Synthesize:
Learning Changing Thinking
I always knew I wanted to be a teacher. Even as a kid I would play school in my basement, begging anyone to be my student. Although I had a lot of other interests and didn’t find the path to becoming a teacher in college immediately, that is where I ultimately ended up. Teaching is not only a job to me, I am proud of it and it is part of my identity. I am passionate about teaching, which means I am always striving to improve and learn the best practices in my field. However, this is not always as easy as we would hope. Everyone who has taught knows the first year of teaching is all about one thing, survival. Even with student teaching under my belt, there was still so much to learn about the ins and outs of teaching, paperwork necessities, and staff relationships. After this year of survival, I jumped into my second year with high hopes and expectations for myself and my students. It wasn’t until this second year of teaching that I felt like I could really reflect on my teaching, and start the cycle of teaching, reflecting, and making improvements. I desired to be the best possible teacher, to implement best practices, all in hopes it would mean the most possible success for my students. By the end of my second year of teaching, I still felt like I had not done enough to seek out new information, and fulfill my commitment of being a lifelong learner. This is when I decided I wanted to pursue the opportunity of a master's degree.
Deciding what I wanted to earn a master’s degree in was the most challenging aspect of beginning my journey. I had many areas of interest I could pursue, that I knew would impact the future of my teaching. I was, and still am, interested in many areas of study including visual impairments, autism, American Sign Language (ASL), counseling, and assistive technology. With so many areas of interest and possible fields, it was important to pick something that I would be intrinsically motivated to study and could help me in my current teaching position. Choosing a Masters of Art in Educational Technology (MAET) through Michigan State University (MSU) was not easy, but ended up being the best decision for me. It was an honor to return to my alma mater, MSU, where I had already studied and obtained my undergraduate degree in Deaf Education. Although it is not my intent to leave the field of Deaf Education at this time, I knew this would also provide me with opportunities to pursue working outside of Deaf Education with teachers and technology if I so desired. Most importantly, the MAET program offered me the opportunity to combine my passion of teaching and technology, and the program ended up changed my thinking about some of the most important aspects of using technology in the classroom.
As I started my master’s journey in the summer of 2014, I was excited to learn about all the latest and newest technology. Although I knew there would be other things to learn, I was mostly unprepared and unsure of what to expect. I was surprised, when at the beginning of my first classes, we weren’t learning about new technologies at all. Instead we were talking about how students learn and best practices to teach for understanding. At first, I was not sure why this learning was so important to learn about integrating technology in the classroom, but that soon became clear. This program was not just all about what technologies were out there and how we could use them in the classroom, but reimagining what we could do in the classroom with the technology we had. With my first semester of classes I had two large perspective shifts that would impact my view of technology in the classroom, and would be foundational to all my other learning in the MAET. These came specifically through two classes within the first summer semester of courses I took, Teaching for Understanding with Technology and Adapting Innovative Technologies to Education.
First, the learning I did in Teaching for Understanding with Technology, or CEP 810, was the foundation upon which my entire master’s work was built. This course was central to my success, perspective shifts, and new thinking. The TPACK framework looks at how the technology, pedagogy, content, and knowledge all intersect and affect the how and what of teaching. This framework specifically is the foundation of my new thinking around technology in education and I would encourage you to check out tpack.org, the website dedicated to this work. Through the introduction to the TPACK framework and creative thinking, I learned that we can not use technology just to use it. For example, it is not enough to just use an iPad, you need to consider what the iPad is adding to the potential teaching experience and learning of the student. Technology needs to serve the purpose of improving teaching and meeting learning goals. This framework also showed me how it is not a one stop fixer technology. Each content topic, pedagogical strategy, and technology pair together in a unique way that when considered together can create the most meaningful lessons possible.
Second, the next big perspective shift followed quickly after with the idea of repurposing the world around me in order to create novel and effective learning experiences for students. This idea, and the concept of making, was presented in Adapting Innovative Technologies to Education, or CEP 811. Entering the MAET program, I knew my school district and many others would not have the resources to obtain new technology, programs, or subscriptions to many of the great services I would learn about. However, this idea of repurposing what you already had, put me in a new mindset of looking at what my district has and how that could be used in a new way to help meet the goals a new technology might address. This shift in my thinking became critical throughout the entirety of my master’s. If I could keep the idea of repurposing in mind, then I could apply new learning to my current teaching environment and students. This was important to make new learning relevant to me as an individual. It also had a practical purpose as I evaluated specific students and how I could implement lessons to fit their specific needs. Based on this learning I even created a lesson for a student who has unique physical needs by repurposing everyday things like aluminum foil. The student loved this lesson and had an enthusiasm for learning the topic I had not seen before. When asked why he was so excited about this lesson the student said it was because he knew it was just for him. This lesson helped me turn the theoretical into practice, and ideas for how I could continue to do so in the future.
