Why did I enter the MAET program?

When I graduated from the College of William and Mary with a Bachelor of Science degree in biology and a Virginia collegiate professional teaching license, I was very excited to enter the teaching profession.  I had very high hopes about how I would teach students fundamental skills that would help them in all aspects of their lives.  I imagined my students would be appreciative and motivated.  As many experienced teachers know, however, the first year of teaching is a time of survival and often minimal success.  In my first year, I found myself planning day-to-day and struggling with classroom management issues.  

Luckily, moving into my second year, I was able to iron out some of the “kinks” and begin focusing on developing instructional and assessment techniques that would help students to succeed on state and Advanced Placement assessments.  While this gave me a sense of satisfaction, I began to want more for my students during my third year of teaching.  I wanted to help my students develop communication and critical thinking skills, and I hoped that incorporating particular digital tools in my classroom would serve this goal.  I began to explore graduate programs related to educational technology and settled on the Master of Arts in Educational Technology (MAET) program at Michigan State University.  

In addition to helping my students, I hoped that the MAET program would help me to become a stronger professional and person.  I felt that I was stuck in my ways and growing increasingly uncomfortable trying new things.  I knew very little about educational technology at the time, so I felt that exploring this field might help me to step outside of the metaphorical box that I had built for myself.  I was nervous but excited to begin my journey as part of the program.  

How has the MAET program helped me to better serve my students?

Throughout my MAET experience, I have learned new and innovative ways to foster communication and critical thinking skills among my students.  One of my courses that was most helpful in this endeavor was CEP 813 (Electronic Assessment).  In this course, I learned about assessment practices that best supported student learning.  I designed several assessments in this class that included these best practices.  For example, I designed a multi-part formative assessment using Google Docs that focused on analysis of ecology data for my pre-AP biology students.  (Click the image to the right to see a sample item from this assessment.)  This assessment incorporated opportunities for structured feedback and metacognition.  Both of these techniques have the potential to facilitate students learning (in this case, the development of analytical skills).  

Similarly, I designed an assessment for my AP biology students using Haiku Learning, a learning management system.  In this assessment, students create a criminal profile for an organelle within a cell and draw connections between the organelle’s structure and its function.  Because drawing such connections is a difficult skill, students receive feedback from their peers and myself (the teacher).  The teacher feedback is tied to a detailed rubric that communicates clear expectations to students.  Again, these techniques (i.e. feedback and the use of rubrics to communicate clear expectations) typically help bolster student learning.

Another course, CEP 822 (Approaches to Educational Research), helped me to explore problem-based learning (i.e. PBL), an instructional strategy with great potential to improve student communication and critical thinking skills.  Through an extensive literature review of primary research, I was able to investigate the effect of problem-based learning on student attitudes and achievement at various educational levels (i.e., primary, secondary, and post-secondary).  Based on this review, I determined that problem-based learning could help my students develop skills they will need in later life.  In PBL units of instruction, students are presented with an ill-structured problem that has no clearly-defined solution.  Through extensive self-directed research and collaboration with peers, students develop a multifaceted solution to this problem.  As such, students learn how to communicate effectively with others, critically evaluate digital and print resources, and synthesize information.  Though I have not yet developed full PBL units for my pre-AP or AP biology students, this is something that I plan to tackle with my colleagues over the next couple years.

How has the MAET program helped me to grow as a professional and person?

In addition to helping me do more for my students, the MAET program has helped me to broaden my horizons as a professional and person.  Many of my courses have shown me that I (and other individual teachers) actually have the potential to effect change in education.  One course that helped me to be more optimistic about my role in the field of education was CEP 812 (Applying Educational Technology to Issues of Practice).  In this class, I worked with classmates to devise possible solutions for a wicked problem of practice in education.  The wicked problem that we focused on was how to help students learn through failure.  We proposed a three-pronged approach to addressing this problem.  We argued that by fostering a growth mindset among students, facilitating student collaboration, and revising the grade book to better reflect student mastery of learning objectives, teachers can help students to become more comfortable with failing and learning from their errors.

I found this CEP 812 project to be especially enlightening because it helped me to understand that I have the ability to tackle major educational problems in my school, district, state, etc. through collaboration and research.  I can communicate my ideas to interested parties through a variety of methods.  For example, in CEP 812 and other courses within the MAET program, I communicated with my classmates and the education community as a whole through Twitter and my Wordpress blog. (Click the image to the left to see my blog.)  Having never “Tweeted” or blogged before, I was struck by how easily I could expand my audience for my ideas by simply using these tools.  I hope to continue using social media and my blog to share my ideas with others.  I can also use Twitter to follow other teachers, educational researchers, etc. and hopefully learn more about emerging trends and best practices.  

