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All For One and One For All
All For One and One For All
Throughout this portfolio, I have discussed my goals, my achievements, my passions, and myself. In this final essay, I would like to discuss how all these things have come together throughout my time in the MAED program (Master of Arts in Education). I began this program during my year-long student teaching year in 2022. I was a young 22 year old fresh out of my undergrad with little responsibility of my own. The first few classes I took were a requirement for my degree and took little decision making. I feel as though this program did not truly begin for me until the summer of 2023. This was the first semester that I was officially enrolled into the program and planned my own courses. For the first time, I had to think long and hard about what I wanted out of this program. I grew up a lot that summer. A typical synthesis essay may consist of educational and professional changes. However, in my situation, the biggest changes I have noticed during my time in this program are life changes. The summer of 2023 was a huge summer of growth for me. I was taking asynchronous classes for the first time and learned so much about scheduling and time management. I had also never taken summer courses before so balancing the workload with summer activities was a learning curve. During that summer, I was also preparing for my first year of teaching. When I look back on that summer, I am extremely proud of the work I did and the growth I saw in myself.
As I moved into the fall semester and spring of this year, I was able to utilize those time management skills and scheduling to handle being a grad student as well as a first year teacher. During this year, I also moved into my first apartment and took on more financial responsibility. Although these things may not seem to be related to the MAED program, they all worked together to help me grow as a person, student, and educator. Along with responsibility and time management, the courses I have taken throughout this program have taught me so many wonderful things. I would like to highlight three specific courses that gave me skills and knowledge I use in my life and my career everyday. These courses are CEP 810, TE 838, and KIN 857 (please visit my annotated transcript for more course information).
The first course I would like to highlight is CEP 810: Teaching for Understanding with Technology. I took this course in the summer of 2023 and it completely opened my eyes to a new form of education. Throughout this course, I learned many new pedagogies and ways that we are integrating technology into the education system. What I loved most about this course was how it put an emphasis on understanding as well as ways to use technology. Before even diving into technology, the first unit of this course was all about learning, understanding, and misconceptions. As an educator, these things are vital to consider before beginning any lesson. When I took this class, the only teaching experience I had was student teaching. I believe that this course allowed me to enter my first year of teaching with a very mature understanding of how learners come to understand new information. This first unit also changed my thinking on the importance of misconceptions and how addressing them in the classroom is vital for student success.
As the course went on, we dove deeper into teaching with technology. We discussed TPACK which is the idea of teaching using pedagogical knowledge, content knowledge, and technological knowledge in order to create well rounded instruction. This idea feeds right into another main course concept of 21st century learning which is just the idea of utilizing everything children have access to now to better education. It is hard to say how these concepts changed the way I teach because I never really had a chance to teach before. However, I can say that these concepts are now things that I consider on a daily basis at my job. I use online sources to add to my lessons frequently and I consider the ways my students may be experiencing the world at home. Technology is here to stay so finding ways to make it an asset rather than an inconvenience in the classroom is something this class taught me to consider. Thinking about these things for myself, not only my students, is also a blessing this course gave me. Through the making of a course blog, I was able to gain useful graphic design skills. Even though I grew up with technology, I am not the most tech savvy person. Creating a course blog helped me feel more comfortable designing visually appealing, meaningful nuggets of information. These skills have helped me in my professional career with parent communication and community engagement. I am very grateful for all of the meaningful things this course taught me and will always look back on it fondly.
The next course I would like to discuss is TE 838: Children’s Literature in Film. I took this course in the summer of 2023 because it sounded like a fun course for a movie loving girl such as myself. However, from the first week I feared I had far under estimated this course. Looking back on my time in the MAED program, I can honestly say that this class was the most work but also the most rewarding. The time management skills I discussed above were mainly a result of this course. The workload was immense but when I look back, I had a lot of fun doing it. Growing up, I liked math more than literacy so I steered away from the higher level english courses. Analyzing texts was not for me and something I planned to stay away from for my whole life. However, the promise of film made this particular literature class too appealing to pass up. Each week, we were asked to read and analyze a different piece of children’s literature. If I had known I would be reading a different children’s novel and writing multiple essays every week, I never would have taken this class. However, the further into the course I got, the more fun I started having engaging with text in a new way. Not only did we read and analyze a book each week, we also watched the corresponding movie and analyzed that. Analyzing different films is what made this course really interesting. I love movies but I never looked at them in such detail before this class.
