The Molding of a Mindful MAET Student

 

Growing up as a millennial, everyone assumes that you know everything about technology. I may have been opened my first email account when I was just eight years old and began documenting my interests through social media outlets since I was 13 years old, but when it came to teaching with technology I was lost. When I was hired into my first job as a Second Grade teacher in Detroit and saw I had both a SMARTBOARD and five desktop computers at my fingertips I was excited and nervous. No instructional manuals or professional developments were offered to us on how to harness the power of educational technology. We were expected to just be able to integrate it into our daily lessons and routines. Applying for the Master of Arts in Educational Technology  (MAET) during the Spring of 2014, was the obvious next step for me to further my knowledge on how to successfully implement technology in my classroom.

 

The MAET program was first introduced to me while I was an undergraduate at Michigan State University. I took CEP 416 class as an elective during my senior year. This course taught me how to create my first teaching portfolio and gave me some insight into the many benefits technology has to offer students. The concept of the SMARTBOARD had been foreign to me before taking this class because we did not have one in our classrooms growing up. I was amazed at how easily students could manipulate lesson based activities and become engaged in their work. This was a game changer for me and left me with a hunger to learn more.  My Master’s credits began with two courses, TE 801 AND TE 803 during my student internship year. These courses focused on teaching theories, communication strategies, classroom management, and student engagement. I began to feel more confident as a teacher. It was the moment that I thought, "I can do this". With excitement, I was ready to add meat onto this basic structure of how to run a classroom and gain a better perspective on how technology fit into all of this.

 

My MAET journey officially began in the summer of 2014. As I began to get my feet wet observing technology types and learning the proper jargon, I started to think about my goals for this program. I wanted to walk away from this program with a strong understanding about how I can implement educational technology to impact my teaching, and how students learn as a result from my teaching.  

 

How Educational Technology Can Impact Teaching:

 

Coming from a classroom with five desktop computers, a SMARTBOARD, and access to an iPad cart, I wanted to implement technology into every aspect of my classroom. I was ready to receive a list of approved websites for each subject area that I could begin registering my students for right away. This type of mindless insertion of technology was the first thing my CEP 812 and CEP 815 professors addressed as a leading misconception held by teachers. When we are just digitizing our current practices we are not really changing the way we are teaching or using technology in a way to help our students grow. They then introduced Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) and it changed my whole outlook on technology for the better. TPACK emphasizes the importance of knowing how technology interacts with content knowledge and pedagogy (www.tpack.org). We teachers need to find what type of technology will best aid in our teaching of a specific content area. I was surprised to learn this technology does not have to be electronic. A pencil and paper is a technology; post-it notes are technology; computer apps are technology; etc. I began to reexamine the types of technology I was using and began to question how I was using technology to aid in my pedagogy? What affordances and constraints did a technology have on my lesson? TPACK reaffirmed that I should not be using computer technology just for the sake of using technology. The technology I chose should reinvent and modify my teaching to transform student learning.

 

 

Analyzing my use of technology was important, but it still left me wondering in what ways can I achieve finding the “sweet spot” where technology, pedagogy, and content knowledge came together in perfect harmony? CEP 811 opened my eyes to the Maker Movement and Project Based Learning. The Maker Movement gives people the power to remix old items and invent new concepts and ideas with the help of technology. People then share their creations at the Maker Faire.  A Makey Makey Kit is just one way to bring this idea of inquiry through play to my students. The kit attaches to a computer or digital device on one end and clips onto household objects on the other. Bananas can then be turned into musical instruments and I even added the use of coding to create a math game involving coins. Students are encouraged to collaborate together, learn that success is born out of failure, and question the world around them. Project Based Learning was another way I learned for my students to use TPACK. Students are given a real world problem connecting to a unit of study they are exploring in class. They then work in groups using different types of technology to develop plausible solutions. This is a great way for them to develop 21st century skills such as critical and creative thinking, collaboration, innovation, and communication. These solutions are presented in authentic ways to community leaders through the use of powerpoint presentations, posters, brochures, and more.

