One Program, Three Threads

I love to learn and try to be a lifelong learner.  If I undertake a task or a mission, I want to do it well.  Because of these traits, I would love to be able to say that I have always been an active educator in all of my nontraditional teaching roles.  But, the truth is that I have been a passive educator.  Yes, I have gained knowledge and provided instruction to the best of my ability.  But what I have learned in the Master of Arts in Educational Technology (MAET) program is that it is not sufficient for me to simply teach using the best pedagogical strategies I possess or to learn more within the boundaries of my existing knowledge.  To be an active educator, I must seek information and skills that seem out of scope or might not yet exist.  The courses I have taken while in the MAET program have illustrated this point within three threads: technology, leadership, and connection.

Technology

When I applied to education jobs immediately after graduating from college, many applications included questions about the use of technology.  At that time, it seemed adequate to note that I had incorporated Microsoft PowerPoint into lessons during student teaching.  A few years later, when applying for positions again and having some substitute teaching and other life experience under my belt, I realized I could no longer rest in that satisfaction.  I had seen enough to know that technology had evolved much more quickly than I had been keeping up, particularly within the context of teaching and learning.  Thus, when seeking formal professional development, I decided to enroll in three of the MAET courses: CEP 810 (Teaching for Understanding with Technology), CEP 811 (Adapting Innovative Technology to Education), and CEP 812 (Applying Educational Technology to Practice).  By learning Web 2.0 tools; and designing lessons, professional development activities, and solutions to wicked problems which leveraged these resources; I not only became more proficient in technology but also acquired a new way of thinking about technology and education.

I now understand that active educators do not remain satisfied with utilizing a handful to technologies, but seek to embrace many tools, some of which were not originally designed for and had to be repurposed for teaching.  In order to be effective, instructors must also consciously choose technologies which will best fit with the pedagogical method and content in order to achieve the learning objectives – a balance defined through Punya Mishra and Matthew Koehler’s TPACK (Technological Pedgagogical Content Knowledge) framework.  This requires teachers to actively pursue new knowledge, not just about technology, but also about pedagogical strategies and content, and how various combinations would function together.  It is not sufficient to continue to use known methods, even if they worked well; active, effective teachers must continually pursue new combinations which will serve students’ learning even better.  Thus, CEP 810, 811, and 812 changed not only how I think about technology, but pedagogy and content as well.

This new way of thinking has changed my practice in my current, nontraditional role as an educator.  When planning training events, some of my colleagues have suggested integrating games, technology, or other strategies in order to maintain participant interest, but without knowing the content or learning objectives they hope to achieve.  I encouraged them to reconsider their planning method, first identifying the goals of the educational event and then choosing pedagogical methods and technologies.  I argued that while maintaining interest throughout the two-hour session was important to keep in mind, it was even more important to ensure that learners understood and could apply the content.  Only by doing the latter would the activity help meet the education program’s overall objectives.  While some colleagues did not implement all of my suggestions, others did – and received favorable feedback from learners and their managers regarding the usefulness of the information presented.

Leadership

I have loved leadership for years and have enjoyed opportunities to learn new approaches to the subject and teach skills to others through camp and conference settings.  Despite this, I had never studied it formally until taking CEP 815 (Technology and Leadership).  By learning the difference between managing and leading, different styles of leadership, and how to develop a vision, I realized that true leadership requires being proactive.  It is not sufficient for me to react to situations or trends; I must stay abreast of events and developments as they occur, know when to listen, decide where to go, and determine when to act.

By reflecting on these lessons, I have realized that effective teachers need to be leaders.  Active educators lead themselves, lead colleagues, and lead students.  Teachers need to manage their own time, not just in completing the required tasks of their jobs, but also in seeking new knowledge, skills, resources, and approaches to education.  They need to encourage their colleagues to do the same, as well as engage in the sharing of successes and failures with coworkers.  This not only creates opportunities for further individual growth, but helps the entire organization evolve in a way that benefits learners.  Perhaps most importantly, active educators must move beyond implementing lesson plans, grading assignments, and other management responsibilities and instead develop a vision for students’ academic and personal growth.  It is only then that the administrative tasks can be developed and performed with meaning, catalyzing progress within students.

Within my current workplace, I have shifted my mindset from expecting my manager to make major decisions to choosing to conduct research and develop a recommendation.  I then present my reasoning to my manager and ask permission to move forward.  Most often, I am allowed to act on the choice for which I advocated, and my manager has given me permission to make an increasing number of decisions without approval.  One recent change I have made for the education project I lead has been changing the frequency and number of action items individuals are required to complete each quarter.  While our current system seemed to be working well, I continued to actively consider how it could be improved to benefit all parties involved, utilized some feedback received from learners, and made an executive decision to change the system now rather than wait until it became a problem.

