"Nothing Can Stop Me,
I'm All the Way Up!"
My title is the title of a current
pop song my students love.
It is by: Fat Joe and Remy Ma
pop song my students love.
It is by: Fat Joe and Remy Ma
Synthesis My whole life I have been surrounded by great educators. One grandparent was a principal, my other two were teachers and then counselors, my aunts were social workers, and my mom was a teacher. When I left high school I wanted to become a high school math teacher and coach swimming. I found college to be difficult and switched my major from teaching to exercise science and pre-physical therapy. This carried on for a while and after switching institutes to Grand Valley State University I again wanted to change my career path but wasn’t sure what. During that time I had been coaching a junior high boys swim team. I had done a good enough job that I was offered a summer job coaching the youngest swimmers, five, six, seven year old, to learn and compete in age group swimming. That is when I realized that I loved working with young children. For the first time I felt like I really knew what I wanted to do with my life and that the classes I was taking were actually a benefit and not a hoop to jump through. After graduating from GVSU I received my first job teaching second grade. I loved it. I had a great class, small size, people liked my ideas that I brought in and my enthusiasm. I was saddened to see that though I had great ideas and skills many issues were holding me back, having to use certain district approved items, not having tech in the classrooms, not having the skills to integrate my ideas and the technology into my classroom. I felt stuck and didn’t feel like the students were getting what they needed from a new teacher, a teacher that in my opinion should be doing the newest and greatest, not the same old thing. What better way to solve my problem than go back to school and get the answers. So at the time I was coaching and teaching, I had just gotten married and wanted to go to Michigan State University to get my master’s degree to fulfill a lifelong dream of becoming a Spartan. I didn’t really know what I wanted to do except continue growing my skills and tools as an educator. So I signed up for the Masters of Arts in Education (MAED). I was most fortunate to have Mr. Olle as my advisor because he sat down with me and helped me get more out of my degree by showing me that I could find focuses within my degree that would tailor my learning to my interests. With his guidance I chose to focus on technology in education and coaching. These two focuses excited me for what was to come and it helped to change and strengthen me to what I am...a SPARTAN! The Spartan MAED program changed and bettered me in lots of ways. The first way was in my very first class, ED 800 with Professor Weiland. In this course I studied the history of teaching/education and got into big questions like what is the best way to teach teaching? This course was very difficult and it taught me right away that the work I would be doing for my MAED was going to have to be top notch. This was a great way for me to start off my program. I learned to reflect not just on how best to learn and teach but how to look at my teaching to reflect and make sure I was doing it in a way that benefitted every student, not just the ones that still can learn using 100 year old methods. Taking this class set me up to learn better and get more out of the rest of my classes. I took away from this class the ability to reflect on my practices and presentation of materials. When I went to PD or conferences I was able to cut through the sales pitch and analyze what I could actually use to benefit the students. This class made me a better analyzer of my practices and materials available for me to use and set me up for the rest of my courses in my program to gain the most I could out of them. The next course that really changed me was my KIN 856 with Professor Riewald. This course focused mostly on the physical well being of the athletes and I learned so much. I was able to apply everything I learned to the swim team that I was working with at the time. I created a dynamic stretching program that the men’s and women’s swim team adopted. This type of stretching was new to me and understanding the benefits of how it warms-up the muscles so they are ready for races or practices was very fascinating. Furthermore, learning that the traditional stretching I was used to, static stretching, was best suited for after training or competitions as a means of recovery and healing. The coaches and I noticed an impact in both better training sessions and better performances in our athletes. The next major highlight from this course was learning through research many different prevention of injury plans, workout training programs, nutrition and recovery, and creating approved contact lists for athletes to consult. I created a workout program that is done on land to do cross training (we call it dryland training). The program I created was researched and supported by numerous coaching and athletes as well as USA Swimming. To me learning these programs and exercises was important to give to my athletes that wanted to excel or maybe wanted to do more than the norm...a way to push themselves. It worked very well as a means to forgo the gym workouts for younger athletes or if like my team's gym time was always allocated to other sports first. The last huge impact that came from this course for me was creating an approved list of people, groups, organizations, and places for resources to my athletes. This was important as I learned that things happen and as a coach or parent you don’t always have the skill set to help. So I created a resource list (no longer up-to-date) for when events happen we can guide our athletes to people