The voice inside my head

A Synthesis Essay

As an outsider, you wouldn’t see much of a change from who I was as teacher when I first applied to the Master of Arts Education Technology (MAET) program, to who I am today. You would see an animated teacher and engaged students experiencing a mix of face to face instruction and technology integration. But, if you could listen to my thoughts you could hear a great shift in my thinking and process. You would hear self-talk that is positive, confident, and forgiving. You would hear the connection between the content, pedagogy, and technology I would use and consideration for the context I was in. You would hear my deep breaths as I thought through which strategy would work best in that moment for that particular student. These changes are due to my experience as a whole in my master's program, but specifically three meaningful courses that left an everlasting impact on my teaching and mindset.

The first course I took in my program was CEP-810, Teaching for Understanding with Technology, and it was an excellent foundation for my learning and teaching. In this course I learned about a key concept that I now consider each time I plan a lesson called The Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge, better known as TPACK. I had never heard of TPACK before and quickly learned that it is a framework for teachers to use in order to effectively meet the needs of their students. TPACK is carried out when the three domains, pedagogy, content knowledge, and technology interplay within the context. This means that truly effective teaching happens when educators plan for creating lessons where the content being taught is delivered using the most appropriate instructional strategy. If the teacher chooses to incorporate technology, he or she must pick the technology that best supports the content and pedagogy. Learning this information has changed my teaching tremendously. I have always been mindful of what I needed to teach and how to teach it, but when TPACK was presented to me I realized how interconnected each domain really is and how crucial each decision is when lesson planning. The decisions I make prior to instructional delivery affects the overall effectiveness of the lesson. This has helped me not only during the lesson planning stage, but also during the lesson. For instance I can easily recognize if a student is struggling to understand the skill being taught and with TPACK in mind, I can analyze quickly if I need to change the technology or instructional strategy to best meet the needs of that specific learner. TPACK is also helpful after the lesson is delivered because it allows me to reflect on each domain of the lesson instead of quickly deciding if it was a success or failure. I now can focus in on where the lesson could be improved and which changes could be made to enhance the delivery of the content. If you could hear the voice inside my head, it would now say, let’s analyze what part of the lesson could have been different; it wasn’t all horrible opposed to throwing in the towel and getting down on myself for the rest of the evening.

Later on in the program, I had the opportunity to study abroad in Galway, Ireland. I traveled over 3,000 miles with hopes to gain new experiences and meet passionate educators from other states and even countries. I did not know anyone else in the program and I was nervous to embark on an extended rigorous journey by myself. Luckily, I was welcomed with open arms by all of the students and staff. We quickly formed a close-knit bond and worked on a variety of projects from morning until night every weekday while exploring the beautiful landscapes Ireland offered on the weekend. The project that had the most impact on me as a person, learner, and educator was the Global Resources in Education and Technology Conference (GREAT 16) for the course CEP-815, Technology and Leadership. This assignment was complex and had several components such as:

Creating an electronic advertisement for the conference, including a website for the conference
Determining session topics that would peak attendee interests
Preparing and presenting conference presentations to attendees
Recording program sessions in order to be archived on the conference website and social media
Planning for the Keynote Speaker session and all the nuances to organize the conference

We only had 12 days to plan, organize, practice, and execute the entire conference. I was part of the Social Media Team and our goal was to spread the word about the conference and ensure that we had attendees. We utilized Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram to build excitement and share crucial information about the conference. We were able to connect with educators around the globe using our official hashtag: #GREAT16. The other committees (logistics, web design, Goosechase/SLAM, and keynote) contributed immensely to a smooth and successful conference day with about fifty attendees!

