A Degree Is So Much More Than A Piece of Paper
Lisa Hansen
I’ve also learned that somehow, I am a glutton for stress. I am currently teaching full-time, purchasing my first house, finishing graduate school, and planning a wedding. When I applied to graduate school, I was under a different kind of “stress.” It was my first year as a teacher. I had just moved to a new city, spent twelve-plus hours a school a day, and was terribly homesick. It was this year that my friend and I applied to the Master of Arts in Education program through Michigan State, with the vow to get through the program together. While you may not believe it, I credit graduate school for keeping me in the classroom. Just as life seemed chaotic at times, and I often doubted my teaching abilities (as I think most first year teachers do), advancing my education helped me to see how important education really is. Though my friend had completed her degree before me (tuition is still expensive these days), we fulfilled our commitment to each other.
As I began my journey, I had selected Literacy Education as my concentration for my Master’s degree. Though I had not placed much emphasis or reflection on my own journey as a literacy learner, becoming an early elementary teacher transformed my attitude towards literacy instruction. I had not realized how fundamental daily phonics instruction was until I was in the classroom with the task of developing young readers. With a concentration in Literacy Education, one may think that the courses that most influenced me during my Master’s courseload would mainly focus on literacy, right? Wrong. The Masters of Arts in Education program through Michigan State helped me to see that I am a diverse learner. I have an interest in literacy. Yet, I also have a desire to incorporate technology into my lesson plans. I have an aspiration to invite creativity into my classroom. This revelation was spurred from three influential courses that had a significant impact on my understanding of education.
TE 831 Teaching School Subject Matter with Technology
TE 831 was the first technology class that I had the privilege of taking at MSU. This class allowed me to explore new technological tools and programs that I had not previously heard of. One of which was the TPACK Theory by Punya Mishra and Matthew Koehler, which emphasizes how the incorporation of teaching pedagogy, content area knowledge, and the technological knowledge of teachers are integral factors when incorporating technology into a classroom. I truly took on the role of a “student” as I created presentations, movies, and beginner websites that would be applicable for a school setting.
Through doing the tech tools post modules, I found myself learning about technology tools that I never knew existed. I also discovered how willing and able I was to incorporate technology into my classroom. While showing my students samples and videos of my classwork, I was inspired by how engaged the kids were (they were they amazed that I was able to make presentations like that). This class challenged me to think about how I could best incorporate technology into my Kindergarten classroom while factoring in my students limited knowledge in regards to technology. Though my kids are savvy at touch screen tablets and video games, I had to figure out how to best incorporate activities using desktop computers. I also had to think about how to best utilized the (limited) technology available at my school and plan lessons around it. From these activities, not only did the students’ knowledge of technology increase, but mine did as well.
CEP 818 Teaching and Creativity
In CEP 818 Teaching and Creativity, we selected a content area in which we would focus each of our weekly assignments on. Our content area would also be applicable to our grade and subjects that we teach. As a Kindergarten teacher, I chose “The Shapes of the Letters of the Alphabet.” When choosing this content area, I thought I had a good grasp of this topic, as I manipulate the letters on a daily basis during instruction in my Kindergarten classroom. However, by the third week of the class, I began to see the letters not just as basic shapes, but as comprised of basic elements, hidden in the world around us, as abstractions in American Sign Language, and even as an art form through some origami folding. What was once a mundane, basic set of lines and curves became new, unfamiliar, and revolutionary.
In a standards based educational system where higher test scores “reign supreme,” there is little focus generally given towards encouraging creativity. As educators, we are concerned with an expected outcome on assessments, benchmark testing, and report cards. Yet now, I am more willing to allow my students time to partake in “free explore” or “Free Choice Friday.” As I watch in amazement, it still incredible to me the way that a five year old can evaluate the world, create connections to past experiences (both personal and those from our classroom lessons), and their imaginative untamed spirit, all remind me that inspiration really is found in the smallest places.
