Annotated Transcript

This is an overview of my courses in Michigan State University's Master of Arts in Education (MAED) program. To see examples of the work I completed in this program, please view my showcase of work.

Course description acronyms are as follows:

TE = Teacher Education; ED = Education; CEP = Counseling, Educational Psychology, & Special Education

Spring 2015

TE 846: Accommodating Differences in Literacy Learners

Dr. Patricia Edwards

As I learned about the many ways students can differ in their literacy learning, this course tasked me with choosing a student to work with as a case study over the course of the semester. I selected an eighth-grade student below grade level in reading fluency. My course readings and discussions led me to use research-based Fluency Development Lessons, and the student showed two levels on the running records assessment and improved by 27 words per minute on a fluency test during the case study. The final report of this case study incorporated the knowledge gained in this course and the experience I had in my case study.

Summer 2015

ED 800: Educational Inquiry

Dr. Steven Weiland & Nathan Clason

This is the introductory course for the MAED program. The self-paced online format helped prepare me for the responsibility and rigor required of the program and the online courses in my future. Over six units, I considered five domains of educational inquiry as I learned about the history of education and various ways to think critically about its role in society. I learned about influential educational theorists such as John Dewey and Jane Addams and considered how American education has evolved from its foundations to the current digital age.

Fall 2015

CEP 802: Developing Positive Attitudes Toward Learning

Dr. Evelyn Oka & Taylor Hicks-Hoste

Many of my students had been described by their teachers, including myself, as having struggles with motivation, so I chose to take this course in order to be better able to help these low-motivation students. This course provided me with background on several theories surrounding student motivation, including intrinsic motivation and the cognitive-developmental perspective. I learned evidence-backed strategies to improve student attitudes toward learning, culminating in a case study I conducted with one of my most challenging students. Motivation is still certainly a challenge for many of my students, but this course provided me with deeper insight into this challenge and several tools to improve learning attitudes.

Spring 2016

TE 848: Writing Assessment and Instruction

Mark McCarthy

In order to improve my teaching and assessment of writing in my secondary classroom, this course had me consider writing from both a student and teacher perspective. I studied the roles that narrative, argumentative, and poetic writing have in my classroom and chose to complete an inquiry project seeking to improve my students' usage of grammar and mechanics within narrative writing. I was also reminded of the importance of stepping into your students' shoes, so to speak, and when given the opportunity to write my own piece in a new genre for me, I chose to write a children's story for my daughter.

Summer 2016

TE 838: Children's Literature in Film

Dr. Laura Apol

This course paired children's literature with their film adaptations and required me to write analysis papers that went beyond comparing and contrasting. Films are often used in classrooms as a "reward" for finishing a book, but often little is done with them beyond perhaps a simple compare/contrast. We considered ways to "read" both texts and film, the importance of fidelity to the original in adaptations, and the politics of reinterpretation, among other topics. Thanks to this course, I am now better equipped to help my students view film adaptations through a critical lens.

Spring 2017

TE 843: Secondary Reading Assessment and Instruction

Julene Wilson

To strengthen my teaching and assessment of reading, this course had me think about who my students truly are and what a modern definition of literacy should be. I surveyed my students to learn about their out-of-school literacy habits, gaining insights such as the amount of fan fiction my students were doing. Then, I developed plans to better incorporate these literacy habits into the classroom. I also revised a lesson and a unit in order to better draw on my students' strengths and interests. While I have always considered my teaching of reading to be a strength, this course helped me see how it could be improved even more.

Summer 2017

TE 849: Methods and Materials for Teaching Children's and Adolescent Literature

Mary Neville

Throughout this course, I read several works of modern children's and adolescent literature such as John Lewis's graphic novel March and Angie Thomas's book The Hate U Give. Each of these pieces of literature was paired with scholarly texts and other resources to help the class think more critically about the works and how they might fit into a classroom. The books read for this course were so engaging that all of them went straight to my classroom library for my students to read. For my final project, I selected one of our course texts, Challenger Deep by Neal Shusterman, and wrote an essay analyzing the novel and suggesting applications for the classroom.

Fall 2017

CEP 813: Electronic Assessment for Teaching and Learning

Colin Gallagher & Spencer Greenhalgh

I chose to take CEP 813 as an elective course because I wanted to improve my usage of assessment in my classroom, particularly through the use of technology. This course led me to think more critically about the various methods of assessment, such as rubrics, quizzes, and portfolios. As my learning grew, I was able to develop a rubric to use for any assessment I plan to administer in order to ensure that the assessment is as effective as possible. I also developed integrated assessment and instruction using the content management system (CMS) Schoology, and I created a screencast demonstrating how I might use games such as Minecraft to assess student learning. This course undoubtedly improved my usage of assessment.

Spring 2018

TE 836: Awards and Classics of Children's Literature

Dr. Bena Hartman

This course emphasized award-winning children's literature from groups that are often marginalized. Each week had a different theme, such as Asian-American literature or LGBTQ literature. I read books like Sherman Alexie's The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian and Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis, participated in online class discussions, and composed my own lesson for the class for one of our units. The final project will require me to develop a unit of study focusing on the reading and teaching of the literature of one community we have studied. This course provided me with valuable resources and tools to incorporate more authentic, high-quality, diverse literature into my practice.

ED 870: Capstone Seminar

Dr. Matthew Koehler, Sarah Keenan-Lechel, Spencer Greenhalgh, & Brittany Dillman

This is the culminating course for my Master of Arts in Education degree. I spent the course compiling past assignments, reflecting on my program and goals, and utilizing technology to create this digital portfolio. Throughout the semester, my classmates and I engaged in peer feedback using the digital tool Flipgrid. The final result is a portfolio reflecting my work over the past three years that I can refine and use throughout the rest of my career.