A short year and a half into teaching full-time, I found myself in a setting where the vast majority of teachers around me had already completed master’s degree programs. In fact, in Ohio, most of the teacher preparation programs culminate in a master’s degree. I wanted to continue my education, but I felt a very strong pull to do so at Michigan State University (MSU), where my journey into education had begun. The Master of Arts in Education (MAED) program at MSU seemed like a perfect fit for me. As a fully online program, I could participate from another state while continuing to teach full time. I was also intrigued by the idea of online learning, especially given that I was working in a 1:1 setting where all of my students had personal computers to use in school.

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        As I began my work in the MAED program, I had several goals geared toward pedagogy and inquiry. On one level, I hoped to inquire more into my own practice and explore and challenge my own beliefs about teaching. I also wanted to explore the different ways in which students can undergo inquiry in the classroom and how this process can be related to the nature of science and what it means to be a scientist in general. This was the major reason that I chose the Science and Mathematics Teaching concentration. Additionally, I hoped this concentration would help me to enrich my content knowledge needed to teach math and science. Finally, I thought that the online nature of the program would help me to be a better instructor in a 1:1 computing setting.

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        As I near the end of my program and reflect on my original goals, I have found that although they’ve become more detailed, they haven’t changed much fundamentally. Working with teachers from all sorts of contexts has given me a perspective on teaching and learning that I couldn’t have gotten working only with the teachers in my school. My ideas and assumptions have been challenged by my peers. As I had hoped, I have been able to bring these new ideas and perspectives back to share at my school. Sharing my work with others in the MAED program gave me the confidence to invite other teachers into my classroom and to ask for direct feedback from my peers and even from my students. Moving forward, I hope that I can use this to form a professional learning community in my school where teachers observe each other more frequently. My knowledge of how to use technology in the classroom has grown, but because technology is constantly changing, it will continue to be a goal of mine to stay up-to-date on current technologies in teaching. 

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        I’ve found that many people outside of education assume that all teachers aspire to be administrators one day. While I am happy to take on leadership roles in my teaching, I see remaining in the classroom as a lifelong investment for me. My primary goal for furthering my education is--and always has been--to become the best teacher that I can possibly be.