Putting It All Together: Confessions of a MAED Student
One of my favorite quotes by a great leader named Dr. Martin Luther King once said “Life’s most persistent and urgent question is ‘What are you doing for others?” I believe everyone is eventually measured by their service to others, and teaching is one of the purest, most profound avenues for helping people. The vocation of a teacher is unique in that one is afforded the opportunity, honor, and privilege of working with young people on a daily basis. This constant interaction not only allows you to provide instruction in academic improvement and development, but also the guidance, motivation, and leadership they so desperately need not only for inside the classroom but outside as well.
Another one of my favorite quotes by a famous leader and Hall-Of-Fame football coach named Vince Lombardi said this: “I can give you the secret to success in life with just one word, ‘Heart-power’. Capture the heart first, then you will capture the mind.” That statement sums up my approach to teaching and mentoring all the people I come in contact with everyday. With that in mind, when putting together all of my experiences in Michigan State University’s MAED program, I would like to first say that no matter how much we learn more about something like different instructional strategies, or classroom management, or new technologies that are tied to learning in the classroom, it all does not make much of a difference if no there no relationship built with trust, communication, and the love for improving and helping each person become not only better students but better people. After all, another well known saying by an anonymous author says it all: “They don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.”
Over the course of the last two and a half years with the addition of my current courses, I have taken ten courses in the MAED program. One of these course that I took in the spring 2013 was called TE 848: Accommodating Differences in Literacy Learners. In all honesty at first I only took this course because it was a requirement in order to apply for a Professional Teacher’s Certificate in the State of Michigan with newly changed rules affecting licensure. Having had experience as a secondary social studies teacher with high school and the middle school grades, I really did not see how relevant learning how to accommodate students in reading at those levels because by that time almost all students have acquired the necessary skills in reading. I figured this course suited the elementary level teachers more. However, I was quick to realize once we started the course that there was a lot more I could do to enhance and improve how secondary level students read and understand what they are reading in the context they are supposed to be reading it in. Furthermore, the course also reaffirmed and re-energized the importance of literacy instruction in terms of teaching the social studies with strategies and emphasizing teaching students to be able to teach themselves what to look for when analyzing the varying literacy they can come across in social studies class, such as narrative vs expository, primary vs secondary source etc. In this course, I learned about the factors that influence literacy instruction, including developmental processes and assessment strategies that help to shape instruction. I also learned a variety of ways to differentiate instruction to support all children, no matter their learning ability.
One of the greatest advantages in this course was creating a case study where we worked one-on-one with an individual. I learned how to carefully look at the abilities of individual students to provide accommodations to support his/her needs and create lessons which included these accommodations. By being reflective, I was able to analyze the effectiveness of the lessons I created and to modify them when needed in order to have an effective education plan. This is an important skill for all educators. I found that perseverance and patience could help me to accomplish what I had previously thought I couldn't.
Another course that had particular impact on my learning in the MAED program was CEP 802: Developing Positive Attitudes Toward Learning. . As stated earlier, other than provide academic instruction, I feel it is vital that I guide, motivate, and lead each student toward goals both in and out of the classroom, and developing both a positive attitude and effort is crucial in meeting those goals . This course gave me methods to increase student motivation and to foster positive social student behavior. One of the most influential model was present in the formula to motivate students stated as “motivation = expectation x value x climate”. This meaning that all three components have to be present to ensure one stays motivated enough to have both a positive attitude and put through the effort needed to improve. This formula reaffirmed what I have already experience in my teaching and coaching career. Expectations must be communicated clearly to the students before semester, project, task, etc. Also it is also crucial that the value of what they are doing/learning is beneficial for them in whatever form it should be. Last, the climate created and controlled by me as a teacher should also be conducive to learning and be able to adapt and fit different learning styles and personalities that a classroom can entail.
One of the greatest advantages in this course was when we created a final design project of a student who showed no motivation toward learning and put together strategies based off what we had learned in the class and applied them to the student. In my case of motivating “Sandbagging Sam”, I had to address Sam’s high abilities to perform at a high level in class although he showed a complete disregard for participating in class and cooperating in class activities. Using the TARGET framework, I decided to design a cognitive approach to motivate Sam. I decided to focus on improving Sam’s connection of abilities and self-worth by combining both learning goals and performance goals as tied together with social acceptance by providing a safe, supportive, and caring environment that promotes seeing effort as a positive thing that will help Sam in the long run and benefit him. Instead of exhibiting lack of effort and participation and using procrastination, I can encourage that Sam can enhance his social image. This intervention with Sam is expected to improve his outlook and approach to the learning process and furthermore his scholastic career for the future.
