Passionate educator. Tech Whiz. Lifelong Learner.
From Start to Finish: My Journey
When I was three years old...
I was caught on camera with my favorite Cinderella pillow, my red blanket,
and of course, a Cinderella book. Did I know how to read then? Nope but my family instilled in me the importance of reading and knowing as much as you possibly can in order to be successful in school and this world. I believe it was around this time that I continued to grab books and have my family read to me constantly. Soaking up new vocabulary, looking at the pictures, and engaging in conversations about the story line. My love of reading and learning began right there, on those steps.
At five years old...
I began my first school experience and boy, was it scary. I was the "new kid" and was afraid people would tease me because of my short hair. Mrs. Reynolds, a wonderful, nice woman, greeted me and would be my first teacher. She would help me love school and later on, would be a reason why I decided to become a teacher. From then on, school was not a chore and was very fun for me. I went from Pre-K, to Kindergarten, and then to first grade. First grade rolled around and when I got home, I would run straight to my play area, forgetting to take my shoes off at the door. I would gather my stuffed animals and dolls, and set them down in a semi-circle. I would cross my legs, and begin to say "Alright class, we are going to learn our ABC's by singing a song. I will write them down and show you what each letter is. Ready?" This was how I knew my passion for learning would continue to grow and be a part of me throughout my life.
When I was nine years old...
Our third grade class was creating autobiographies. At the end of our autobiography, we needed to tell our audience what we saw in the future. My future at that time consisted of going to Oakland University to get my education degree. That seed of education has been planted in me since those first few years of my life. I would doubt myself here and there, thinking about becoming a fashion designer or something that was not teaching. But somehow, I was always drawn back to education. My love of reading was so ingrained, it made me want to teach reading and teach others to love to read just like myself.
Fast forward to Junior and Senior years...
Junior year is the most important year of a student's high school career. I originally was going to apply to Michigan State University, but applied to other colleges too. Although these other colleges had great education programs, I heard lots of positive comments regarding how excellent the education programs were at MSU and their ratings in the nation. I also heard how exceptional the extra internship year helped many teachers before jumping into their teaching career. Senior year flies by and our school had the privilege of inviting Michigan State to meet with potential students right at the beginning of the school year. Most of us who wanted to go to Michigan State University went to meet with these representatives and I, myself, joined my classmates to see if I had a chance to get accepted. Low and behold, I was accepted and did not have to wait endless months to know if I got in. I was now a Spartan and would proudly represent the colors Green and White.
At Michigan State University...
I began my journey to my elementary education degree. I knew I wanted to become a teacher after having so many amazing teachers throughout my schooling. I knew I wanted to have a specialization in Language Arts, and not Social Studies, Math, or Science. Those were my least favorite subjects and knew if I was going to make this experience worth while, I would do it with the thing I truly love, reading. I trekked through the general education classes, making my way to the years that mattered where I needed to apply to the College of Education and really take classes that focused on my degree. After achieving that accomplishment of being accepted into the College of Education, taking the required classes for my focus in Language Arts, and graduating, I knew that my education journey was not finished after my time at Michigan State. I knew I needed to continue. After all, I have never seen myself as someone who would stop learning. I decided not only to complete my internship year back at home in the metro Detroit area, but also use the credits from my internship year towards a master's degree.
But...why walk down memory lane?
It gives you a background of my thinking towards my decisions in this master's degree and why I picked a concentration of Literacy Instruction. I have had a love for literacy since I was younger and I wanted to continue to learn as much as I could about this topic to further my learning and to support all the learners I will impact one day.
During this journey, there were many classes that impacted me in small and big ways. Some stood out to me more than others because of the content and the techniques and practices I could use in my own classroom setting. One of the classes that impacted me was TE845 Language Diversity and Literacy Instruction and Assessment. In this class, the main focus was on the population of learners whose first language was not English and supporting their literacy instruction by meeting their needs. Before even getting to the strategies to support this group of learners, I had to delve into my family's cultures, ethnicities, and language practices. We shared these heritage reports to others in the class, which gave us a perspective on how there is such vast language diversity in all of us, including the students we may encounter in our teaching.
Much of the content that I learned from this course (techniques and strategies) supported my learning I had done previously in a course required for all Arizona teachers. It was a Structured English Immersion (SEI) endorsement and was a forty-hour course, containing information that would support the English language learner (ELL) population, since Arizona has a high population of Hispanic-speaking families along with other ethnicities.
