Syntheis
Continuing My Journey
Growth is a process. Full growth does not happen overnight, over the course of a few days, or even over the course of a few semesters. Growth is a continual process that keeps expanding throughout our journey of life, and it is our choice to foster this growth within ourselves. I have always had a strong motivation for learning and bettering myself, especially within my career. For this reason, my education has been a priority of mine for as long as I can remember. I graduated from Michigan State University in May of 2012 with my Bachelor of Arts degree in Elementary Education. I then began my yearlong student teaching internship in a third grade classroom. During this time, I also took master’s courses, as part of our requirements for completion through MSU. I learned so much that year, both in the classroom teaching and in my master’s courses, and felt that I was ready to take on my own classroom immediately after completion. I was fortunate enough to have several job offers that summer and chose a position teaching preschool within my hometown district of Grand Ledge. I was so excited to put all of my new educational knowledge and training to use. I ended up pushing my master’s courses to the back burner during this time, focusing primarily on my new journey, new students, new school, and new challenges that come with being a first year teacher.
During my first year in my new position, I was eager to become the best teacher possible, as soon as possible. In reality, my goals for achievement were fairly high and slightly unrealistic. While I had an excellent education in my undergraduate program at MSU, it becomes a new reality when you have your own classroom and take on the responsibility of all that comes with it. I had so many great resources in my hypothetical teacher toolbox and was blessed with numerous physical resources in my new classroom as well. My students were fantastic in my first year, with very little behavioral issues present. With all of the positive things that happened in that first year, I realized that my confidence in myself as an educator was still low. This confidence started to grow within my second year, as I found I was falling into a more effective routine and felt that I was finally understanding all of the ins and outs of being a classroom teacher. With this confidence, I still felt as if there was much more for me to learn, and ways to make my teaching practices even stronger. I then decided to take the next step and apply to Michigan State University’s Master of Arts in Education (MAED) program to complete my degree.
I was offered a kindergarten position within my district just two months after returning to my master’s program. It was a difficult adjustment beginning a new position and starting classes at the same time, and my time outside of the classroom was spent completely on lesson plans and coursework. Even with these struggles, my classes proved to be extremely beneficial in content and applicable immediately into my classroom. Every course that I took related in some way to my work within the classroom and the students in my care. There were a few required classes within my masters program, but I was able to choose most to fit my teaching practices and goals for my education.
TE 842 (Elementary Reading Assessment and Instruction) was the first course that I took upon returning to my master’s program and came at a perfect time in my teaching career. As a preschool teacher, my assessments looked different than those at the elementary level as my students were at a different developmental stage. While I had ample practice during my undergraduate coursework using trial assessments, I was not giving running records or comprehension assessments to my three and four year olds in my teaching practice, so these assessments were no longer fresh in my mind. When I accepted my new position within the district, I knew that I would need to be fluent in administering and evaluating these assessment pieces to benefit my students and to better guide my instruction. TE 842 proved to be extremely beneficial in refreshing my memory on multiple literacy assessments that can be used in the classroom, such as running records, Quality Reading Inventory (QRI) and the Elementary Spelling Inventory. When I began my new school year with my kindergarteners and learned that we were to use the Fountas and Pinnell kit for running records, I felt confident in my abilities to effectively use the assessments and assist other new teachers as well.
In this course, we analyzed and evaluated the assessments mentioned above. We were provided ample data samples of given students and were asked to examine their data using the provided assessment pieces. In some cases, we explored the data and chose which assessment we thought would be best to use for the given student based on the areas of need that we saw within the data. This course greatly expanded my knowledge of literacy assessments and gave me a boost of confidence in myself as a literacy educator. I began my new school year teaching with a strong knowledge of assessments and feeling refreshed and energized to assess and evaluate my students’ data. While the course focused primarily on assessments, instructional delivery was also explored based on the assessment data that was collected. This element of the course helped me to grow immensely as an educator. Not only did I learn how to give assessments, I learned how to better my instruction to fit the needs of my students in their struggling areas. This component is crucial as an educator, as our students are our top priorities at all times. This course gave me the confidence to plan my lessons knowing that they were based on best-practice instructional techniques.
