My Journey Continues...
My Past Journey…
As far back as I can remember I have always wanted to be a teacher. In school I was lucky enough to have a plethora of amazing teachers to learn from and look up to and I wanted to be that for someone else. As I entered college my friends were struggling to choose what they wanted to be but for me, choosing my major was the easiest, most natural decision I had ever made. Being a teacher to me is so much more than standing in front of a classroom full of students and giving lectures, I’m not only a teacher but a mentor, role model, support system and friend.
After graduating from Michigan State University (MSU) in 2011, I enrolled in the teaching internship program through the College of Education in order to get my teaching license. That year was one of the most difficult yet rewarding years of my life. I was lucky enough to have not only one but two amazing mentor teachers to learn from and get that real-life classroom experience I needed. During the internship I was a student as well. I participated in multiple courses at MSU every few weeks where I would meet with other interns and discuss what we were experiencing in the classroom. This program is award winning for a reason; I never thought I would walk into my first year of teaching feeling as confident and prepared as I did. Most people say that the first year of teaching is the most stressful year of your life but, I disagree. My experience my first year was nothing but positive thanks to the preparation I got during that year.
Upon completion of my internship year, I decided to go outside of my comfort zone and do what I have always wanted to do, move to France. I applied to the Teaching Assistant Program in France (TAPIF) and was accepted to teach English in the small town of Cavaillon in the south of France. This program changed my life in the most impactful way. I moved across the world without knowing a soul on the other side. My first week was spent exploring my new city, struggling to find a place to live and making new lifelong friends. While it was very exciting it was also one of the hardest weeks of my life. That first week really changed me into a much more independent and driven person because I knew if I could overcome those hardships I could overcome anything that came at me after that.
During my time in France I was an assistant in numerous high school English classes. The main part of my job was to engage my students in conversations in English about a variety of topics including politics, immigration and culture. During my time at the school I was impressed time and again by one of the English teachers who flawlessly incorporated technology into her classes to teach English. One of my favorite things she did was have her students create a blog that was shared with the entire class as well as their families. In this blog they would post the majority of their written assignments and receive feedback from their classmates on their posts, creating an online community. I asked the students what they thought about this method and the majority of them were in full support of this type of classroom atmosphere. They loved that they could go back and see how far their English had come from the beginning of the course to the present. This inspired me to do the same in my classroom in the future and really got me excited about incorporating technology into my teaching.
My Present Journey...
Education has been such a big part of my life and once I was finished I couldn’t quite imagine actually being finished so in the Fall of 2012 I decided to apply and enroll in my first Master’s class to continue on with my education. When I was deciding what route to go, the Educational Technology specialization stuck out in my mind. I wanted to choose a focus that wasn’t directly connected to what I teach but rather a focus more on general education. When I thought about what would most benefit my students in this increasingly technological world we live in, the choice was simple. Our students these days spend so much of their time interacting with technology and instead of battling against that I decided to use it to my advantage. Signing up for the Master’s in Educational Technology program has really changed the way I view what teaching should look like and I’m thrilled with the changes I’ve already made.
My first Master’s class I ever took in the fall of 2012 was Teaching for Understanding with Technology (CEP 810). I’m not going to lie, I was very nervous when I first enrolled that I wouldn’t be tech savvy enough to keep up. Luckily, the course was laid out for even the most inexperienced student to be successful. Our professors gave us the space to be creative without the fear of failure, which only cemented my decision to go with the MAET program. The first thing we explored was our Personal Learning Network (PLN). I never thought about how many different people, programs and resources I have used to get where I am now. At the beginning of the course we created our first personal learning network that showcased who and what we have learned from and continue to learn from in our education. At the end of the course we created a second more improved personal learning network and the differences were shocking. Throughout the progression of the course my PLN grew by leaps and bounds and I added numerous resources that I hadn’t even thought of before. It was so interesting for me to see how many great resources I have available to me online and really opened my eyes to the power of technology.
