My Future as a Learner
By Erica Lewis
Title
Throughout my masters courses at Michigan State University I have had a lot of time to reflect on myself as a learner. More importantly though, is as I close this chapter of my life I would like to figure out who I will be in the future. I know that I will be a learner still in future years. “In what?,” “For what purposes?,” “And Why?” are all questions I am going to ask myself when deciding how I want to perceive myself in the future.
I have planted the seeds of my goal statement and now I am so close to being able to observe the beauty that the flowers will produce. Literally, I will be able to stop and smell the roses. I look forward to being able to utilize the things I have learned in the classroom as well as share many ideas and techniques with colleagues. The end of my master’s courses is most definitely a starting point in my life. Why spend thousands of dollars to complete a degree program only to let that information wilt when it should be utilized to the fullest?
Much of what I learned throughout the courses at MSU has proven to be greatly useful to the current Social Studies classes that I teach. In particular, courses such as TE 836, TE 838, and TE 843 have greatly made an impact on my teaching style. I have always been willing to try new ideas that enhance learning in the classroom and these three courses greatly opened my eyes to all sorts of new things to try. The best part about trying something new?- You can have a tool belt full of new tricks and secrets to encourage learning. Sometimes you might try something and the result is not what you expect, good or bad, but from every new experience you can learn from. This might mean totally changing the new idea because it failed miserably or it might be holding fast to an idea that works wonders. In each of these three courses I learned to incorporate new technologies, learned new teaching strategies to incorporate reading, and further reinforced my current teaching ideas. Some technologies that we discussed and I use more heavily in my classroom now are websites such as Voicethread, Webspiration, and I hope to start using Wiki’s in my classroom for reference purposes. Another thing that I added to my tool belt was the use of children’s literature in my high school classrooms. It is amazing how many children’s novels are out there that show different perspectives of nearly every topic in history. Incorporating those books while using other previous known reading strategies, encourages my students to learn especially since we are getting out of the typical textbook model of teaching. Lastly, I have come to think about what I do specifically as a teacher. Do the things I say hurt or help students learn? Do I unintentionally encourage stereotypes or square thinking by showing certain videos, video clips, and texts? I really have begun to think about how my students might think when they experience the things I do or say as a teacher.
I am glad to say that I have been able to walk away from my master’s courses with such a wealth of knowledge but it still does not tell you why finishing my degree is a starting point rather than an end in this journey. Finishing is a starting point for me because I typically like to be busy. Yet, I should have more free time now that my program is complete right? WRONG! No, I have huge dreams to utilize my literacy education at my school. I currently am involved very prominently with the Grading and Assessment committee at school. We focus on creating interventions, encouraging the use of school policy, and suggesting ways in which we as educators can help students achieve mastery. I plan to use my knowledge from MSU to further help this committee by encouraging positive reading strategies as an intervention to be used. Plus, I plan to locate off site trainings that have potential to strengthen our students reading abilities and to expand student achievement. A coworker of mine is almost finished with the literacy program at MSU and we have discussed, on numerous occasions, tag teaming a professional development workshop for our other coworkers. This is to encourage other coworkers to seek many ways to allow students to beef up their mastery in literacy as well as to promote exciting ways to teach literacy in the classroom.
Yet, this again is not my only goal for post graduation. I want to go back to school for my PhD in administration. I enjoy the personal and professional aspects that administrators face on a daily basis. I hope to one day be a part of creating a school environment that is safe, exciting, and educational through my future learning. I want to have a say in schedules, activities, discipline, and parental involvement that goes along with many other duties that administrators encounter. I think that even if I do not become a principal, that the information learned through an administration program could greatly influence my perception and cooperation with coworkers. I think it would be also rather beneficial to have an administration program under my belt when trying to implement strategies to boost reading comprehension and intervention programs to help students.
My overarching goals seem to reflect a need for student achievement, especially in literacy. As a future learner I plan to utilize what I learned in my courses from the Masters in Education program as well as learn more useful tools from my future PhD courses. I love to learn and just like any other excited student I am anxious to get back into the classroom to learn what I can. Now that the seeds I planted are almost ready to bloom, why wait to begin planting new seeds? Some might see the garden as overcrowded but I see it as rich and full of color, all the more adding to the overall experience that I hope to continue to portray as a future learner.