that support our ideals and philosophies and in turn support our athletes in our programs. This became very beneficial and we had some of the contacts come in and speak to our athletes. One example was a nutritionist and exercise trainer. He came in and gave ideas for foods to be eating to help muscle recovery, growth, peak performance times, and ways to reduce injury. I couldn’t believe the amount of knowledge that I had gained in this class. Even more surprising to me was how quickly I was able to apply it and see immediate results. This course was probably my favorite course and the most impactful to my coaching career. Because of this class I was a better well rounded coach. Instead of just giving good workouts I now was able to give a full body, mind, and well-being experience to my athletes. I know that my swimmers are best equipped for success in their competitions and life. There were many courses that I took that did exactly what I wanted in teaching me ways to integrate technology into my instruction. I learned about very cool apps, games, and technology that is available to use in the classroom. I am very proud of the fact that I designed an interactive website that taught second graders what a fairy tale is and how to make their own. That site also assessed them throughout their use and allowed me to collect important data and apply it to better instruction. I learned how to create websites that I currently use to relay information to families and show them fun things in the class and at school that their children are involved with. I couldn’t be happier with what I have learned and can now do in my room. But there was one class that really stood out and taught me tools I needed at a time that was most helpful. The last class that I found most helpful to me occurred this past Spring in my CEP 817 Learning Technology through Design. This came at a difficult time in my career. I was supposed to be teaching fourth grade virtually for the school year, after the first trimester it changed to half virtual and half face-to-face, and by the end I was told they were all coming back. It was very difficult to coordinate everything when there were so many changes and so many factors outside of my control. This class taught me many things. One of the most important was the skill of slowing down and looking for problems. Too often in teaching we feel the pressure of having to get all the curriculum finished or constantly pushing forward. In doing so there are so many students left behind and many problems unidentified and unresolved. Trying to identify a problem with my students wasn’t difficult, it was finding one that I could fix. So using the design learning model I needed to identify a large problem and then scope out the root of the problem. I wanted to fix the issue of making my lessons be great for face-to- face and virtual students. Not having the power or control over what happened at home though made that impossible. Instead I found an issue that my colleagues were also struggling with. We struggled with the students coming from the elementary school and then not showing any changes when we gave them feedback. Following the process that I learned in this course (The Design Model: Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype, Test) I found the root of the problem and designed a project that would teach the students what feedback is, the different forms, and how it can be used in different settings. This project and process was a huge success. My students went from thinking that feedback was a number or star rating for games and apps to seeing the importance of using feedback to improve. Two more positives that came out of the lesson were one, that the students actually used feedback they received and made changes accordingly to improve their projects. Two that when asked about the process the majority said they loved giving feedback because they felt like they were helping others. This course came at a time that was frustrating for me with the constant changes of my classroom, teaching styles and means, and who was actually in my room. When I felt overwhelmed with issues and was asked to pick a problem to solve, I thought I was going to drown. What was rejuvenating was the support of using this Design Process. When I had completed the course I not only had felt a major success in my classroom that I hadn’t felt all year but I also learned a way to solve future problems. This was so successful that my teaching team and I plan to do a similar lesson at the beginning of the school year to fix our feedback issues early on. I plan to use it throughout the year as well when I see other issues crop up. This course showed me that even when I am feeling completely overwhelmed, I can use this process to reach many students and get major results from them...any teacher's dream come true! For a view of the process that I went through to learn and teach my students about feedback please clink on this hyperlink. All my courses at MSU’s MAED program have changed me into a better and more educated teacher and coach. The three courses discussed above hit me at pivotal times that made a large and lasting impact. ED 800 with professor Weiland taught me the importance of learning from my past and reflecting on my attributes and materials. Professor Riewald in KIN 856 taught me the importance of research and reaching more angles and avenues to reach my end goals. Professors Heintz and Bork brought to me the importance of slowing down, focusing, using a systematic approach to obtain the largest and greatest outcome. This MAED program has made me proud of my profession, given me the confidence to use my skills within the parameters of district restrictions, and enabled me to reach more students. I am proud to say and share my SPARTAN will with all! |