“Reproduced by permission of the publisher, © 2012 by tpack.org”
CEP 810 also provided me with the basic ideas and theories behind the effective use of technology in the modern classroom. One of the most important things I learned about was the Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) framework. Learning about this framework provided me with the knowledge necessary to successfully integrate technology into my classroom in the most effective way possible. This design consists of three forms of knowledge, Technological Knowledge, Pedagogical Knowledge and Content Knowledge and the cohesive use of all three in teaching. Adding technology into a lesson just to add technology won’t increase our students’ understanding. Instead we need to add technology to enhance the content and pedagogy we are using in the lesson to make it most effective. In our readings we were provided with a diagram showing the basics of the TPACK framework that really helped me to understand the concept. There are many different overlapping parts to the diagram, for example you could have a lesson that focuses on the technological and content knowledge but is lacking in the pedagogy or you could focus on content and pedagogy but be missing the technology aspect. The sweet spot is right in the middle where you are incorporating all three into your lessons. After learning about this I found myself using it as I was planning my lessons and making sure that I was hitting all three topics as best as I could for my students.
In the summer of 2014, I took CEP 820 - Teaching Students Online which gave me my first taste of the flipped classroom model and I immediately felt gravitated towards it. I had never heard of this concept prior to taking this course so the idea seemed a little impossible when I read our first article on the subject. The basis behind the flipped classroom model is to take the lectures we would normally do in class, converting them to videos and assigning them as homework for the students. Then with that extra in class time no longer devoted to lectures we would do the practice and homework when the students have their teacher there as an aid.
As we read, this concept has many pros and cons but in my opinion the pros outweigh the cons. One pro is that by not wasting our valuable class time having the students take notes we can really delve into the topics and practice them together. As a foreign language teacher I believe this would be perfect for my classroom. In order to really learn another language you need to use it and by having that extra time to speak together my students’ language skills would improve by leaps and bounds. Another pro is that my students who struggle with understanding a new concept can have that extra time at home to re-watch the lecture and let the information sink in. Incorporating the flipped classroom model also provides that extra class time for Project Based Learning (PBL), where students learn by doing. PBL is another concept I learned about during my MAET experience that encourages students to use what they learn in class in a real life situation that has the capacity to engage our students. My biggest concern when it comes to flipped learning is my students’ access to technology at home. The school I am currently teaching at is in a high poverty zone so I worry that my students won’t have the ability to watch the lectures for homework and would thus come to class unprepared. Although there are benefits and setbacks to the flipped classroom I think that it has the capability of changing my students’ understanding for the better.
At the end of my Master’s in Educational Technology journey I took the Capstone in Educational Technology (CEP 807) course. This course provided me the much-needed opportunity to reflect on not only everything that I had experienced during the program but also where I see myself headed in the future. For my portfolio I created my very own website that showcased everything I learned and still have yet to learn in the future. As I looked at my previous goals it was crazy to see how far I’d come in accomplishing those goals throughout my time in the program. Going back through my time in the program and remembering everything I learned in each class was so beneficial for my growth as a teacher. I could see how naïve I was at the beginning of this program about my technology skills; I had no idea how much I was about to learn! After reflecting on my past, I was prompted to reflect on what my future goals would be now that I was nearing graduation. The main thing I realized when I was coming up with my goals is that even though my time with MAET is coming to end I will never stop learning. CEP 807 was the perfect ending to my time with the MAET community.
My Future Journey...
As I think about what I want my classroom to look like in the future I see that a lot of what I think is important and necessary comes from what I’ve learned in my Master’s classes. Technology has the power to engage our students and thus it will be playing an important part in my classroom. I see my classroom as being fully immersed flipped classroom where my students learn at home and practice in school. I can’t wait to try this new idea out in real life but it will definitely need to be a gradual change to get both my students and myself acclimated to this new way of learning. Hopefully within the next few years I will have my dream classroom.
When I reflect back on my journey throughout the past 3 years I am amazed with how far I have come. Although I realize how far I have come, the more important thing that this program has given me is the vision of how much more of my journey still lies ahead. Pedagogy, technology and most importantly, the students, are always changing so I need to be prepared to change as well to make sure I am meeting their needs. As I move on in my career my biggest goal for the future to is remain a lifelong learner and not being afraid to try something new.