Future Growth
As a teacher, I am always striving to do my best and learn new things. During my time at Michigan State University’s Master of Arts and Educational Technology (MAET) program, I have learned and grown as a teacher. But my learning and growing does not stop once I am done at MSU. I am challenging myself with three goals to accomplish to continue to grow and better myself as an educator. The three goals I want to accomplish after graduation are: transform my assessments, create more personalized learning opportunities, and become more familiar with coding.
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Goal #1 Coding in K-3
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After completing many of my classes at MSU, I have seen the importance of learning how to code. Technology is becoming more prevalent in our everyday lives and students should start understanding the basics of coding. Students are curious about how their favorite game works, how websites work, and so many other questions. As an educator, I want to be able to take that curiosity and show them how it works. There are so many amazing programs and apps out there for students to explore and learn. As the teacher, I want to have a foundational understanding of coding so when they do have a question or have a hiccup I can help them. Code.org has a great self-paced online training for teachers. Edutopia also has an article with different resources for teachers to get training around coding. I am very excited to do this because my school has a lot of different types of technology they have bought and it just sits there. I would love to get familiar with it and then run some training sessions for my colleagues so they can implement these tools in their classrooms as well.
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Goal #2 Transforming Assessment
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As the demand for achievement increases, I need to make sure my assessments are doing their job. After reading Formative Assessment and Self-Regulated Learning by David J. Nicol & Debra Macfarlane‐Dick, I am seeing ways that I can improve my assessments. I want to target different units and subjects each year until I have improved all of my assessments. I want to make sure I am using the data that is being collected and implement changes in what I do to help my students. I also want to make sure my assessments are helping my students. I feel so much of the stress is put on the summative assessments and not focused on the formative assessments and this is where a lot of growth and improvement can take place. Students can get feedback from the teacher and their peers and see how they can improve. Students can also take this feedback and create goals for themselves. By making sure my assessments are clear, fair, and informative, I can help both myself and my students. A great place to start is joining a local cohort through our ISD. This cohort meets to discuss assessments and how we can improve them.
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Goal #3 Personalized Learning
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For my last goal, this will be a two-part goal. I want to create more personalized learning for my students. This is both in our everyday lessons but then also lessons for enrichment. In my classroom, I usually have very high achieving students and I need that next step for them to push themselves and go beyond the base level. For my enrichment lesson, I want to approach this in two different ways. I would like to have blended learning available for them. I want to create lessons that are pre-recorded with an activity for them to complete. For example, if I am teaching basic fractions their lesson may be the next step about simplifying fractions because they would be ready for that next step. Another way to do this would be through Project-Based Learning (PBL). My school implements PBL and I would like to provide extra challenges at the end for my students who are ready for those. A way to further my understanding of PBL is to go to training. I want to understand PBL better so I can create a meaningful project for my students and learn the best way to enrich their learning. Another framework I would like to dig more into is Understanding by Design (UbD). I feel by relooking at my lessons and activities with the idea of what I am trying to have my students learn and show me by working backward my lessons and activities will be stronger. As I go back and create these I want to think about how I can create these lessons and activities where my students explore and discover themselves. They will create more ownership of their learning and be able to draw in the students' interests and likes.
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Final Thoughts
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Through all these goals, I will continue growing as an educator using technology, content, and pedagogical practices. My main goal is to provide the best learning experience for my students and, by accomplishing these three goals, I will continue to move in that direction. After graduation, I will continue being a lifelong learner and setting new goals and new areas of growth I can achieve.