough way, but I am certain that I could teach colleagues how to create their very own database that the dictionary software accesses.
I feel as if, after my first full-year of teaching in my very own classroom, I was a hollow survivor. I had been successful in most measurable metrics: I had no challenging interactions with building administrators or parents, my students had improved their reading comprehension and expanded their vocabulary (as measured by a lexile test), and I had received an effective rating in the teacher evaluation rubric. However, I did not feel like I grew over the course of the year; I almost exclusively acquired experience with timid, traditional teaching practices and was inactive within the school. Ultimately, I completed my first year of teaching without feeling as if I had agency.
I simply reacted. No ownership, no innovation, no risk taking.
The MAET graduate program fundamentally altered my perspective in the workplace. My focus has shifted from personal survival to ensuring that others survive. My goal has shifted from ‘flying under the radar’ to asserting my influence. My doubts have largely dissipated, and the void has been filled with, at the risk of being repetitive, professional confidence.