It seems crazy to be so close to finishing this degree. It feels like it has gone by so quickly. In reality this has been something that I have been waiting to do for four years. I started this degree when I began my student teaching in the fall of 2020. I have learned so much since then about myself and my students. I began working in earnest on this degree over the past year and it has been exhausting, frustrating, and stressful. It has also been very rewarding though. I am very proud of myself knowing that I was able to complete seven courses while also teaching, coaching, and attempting to have a life. While I will be happy once this experience is over, I am very grateful for how much it has shown me about myself and my work ethic. This challenge is one that I am very proud of undertaking. Through all the stress and late nights, it is now satisfying to know how close I am to finishing. When I think back on the experience in its entirety there are three classes that stood out to me as the most influential. The classes that I found most influential for me through this experience were CEP 800, CEP 815, and CEP 811.
CEP 800 was a class that focused on the psychology behind learning. We spent every week going over different theories of learning. We explored this on a sort of timeline that showed how over time, the understandings of educational psychology have changed drastically. We began by talking about Behaviorism and went through Adult Learning theories. While they are all theories, they all have aspects that ring very true and that I have seen play out in the classroom. This class allowed me to reflect on many of the things that I have tried to do in my classroom over my four years of experience. It gave me the opportunity to look back at some things that worked well, and others that didn't. Specifically, I thought about all of the rewards I have tried, as well as the shifting in schema that my students have experienced by using their prior knowledge. I also had the ability to think about things that I could try in the classroom or just a change in my thinking that could help my students. One thing that we discussed that I would like to try is incorporating more authentic learning experiences, outside of the classroom to help students find more purpose in their learning. It also made me change my thinking as well to encourage the students bringing more of their experiences into the learning space. Through this I am hoping to increase engagement across my classes so my students can feel more connected to what we are talking about. I also appreciated this class because as a student, it allowed me to look at what my professors were doing and the reasons for their structuring of the course and its activities. In the future I want to use this information to use a range of learning theories so that I can reach as many students as possible. That way I can hopefully be more effective in my sharing of information in the classroom.
Note. Photo of Theories of Learning from geeksforgeeks.com .
CEP 811 provided me with a lot of lessons, not only as a teacher, but as an adult. The main focus of this class was for us to learn how to integrate different technologies into our classroom. We did this through a number of assignments that had us experimenting with different programs and activities of our choosing. Some of these I did end up using in my classroom and were very popular. The bigger thing that I got out of this class though was the idea that we are all makers. Our professor emphasized that we all have the ability to create amazing experiences and activities for our students. The only thing that we need to do is force ourselves to change our mindset. We are usually too focused on failure in our society, and this often leads us to just give up. We focused on the idea of iteration. While this is a theme in all the classes in this program, I really felt as though it was emphasized in this class. It is ok to struggle, and even fail as long as we remember to pull ourselves up and try again. It made me think of a quote from Alfred in the Dark Knight Trilogy. This idea has allowed me to not only get through this class, but this program. At times I have struggled, but the structure of the program and the skills that it focuses on has allowed me to pull myself back up, even on hard weeks. I want to bring this into my classroom if I am able, in order to bring a more uplifting culture. My biggest struggle is the buy in because it is very easy for this to turn into an excuse for not doing your best. I am going to be experimenting with ways to replicate this if possible with my high school students. It was very rewarding to get this experience because I felt a change in mindset that allowed me to think more creatively about what I teach and how I want to teach to my students. Another thing that I appreciated about this course was the dedication to not only teaching us about making things, but protecting what we create. I never imagined that I would need or want copyright for anything I created. There was something very satisfying though about getting the copyright for my website. It made me take more pride in what I was creating because nobody could take that away from me. We also looked at respectful media usage and making sure that we always properly give tribute to the creators of that content. I plan on implementing this in small doses into my classroom. If I scaffold this correctly, it will allow my students to avoid copyright infringement and hopefully take ownership of their own creations.
Note. Image generated using Gencraft from the prompt Ronald Reagan riding a T-Rex.
CEP 815 was another class that I found to be extremely beneficial for me in this program. The focus of the class was on using technology in roles of leadership. This led us to do a few things that were very impactful for me. One of the things that it made me really consider was how I present myself in professional and leadership settings. This included things like properly writing an email and being thorough and concise. These are very important things to have in a school setting whether you are talking to students or even other adults. You need to make sure that you are fully explaining the things that you want to get done and do. This partially helps people just take you more seriously. I have found out that that is half the battle as I continue to try and get updates for my schools athletic programs. It also allowed me to create professional developments that help me express things that I would like to see done in the classroom. I personally loved building my professional development on gamification in the social studies classroom. I am hoping to possibly adapt it and use it in my school to get other teachers to consider changing strategies. This gives me a framework for building my reputation as well as allows me to show things that are interesting to me. I am very big on trying to solve potential problems that we have at our school. These assignments better prepared me for answering and dealing with questions in that realm. I also really appreciated the dedication specifically to types of leaders and analyzing what makes a good and effective leader in a school setting. I learned a lot about what I like about leaders, and what I don't. This class also allowed me to think more critically about the leaders at my school. By knowing their leadership styles, I can better understand their motivations. I can also work better with them because I understand what I need to do to get my point across when we are discussing things. This also made me think more critically about myself and how I lead. It made me think about what I can do to become more effective at leading groups. I specifically need to work on allowing more voices to be heard and provide more decisiveness. This will carry over not only into my interactions with administrators and district offices, but even students in my classroom. If I can use those opportunities in the classroom to become a better leader, it will set me up much better for the future.
Note. Title slide for Professional Development Powerpoint.
Overall, I am so glad that I decided to go back and finish this degree. It has been so rewarding. I am particularly proud of how my mindset has changed since becoming a student again. It was a reminder that I needed about all the things that students are going through as they attend school. It always seems easy from the outside, but you never really understand what someone is going through unless you either experience it or remind yourself of the experience. I am going to be focusing on making sure that I recommit to having a mindset of considering student situations as I go about my teaching. While I still have a job to do, it never hurts to be empathetic. I also believe that this will allow me to build a stronger culture in the classroom. I am also going to keep seeking out leadership opportunities. I have seen that I like being deeply entrenched in my school community in order to help improve it. I am going to be working on doing this while providing people a voice in that community. I want to be a leader that I am proud of, and who I would like to work with. I want to be supportive and be able to see projects through even though people are skeptical. I will be implementing more opportunities for revision and iteration. There needs to be a change in how we look at student work and change the mindset that they have attached to work and create a more supportive culture. If students can learn that it is ok to fail as long as you build yourself back up, that is the most important skill that I could ever teach them. I need to apply different theories of learning to my classroom. We need to experiment with as many as possible so that I am allowed to build a healthy learning environment for my students. If I can do that, I believe that I am doing my job correctly. I am so very grateful for all these lessons that I have taken from this program. It truly is so much more than applying technology to education. It forces teachers just to simply focus on great practices in the classroom to help build students to be the best that they can be.
References
Eichstaedt, Matthew (2024). CEP 815 PD [Powerpoint Slides]. Michigan State University.
FLASHBACK FM. (2016, October 1). Batman: Begins - why do we fall. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EP5TPbtbzRo
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