When looking back at the courses I have took in this program, it is apparent to me that I should include a current course I am taking to one that has made a profound impact on me so far and that is CEP 800: Psychology of Learning in School and Other Settings. When adding this course to my planned courses I wasn’t sure what to expect. As soon as we received a syllabus I learned that we would be creating and submitting technology projects in the form of a podcast and creating a movie, two things in which I had never done before and quite frankly, was a little intimidating considering my lack of experience. This all changed however when going through the nuts and bolts of the projects and learning that even though it was hard at the beginning, creating such projects like a podcast only added to my own self-confidence while also teaching me that I could try to do something out of my own comfort zone and be able to exceed even my own expectations. This helped me tremendously when we had to create a visual storytelling project through making a video and publishing it on YouTube. After having experienced these two technology projects that connected to learning, I was fully prepared to think, plan, and create the culminating project for the course which was to create a lesson teaching a difficult concept for learners with using a type technology as a main part of achieving the goals. Having learned about how learners learn and how to use technology to assist and create a learning atmosphere, I was more than excited to introduce a video analysis software application named Ubersense in order to teach high school students how to properly perform an exercise called the hang clean. Understanding what I wanted to be learned and the role that technology played in how I wanted knowledge and information to be displayed and applied to each student was a key element in this project. I am so thankful that I was able to take this course as it had one of the most impacts on my MAED program.
To wrap up this total learning experience and put all the pieces together, another course that has exceeded my expectations and really made an impact was the second of the last pair of classes named ED 870: Capstone Seminar. In this course we created a website that exhibited our professional portfolio of all the experiences and shows our profile of us as graduates of the MAED program at Michigan State University. Again, like CEP 800, I was very uncomfortable at first knowing that I had to reach outside my comfort zone and build a website in which I had no previous experience or attempts of doing before. It seemed like a daunting task at the time which has proved otherwise through the easy progression how the instructors and designers of the course mapped out the progress of creating our web portfolio. This step-by-step analysis was a blessing because it allowed myself to rethink each part of the portfolio and reflect and gather how each of my courses and content that I learned and experienced built a path toward my future goals. Not only have I learned how to create a website, but more importantly I have been able to reflect and plan for my future ahead as both an educator and learner. While learning how to create a website that shows our work for future employers, colleagues, friends, and students was important and worthwhile, I believe that the journey that culminated into thinking about my own learning, experiences, and practice as both an educator and and learner was the real reward gained in creating this professional portfolio website. Displaying this journey was special, but the direction and guidance gained for my own professional development was the ultimate bonus.
Another one of my favorite quotes by a famous leader and Hall-Of-Fame football coach named Vince Lombardi said this: “I can give you the secret to success in life with just one word, ‘Heart-power’. Capture the heart first, then you will capture the mind.” That statement sums up my approach to teaching and mentoring all the people I come in contact with everyday. With that in mind, when putting together all of my experiences in Michigan State University’s MAED program, I would like to first say that no matter how much we learn more about something like different instructional strategies, or classroom management, or new technologies that are tied to learning in the classroom, it all does not make much of a difference if no there no relationship built with trust, communication, and the love for improving and helping each person become not only better students but better people. After all, another well known saying by an anonymous author says it all: “They don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.”
Over the course of the last two and a half years with the addition of my current courses, I have taken ten courses in the MAED program. One of these course that I took in the spring 2013 was called TE 848: Accommodating Differences in Literacy Learners. In all honesty at first I only took this course because it was a requirement in order to apply for a Professional Teacher’s Certificate in the State of Michigan with newly changed rules affecting licensure. Having had experience as a secondary social studies teacher with high school and the middle school grades, I really did not see how relevant learning how to accommodate students in reading at those levels because by that time almost all students have acquired the necessary skills in reading. I figured this course suited the elementary level teachers more. However, I was quick to realize once we started the course that there was a lot more I could do to enhance and improve how secondary level students read and understand what they are reading in the context they are supposed to be reading it in. Furthermore, the course also reaffirmed and re-energized the importance of literacy instruction in terms of teaching the social studies with strategies and emphasizing teaching students to be able to teach themselves what to look for when analyzing the varying literacy they can come across in social studies class, such as narrative vs expository, primary vs secondary source etc. In this course, I learned about the factors that influence literacy instruction, including developmental processes and assessment strategies that help to shape instruction. I also learned a variety of ways to differentiate instruction to support all children, no matter their learning ability.
