As a kid my dad always pressed my brother and I on the importance of education. He was always talking to me about how we needed to be better than him, be greater, do greater things. I always looked up to my dad, he was larger than life to me, worked incredibly hard and was always happy and ready to play or do anything with me if he had time. He always told my brother and I that we could be anything we wanted to be, as long as we truly wanted to do it. He would ask us if we were going to be a doctor, lawyer, or anything else we could dream of. He alo made sure that we were able to pursue our dreams by letting us choose, the only thing he would ask of us was to be our best. One of my favorite quotes of his was “you can be anything, just be the best at whatever you do, if you want to be a doctor, be the best doctor there is, if you want to be a garbage collector, then go out and be the best garbage collector anyone has ever seen, just remember to be your best.” When I was 15 my dad died in a workplace accident and I wanted to make sure that I carried his legacy of kindness and hard work on. I worked my way through college, working three jobs in the summer and 40 hours a week during the semesters with an 18 credit classload. It was exhausting but I was determined to become the first person in my family with a college degree. By the end of my bachelor's degree I had my educational goals set in place. My personal goal was to enhance my dad’s legacy, go beyond what he had ever dreamed of for me.
This is where Michigan State University (MSU) enters the picture. I never had a strong desire to become a Spartan when I was younger. As I got older though I had a close family friend who received his undergraduate degree from MSU. He and I were very close so we would go to the basketball games, he would take me on tours of the campus, and he just showed me more than what I knew existed at the time. MSU became something I had a desire to be a part of. When it came time to pick my graduate school I decided to check and see what MSU had to offer. As it turns out it was in my opinion the best career decision I could have ever made. I had made contact with a few people at the university and they had led me to the Master of Arts in Educational Technology program (MAET). I loved the idea of what Educational Technology could offer to my classroom. The ability to integrate technology and new classroom strategies not just for the current time frame but to be able to be prepared for the things that are to come, was a huge incentive for me to come to MSU.
One of the other decisions that I feel really impacted my career also came before I even began a class at MSU. The advisors suggested that I look into the hybrid courses available. The hybrid course was a combination of about 2 weeks classes at the MSU campus over the summer and those same classes continuing online for about four more weeks of the summer. I was only slightly indecisive about this idea. Part of me thought about the hour and fifteen minute drive I would make twice a day for two weeks, while having to find a place for my kids to go and then still find time for my family when I got home. I wasn’t fully sold on the idea. The advisors in the educational technology program continued to tell me how great the hybrid program was. How it would challenge me and allow me to really become a much better teacher through learning, collaboration, group discussions, and a rigorous academic curriculum. By the end of the discussion the hybrid course seemed like the perfect place for me to really become a better teacher.
I was pleasantly surprised at the experience I received at MSU. When I walked into the hybrid classroom for the first time it felt right, it felt as if I was about to become part of something great that I could never imagine. That feeling for me was perfectly correct. I was amazed with the instruction that I received in the hybrid courses. Spending about 7 hours a day working through three different classes CEP 810: Teaching for understanding with Technology, CEP 811: Adapting Innovative Technologies in Education, and CEP 812: Applying Educational Technology to Issues of Practice. I was learning more than I had anticipated. To me this was something that was going to change my life not just my career. I learned about technology, how to use it, how to make things work, how to figure things out if I did not know how, these were incredibly helpful for my classroom. I learned about how to teach, how to manage a classroom, and how to create students who have the desire to create something of their own. It was definitely rigorous and challenging but I was so excited to be learning what I was. I would go home to my wife and kids every evening excited and ready to tell them everything we did. I learned how to edit video in multiple formats, navigate online properly to find what I was looking for, and how to teach my students to do this as well. My favorite project that we discussed had to be the maker movement. The maker movement is something happening right now that has people, students, and anyone really getting their hands dirty and trying to make things on their own. Some of them are circuit boards, some are mini computers, and some are just plain old fun creations that are sometimes indescribable. As students we had the chance to explore and create our own activity. We ended up using a makey makey (a device that allows you to function a computer with objects that transfer electricity, it’s super fun you should check it out) to create a human drum kit.
