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I have never been good at living in the moment.  I have always been the kind of person who sets a goal, makes a plan, and executes it.  I get so focused on making it to the end that I often forget to appreciate and discover the means of getting there. 

 

When I started working on my Master of Arts in Education (MAED) at Michigan State University (MSU), the journey started out as another bullet point on my lengthy “Life To-Do List.”  I had just moved back to Michigan from Phoenix, Arizona, and I knew this would be the best time to get the ball rolling and achieve a degree.

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After earning my teaching certificate and landing a position as a public-school teacher, I knew the next step I had to take. MSU is a top-ranking school for education and I was determined to get into the Master’s program.  I am always looking for a challenge, and school has always been my strong suit, so I wanted to push myself and I knew MSU would deliver.  I was concerned about the courses being fully online. At the time, I knew I would be challenged, because I didn’t consider myself the most technologically inclined and I thrive in group settings, not on my own.  I was fearful that I would not learn as well in an online setting, because I enjoy working and learning from others. 

 

When determining the perfect degree to pursue I was hesitant because I was never pulled in any certain direction, but I have always known that I wanted to be a leader. After diving into the different degrees, I could pursue I was drawn towards a program that would enhance my professional practice of advanced professional knowledge related to teaching, learning and leadership. Within the program, I also chose to concentrate on P-12 school leadership. During this time, I have transformed into a teacher leader and I look forward to possibly moving into an administration role to have a greater impact on more students someday.

 

My work within the program began in the summer term of 2014 with the introductory course each student in the Master of Arts in Education program must take: ED 800: Educational Inquiry. I remember my eagerness to begin this course, as well as the learning curve it took to get used to a program based entirely online. While the online program was my first choice for many reasons (the first of which was that it provided me with the flexibility to work at my own pace), I was unfamiliar with the course management system, as well as how to manage my time. ED 800 is an entirely student-paced class, meaning that the eight modules could be completed at any point throughout the semester, as long as they were all submitted by the course end date. This was definitely a struggle for me, and I can honestly say that above anything else, ED 800 provided me with a safe environment (as I was taking the class “independently”) to get my feet back into the educational realm. Despite taking some time to get adjusted, I thoroughly enjoyed investigating the different theories and methods for participating in inquiry. My favorite professor was Steven Weiland, as his beliefs on psychology and learning resonated profoundly with my school’s philosophies, which I have adopted into my own practice. Weiland believes that one curriculum does not suit all students, and that the goal of an education should be to create deep thinkers and problem solvers, who are both knowledgeable and passionate about world issues. As an educator, I believe in differentiation and student choice, and that there is no “one size fits all” pathway when it comes to life. With Weiland’s ideals in my toolbox, I felt I had a stronger theory in what I believed I should provide to my students, and with my first class completed, I also felt more prepared to tackle the structure and rigor of my next master’s courses. 

 

My absolute favorite semester fall 2016. This term I took the class CEP 816: Technology, Teaching, and Learning Across the Curriculum, which was an extension of TE 831 (Teaching Subject Matter with Technology) in that we surveyed a wide variety of digital tools and programs and their uses in the classroom. Through an exceptional resource (Will Richardson’s Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms), I learned that social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook have their place in a school setting, as well as how to effectively incorporate webpages and blogs into classroom culture - something I plan on implementing this coming year by having my students develop and cultivate online portfolios to document their time in second grade. CEP 816 helped me acquire the ability to select and implement new technology tools and texts are vital to the success of lessons. The focus must be on the needs of the students and how I can enhance lessons by building on the experience and knowledge I already have. This course has allowed me to experiment with numerous tools and understand the concept of new media within the changing world we live. The hands on, practical manner in which this course was organized has allowed me to experience how media texts and tools can ultimately benefit my teaching and strengthen student learning. In this class we began by talking about cognitive load. The culminating project known as The Dream Project was to redesign a unit using New Media Technology Tools (NMTT)  that would help to reduce cognitive load. New media technologies that I used included YouTube, Diigo, Popplet, pod-o-matic, Google Docs, and Google Classroom. These NMTT not only help to reduce the cognitive load that students feel in my classroom, but also provide them with a variety of ways to organize their ideas, collaborate with others in the classroom and online, and to express their own ideas.

 

Along with CEP 816 during fall 2016, I took EAD 822 focusing on Diverse Students and Families. During this course, I used a variety of books and articles to discover the complexity of the backgrounds of our students.  I was able to break down the notions of culture, race, gender and religion and discover not only their impact on my students but also how my own experiences and opinions have shaped who I am, who my students see me as, and how I approach the diverse students that I have.  This course forced me to shift my thinking in terms of working with diverse students.  One of the primary projects in the course was a group project in which we created a webpage and a presentation based around a case study focusing on oppression. I enjoyed collaborating with others and created a joint project.  The other major project that I completed for this class was a case study analysis of my own in which I used my observations of marginalization of black students in the classroom. 

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The spring of 2017 presented me with one of my most exciting courses, as it was related to my content area and focused on a term-long literacy case study. TE 846: Accommodating Differences in Literacy Learners is a required course for all educators seeking to renew their teaching certificate. As an elementary teacher, it was quite easy to determine a topic for my case study that was relevant to me. I was able to research various approaches and techniques for literacy instruction. Then, using what I learned, I engaged in a case study with a first grader. This student was struggling with literacy.  By using a variety of instructional approaches at varying levels of understanding I gained valuable insight about how to isolate reading skills within the context of daily instruction, and how to scaffold instructional supports accordingly in order to meet the needs of each student. At the end of my study, I saw large growth in student achievement in both oral reading and reading comprehension based upon a variety of diagnostic, formative, and summative assessments used before, during and after instruction.  

 

I also took what I found to be the most relevant class for my goal of becoming a teacher leader, EAD 801: Leadership & Organizational Development. This was a course designed to define leadership and what it means to be a leader within context. Within this course, I gained new understandings of myself as a leader, of the leaders and leadership actions around me. I also learned how to link leadership to valued organizational goals and processes

of an organization. During the time in this class we focused on ways in

which organizations develop and change or need to develop. We also paid

attention to the roles of leaders and all organization members in processes

of organizational development and change. This completely changed my

idea of what leadership is and made me excited to step up as a teacher

leader within my school.

 

This is just a glimpse of the work I created and what I have learned during

my time at Michigan State University. As I reflected on my experiences in

the MAED program through this capstone course, I have been pleasantly

reminded of the hectic but rewarding time I have devoted to further my

education. I don’t intend to stop learning in the moment.  The MAED taught me more about educational research and the technology classes I took opened up an endless world of resources and continued learning.  I haven’t added anything else to my “Life To-Do List” just yet, but I’m sure I’ll find something to set my gaze on.  However, my next endeavor will be different.  Not only will I be learning in the moment, I’m determined to be living in it too.