One of the greatest advantages in this course was creating a case study where we worked one-on-one with an individual. I learned how to carefully look at the abilities of individual students to provide accommodations to support his/her needs and create lessons which included these accommodations. By being reflective, I was able to analyze the effectiveness of the lessons I created and to modify them when needed in order to have an effective education plan. This is an important skill for all educators. I found that perseverance and patience could help me to accomplish what I had previously thought I couldn't.
Another course that had particular impact on my learning in the MAED program was CEP 802: Developing Positive Attitudes Toward Learning. . As stated earlier, other than provide academic instruction, I feel it is vital that I guide, motivate, and lead each student toward goals both in and out of the classroom, and developing both a positive attitude and effort is crucial in meeting those goals . This course gave me methods to increase student motivation and to foster positive social student behavior. One of the most influential model was present in the formula to motivate students stated as “motivation = expectation x value x climate”. This meaning that all three components have to be present to ensure one stays motivated enough to have both a positive attitude and put through the effort needed to improve. This formula reaffirmed what I have already experience in my teaching and coaching career. Expectations must be communicated clearly to the students before semester, project, task, etc. Also it is also crucial that the value of what they are doing/learning is beneficial for them in whatever form it should be. Last, the climate created and controlled by me as a teacher should also be conducive to learning and be able to adapt and fit different learning styles and personalities that a classroom can entail.
One of the greatest advantages in this course was when we created a final design project of a student who showed no motivation toward learning and put together strategies based off what we had learned in the class and applied them to the student. In my case of motivating “Sandbagging Sam”, I had to address Sam’s high abilities to perform at a high level in class although he showed a complete disregard for participating in class and cooperating in class activities. Using the TARGET framework, I decided to design a cognitive approach to motivate Sam. I decided to focus on improving Sam’s connection of abilities and self-worth by combining both learning goals and performance goals as tied together with social acceptance by providing a safe, supportive, and caring environment that promotes seeing effort as a positive thing that will help Sam in the long run and benefit him. Instead of exhibiting lack of effort and participation and using procrastination, I can encourage that Sam can enhance his social image. This intervention with Sam is expected to improve his outlook and approach to the learning process and furthermore his scholastic career for the future.
When looking back at the courses I have took in this program, it is apparent to me that I should include a current course I am taking to one that has made a profound impact on me so far and that is CEP 800: Psychology of Learning in School and Other Settings. When adding this course to my planned courses I wasn’t sure what to expect. As soon as we received a syllabus I learned that we would be creating and submitting technology projects in the form of a podcast and creating a movie, two things in which I had never done before and quite frankly, was a little intimidating considering my lack of experience. This all changed however when going through the nuts and bolts of the projects and learning that even though it was hard at the beginning, creating such projects like a podcast only added to my own self-confidence while also teaching me that I could try to do something out of my own comfort zone and be able to exceed even my own expectations. This helped me tremendously when we had to create a visual storytelling project through making a video and publishing it on YouTube. After having experienced these two technology projects that connected to learning, I was fully prepared to think, plan, and create the culminating project for the course which was to create a lesson teaching a difficult concept for learners with using a type technology as a main part of achieving the goals. Having learned about how learners learn and how to use technology to assist and create a learning atmosphere, I was more than excited to introduce a video analysis software application named Ubersense in order to teach high school students how to properly perform an exercise called the hang clean. Understanding what I wanted to be learned and the role that technology played in how I wanted knowledge and information to be displayed and applied to each student was a key element in this project. I am so thankful that I was able to take this course as it had one of the most impacts on my MAED program.
To wrap up this total learning experience and put all the pieces together, another course that has exceeded my expectations and really made an impact was the second of the last pair of classes named ED 870: Capstone Seminar. In this course we created a website that exhibited our professional portfolio of all the experiences and shows our profile of us as graduates of the MAED program at Michigan State University. Again, like CEP 800, I was very uncomfortable at first knowing that I had to reach outside my comfort zone and build a website in which I had no previous experience or attempts of doing before. It seemed like a daunting task at the time which has proved otherwise through the easy progression how the instructors and designers of the course mapped out the progress of creating our web portfolio. This step-by-step analysis was a blessing because it allowed myself to rethink each part of the portfolio and reflect and gather how each of my courses and content that I learned and experienced built a path toward my future goals. Not only have I learned how to create a website, but more importantly I have been able to reflect and plan for my future ahead as both an educator and learner. While learning how to create a website that shows our work for future employers, colleagues, friends, and students was important and worthwhile, I believe that the journey that culminated into thinking about my own learning, experiences, and practice as both an educator and and learner was the real reward gained in creating this professional portfolio website. Displaying this journey was special, but the direction and guidance gained for my own professional development was the ultimate bonus.