I have planted the seeds of my goal statement and now I am so close to being able to observe the beauty that the flowers will produce. Literally, I will be able to stop and smell the roses. I look forward to being able to utilize the things I have learned in the classroom as well as share many ideas and techniques with colleagues. The end of my master’s courses is most definitely a starting point in my life. Why spend thousands of dollars to complete a degree program only to let that information wilt when it should be utilized to the fullest?
Much of what I learned throughout the courses at MSU has proven to be greatly useful to the current Social Studies classes that I teach. In particular, courses such as TE 836, TE 838, and TE 843 have greatly made an impact on my teaching style. I have always been willing to try new ideas that enhance learning in the classroom and these three courses greatly opened my eyes to all sorts of new things to try. The best part about trying something new?- You can have a tool belt full of new tricks and secrets to encourage learning. Sometimes you might try something and the result is not what you expect, good or bad, but from every new experience you can learn from. This might mean totally changing the new idea because it failed miserably or it might be holding fast to an idea that works wonders. In each of these three courses I learned to incorporate new technologies, learned new teaching strategies to incorporate reading, and further reinforced my current teaching ideas. Some technologies that we discussed and I use more heavily in my classroom now are websites such as Voicethread, Webspiration, and I hope to start using Wiki’s in my classroom for reference purposes. Another thing that I added to my tool belt was the use of children’s literature in my high school classrooms. It is amazing how many children’s novels are out there that show different perspectives of nearly every topic in history. Incorporating those books while using other previous known reading strategies, encourages my students to learn especially since we are getting out of the typical textbook model of teaching. Lastly, I have come to think about what I do specifically as a teacher. Do the things I say hurt or help students learn? Do I unintentionally encourage stereotypes or square thinking by showing certain videos, video clips, and texts? I really have begun to think about how my students might think when they experience the things I do or say as a teacher.
I am glad to say that I have been able to walk away from my master’s courses with such a wealth of knowledge but it still does not tell you why finishing my degree is a starting point rather than an end in this journey. Finishing is a starting point for me because I typically like to be busy. Yet, I should have more free time now that my program is complete right? WRONG! No, I have huge dreams to utilize my literacy education at my school. I currently am involved very prominently with the Grading and Assessment committee at school. We focus on creating interventions, encouraging the use of school policy, and suggesting ways in which we as educators can help students achieve mastery. I plan to use my knowledge from MSU to further help this committee by encouraging positive reading strategies as an intervention to be used. Plus, I plan to locate off site trainings that have potential to strengthen our students reading abilities and to expand student achievement. A coworker of mine is almost finished with the literacy program at MSU and we have discussed, on numerous occasions, tag teaming a professional development workshop for our other coworkers. This is to encourage other coworkers to seek many ways to allow students to beef up their mastery in literacy as well as to promote exciting ways to teach literacy in the classroom.
Yet, this again is not my only goal for post graduation. I want to go back to school for my PhD in administration. I enjoy the personal and professional aspects that administrators face on a daily basis. I hope to one day be a part of creating a school environment that is safe, exciting, and educational through my future learning. I want to have a say in schedules, activities, discipline, and parental involvement that goes along with many other duties that administrators encounter. I think that even if I do not become a principal, that the information learned through an administration program could greatly influence my perception and cooperation with coworkers. I think it would be also rather beneficial to have an administration program under my belt when trying to implement strategies to boost reading comprehension and intervention programs to help students.
My overarching goals seem to reflect a need for student achievement, especially in literacy. As a future learner I plan to utilize what I learned in my courses from the Masters in Education program as well as learn more useful tools from my future PhD courses. I love to learn and just like any other excited student I am anxious to get back into the classroom to learn what I can. Now that the seeds I planted are almost ready to bloom, why wait to begin planting new seeds? Some might see the garden as overcrowded but I see it as rich and full of color, all the more adding to the overall experience that I hope to continue to portray as a future learner.