I was responsible for presenting in a session during the conference and my colleague, Drew Missureli, and I chose to pick a topic that we wanted to learn more about, blended learning. Through our research, we were able to fix our misconceptions about blended learning and feel confident enough to teach others about the topic. Some of the major points we discussed during the session were flipped classroom lessons, learning management systems, models for classroom set-up, and classroom/device management. This was the first time I had led my own professional development session for adults and I remember being extremely nervous. When we finished, there was such a sense of relief and satisfaction. I felt accomplished and proud to see how putting in so much work and dedication gave me the result I aimed for. With this experience, it has given me confidence to lead professional developments in my own district and school. I am currently planning to lead a Google Drive basics session for my entire staff alongside our school Technology Integration Specialist at the start of the 2017-2018 school year. I also have aspirations of proposing various professional development topics to lead for my district during the year. Teaching adults is different than teaching children. Before my experience in Galway, I was intimidated to instruct adults. I’d think, they’re probably judging my abilities right now or they might already know this and are probably bored. Now, my confidence has grown tremendously and when I am in front of a group of educators I instead think to myself, you are an expert in this field and the teachers in this room will be able to learn at least one new thing today and be able to apply it. That makes a difference.

Although this year was my fifth year teaching, it was definitely the most difficult year in the classroom. I had taught disrespectful students in the past, but I had never experienced having so many disrespectful and misbehaving students in one classroom at a time. At times I could hear myself think; This is just ridiculous! This has to be my last year teaching. Am I a teacher or crowd control? I was out of ideas and so were my colleagues. We were tired, agitated, and stressed knowing that there was so much curriculum to get through but constantly interrupted to address behavior problems. When choosing an elective, I decided to go a bit outside of the technology realm and take a course called CEP-832, Educating Students with Challenging Behaviors, which focused on analyzing specific behaviors within different contexts and which strategies would be helpful in changing the behavior.

Throughout the course I worked on a large research project surrounding one student in my class. I observed him, recorded data on his behaviors, and researched which strategies could be put into place that I had not done already. After implementing the plan, I had time to record data yet again and also reflect on how the intervention worked. Below is a summary of the journey I took throughout the course trying to help Marcus, but also myself.

CEP-832 did not only focus on students, but it also focused on teachers. Yes-- the main purpose of school is to teach students, but the teachers’ well-beings often get forgotten and shafted as if we shouldn’t think about our whole selves, only the whole student. We reflected on what our “stance” was in the classroom before, during, and after the negative behaviors are carried out and what we, as educators, can do to help improve our mental state during these times. My stance was, unfortunately, one of frustration and negative self-talk. This made me even more upset because being a teacher is one of my passions and I always feel as if I am truly in my element once I am instructing. So, why was it that I had this stance? I, just like my student, needed strategies in order to navigate the day feeling consistently positive. I can honestly say that I am now much more aware of the energy I am giving off to my students and the way my stance affects those around me. and the overall feeling in my classroom environment. I can now catch myself in the moment and consciously change my self-talk. I take deep breaths and I feel more in control of my own reactions. You’ve got this, Michele. Inhale, exhale. Just walk away for a minute and regroup. Then, you’ll be ready with a new way to approach this.

A running theme throughout my master’s program was innovation. When trying to be innovative, success does not usually happen on the first try. One must tinker and experiment. One must think outside the box and remix. Ultimately, one must not be afraid to fail. Innovation is not seen in every classroom across the United States for various reasons, be it that administration is not supportive, there is a lack of funding, or maybe there is just simply no time to try something new. However, this program has taught me as a whole that I can try new strategies, lessons, and approaches in the classroom even if it ends up as a failure. Instead of thinking about failure as a negative, I now think about it as a positive. I see it as growth. I see it as a starting point. I see it as a clue to the problem solving process. This coming year I asked my administration if I could teach coding as an independent subject twice a week and they approved. There is no curriculum from my district on carrying out a coding course. I do not have any computer science or coding background. I do not even code on my own free time as a hobby, so some may say this was taking a risk. In order to innovate in my school and motivate other teachers to do the same, I took matters into my own hands. I’ve found independent professional development courses nearby and attended, read articles and blogs on coding in the classroom, and experimented on various websites. This year’s implementation may not work out well, but at least I tried something outside of my comfort zone and am not afraid to see it as a learning experience. For that, I say thank you to the Michigan State Master's of Arts in Education Technology program and all my professors that pushed me just that extra bit further.

“I can do this,” thought Michele Meshover.

Download as a pdf