After I put these foundational pieces in place, I was craving help in an area I address often in my current position. In my role, as a Teacher of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, I am often working not just with students but also with staff members. I inservice teachers at the beginning of each year to help them learn how to best support students with hearing loss. In addition to needing specific accommodations, most all of my students also use assistive technology either to support their hearing, academics, and communication. There is a wide range of equipment my district uses, and although the assistive technology department and audiologist are responsible for the equipment, I am usually the first line of defense with troubleshooting. I am the person in the building most frequently, thus most available to help. Overall, this means I am frequently teaching and leading other staff members in learning and modeling. This aspect of my job continuously pushes me to be a leader. As a young teacher though, I needed help becoming a better leader and how to apply that from the viewpoint of technology. One of the most beneficial exercises I completed for Technology and Leadership, or CEP 815, was a self assessment in order to identify strengths, weaknesses, and possible avenues of growth. This gave me a clearer picture of what I was doing well and what I could do better. I identified some of my strengths as compassion, personal learning, organizing, time management, and technical skills. Some areas I identified for growth are innovation, conflict management, and dealing with ambiguity. This reflection process became important for potential growth as a leader, as it gave me both focus and clarity of what my future leadership goals should be.
The last step of my coursework for my master’s journey was to complete my portfolio for the Capstone, or CEP 807. At first, I approached this assignment as any other, just something to complete. However, the making of my portfolio has been an opportunity for so much more. Over the entire process of creation, I have had to reflect on the past, set goals for the future, and synthesize all of the learning I have done. Reflecting over past courses, which you can see in my course transcript, and work, which you can see in my showcase, has helped me to understand how all the pieces fit together as a whole, and the impact the learning could have on my teaching practices. I have written more about reflecting back on my work in my essay, Reflecting Back: Goals, Motivation, and Technology. Setting goals for the future, then helped me to make a plan to implement the learning. My focused areas of growth are effective inservices, leadership, continued learning, and staying up to date with new technologies. I wrote more about this in my essay, Dreaming for the Future: Growing in the Shade. The synthesis of all my learning has come down to two core key concepts, that has helped guide me through the entire MAET program. First, the role technology plays in the classroom has the potential to change each lesson based on the content, pedagogy, and knowledge. Secondly, the need to view technology under the lenses of how it can enhance or even change the teaching and learning process, and how that is key to its implementation.
Overall, I believe all of the learning that occurred throughout my master’s program, will change the way I implement technology in the classroom. It has already changed some of my views and best practices of implementing technology, causing me to really analyze how I am using technology and if I am using its affordances. I no longer see integrating technology just as using it to complete the same tasks as before, but trying to seek the purpose and advantages the technology provides. My professors, courses, and assignments have all been invaluable resources to help me along this journey. I am especially grateful for the professors at MSU, who have pushed me outside of my box and challenged me with new perspectives and approaches. They challenged me to consider new ideas, stretch my preexisting notions, and expand my skills in a multitude of areas. Without them, and the wonderful content they presented, I would not have been able to have the major idea shifts that have impacted my teaching strategies so profoundly. I am extremely thankful for my MAET experience, the learning opportunities, and perspective changes that have occurred throughout my year in the program. From this point, I am going to continue teaching, using and integrating these new strategies, and hopefully impact more students with the affordances of technology.
Deciding what I wanted to earn a master’s degree in was the most challenging aspect of beginning my journey. I had many areas of interest I could pursue, that I knew would impact the future of my teaching. I was, and still am, interested in many areas of study including visual impairments, autism, American Sign Language (ASL), counseling, and assistive technology. With so many areas of interest and possible fields, it was important to pick something that I would be intrinsically motivated to study and could help me in my current teaching position. Choosing a Masters of Art in Educational Technology (MAET) through Michigan State University (MSU) was not easy, but ended up being the best decision for me. It was an honor to return to my alma mater, MSU, where I had already studied and obtained my undergraduate degree in Deaf Education. Although it is not my intent to leave the field of Deaf Education at this time, I knew this would also provide me with opportunities to pursue working outside of Deaf Education with teachers and technology if I so desired. Most importantly, the MAET program offered me the opportunity to combine my passion of teaching and technology, and the program ended up changed my thinking about some of the most important aspects of using technology in the classroom.
As I started my master’s journey in the summer of 2014, I was excited to learn about all the latest and newest technology. Although I knew there would be other things to learn, I was mostly unprepared and unsure of what to expect. I was surprised, when at the beginning of my first classes, we weren’t learning about new technologies at all. Instead we were talking about how students learn and best practices to teach for understanding. At first, I was not sure why this learning was so important to learn about integrating technology in the classroom, but that soon became clear. This program was not just all about what technologies were out there and how we could use them in the classroom, but reimagining what we could do in the classroom with the technology we had. With my first semester of classes I had two large perspective shifts that would impact my view of technology in the classroom, and would be foundational to all my other learning in the MAET. These came specifically through two classes within the first summer semester of courses I took, Teaching for Understanding with Technology and Adapting Innovative Technologies to Education.
