Goal Reflection
Looking Back
My goals when entering the Master of Arts in Education (MAED) program at MSU were fairly simple: become a better educator and learn how to best reach my students within literacy instruction. I was a recent graduate of MSU’s College of Education program, teaching preschool in my hometown district. While I loved my position in our district preschool program, I knew that I wanted to continue my pursuit of an elementary teaching position. In my goals statement, I mentioned that I was ready to begin applying for elementary positions, and that I felt the MAED program would open new ideas as to how I could best reach the students that I hoped to instruct. While I was currently a classroom teacher to a room full of little ones, I felt that I was missing something in my education that would really help to push me to the next “level” of teaching. I felt the MAED program was just what I needed to do this. I was accepted into the MAED program and offered a kindergarten position within my district soon after my application, opening my eyes to the world of elementary teaching and to all that I had yet to learn.
I have now been in my current kindergarten position for two years and am reaching the end of my MAED program. Through my teaching and experience, I have found that I still have similar goals to that of my younger and less educated self, but find that I am expanding upon them as I continue my journey in teaching and learning. As educators, we are continuously learning and growing due to shifts in ideas and demands, technology enhancements and our own personal experiences. Since we are continuously changing and growing within our classrooms, it is fitting that our goals should change and grow with us.
My goal now focuses more on best reaching each child as an individual (not just in literacy instruction), as each child has different needs and requires different assistance to be their best. This year, I had my most difficult class to date with challenging behaviors and a wide variety of learners. I found that I was constantly re-working my ideas and teachings to try and reach the class as a whole, until one day I realized that I needed to try and focus on the individual students as opposed to the idea of the class. While my focus in the MAED program was literacy education, I chose to incorporate several classes in the special education category, as I had very little exposure to this in my undergraduate work. These classes greatly helped to broaden my view of what each child brings to the classroom and have pushed me to focus on the child as an individual.
All images on this page are my own unless otherwise noted.