When I was in the third grade I went to a very small rural school in mid-Michigan. We had one class of each grade and there were so few students that my third grade class was blended with the fourth grade. Since it was the Nineties and teacher shortages weren’t quite a thing, we still had two teachers for maybe thirty-five kids. I was bored. I’d been moved into the fourth grade reading course but there were few resources then for advanced learners. I was so bored I started watching my teachers and could not fathom why anyone would ever want to teach! It seemed terrible. When I expressed this during one frustrating afternoon in class, I ended up getting in trouble and my Mom got a phone call. While my teacher probably couldn’t recall this incident, my Mom certainly remembers and enjoys reminding me every time I get frustrated with my own students.
Being in education, it is always interesting to hear what led others into the profession. For me, it was a really great social studies teacher I had in high school. Liking history wasn’t an issue for me, but she made it seem like a teacher could be dynamic. A teacher could be crazy smart, still get their knowledge across in an interesting way, and make us feel excited to learn. They could be sarcastic and funny and show us it was important to care about the world. The journey to obtain my own undergraduate degree in social studies education was an incredible learning opportunity. In 2012, I was launched into the profession, ended up substitute teaching a few years, and then landed a job in Detroit, MI. That easygoing, effortless looking teaching I’d learned and tried to emulate did not work out for me in a district that was having a bit of a crisis-year and with classes of 40+ young faces. If I hadn’t worked with a strong team of women who mentored me, I don’t think I’d have made it to my second year.
Going into my second year of teaching I decided to formulate a way to be the teacher I actually am, not the teacher people think I should be. Working in Detroit, I know others look on me as being ‘soft’. However, my MSU undergraduate training, as well as my own conviction, tells me that the way to reach students is by building a classroom community where students feel valued, safe, and free to learn. If this means I’m soft...I’m soft. However, a classroom community that offers these traits must be properly managed and all in the room must be respected. During that second year I decided further training was in order. In the world we now live in, one thing that I believe is necessary for equitable education is the one thing my classroom probably lacks the most- technology. From there it was a simple decision to attend the best university in the USA, and return to Michigan State for my Master of Arts in Educational Technology.
The past year has been a roller coaster of new learning and new thinking. The very first course I took was CEP 810- Teaching for Understanding with Technology. This course was described in my Transcript as a thorough introduction to educational technology. Here, I first heard that I didn’t really need technology to teach well. (What?!) Rather, it was important to use the content knowledge and pedagogical knowledge that teachers have acquired to decide which technology to use. Technology was more than a computer or a tablet. Sometimes you may come to the realization that you don’t need to use technology at all. In my own classroom the barrier I often have to overcome is how can I use technology to teach without actually having good technology. In the MAET program, we have been exposed to so many exemplars of educational technology, this makes it easier for me to come to a decision. For vocabulary review I can use Quizlet to create flashcards and students can play games to practice their words. I can use my two working computers to create a station for students and they can rotate through a variety of activities. Students are divided into collaborative groups, each with an assigned role, when we complete a mapping activity or online research project. In this way, one laptop can be used by four students. They take turns in each role and are exposed to necessary digital literacy skills, and I need to check out a quarter of the laptops I would need otherwise.
In CEP 810, we also learned about the importance of our professional learning community. PLC was an acronym thrown around at school and I’d little considered that my own PLC was quite large. Just prior to starting this program, I’d begun collaborating with teachers at my own school, across the district, and across the state. Through the GIS Resources and Applications for Career Education (GRACE) project I was able to learn how to teach about Geographic Information Systems cooperatively with teachers across Michigan. We met in an Adobe classroom once every two weeks to discuss our progress and share what we were working on in our own classrooms. In 2017, I joined a program with Central Michigan University that is working to create mentors for early career social studies educators to try and improve teacher retention rates. We had two institutes over the summer of 2017 and meet monthly to learn and practice our teaching and mentoring skills. In both of these programs, I’ve had the privilege of meeting teachers from across the state and engaging in meaningful dialogue all with the intention of growing as an educator. These are just two opportunities, of many, and they are in addition to the invaluable collaboration and communication I’ve had with peers in my MAET courses.
CEP 820- Teaching Students Online, was a course I had written off in my own mind, since I knew technology was limited in my classroom. However, a lesson I did not expect to encounter again is how teaching really doesn’t have to be boring and that technology is one way to overcome this. As a first year teacher when I brought out the seemingly fifty year old netbooks to play Kahoot students basically lost it. Students that didn’t act like they cared at all suddenly were begging for a netbook to participate even though it took us twenty minutes to get the things up and running. CEP 820 taught me that using tools like Kahoot are a great way to engage students, but part of the work for teachers to to ensure that meaningful learning goals are tied to online activities. Using the ISTE Standards for Students, we learned to create tasks that encouraged students to lead and guide their own learning, rather than the teacher being the sage on the stage. The reason I think I thought teaching was so boring was because this is all that I saw- direct instruction, worksheets, tests. While I’d tried to improve upon the model in my own career, CEP 820 provided practical ways to improve my own teaching with technology, and then made me do it.