Thinking back on the creation, the actual device didn’t actually affect my teaching in any way. But the way the group worked together, communicated, had an excitement about our creation, and presented with passion what we made got me thinking about my teaching. I wanted to create this same passion in my students. I spent the rest of my summer completely revamping my classroom, curriculum, and management plan. I went back to my classroom that year a new teacher, with new ideas, excited about bringing a passion for creating history to my students. The school year went very well, I had a lot of students excited to learn more and be more than just an average student. They loved the projects we did and the creativity we got to showcase. I had other teachers asking me what we were doing and where I came up with these ideas. I was incredibly proud to tell them about the MAET program at MSU. I was also excited about the following courses I would be taking to complete these classes.
The next summer I signed up for another hybrid course at MSU in the MAET program. This time my three courses: CEP 800: Learning in School and Other Settings, CEP 815: Technology and Leadership, and CEP 822: Approaches to Educational Research. These courses would take my learning in a completely new direction. Before I had learned about creating things in the classroom and how to be a better teacher. This summer I learned about the students. What motivates them, how does the human brain work, how can we get students to really care about things that they may not be interested in. This was another summer of intense learning and complex material. It was also another summer or life altering learning for me. We focused on the brain, how things work, how things affect the brain, and how motivation works. We talked a lot about what can be done to help students learn. This hybrid course was different. We focused on lot on the content and not as much on the creation, but each project we did in class helped me not only learn the content but also unique ways that helps people learn the content. 3x3x3’s were an awesome thing that I picked up. It’s trying to discuss three key points, three ways people need to understand the ideas, and all done in three minutes. These helped us bring the information into a concise learning opportunity without spending a long amount of time learning the content. It gave us more time to discuss and more time to share our own opinions and ideas.
This was a new career changing moment for me. I wanted my classroom to give students a chance to become part of the class, to become part of the discussion, really to become a historian. I again spent the rest of my summer redesigning my classroom. This time I had moved my classroom into a flipped classroom model. This is a classroom model that has the students working on the lecture material or the core content while outside of class and working on the homework and class projects in class with the teacher. One of the main reasons why I chose to do this was that during the hybrid course we were given an opportunity to attend a flipped classroom convention being held at MSU that summer. I got to hear a few speakers and talk to other teachers about the flipped classroom model. I was excited about this because it seems like the perfect fit for what I wanted to do in my classroom. The next school year brought in the flipped classroom model. It was rocky at first but by the end of the year I had students who were excited about history, not just the projects this time around but also the content. I was having conversations with my students about the causes of the Civil War, the difficulties of creating the Constitution, and many other topics.
I was starting to feel like the classroom environment was changing for me and helping the students. This was all thanks to the MAET program through MSU. I was again excited to talk to other teachers about the program. I would tell many teachers and friends that I was learning more in this graduate program that I think I had ever truly learned in any other part of my educational career. The MAET program was teaching me skills and ideas that were actually changing my thinking and behavior not only in the classroom but also in my everyday life.
The final chapter of my MAET program unfortunately took me out of the hybrid option. I could have traveled to Ireland to study abroad but I would not have been able to work that out for a summer. Instead I went with my first fully online semester. Like the other two summers, this did not disappoint. The final summer had be looking more at the teaching side of the program. Learning about how to properly assess students in CEP 813: Electronic Assessment. This class really helped bring in the idea of making sure students actually understood the material instead of thinking that they understood it. CEP 820: Teaching Students Online, is also a great opportunity for me since it helps develope an online platform for me to use with my students. By helping me find the details and effort it takes to create an online course. These classes will be incredibly beneficial for my classroom. Being able to check for student understanding and create a solid online class will help me add more into my classroom for the students.
Overall these courses have been phenomenal. I have already talked about how each summer I went back and changed my classroom not because it was something the program told me I should do. I changed my classroom because it gave me a new vision about what a classroom should look like. If you asked any of the instructors what my classroom was like I don’t think a single one of them could tell you. That’s because this program didn’t give me a template and tell me how to input my content into build a better classroom. The one thing I feel I learned most about teaching from this program is in my title. It’s not about learning, it’s about understanding. It gave a teacher, a person who had a goal and desire to make their students better, the tools necessary to build a classroom into what they, what I, believe it should be.