First, the learning I did in Teaching for Understanding with Technology, or CEP 810, was the foundation upon which my entire master’s work was built. This course was central to my success, perspective shifts, and new thinking. The TPACK framework looks at how the technology, pedagogy, content, and knowledge all intersect and affect the how and what of teaching. This framework specifically is the foundation of my new thinking around technology in education and I would encourage you to check out tpack.org, the website dedicated to this work. Through the introduction to the TPACK framework and creative thinking, I learned that we can not use technology just to use it. For example, it is not enough to just use an iPad, you need to consider what the iPad is adding to the potential teaching experience and learning of the student. Technology needs to serve the purpose of improving teaching and meeting learning goals. This framework also showed me how it is not a one stop fixer technology. Each content topic, pedagogical strategy, and technology pair together in a unique way that when considered together can create the most meaningful lessons possible.
Second, the next big perspective shift followed quickly after with the idea of repurposing the world around me in order to create novel and effective learning experiences for students. This idea, and the concept of making, was presented in Adapting Innovative Technologies to Education, or CEP 811. Entering the MAET program, I knew my school district and many others would not have the resources to obtain new technology, programs, or subscriptions to many of the great services I would learn about. However, this idea of repurposing what you already had, put me in a new mindset of looking at what my district has and how that could be used in a new way to help meet the goals a new technology might address. This shift in my thinking became critical throughout the entirety of my master’s. If I could keep the idea of repurposing in mind, then I could apply new learning to my current teaching environment and students. This was important to make new learning relevant to me as an individual. It also had a practical purpose as I evaluated specific students and how I could implement lessons to fit their specific needs. Based on this learning I even created a lesson for a student who has unique physical needs by repurposing everyday things like aluminum foil. The student loved this lesson and had an enthusiasm for learning the topic I had not seen before. When asked why he was so excited about this lesson the student said it was because he knew it was just for him. This lesson helped me turn the theoretical into practice, and ideas for how I could continue to do so in the future.
After I put these foundational pieces in place, I was craving help in an area I address often in my current position. In my role, as a Teacher of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, I am often working not just with students but also with staff members. I inservice teachers at the beginning of each year to help them learn how to best support students with hearing loss. In addition to needing specific accommodations, most all of my students also use assistive technology either to support their hearing, academics, and communication. There is a wide range of equipment my district uses, and although the assistive technology department and audiologist are responsible for the equipment, I am usually the first line of defense with troubleshooting. I am the person in the building most frequently, thus most available to help. Overall, this means I am frequently teaching and leading other staff members in learning and modeling. This aspect of my job continuously pushes me to be a leader. As a young teacher though, I needed help becoming a better leader and how to apply that from the viewpoint of technology. One of the most beneficial exercises I completed for Technology and Leadership, or CEP 815, was a self assessment in order to identify strengths, weaknesses, and possible avenues of growth. This gave me a clearer picture of what I was doing well and what I could do better. I identified some of my strengths as compassion, personal learning, organizing, time management, and technical skills. Some areas I identified for growth are innovation, conflict management, and dealing with ambiguity. This reflection process became important for potential growth as a leader, as it gave me both focus and clarity of what my future leadership goals should be.
The last step of my coursework for my master’s journey was to complete my portfolio for the Capstone, or CEP 807. At first, I approached this assignment as any other, just something to complete. However, the making of my portfolio has been an opportunity for so much more. Over the entire process of creation, I have had to reflect on the past, set goals for the future, and synthesize all of the learning I have done. Reflecting over past courses, which you can see in my course transcript, and work, which you can see in my showcase, has helped me to understand how all the pieces fit together as a whole, and the impact the learning could have on my teaching practices. I have written more about reflecting back on my work in my essay, Reflecting Back: Goals, Motivation, and Technology. Setting goals for the future, then helped me to make a plan to implement the learning. My focused areas of growth are effective inservices, leadership, continued learning, and staying up to date with new technologies. I wrote more about this in my essay, Dreaming for the Future: Growing in the Shade. The synthesis of all my learning has come down to two core key concepts, that has helped guide me through the entire MAET program. First, the role technology plays in the classroom has the potential to change each lesson based on the content, pedagogy, and knowledge. Secondly, the need to view technology under the lenses of how it can enhance or even change the teaching and learning process, and how that is key to its implementation.
Overall, I believe all of the learning that occurred throughout my master’s program, will change the way I implement technology in the classroom. It has already changed some of my views and best practices of implementing technology, causing me to really analyze how I am using technology and if I am using its affordances. I no longer see integrating technology just as using it to complete the same tasks as before, but trying to seek the purpose and advantages the technology provides. My professors, courses, and assignments have all been invaluable resources to help me along this journey. I am especially grateful for the professors at MSU, who have pushed me outside of my box and challenged me with new perspectives and approaches. They challenged me to consider new ideas, stretch my preexisting notions, and expand my skills in a multitude of areas. Without them, and the wonderful content they presented, I would not have been able to have the major idea shifts that have impacted my teaching strategies so profoundly. I am extremely thankful for my MAET experience, the learning opportunities, and perspective changes that have occurred throughout my year in the program. From this point, I am going to continue teaching, using and integrating these new strategies, and hopefully impact more students with the affordances of technology.