In many of my courses, I learned how to improve my skills as a teacher researcher.  As I mentioned previously, in CEP 822, I conducted a literature review of many primary studies regarding the use of PBL in education.  Through this project, I now feel more comfortable searching for and accessing legitimate research articles through databases such as ERIC (the Education Research Information Center).  I also feel more comfortable analyzing the methods and findings of these studies.  Finally, I am better able to synthesize the results from several studies to draw conclusions that are applicable to my teaching context.

Throughout the MAET program, I have also been able to conduct my own research.  For example, in CEP 812, I designed and implemented a survey to determine the extent and nature of my school colleagues’ use of digital tools in their classrooms.  The results of this survey allowed me to consider how I might become an educational technology leader at my school and help my colleagues incorporate digital tools more frequently and meaningfully in their classrooms.  (Click the image to the right to see my summary infographic of the survey results.)  Similarly, in CEP 817 (Learning by Design), I used a survey to determine the types of concepts and skills that my pre-AP biology students have found most difficult to learn throughout their educational careers.  This survey helped me to come to the surprising conclusion that my students have difficulty simply identifying difficult concepts and skills.  By analyzing the results of my survey, I was able to better empathize with my students and generate ideas for helping them overcome this issue.  In this course, I designed several critical thinking activities for my students in which learning objectives were explicitly defined, and students had the opportunity to interact meaningfully with these objectives.  As such, by conducting my own research, I have been able to make meaningful changes to my practice that may not have emerged from my classroom observations alone.

Additionally, the MAET program has opened my eyes to the possibility of designing and teaching courses fully online.  In CEP 820 (Teaching Students Online), I designed a fully-online module on Mendelian Genetics for my AP biology students.  While creating this module using Haiku Learning, I had to consider how technology could be used to facilitate student learning and meaningful interactions between the students and myself.  In addition to using the features of Haiku Learning such as online quizzes, discussion boards, etc., I included tools such as Conceptboard that could be used for real-time voice and text chat office hours.

In my module, I included detailed policies and procedures to ensure that my expectations were clear for my students.  I now feel confident developing these online learning policies and procedures for future online modules and courses that I design.  Overall, I am excited about the possibility of developing online modules for my pre-AP and AP biology classes to provide enrichment opportunities for my students and potentially free-up classroom time for lab activities.  I am also considering looking for opportunities to teach fully online courses over the summer.

Most importantly, the MAET program helped me to feel more comfortable being “creative.” In the past, I did not consider myself to be a creative person.  I found that I had trouble thinking outside the box and removing myself from my comfort zone.  The MAET program forced me to consider concepts, tools, and issues from a variety of perspectives.  For example, in CEP 811 (Adapting Innovative Technologies in Education), I was asked to use a “maker kit” (i.e. a circuit kit) and items I found at a thrift store to design a tool that I could use in a lesson with my students.  I ended up creating a timer that could be used to measure students’ reaction times to various stimuli.  (Click the image to the left to view a video where I explain how to use the timer.)  This timer and an associated lab activity could be used during the human body systems unit that my pre-AP biology students complete at the end of the year.  Though I struggled for hours puzzling over what to make for my “thrifty maker” tool / lesson, I finished the process feeling confident that I can develop meaningful instructional experiences with tools that I have never encountered before.   

With regard to the creative process, CEP 817 (Learning by Design) introduced me to the Stanford Model of Design Thinking.  This model consists of five stages--empathize, define, ideate, prototype, and test (Stanford University Institute of Design, 2016).  I have gone through each of these stages to identify issues with my current evolution unit for my pre-AP biology students and design solutions to these issues.  For me, breaking the process down into steps makes creativity more accessible for me.  I now feel comfortable approaching a design challenge because I have a method to guide my thinking.

How will I move forward from here?

In summary, the MAET program has helped me to grow in many ways.  It has helped me to grow as a teacher by giving me the skill-set to foster communication and critical thinking skills among my students.  Additionally, the MAET program has helped me to grow as a professional and person.  I now have the tools and perspective to become involved in addressing major issues at my school, in my district, and beyond.  I also feel more confident conducting research in my classroom and among my colleagues to make meaningful changes as a teacher and leader.  Finally, I have learned how to approach the development of fully-online curricula and how to tackle creative challenges.  

Moving forward, I plan to continue learning more about instructional strategies such as PBL and inquiry-based labs that could help my students develop communication and critical thinking skills.  I also plan to explore digital tools (e.g., Google Apps for Education) that can help support and enhance these instructional strategies.  To further expand my horizons as a teacher and leader, I plan to educate myself regarding current issues in education and use social media to help me discuss these issues with other stakeholders.  Finally, I plan to use my new understanding of creativity to approach designing curricula.  One of my overall career goals is to design the curriculum for an elective course such as animal physiology.  I now feel that I have the ability to do this, and I’m very excited to get started.  I’m very grateful to the MAET program for the many skills I have acquired, my newfound confidence, and my broadened perspective regarding K12 education.