In addition to technology being a way to engage students in their learning, CEP 820 also showed me the important role technology can play in differentiation. While I’d heard of ‘flipping’ a classroom in my earlier courses, it was in CEP 820 where we actually tried it for the first time. Flipped classrooms flip the script on the traditional method of learning in class, then going home and doing homework by making the homework the learning. When students are learning at home, classroom time is saved for practice and troubleshooting struggles students encounter. In the website I created on Weebly, I made a mini unit on Latin American geography. I aimed at including lessons I would not be able to teach in the classroom. By using screen capturing software, I was able to make videos helping students walk through the activities. Using these videos, students would be able to go back and watch my video as many times as needed to understand the directions. In the classroom, I would potentially not have a very positive reaction to repeating myself so many times. Students with a language barrier could watch the video or read through directions as many times as needed to help with their understanding. Teaching online is a way to ensure that students of all levels, backgrounds, and learning styles have an equal opportunity to understand the learning goals of any lesson.
CEP 820- Teaching Students Online, was a course I had written off in my own mind, since I knew technology was limited in my classroom. However, a lesson I did not expect to encounter again is how teaching really doesn’t have to be boring and that technology is one way to overcome this. As a first year teacher when I brought out the seemingly fifty year old netbooks to play Kahoot students basically lost it. Students that didn’t act like they cared at all suddenly were begging for a netbook to participate even though it took us twenty minutes to get the things up and running. CEP 820 taught me that using tools like Kahoot are a great way to engage students, but part of the work for teachers to to ensure that meaningful learning goals are tied to online activities. Using the ISTE Standards for Students, we learned to create tasks that encouraged students to lead and guide their own learning, rather than the teacher being the sage on the stage. The reason I think I thought teaching was so boring was because this is all that I saw- direct instruction, worksheets, tests. While I’d tried to improve upon the model in my own career, CEP 820 provided practical ways to improve my own teaching with technology, and then made me do it.
In addition to technology being a way to engage students in their learning, CEP 820 also showed me the important role technology can play in differentiation. While I’d heard of ‘flipping’ a classroom in my earlier courses, it was in CEP 820 where we actually tried it for the first time. Flipped classrooms flip the script on the traditional method of learning in class, then going home and doing homework by making the homework the learning. When students are learning at home, classroom time is saved for practice and troubleshooting struggles students encounter. In the website I created on Weebly, I made a mini unit on Latin American geography. I aimed at including lessons I would not be able to teach in the classroom. By using screen capturing software, I was able to make videos helping students walk through the activities. Using these videos, students would be able to go back and watch my video as many times as needed to understand the directions. In the classroom, I would potentially not have a very positive reaction to repeating myself so many times. Students with a language barrier could watch the video or read through directions as many times as needed to help with their understanding. Teaching online is a way to ensure that students of all levels, backgrounds, and learning styles have an equal opportunity to understand the learning goals of any lesson.
CEP 800- Psychology of Learning in School and other Settings focused on the psychological theory behind education and the way we teach and learn. I thought of this as my “back to basics” course since it brought back all I’d studied as an undergraduate student (and some that I’d forgotten). Surprisingly, CEP 800 made me really think about what it means to be a teacher of middle school students. Looking back on all I’d learned about developmental stages children go through until they reach adulthood was useful in understanding how to teach them. According to Piaget, my students fall somewhere between the Concrete Operational Stage and the Formal Operational Stage. In my own career I went from teaching ninth grade in my internship, to eighth graders, to sixth graders. Sometimes I have to consciously remember that they’re ten to eleven year olds and not always fully capable of the more abstract thinking I ask them to do. I don’t want to underestimate them, by any means, but overestimating them could cause students to lose confidence. Combining the readings of Piaget with works by Vygotsky reminded me of the importance of social learning and the role culture plays in development. Through group work can be frustrating for teachers and students, it is important to work and grow collaboratively. Despite criticisms I’ve received, I have become insistent on celebrating the controlled chaos of collaborative work and ensuring that my students are prepared to work well when they work together. A large focus of geography is on how humans have worked together to adapt the environment to their use (for better or worse) and mirroring cooperation in my classroom is critical.
Over the course of the MAET program, I learned what educational technology is, how to make my teaching engaging, and how it is important to teach to my students. These are lessons that have propelled to be become a better teacher today, and lessons I will take with me as a continue down my own educational journey. The combination of my current experience, coupled with the courses I have taken as a part of the MAET program, have turned me into a more conscientious educator. I have always held the conviction that equitable education is a social justice issue. My district lacks many tools that make teaching easier and more engaging for 21st century students. However, this fact does not make my students any less entitled to a high quality education that is going to propel them to live the full and meaningful lives they deserve. The dregs of society may steal from them and some politicians may bemoan their perceived effort of creating equality but I believe it is essential to be the best teacher I can be for them. The realization that I could someday be the teacher that inspires one of my students to become a teacher, or emboldens them on their own path, or just encourages them to be a decent human is both intimidating and exhilarating. Teaching isn’t boring, teaching is a way to provide every child a chance to be the best version of themselves they can become and work cooperatively to create a better future.