Spring 2011
Annotated Transcript of Courses
TE 803
Professional Roles & Teaching Practice II
Instructor: A. Bodle
This course was taken as part of my 5th year student teaching internship. With a focus on Social Studies, I developed a unit on economics (needs/wants) for my first grade class. With an emphasis on designing an integrated unit, I learned strategies for integrating social studies content and quality children’s literature. The course also had a special education focus, in which we were exposed to various special education topics and presented on one of our choice. Finally, we worked with other student teachers in our area to conduct a “lesson study” in which a lesson was taught, reflected on as a group, and changes were made before teaching the lesson a second time to a new group of students.
TE 804
Reflection & Inquiry in Teaching Practice II
Instructor: R. Rubin
This course was taken as part of my 5th year student teaching internship. With a focus on Science, I developed a unit on life cycles for my first grade class. I created and administered a pre- and post-assessment before/after teaching the unit. I also thought about a learning community issue - student participation - and developed and carried out an inquiry plan involving tracking formal and informal data of student participation patterns and analyzing the results, with an emphasis on the use of popsicle sticks to encourage student participation. I was able to reflect on my learning community at the time and learned how to use pre- and post-assessments to guide science instruction.
Fall 2014
CEP 810
Teaching for Understanding with Technology
Instructors: D. Cosby, A. Keller
This course focused on teaching for understanding through the use of technology, helping me to understand the affordances of technology for learning. I thought more deeply about my Professional Learning Network (PLN) and how technology can be a tool to grow it. I learned ways to use technology to assist in productivity and accomplishing tasks. I also learned how to use the affordances of a technology tool to design a lesson where students can be successful. I was introduced to a framework of teaching that focused on technological, pedagogical, and content knowledge (TPACK). I learned about the importance of being fully equipped to help students to be successful learning with technology.
CEP 811
Spring 2015
Adapting Innovative Technologies to Education
Instructors: A. Pietrowski, M. Wever
This course focused on “making” - using a chosen maker kit to create a lesson for students. The course continued to focus on TPACK (first introduced in CEP 810) but also introduced the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) guidelines and how to use them with technology to best meet the needs of all students. I researched different learning theories in the classroom environment and reflected on how they fit within current technology applications and programs. I also learned about Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) and the unique affordances of using the internet to help others to learn. I put all of these ideas into practice when evaluating myself on a game I created with my maker kit and how well it fit within TPACK and UDL guidelines. I really learned a lot about using technology effectively and the importance of deliberate choice in technology use.
CEP 812
Applying Educational Technology to Issues of Practice
Instructors: C. Gallagher, S. Sweeney
The main focus of this coure was on issues of practice in education, and technology solutions for them. I researched dyslexia and evaluated a technology tool used to support the learning of students with dyslexia. Another issue of practice I came across was that of confident technology use in the classroom, so I created and administered a survey to my grade-level colleagues on their feelings regarding it. I was able to think about next-step solutions for the issue of not feeling well-equipped to teach with the technology that is available. One very large and wicked problem that I worked with in a group was the idea of using failure as a learning mode, and making it okay for kids to fail in order to succeed. My group collaborated across the globe with the help of Google Hangouts and Google Docs, drafting a white paper on our potential solutions and how to effectively teach students in this way using video game technology.
Summer 2015
CEP 800
Psychology of Learning in School & Other Settings
Instructors: C. Roseth, D. Campbell
This course allowed me to review and explore various learning theories and find examples of them in my classroom. I thought more deeply about how I knew if students really understood a concept, and how to identify (and teach from) student misconceptions. I learned about the different ways that students can learn. I was able to combine all of these ideas together in a final project in which I taught a science concept and planned ahead of time what technology would best support not only student understanding, but student demonstration of understanding. This course really opened my eyes to the varying backgrounds my students come from, and how their prior experiences shape and form their current “understanding”.
Approaches to Educational Research
Instructors: E. Wong, D. Freer, H. Nguyen
This course was all about research, data, and statistics. Having never taken statistics in high school or college, this was very new to me. I learned a lot of new things related to math and how to read and interpret data. Given a topic of our own choice, we were tasked with researching the issue and annotating the research we discovered. I researched school-wide PBIS and found research both for and against its implementation I was able to analyze data from individual research pieces to find factors that may influence one another. I also thought on a larger scale about all of the pieces of research that I read and the story that they told about the success (or non-use) of school-wide PBIS.
Fall 2015
CEP 822
CEP 815
Technology and Leadership
Instructors: A. Yadav, D. Cosby
This course focused on leadership in many contexts. We learned about the seven transformations of leadership, and how each influences one another. The course also focused on the importance of being a leader when it comes to using technology, setting an example for both your students and your colleagues. I chose a problem of practice (school-home communication) and crafted a vision of how to lead others towards a solution to this problem using technology. I also was able to reflect on the potential implications of technology use and how I would address these from a leadership role and perspective.
Spring 2016
CEP 820
Teaching Students Online
Instructors: A. Heintz, E. Boltz
This course built upon the learning of some of my previous courses in the sense that I really thought deeply about how to teach students through strictly an online format. We were introduced to many quality rubrics to assess not only the online course itself, but also the teacher. Different online/blended classroom styles and methods of communication were also explored, modeled, and studied closely. We were introduced to potential implications of online teaching and learning through case studies, and thought deeply about how we might react if we were in the same situation. Ultimately, I designed a fully-online course via Haiku Learning to teach my second grade students about solids and liquids.
Summer 2016
CEP 807
Capstone in Educational Technology
Instructors: M. Koehler, B. Dillman, S. Greenhalgh, S. Keenan
This was the final course of my Master of Arts in Educational Technology (MAET) program. I designed an online portfolio that showed not only what I have learned through the program, but also incorporated my digital technology skills. I reflected on how my learning goals had shifted over the course of the program, and what my next steps would be after I completed the program. I learned new ways to use technology to convey my message to viewers. I also spent a great deal of time using peer and instructor feedback in making sure my online portfolio was accessible and consistent.