TE 838 Children’s Literature in Film
Reading children’s literature? Then watching the Hollywood film production? What’s not to love? In Children’s Literature in Film, I accomplished more reading in a single course than I ever though possible (speed reading has never been more forte). This course also helped me to realize the importance of children’s literature and film in the classroom. While instructing, I would often incorporate literature into the lessons across the subject areas. Films were only used on special occasions, as I felt that administration might feel like they were not a valuable use of instructional time. However, this class has shown me how to incorporate both literature and film in engaging, meaningful ways. It requires going under the “surface” of both film and literature to really “read” into the meanings of both the book and the film. Each form of media contains their own unique messages, and carry different preferences and even stereotypes that are carried throughout. It has led me to ask a lot more open ended questions after reading storybooks to my students, and soliciting their philosophies on the “take away” messages of the stories. It leads to connecting the story to personal experiences, richer conversations, and deeper thinking.
Outside of the classroom, I credit this course for igniting a fire in me to continue on with reading for leisure. It helped me to remember how nice it is to just “unplug” from technology and spend some time with a different form of entertainment. I had never read the Harry Potter series when it was first released (guilty), but after being introduced to it in this class, I continued to pursue reading the series. I then rent and watch each film as a “reward” to see how it compares to the novel, and analyze what messages are being promoted in the film.
Another all-encompassing theme of my courses is that they all had a direct connection to the classroom. Each and every one of my classes allowed me to try out diverse lessons with my students using new technology and instructional techniques. Whether it was choosing a focus student for a child study project in TE 846: Accommodating Differences in Literacy Learners and employing a variety of pre-assessments and lessons to assist the reader in a focus area of concern, or taking my students on a virtual field trip for TE 831: Teaching School Subject Matter with Technology. All of the activities that were completed with my students gave them a richer experience in the classroom, and I was able to reap the benefit of the results. Although my degree coursework is coming to an end, it does not mean that my learning will also cease. I will be able to take all of the meaningful experiences that I have been presented with over the last five years and continue to build on them. Always reflecting, always evolving, always experimenting with new technology and teaching strategies. Always reaching for more.
Photo Credits:
If You Ask Me Why I Came Into This World To Do: http://www.teachingwithsimplicity.com/2013/04/motivation-for-monday-2.html
Be a Reflective Teacher: http://www.teachingwithsimplicity.com/2013/04/motivation-for-monday-2.html
It started when I was in fourth grade. The overwhelming urge to take care of my then five-year old brother and his friends while I helped out with recess duty. I felt a sense of obligation to those kids. The need to help them play fair, make sure no one was picking on them, and trying to an be older a role-model. As my parents soon let me babysit my brother after school until they arrived home, I found my ten year-old self creating lesson plans for activities to do with him after school. One day, it was creating paper bag puppets, the next, painting rocks with silly designs. A favorite hobby became playing “school” in our parent’s basement as my brother completed worksheets I created and I would cover them with stickers when they were “turned in” (it looks like my sticker obsession also started early). I spent more time than I’d like to admit daydreaming about activities to keep my brother busy. It looks like my early sense of duty and canny ability to lesson plan paid off. As I complete my fourth year as a teacher, I look back at my past and cannot help but laugh. It is amazing how life works itself out.
One overarching facet found in of all my classes was the art of reflection. Each course that I took allowed for personal reflection on my assignments. So not only was I completing each assignment, but also reflecting on my own strengths and areas of improvement. This reflection has also led me to be much more cognizant of my own classroom instruction, and analyze my lessons at the end of each day. What lessons went great? What lessons could I tweak to make them even better next year? What am I going to do with the students who did not fully understand a concept taught that day? The art of reflection will be a life-long activity of mine, especially while I am in the classroom.
The focus of this class was to explore each of the eight cognitive tools found in the book "Sparks of Genius: The Thirteen Thinking Tools of the World's Most Creative People" by Robert and Michele Root-Bernstein. These cognitive tools are: perceiving, patterning, abstracting, embodied thinking, modeling, play, and synthesizing. The cognitive tools combine with our past experiences and our personal knowledge serves as “stepping stones” for cultivation. Re-thinking the familiar and re-formulating our views allows every individual to be capable of creative and innovative ideas. I believe the aim of this class required us to achieve the “unique” aspect of creativity throughout the modules and readings in this course. We established what we already know or see about our topic area, but then re-invented and re-imagined those ideas to create a “unique” pattern or understanding.