Throughout TE845, I acquired different strategies and techniques to make sure that learning for the ELL population was fit to their needs. I did not realize until this class that most of the strategies that were learned through research and texts, were strategies I had already implemented. Even though I knew some of the strategies from using them in my classroom, I learned many more throughout this course. At the conclusion of this course, I created a professional development session. It included the most important strategies I took out of the course that I would use or continue to use in my classroom and want to teach or inform other colleagues. It showed me how I can accommodate to my students, regardless if their first language is not English.
Another class that impacted me was TE846 Accommodating Differences in Literacy Learners. This was a meaningful course focused on my literacy instruction concentration. This course supported me in addressing students' needs in their literacy skills along with supporting me in continuing to add more strategies and tools to my never-ending toolkit. In this course, Best Practices in Literacy Instruction was a text I found very useful because of its research-based information on many literacy practices that can be implemented in the classroom. Every topic of literacy instruction could be found in this text: from best practices in early literacy to motivating students to read, and even was so specific to target areas of literacy such as writing, text comprehension, and vocabulary instruction. This text has been a tool I have used in my own classroom to reference to if I need to implement a new strategy for a certain area of literacy.
This class culminated by completing a semester-long Literacy Case Study on one of my students that school year. I was able to figure out what area she needed support in, created lessons to enhance her understanding of this specific area, and assess her to see if she had mastery. The Literacy Case Study was a project that I feel very proud of, as it was not only meaningful but also applicable to my job as an educator.
This course really showed me how to narrow a child's specific learning focus, plan lessons that were engaging and meaningful, and prepare assessments that showed me the student's understanding or misconceptions of a concept. It also taught me how to analyze student data, gather information from that, and figure out what the next steps are in students' learning.
The last course that impacted me was TE842 Elementary Reading Assessment and Instruction. This course, along with TE846 coincided with each other in which this class taught me how to analyze student data. I learned how to accurately analyze and pinpoint areas of improvement for a student based on that given data. I also used the same text mentioned above which was great to have exposure to this great resource more than once. I was introduced to a word study program called Words their Way where I discussed each assigned reading required to my book club peers. It was a great collaborative environment in which my peers and myself would converse in the strategies and techniques this program uses and the research behind it. It gave me the platform to voice my thoughts regarding not only this program but also other literacy strategies I have used in my own classroom: what works and what does not work, along with how this program could be implemented in the classroom. Having that collaborative environment gave me the chance to work in a professional learning community and share ideas in a safe and respectful environment.
This course gave me the opportunity as a final project to analyze two different students' data and figure out the next steps going forward. It took applying the knowledge I learned from this course to figure out what certain errors in these students' reading or literacy skills meant for further instruction. From this course, I was able to appropriately analyze individual student data in great detail and use all that information to create learning objectives and create lessons to target those skills needed for improvement. This assignment was an excellent way to understand the importance of how assessments drive instruction. The way this assignment was set up prepared me to do this skill throughout my teaching career. By doing this as a final project, it gave me more confidence to be able to do this correctly and with fidelity.
Throughout the Master of Arts in Education program, I can surely agree my passion for reading and literacy was achieved. Not only was my passion achieved through many of the courses, but I also gained a lot of knowledge from other areas of the education realm. I learned different theories of learning through ED800 Concepts of Educational Inquiry, explored those theories through multiple texts, and shared my learning through short essays. I learned multiple approaches to classroom management through CEP883 Psychology of Classroom Discipline and CEP841 Classroom Management in the Inclusive Classroom. I created a classroom management plan that I would use in my own Kindergarten classroom and collected a plethora of information regarding oppositional defiance disorder as a special topic for my CEP841 final project. Not only did I learn from the instructors of the course, but learned from the peers I interacted with, whether it was on Zoom meetings or discussion posts. The aspect of learning from peers who are actively teaching made this experience worthwhile, as I could share stories and strategies of my experiences. Ideas would bounce back and forth and essentially would create an open educational environment full of vibrant ideas and thoughts of other educators.
From starting to "read" on the stairs in my house, to finishing with a Master of Arts in Education degree. Yes, I have learned so much and I have seen a drastic impact on myself as a learner and an educator. I have gathered so many tools in my toolkit that I will use as I continue to be an educator for many more years to come. I have many strategies and teaching practices that will help accommodate to all my students in all subjects, including literacy. I leave this program with a growing mind of new practices and strategies and a stronger passion for literacy instruction. I am ready to be a better educator than I was yesterday and hope to provide my students with the upmost appropriate and engaging literacy instruction in the future.