MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY
Annotated Transcript, Master of Arts in Education (MAED)
TE 802
Fall 2012
Reflection & Inquiry into Teaching Practices I
Instructors: Dr. Charles (Andy) Anderson and Dr. Gail Richmond
The Reflection & Inquiry into Teaching Practices I course was a part of my year-long internship at Michigan State University. This course focused on how to use inquiry to teach science to high school students and to reflect on my own practice. During the course I reflected on and planned different activities to set the tone for the beginning of school. We also wrote and shared vignettes of what good science teaching looks like. Finally, I wrote and implemented plans for teaching high school Chemistry students about the models of the atom and types of intramolecular bonding.
TE 803
Spring 2013
Professional Roles & Teaching Practices II
Instructor: Christina Jenkins
The Professional Roles & Teaching Practices II course was a part of my year-long internship at Michigan State University. The purpose of the course was to share teaching practices and get feedback from other teachers in the course. A major project in this course was a case study focused on one student. I studied this student's behavior in depth to try to gain a deeper understanding of how best to reach her. I also shared video of my teaching that involved interactions with this student and incorporated feedback into my future instruction.
TE 804
Spring 2013
Reflection & Inquiry into Teaching Practices II
Instructors: Dr. Charles (Andy) Anderson and Dr. Gail Richmond
The Reflection & Inquiry into Teaching Practices II course was a part of my year-long internship at Michigan State University and was essentially the continuation of TE 802. During this course, I read about and participated in discussions regarding the effective use of group work where students have to share knowledge to work together toward a common goal. We also planned and incorporated inquiry tasks designed to help students think more deeply about the content as they learned it. Finally, I planned and implemented a series of lessons for naming compounds and interpreting heating and cooling curves in Chemistry.
ED 800
Spring 2015
Concepts of Educational Inquiry
Instructor: Dr. Steven Weiland
In the Concepts of Educational Inquiry course, we explored the purpose of education throughout history and what education looked like to us as learners compared to how it looks in our classrooms. Through the use of course readings and several essays and online discussions, we analyzed how various outside factors--especially changes in technology--have affected the way that both students and teachers think about learning. Finally, the course culminated in discussions about inquiry in the classroom, including ways it can be used effectively and the controversies/misconceptions surrounding the use of inquiry.
EAD 860
Summer 2015
Concept of a Learning Society
Instructor: Dr. Steven Weiland
In the Concept of a Learning Society course, I was able to read and write about many different representations of a learning society, including but not limited to the classroom. This course incorporated the use of "hypermedia," meaning that much of our course material was a combination of online texts, video, audio, museum exhibitions, and online discussions. As such, the course gave me the opportunity to qustion the purpose and qualities of a true learning socierty as well as learn more about what it means to be "digitally literate."
TE 831
Fall 2015
Teaching Subject Matter with Technology
Instructor: Mark McCarthy
While the Teaching Subject Matter with Technology course had several smaller reading assignments and online discussions, the main project for the course required me to "Remix and Remediate" a lesson I'd previously taught by incorporating a new technology tool. Since my students had all obtained their own Chromebook at this point, I decided to use this as an opportunity to incorporate the use of Phet Colorado simulations more into my classroom. As predicted, with the use of this new technology students were more interested, excited, and involved in the learning process.
TE 861B
Fall 2015
Inquiry, Nature of Science, and Science Teaching
Instructor: Dr. Amelia Gotwals
The Inquiry, Nature of Science, and Science Teaching course provided me the opportunity to read, discuss with peers, and interview students about what it means to be a scientist and how inquiry in the learning process relates to that. Online discussions and student interview responses helped to shape a lesson design for teaching types of chemical bonds incorporating inquiry, various formative assessments, and complex instruction teaching styles. Incorporating some of the aspects of what students viewed as "real science" into their activities helped to increase student buy-in and perceived value of the material.
TE 861C
Spring 2016
Action Research in K-12 Science and Mathematics Classrooms
Instructor: James Brian Hancock, II
The Action Research in K-12 Science and Mathematics Classrooms course was a semester long course in which I posed an inquiry question I would like to investigage in my classroom and then was guided through the process of writing a formal research proposal. Having spent significant time investigating ways to differentiate for struggling students, I decided to frame my research proposal around ways to differentiate for gifted and otherwise accelerated students. Given that there is not a lot of literature and research about this topic, it generated a lot of interest for me.
TE 846
Summer 2016
Accomodating Differences in Literacy Learners
Instructor: Davena Jackson
The Accomodating Differeces in Literacy Learners course provided me with the opportunity to work one-on-one with a student to identify specific literacy needs and tailor lessons and assessments to them. The student with whom I worked struggled to organize thoughts on paper and to incorporate information from text. Through a series of lessons, I helped him to develop an annotation system for informational texts and to write scientific explanations using the PEOE (Predict, Explain, Observe, Explain) method. This will be an important tool for him moving forward when he takes End of Course Exams and the ACT.
ED 870
Summer 2016
Capstone
Instructors: Dr. Matthew Koehler, Sarah Keenan, Spencer Greenhalgh, Brittany Dillman
As the final course in the MAED program, the Capstone course was an opportunity for me to reflect on what I had learned an accomplished as I worked toward my degree. In fact, the creation of this online portfolio was the main project for the course. In addition to creating our own portfolios, we engaged in peer reviews, buddy checks, and online exhibitions of our final portfolios. Not only did this course help me reflect on my work, but it also gave me valuable website editing and portfolio creation experience that I can take into the classroom.
*Spartan head image obtained from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michigan_State_Spartans