In the last week when I sat down to put my pen to paper and write this reflection letter, my mind has been a bit preoccupied. This week, in the middle of my journey to getting my Master’s Degree in Educational Technology, I found out that I have a tumor. As a person, I’m so much more than a tumor, though. I am a mother and a wife; I am a stay-at-home mom and a teacher and a learner; I am a friend and a family member; I am a technology enthusiast and someone who longs for days when social media didn’t rule the world.
My initial leap into higher education began directly after high school, as many scholars’ journeys do. I wanted to pursue theatre, emphasizing stage managing and set design. During my end-of-year evaluation, I was told that I would never be cast in anything for my college because “I wasn’t pretty enough,” and even though I never planned to act, I decided I would find a field of study where my looks wouldn’t define me or my success. I found myself following in my mother’s footsteps and digging into the world of medicine, a world that I enjoyed, but didn’t love - my passion was literature. Eventually, I landed on my feet and walked straight ahead into the world of classic literature and education.
Currently, I’m pursuing a Master’s Degree in Educational Technology so that when I return to the workforce, I can enter as a digital learning specialist or possibly jump into a new field, away from academic education. While I love the world of academia, it becomes harder and harder each day to remain full of heart for teaching English and British Literature when your classrooms are experiencing a world straight out of Fahrenheit 451 and 1984. This reflection will be broken down into 5 sections based on the modules that I've taken along the way and the lessons, skills, and practices that I've picked up and can now carry with me in my next stage of life: becoming a Digital Learning Specialist or Technology Coach.
For my first module with Dr. Ignacio Rodriguez, I was enrolled in Foundations of Educational Research and Technology Leadership; these were two of my favorite courses because they truly set me up for understanding what being a graduate student was going to be like in this program - quick deadlines, a heavy writing workload, and the imminent need for communication with my peers to complete tasks quickly and accurately. I loved that the readings were straightforward and connected with the subject matter, they prepared you for the weekly deliverables and each assignment came with a rubric so that you and your teammates knew what to expect for your grade. The classes also encouraged me to step outside of the box in my thinking and be creative about my problems and solutions, something that I had been wanting to express and work on. In these courses, I was able to research a topic of my choosing and then implement the solutions.
In my second set of modules, I had Dr. Maria Elena Corbeil, for Instructional Design and Educational Technology, which gave me further insight into something that I’ve been familiarizing myself with for a while: blended and individualized learning through the means of technological incorporation in the classroom. By using a variety of technology tools, skills can be more readily taught and learned by students who may not have had the same social upbringing or educational advantages in life. Many students no longer learn by thumbing through their textbooks and taking Cornell notes. In today’s world, students (of all ages and backgrounds), learn from short videos, having instructions read to them, simply having text in a specific color, completing steps in real-time as they learn, etc. and that kind of learning can come from a variety of places that are suitable for use in the classroom. I would like to make note that it was during Dr. Corbeil's class that I was diagnosed with and needed to have a tumor removed all while raising my young toddler, without her understanding and graciousness, I would not have been able to continue on this journey without taking a break in my studies.
In my third module, I had two very different professors, Dr. Matthew Crosslin for Student-Centered Learning and Dr. Gregorio Garcia for Foundations of Cognitive Development. I can honestly not say much about either of these courses because one course was far more taxing than the other in terms of the professor not coming to bat for the class. I mean to say that the professor was very scattered in the course design and that affected the material in such a grand manner that it bled over into my ability to remember and even learn from either course in the module. This is coming from a person who has maintained a 4.0 while raising a toddler throughout this process and being diagnosed with a tumor and needing it removed. And that is all I can say about the seven-week duration of these two classes.
In my current module, with Dr. Joseph Rene Corbeil, I am enrolled in Educational Communications and Educational Practicum. These classes have shown me that everything that I have worked for up to now has truly come together with a purpose! The pedagogy and reasons why designers choose a particular software to include in a lesson go much further beyond "it sounded good" and into "this is what the learner needed to be successful." Designing a course, for both of these classes, has been nerve-wracking, but it has also been eye-opening because it has made me think in reverse, much like my Instructional Design course did because they both utilized the ADDIE method of planning. This is much different than what I had been previously taught with a 5-E model or an "I do, we do, you do" method. These courses that I have developed are student-centered, and that makes all the difference when you are creating a quality course for learner engagement.
In my final module, my courses with Dr. Maria E. Perez, for Multimedia and Hypermedia and Theory and Practice, have been eye-opening, to say the least. I placed myself into hyper-speed for the first week of work and then my body just crashed both mentally and physically. Without my peers pushing me to complete work each week, I wouldn't have been able to do it because I've been so distracted by events going on around me. These two classes were challenging. In 6358, I created a spin-off course for students to learn about communications from the teacher PD I had created in my prior module with Dr. Corbeil, and in 6323, I created an RLO on baking a fruit cobbler. Each of these tasks challenged me for different reasons - one was creating multimedia and using new software to manipulate it and the other was being on camera and allowing myself to be vulnerable for an audience.
I know that by broadening my horizons with technology and familiarizing myself with more advanced applications, I will be a better teacher for all types of learners that I encounter in the future.