Image of My Practice

For my Image of Practice, I decided to choose a single Marvel Infinity Stone to demonstrate where I felt I was at the beginning of my SNHU journey. For those who may not know what an Infinity Stone is, let me explain simply: the infinity stones are great sources of power that grant their owner certain abilities. Throughout the Marvel movies, these stones play critical parts in the universe and have a great influence over decisions, actions, and thinking processes but multiple people. They are searched far and wide across universes so that the beholder can have an ability unlike any other. Specifically, this stone represents power; the ability to maximize your strength and energy. Similar to starting the Marvel movie phases, I see this stone as the beginning of my search for educational strength. When hearing about the different learning opportunities this program was offering, I was excited to further my skills as an educator and future practitioner. I was eager to meet other people who had this same passion and engage in educational conversations and build bridges between our levels of knowledge and experiences, like Marvel characters searched across galaxies for each other and built bridges between their worlds. I felt that through the guidance of SNHU, I was given the opportunity to take all of the tools and knowledge and to apply it to my teaching practices. Within my original Image of Practice, I spoke of wanting to create a space where my students felt comfortable. That was a single component of my classroom, simply the space. Looking at it through the lens of this single infinity stone, it was only one of the important components in the world of education. Important, nonetheless, but it was only one stone. Moving towards this program allowed me to build a capacity and stamina to uphold more than one stone. That is where I lead in to where I ended up at the end of this journey.

When reflecting on where I have traveled to and landed at the end of my SNHU journey, I decided to choose an image that represents all of the Marvel Infinity Stones. In the end of the movie series, these stones are used together to overcome evil. Without the combination of stones, Earth wouldn’t have survived and all would be lost. Throughout my educational journey, I found that without the learning strands, I would not have been able to experience what it meant to be a continuous learner, a seeker of new knowledge, and a seeker of success for my students and myself. When all the strands are brought together, like the stones, education as a whole supports each strand within. With each opportunity, I was able to engage in work that allowed me to reflect on my practice, create changes that allowed me to strengthen my thinking skills, as well as understand what it means to foster a community of lifelong learners in my classroom. Through curriculum, technology, leadership, learning and development, and assessment, I was able to harness all of the educational stones into one gauntlet that can transform the learning experiences of all future students and use that combined energy to create a lifelong learner in myself.