Master of Arts in Education Showcase
Welcome to my graduate showcase. I hope you enjoy looking at some of the most meaningful artifacts from my graduate work. I have organized my showcase into two categories. The first is titled Engaging All Learners, and focuses on lessons and artifacts I have created to help engage my students in learning. I have found that providing students with hands on opportunities to learn, opportunities to use technology, and by modifying lessons to meet students at their level has truly helped me to engage students in their learning. The second section is titled Reflecting on Practice and provides personal essays where I share how reflecting on my teaching has helped me to improve my practice and become a more thoughtful educator. I hope you enjoy viewing some of my work.
Engaging All Learners
Trying to give directions about how to play games can be time consuming and frustrating. I find it difficult to model for the students how to play the game and keep their attention. I find myself forgetting to remind them of little things and repeating myself several times. To solve these problems I created a few videos that explain the rules and directions for playing a few popular math games. I love that I can just pull up the video instead of giving the directions. My students always seem to be more engaged in content when directions are delivered
from a screen rather than when I do it verbally. Plus I do not have to repeat myself several times when giving directions. |
Making learning experiences engaging and authentic has always been a goal of mine. I have found that technology makes this lofty goal much easier to meet. In this resource I share with you three technology tools that teachers can use to help make learning experiences engaging and authentic. The first resource focuses on the web app web.seesaw.me This program allow students to write, draw, and record content to share with their classmates and parents. This creates an authentic audience for student learning and motivates them to do their best work. The next tool I explored was www.polleverywhere.com this tool allows users to enter into a discussion and answer questions anonymously. I am able to receive honest feedback from my students about what they like and do not like about what is going on in our class. My last resource is www.edublogs.org this safe blogging website allows teachers to share content with students and parents. However, the reason I was drawn to this program was because it also allows students to create their own blog under the teacher blog. I thought this was a really neat feature and another great way to motivate students and involve parents.
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Reflecting on Practice
I grew up using a phone to call my family and friends. My current students have grown up using a phone to watch television, listen to music, do their homework, get from place to place, and more. The students in our classrooms today are digital natives and do not learn the same way as I once did. Realizing the students of today are much different than those of my generation is easy. However, teaching students in a way that is different from the way I was taught has been challenging.
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One of the most powerful things I have learned in my graduate studies at Michigan State is how to accommodate the unique needs of diverse learners in an inclusive classroom. My current classroom includes students with learning disabilities, emotional impairments, those who are learning English as a second language, students with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity disorder, and many other needs. Realizing that each student is unique and may need accommodations and to be treated differently than another student has changed the way I look at students that present management challenges.
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