In the first week, we learned all about film elements. Similar to books, films have elements such as shot distance, angles, dialogue, landscape shots, and more. These are things I never thought about but I can’t watch a movie now without noticing them and what they add to the film. If you are interested in hearing about some film elements, I have linked an essay I wrote identifying some of these elements in the children's film Charlotte's Web. In my professional life, this course taught me how to think in depth about the books I put in front of my students. What are they learning from it, what is the message, is the writing done well. I am also now changed in the way I think about film makers as artists and creators rather than interpreters. This class was truly a gift to me because the presence of movies created a fun environment for me to engage with literature. As an educator, I am very excited to be able to truly find joy in analyzing books with my students and not just go through the motions of it like I used to. TE 838 changed the way I see both books and movies which is no small task and something I will never forget.
The last course I would like to highlight is KIN 857: Promoting Positive Youth Development Through Sport. This was the one and only course I took during the fall of 2023. As a new teacher, I knew I did not want to bite off more than I could chew with grad school and the start of the school year. Luckily, this course was a great pick because the workload was not too bad at all. I am thankful for that because I got to really engage with the course content and not be too stressed about getting the assignments done. When I began the MAED program, I had to pick a concentration area. I was torn because I knew that literacy or special education would help me more in my career, but sport coaching was where my passion lied. I decided to go with sport coaching and I am beyond grateful that I did. This was the first course that I took for this concentration that proved to myself I made the right choice. In this course, we discussed what positive youth development (PYD) is and the various elements of it. What I liked most about this class is that we discussed what makes a good youth program and how to prove that positive youth development is occurring. I enjoyed learning about the elements of PYD but being able to understand what parts of a program make it possible was a truly beneficial part of this course. I knew that sports helped me grow into the person I am today but I did not know why. I am now able to think critically about the things I would like to bring into a sports program someday. This course also gave me the skills to evaluate after school programs as well as the classroom environment to determine if they are a positive environment for youth development. In my chosen career, this will be an asset. In this course, I was also able to develop a coaching philosophy which was not something I had thought about before. I have a very strong identity as an educator that I am proud of. Although I have had little experience coaching, this course gave me the confidence and identity I need to enter a coaching role someday and know I can be a positive influence. I am eager to move into a coaching role and experiment with all of the skills I learned in this course!
In conclusion, my time in the MAED program has changed my thinking as an educator, a coach, and a person. I grew up in the general sense as well as in my professional career. I learned how to manage an immense workload while also finding time for fun which is something I find very important. I was able to develop vital skills for the classroom and anywhere else I may interact with youth. I learned so many new concepts that have become a part of my daily life that I had never even heard of before this program. TPACK, PYD, and 21st century learning are all buzzwords that would have meant nothing to me. However, I can now confidently talk about all three with true understanding and utilize them in my classroom. The thing I am most grateful for is the confidence this program gave me in myself. I completed the majority of my MAED before I began my first year of teaching. The knowledge and skills I learned were able to make me feel capable and qualified which is not a feeling many first year teachers are able to have. Likewise, I now have a strong identity as a coach and will be able to join a sports program with confidence. I am so proud of myself and the work I did during this program. I am beyond grateful for the opportunities MSU has given me and I hope you have enjoyed following my journey on this portfolio.
Image Credits:
Michigan State University by lansing.org
Michigan State University Campus Gardens by Wild Goose Inn
TPACK by tpack.org (2012)
Recreation RGB color icons set by bsd studio
Free Sports Clip Art by Jersey Ville Library
Michigan University Sign by Gretty Images
Michigan State University by appliy
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