I have always had a passion for literacy – especially teaching it to my students and watching them blossom as early readers and writers. I chose to take TE 846 (Accommodating Differences in Literacy Learners) in hopes of expanding my knowledge in differentiating both assessment and instruction for my students. With a variety of little learners in my care, I was used to differentiating but felt that there were better, more effective ways to do so. This course far surpassed my expectations of the knowledge that I would gain and how it would be applicable to my classroom. Five main areas were addressed in this course: cultural and linguistic differences, individual motivation differences, neuropsychological differences, instructional arrangements to accommodate learning differences, and core components of effective literacy instruction. Each area of focus was explored in-depth and examined through real-life scenarios. Through this thorough exploration, I was able to look at the characteristics of different learners, how to differentiate literacy instruction for the variations of students, and tools for assessments based on what each student needs to succeed. I found that I was highly attentive to my own learning during this course, as all of the topics related to my own teaching practices and my own students. One example of this, for instance, was in the section on cultural and linguistic differences. I have not had a great amount of experience teaching students that speak English as a second language (ESL), or English language learners (ELL). Not only did I learn about best practice instructional and assessment techniques for ESL and ELL students during this study, but also learned about bilingual language development and bilingual education models.
This information pushed me to grow beyond what I already knew as an educator and encouraged me to learn about things that were not as familiar to me in order to enhance my teaching abilities. One textbook that we used in this course was Best Practices in Literacy Instruction by Gambrell and Morrow. I found myself becoming immersed in this text, often reading sections outside of those that were assigned to us. This text provided abundant suggestions for strategies and techniques to use when teaching literacy to any learners that may be in the classroom. I continuously took notes while reading on strategies that I wanted to try with my own students and found myself growing as a learner in a way that I hadn’t before. Unintentionally, this course drove me to focus on bettering myself as an educator and fostered my desire to continue research and studies on my own outside of my master’s program.
While all of my courses were beneficial to my learning and helped me to grow in different ways, CEP 832 (Teaching Children with Challenging Behaviors) was the most influential course that I feel I took during my master’s program. This was an extraordinary class that focused on teaching children that exhibit difficult or challenging behaviors within the classroom. I have always felt that I have sufficient classroom management, but knew that this was one area that I wanted to improve upon. While I exhibited positive control with my students, I did not always feel positive internally while handling challenging behaviors. I often felt stressed or frustrated inside when something did not work, or when a child was acting out continuously. I chose to take this course in hopes of learning one or two techniques to use with my students once the course was complete. This goal was met and exceeded quickly within the start of the semester. CEP 832 explored several behaviors that may inhibit the classroom, such as anxiety, social isolation, hyperactive behaviors, impulsiveness and more. We looked in depth at all of the behaviors that we explored, learning about the causes and development, as well as how they may affect the students within the class. Through this exploration, I was able to learn much more about the behaviors that I was seeing in my current classroom and got a deeper understanding of the root of the challenges that were present.
The main project that I completed during this course was a case study (titled "ABC Project") on a student within my own classroom. This project pushed me to look deeper into the behaviors that were occurring with this given student by collecting classroom data to determine the root or triggers of the challenges. I was then able to analyze the behaviors to look for patterns and created a strategic plan to assist in redirecting and correcting the challenges at stake. Completing this study, I learned an immense amount not only about my case study student, but also about my classroom as a whole. I was able to identify areas of my teaching practices that were strong, areas that I could strengthen, and ways to support all of my students throughout the learning process. I finished the course feeling rejuvenated and confident in my own abilities, with a positive shift in my own mindset and in my teaching practices.
During my time in the Master of Arts in Education program at Michigan State University, I have grown tremendously as an educator. I began the program as a new graduate, eager and ready to take on my own class and help to make a change in the students that would be in my care. The courses that I took not only shifted my own views on teaching as a whole, but also helped me to look deeper at each and every child that comes into my room. I have learned to take on each challenge as it arises with my increased sense of confidence and my expansive knowledge that I have collected in my hypothetical teacher’s toolbox. The skills that I have learned are invaluable and I am eager to see where my love of learning leads me next in this educational journey.
All images on this site are my own unless otherwise noted.
MSU Seal: Official trademark of Michigan State University. Image found on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michigan_State_University
Best Practices in Literacy Instruction: https://www.amazon.com/Best-Practices-Literacy-Instruction-Fifth/dp/1462517196