 

As a lifelong learner, I wanted to know how I could keep up with the latest educational technology advances in the future. Technology changes constantly, as well as the way technology can be used. With my program coming to an end, what resources could I use to stay relevant in my classroom? CEP 810 addressed many of these concerns. During this course, I developed my Personal Learning Network (PLN). This network showed all the different branches of who, where, and what I can turn to, to keep up with my peers. I created my first professional Twitter page. Through this social media website, I can follow my professors, colleagues, and other field experts. Each post is like a mini professional development where I can comment and receive immediate feedback on how I can use the latest research in my classroom. I can even retweet that information so my followers can benefit too! I also learned that there are groups on facebook where I can communicate about specific educational topics with other teachers in my grade level. In addition, I have found by Googling my own inquiries I can follow teacher blogs and gather visual resources I can use with my own students. Finally, my CEP 822 professors taught me how to conduct research like an expert. Through ERIC ProQuest and the Michigan State Library, I can find peer reviewed articles on just about any topic. This is extremely helpful in determining what technological advances have been proven effective, ineffective, or have not yet been studied. As a teacher, I learned that it is my duty to make sure the practices I am following are based on reliable sources in order to offer my students the best educational experience I can.

 

How Students Learn:

 

When we look at education from the perspective of a teacher, we become focused on what we can do to educate our students. We think about what model of teaching we are going to use, what resources, and how we are going to assess. My CEP 800 and CEP 810 professors reminded us that in order to understand how we can best teach our students, we must first understand how they learn. In the earliest moments of our lives, we begin learning by mimicking the environment around us. We then take this new knowledge and internally sort it using our schema. We then looked into various learning theories: behaviorism, constructivism, cognitivism, and cognitive development. Cognitive researchers have discovered that learning goes far beneath the surface all the way to the connections being formed in the brain giving way for learning with understanding. In order for people to successfully begin the process of knowing, their prior knowledge must be brought into play as a starting point for their instruction. This allows for the students to think critically about their preconceptions instead of holding onto them hindering their learning. As a teacher, this was something I never purposefully planned for while writing out my lessons. Now I know it is crucial for me to find out what each of my students know before teaching new content in any subject area. For learning to have taken place, it must not only be remembered but transferrable. Learning transfer is more successful when organizing information into conceptual frameworks and allowing students to apply their knowledge in new situations.

 

I then wondered, how can technology help make learning stay with our students and how can it help students address misconceptions? In CEP 800 and CEP 810, we discussed making ideas “sticky” so they are retained in students’ long-term memory. A way to make ideas sticky is to let students ask the questions. Student-led inquiry will force students to confront their misunderstandings or misconceptions and ask questions to find the truth. 1:1 technology provides students the opportunity to use computers to find answers to their questions and work at their own pace. Furthermore, I have found that interactive programs improve engagement, which makes ideas “stick” with students.

 

Using The Hows to Build a Vision:

 

Studying how educational technology can impact teaching and how students learn was brought together in my CEP 815 course. I suddenly had all of this knowledge and it was time for me to reflect on the impact it would have on my future. When gaining a Master’s in Educational Technology, you have two paths winding in front of you. You can either stay/become a classroom teacher implementing all of the strategies, theories, and lessons you have learned, or you can become a technology leader of a school district and educate your peers on how to use technology to benefit student learning. I began looking at my all of my new knowledge through the eyes of a leader and wrote a vision for how I would advise a plan to use technology to solve a critical problem. My problem centered on students going through the school system and coming out not equipped with the necessary skills needed to succeed in a 21st century working world. Above all else, I wanted to share a vision for growing student thinking through the use of technology, rather than finding meaningless ways to insert technology into the classroom. I did not want my colleagues to fall victim to the same misconceptions I shared at the start of the MAET program. My vision began: I envision education utilizing technology to build critical and creative thinking, problem solving, collaboration, and innovative skills students need to flourish in the 21st century work environment. I see students becoming the center of learning through project based learning, maker movement, and design thinking activities. Within this context, I see teachers acting as the facilitators of knowledge assembling experiences while the students are actively leading discussions with their peers based on their inquiries. In this new world connected by technology, we must grow leaders who believe in their power to build new systems while rebuilding failing ones. Click this link to read my full vision statement. While I am very happy being a Second Grade teacher right now, I see myself working to make my vision a reality in the future. I will utilize this portfolio as an active resume for future employers to gain insight into how the MAET program has shaped me as an educator. Without instructors who constantly challenged me to think more deeply about the role technology plays in student learning, I would still be the lost millenial believing that superficially integrating technology is enough to push students to grow to their true potential.