This course was taken during my teaching internship. This was the first time I was really able to design lessons and units and have them critiqued. I was shown how to make a unit plan that I was actually going to teach. Additionally, I learned how to go back and edit my lessons and units based on what went well and what didn’t. It was important to understand the concept that units always need changing and updating to get to their best. It was also a course that was taken with other Social Studies interns. We were able to bounce ideas off one another in the course and discuss what was going well and not so well and what we could do to improve our areas of struggle.
This course was taken during the second semester of my teaching internship. It consisted of people who were placed at my school and few other districts. This course taught me how to do a case study of a student as well as how to interact with students who may be struggling or be having social, emotional or academic issues in the classroom. I was able to select one student who was having difficulty and dive more in-depth. I learned about different reasons students have struggles in the classroom. Also, when learning about the issues students have, I learned different ways that teachers can handle them to ensure success in the classroom.
This course was also during my teaching Internship with other Social Studies interns. In this course, we examined the different Social Studies content standards as this course was during our lead teaching period. I also learned about being a professional in the education field and that we were going to pick and choose what standards we covered more than others. We also got prepared for the workforce. I had questions I had to answer that allowed for me to reflect on what I had learned and gone through over my internship experience. The questions also were ones that may have come up on job interviews, so it helped prepare me for that.
Summer 2016 ED 800: Concepts of Educational Inquiry Dr. Steven Weiland & Nathan Clason This was the first course taken after being admitted to the MAED program. It is one that allowed for a deeper look at the field of education as a whole. It examined different theories about education and some of the history of it as well. I was able to read different books that talked about different types of inquiry. As part of this class, I used different media to examine cultures and used participant observation. Even though I was not part of a culture or able to experience it in person, using different media allowed for an in-depth look at it. Another important part was learning about teacher-inquiry. Learning about what the teacher does to get the most out of their students. It is this type of inquiry that can allow for growth in the classroom.
Summer 2016 CEP 883: Psychology of Classroom Discipline Dr. My Lien This course was designed to help with classroom discipline. Throughout the course, I learned many tips on how to deal with student misbehavior and be able to stop it before it begins. I learned about intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Additionally, I learned about classroom design. There are pros and cons to each type of seating arrangement. The setup of a classroom can help deter behaviors. I also wrote a detailed classroom management plan from what I learned and it was something that I could take and implement into my classroom.
Fall 2016 CEP 818: Creativity in Teaching and Learning Cui Cheng & Carmen Richardson This course was great for expanding my minds and finding the creative gene in my body. I looked at the different cognitive tools that make people creative. I learned how to use the different forms of creativity to create new assignments for my classroom. I also learned that even though not everyone has the same amount of creativity, they can improve it over time by working on it. By using more creative lessons in my classroom, students will be more engaged, as I was on the assignments for this course. I also learned that by being more creative with my assignments, my students will be more creative with their responses, and this can help reach all students and bring out the best in them.
This course was all about technology and how it can be used, especially if you are a leader in the classroom or school. In this course, I learned about different leadership styles and how they can work in a school setting based around technology. The course also taught me to research different aspects of technology in the classroom and see some issues there could be with them. Additionally, I created a vision statement that I would want for my school. I had to pick an area or two to focus on and explain how I would get my school to follow the leadership plan to make my vision happen.
In this course, I learned all about electronic assessment. I was able to explore different course management systems to see which ones would be the most useful in the classroom. With the course management system I found most useful, I created an assessment on it. I also created a rubric to assess assessments. This has ten different criteria and is something that you should put your assessments through to see if they are created well or not. I also made a formative assessment and learned how to use Minecraft as an assessment tool.
For this course, I learned about differentiated instruction in regards to struggling readers. I learned about the research behind the strategies that can be used to help students who are behind in their reading level. The course discussed causes that can be behind students falling behind their peers as they go through school with a low literacy level. I was able to complete a case study on one student where I gathered information about them to see which are of reading to focus on. I taught lessons based on research from the course to improve the area and used pre-and post-tests to document results.
Spring 2018 ED 870: Capstone Seminar Dr. Matthew Koehler, Spencer Greenhalgh, Sarah Keenan-Lechel & Brittany Dillman
This was the final course in my program. It was essentially a culmination of all I have done to earn my degree. I created an online portfolio that really allowed me to reflect on the past few years and all the work I have accomplished. I created a showcase which displayed some of my best work and there was an annotated transcript which detailed what was learned in each class. There were essays that looked at my goals entering the program and how they might have changed. There was also an essay about my future goals and one that summed up what I gained from the program.