Below, you will find an annotated list of all of the courses that I took while obtaining my Master in Arts and Education degree (MAED) through Michigan State University (MSU). I have listed these courses in chronological order based on the semester that I participated in them.
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*TE stands for Teacher Education
*ED stands for Education
*CEP stands for Counseling, Educational Psychology and Special Education
Fall 2016
TE 802 Reflection and Inquiry in Teaching Practice I
Instructor: Kristen White
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I was enrolled in this course during my internship year of teaching which allowed me to apply all that I was learning to my first classroom of students. This course focused on literacy instruction specifically. One of the main assignments of the course was to design and implement a ten day writing genre unit. I was able to create this unit for the fifth graders that I worked with and our focus was on the genre of memoirs. I was also required to create small groups and provide differentiated reading instruction within those groups as another major assignment for this course. It helped to prepare me for literacy instruction in my own classroom.
Spring 2017
TE 803 Professional Roles and Teaching Practice II
Instructor: Andrew Miness
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This course was taken during my internship year of teaching and had more than one focus. The major assignment for this course was to create a social studies focused unit plan and implement that plan in the classroom. In order to effectively plan this unit we were also tasked with "seeing student thinking" which required the use of inquiry-based activities with our students. Beyond the subject of social studies, this course also focused on learning disabilities and how teachers can most effectively serve students who are faced with these disabilities. This portion of the course also required that we look more deeply into a specific learning disability of our choice, learn more about it from our building special education teacher, and learn about how that learning disability should be handled in the classroom.
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TE 804 Reflection and Inquiry in Teaching Practice II
Instructor: Martha Beitner-Miller
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This course was taken during my internship year of teaching and the focus of the course was science content and instruction. The major assignment in this course involved choosing a science topic and building a unit centered around that topic to teach to our students. Through creating this unit we were also exposed to the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) for the first time. By using these standards, we were able how to teach the core science ideas and concepts in an effective way that showed students their relevance to real life and experiences.
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Summer 2019
ED 800 Concepts of Educational Inquiry
Instructor: Steve Weiland
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This foundational course provided me with the opportunity to examine the idea of education as a whole. I was tasked with answering different questions about topics such as educational theories, how our contemporary world influences education, what is really "worth" knowing, etc. The main focus of the course week-by-week was to address the essential domains of educational inquiry and to learn about these forms of inquiry outside of our own experience with education. Overall, the course allowed me to explore diverse perspectives on education and to see how education is ever-changing.
CEP 841 Classroom and Behavior Management in the Inclusive Classroom
Instructor: Dr. Troy Mariage
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This course allowed me to explore how to effectively manage and understand the different behaviors that we are faced with as teachers. During this course, I learned about specific approaches and tools that could be used in my school or in my classroom such as Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS), a Functional Behavioral Assessment, and Behavior Intervention Plans. One of the main takeaways was that each behavior that a student displays serves some sort of function for that student and it is my job as their teacher to figure out what that function is and to help my student find better ways to achieve what they need. This course helped me to look at things more positively and to view classroom management as "prevention" and discipline as "teaching new skills."
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Fall 2019
TE 849 Methods and Materials for Teaching Children's and Adolescent Literature
Instructor: Laura Apol
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This course was centered around one broad question: "Why read?". Throughout this course we dove deeply into this question thinking about the purpose of reading in our classrooms and what we wanted students to gain from the books that we chose to read with them. We read a variety of books such as, Refugee, Luna, and All American Boys , which all included main characters from marginalized groups in society. These books pushed me to think about the fact that I want my students to relate to the books that we read, but more importantly, I want them to learn about diverse people, experiences, and points of view from the books that we read.
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Spring 2020
TE 846 Accommodating Differences in Literacy Learners
Instructor: Dr. Laura Tortorelli
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The goal of this course was to explore the qualities of effective literacy instruction for all learners. The course readings provided us with research and a variety of studied practices that have been used to aid in literacy instruction. We were then asked to take our learning and apply to a literacy case study with one or more students in our classroom. This project made up the bulk of the course and required us to assess these students, cater literacy lessons to their specific needs, and witness how these lessons benefited our students.
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Summer 2020
CEP 883 Psychology of Classroom Discipline
Instructor: HaeDong Kim
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The focus of this course was on the classroom environment that we create and live inside every day. The goal of the course was to learn how to create the best possible classroom environment in order to benefit our students experience and learning. What I appreciated about the course was that it forced me to look at what I currently do well as a teacher versus what I need to improve upon. We learned about different factors that influence student behaviors, how to assess those behaviors, and how to provide the proper interventions. By the end of the course, I had created a plan for my own classroom management to implement with my students in the following school year.
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TE 838 Children's Literature in Film
Instructor: Laura Apol
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Throughout this course I had to read a list of popular novels that at some point in time have all been turned in to films. The course required that I think about the fact that typically when a film is paired with a book, we focus on how closely the film follows the text especially when we use these films in the classroom. What I was able to learn from this course though, was that instead of seeing how closely related a film is to it's book counterpart, I should be focusing on what we gain from the film that can be considered "more" or "different." What I found by the end of the course was that many of these films, though different in plot and detail, were enhancing or improving upon the messages from the original story. This helped me to see that moving forward, that should be the reason and the focus when showing my students a film.
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Fall 2020
ED 870 Capstone Seminar
Instructors: Dr. Matthew Koehler & Aric Gaunt
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Throughout this course I worked on creating a professional portfolio based not only on my teaching experience and practices, but also on the work that I have completed throughout my Master of Arts in Education (MAED) program. This course provided me with opportunities to reflect on my learning over the past several years and to think about where I go from here. Since this course represent the end of my master's journey, I was tasked with setting future goals and creating a path for myself beyond this program. I can use what I have learned and created through this course for future employment and also as a way to help parents and students get to know me better.
Image retrieved from: https://www.pbs.org/video/2017-college-of-education-ufco38/