Connection

I used to believe that learning is more than just studying facts, but also about acquiring and discovering how to apply life-long skills.  I still consider that to be true, but, through CEP 882 (The Nature and Design of Compelling Experiences), I have found that the true learning goes beyond application and actually changes people.  Studying graphic design, film, photography, music, and other art forms taught me that the best educational experiences provide new perspectives, touch one emotionally, and inspire one to act differently, even if only in a small way.

Passive educators might think critically about content and try to create scenarios in which students can practice applying knowledge and skills to real-life settings.  This approach to teaching trumps route memorization of facts and benefits students when they leave the classroom, but is still a somewhat sterile method of teaching.  Active educators intentionally look for ways to creatively create compelling experiences for students, one which incorporates multiple literacies and causes learners to feel something during the lesson.  This does not mean that instructors should focus on emotional experiences to the extent that content becomes unimportant or overshadowed, nor that every lesson needs to trump the previous one in hype, depth, or persuasion.  By creatively seeking to create experiences which allow students to connect with content material on both intellectual and emotional levels, however, educators provide opportunities learners to better understand, remember, and apply knowledge.

While I have not had the opportunity to implement this shift in mindset in a social studies classroom, I have spent time contemplating possible objectives within this larger vision.  For instance, high school students learn much about the two world wars, but do not always grasp the reality that the casualty rates represent the loss of real human beings whose deaths affected families, friends, and communities for decades.  In order to communicate this truth, age-appropriate novels or films could be used to illustrate the story of a single individual or community.  Primary sources could be leveraged for the same aim.  When combined with statistics, students could grasp nuanced ramifications of wars such as a drop in the marriage rate, and a lifetime of singleness for women because all of the men in their village were killed.  I want to help students understand these events on a human level, not to pass judgment on decisions, but so that they can realize that history is not a collection of events, but actually a series of interactions between people, organizations, and nations.  The consequences of those exchanges affect not only the boundaries of countries, but cultures, and the lives of individuals.  It is only by gaining this understanding that learners will grasp that the decisions they make will affect not only their lives, but the lives of others.

Three Threads, One Theme

While the five aforementioned classes had the most noteworthy influence on my journey from being a passive educator to an active teacher, their lessons do not stand as individual silos.  The three threads of technology, leadership, and connection are interwoven.  When seeking new tools and resources, and finding the sweet spot of technology, pedagogy, and content, I should do so with the goals of leading students and creating compelling learning experiences.  In order to lead learners effectively, I must have and know how to use the tools to implement my vision, and be able design lessons which help students connect with material in order to reach my ultimate objective.  Constructing captivating learning experiences requires that I have knowledge of TPACK and possess a vision to give purpose to the lesson.  Thus, the MAET program has taught me that, in order to effectively leverage one thread and be an active educator, I must be knowledgeable and enthusiastically seeking growth in all three areas.

Just as the threads do not exist in isolation from one another, nor do the courses mentioned thus far prevail as the only ones within the MAET program which contributed to my professional growth.  In addition to the individual lessons discussed in my annotated transcript, other courses contributed ideas within the three threads of learning to be an active educator.  CEP 800 (Learning in School and Other Settings) taught me the importance of intentionally exploring students’ prior knowledge about topics; understanding this is essential in order for me to best determine a vision, select technology, and create opportunities for connection between students and content.  From CEP 822 (Approaches to Educational Research), I learned skills which will enable me to actively obtain knowledge regarding best practices for content, technology, and pedagogy; this, again, reinforces the three threads.  CEP 820 (Teaching Students Online) enabled me to practice finding the sweet spot of technology, pedagogy, and content; creating a vision for a course; and developing engaging learning experiences in an online setting.  TE 846 (Accommodating Differences in Literacy Learners) emphasized the importance of being proactive in identifying and addressing literacy needs within a subject area; active educators must follow this guideline in order for any of the objectives within the three threads to be successful.

Finally, CEP 807 (Capstone in Educational Technology) has encouraged me to process the individual lessons learned in each course to find the underlying threads; without this class I would not be able to articulate and apply the collective lessons learned from the MAET program.  As I reflect on my academic growth, I am excited about the prospect of being able to implement the lessons I have learned in whatever educational settings I can.  I am also intrigued that my professional development through the MAET program has mirrored my personal growth.  In my goal reflection essay, I mentioned that a recent statement from a friend about how “if one is not moving forward, they are falling backwards” changed my outlook on life.  By teaching me the meaning and importance of being an active educator, rather than a passive one, Michigan State University’s Master of Arts in Educational Technology program has also shown me the value of always moving forward.  I am looking forward to seeing where acting on that lesson takes me!