The Evolution of a 21st Century Educator MATC Synthesis Paper

In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Master of Arts Degree in Curriculum and Teaching Department of Teacher Education, Michigan State University

Katherine R. Grimes PID A3248359 July 12, 2013

The Evolution of a 21st Century Educator 2 Introduction Your first spelling word is, library. I like to go to the library to look at books, library. I said in my best teacher voice. But Kate, we dont know how to spell library! responded my little brother. Even as an eight year old child, I knew I wanted to be a teacher someday. I had a love of learning instilled in me from a young age first by my mom, who was a teacher, and later by some of my own teachers. Teaching is a special profession in that we all have our own unique school experiences observing and learning from both the great and not-so-great teachers before we even set foot in our own classroom. This is where we first learn what it means to be a teacher. Reflecting on our school stories and memories from the past, we strive to emulate the great teachers and avoid making the same mistakes made by the poor ones. While these school stories and memories from our past do have great educational value, I would argue that they also are part of the reason why education in the 21st century seems to be stuck in the 20th century. We are seeing huge technological advances and a globalized economy, yet our education system continues to lag behind the times. It is difficult for teachers to break away from outdated methods and teaching materials because those are what they experienced as students for so many years. It is by taking a reflective, analytical look back though my teaching and learning journey, specifically my time spent in the MATC program, that I have seen and implemented the changes needed to make me a 21st century educator. A Teacher is Born- Building Community Internship Year Growing up in a small suburb of Grand Rapids, MI, I feel that I had a pretty sheltered upbringing. So, when it came time for me to pick a college to attend, I wanted a place that would be diverse and whose college of education had a stellar reputation. My undergraduate

The Evolution of a 21st Century Educator 3 program at Michigan State University provided me with the foundational knowledge, skills, and confidence to enter into my internship year at West Oakview Elementary in Northview Public Schools. I was glad to be placed in this title one school because I was able to see how community was built among a diverse population of students and staff. The school used a school-wide positive behavior support model to reinforce positive behaviors therefore, cutting down on the negative behaviors. This translated into both my general ed. and special ed. CTs classrooms and later, when I got my own classroom. As an intern, I made it a goal of mine to personally get to know each one of my students. I believe a critical component in education is the trust between a teacher and his/her students as well as trust within the community of learners. Students need to feel free and encouraged to take risks and this only happens when there is trust and a tight knit learning community. One way I did this was through a morning share time where students were able to share one positive thing from the previous day or something they were looking forward to that day. This is something I have continued in my classroom to this day. While conducting an observation and analysis of one of my resource room students for my CEP 801A class (Artifact 5) I was able to see just how critical classroom community is to a students learning. This particular student was diagnosed with an emotional impairment and struggled with peer relationships and defiance in class. He was isolated in the classroom and did not have a close relationship with any peers or his general education teacher. My special education CT however, had taken the time to really get to know this student and while he was in her room, he did not have any behavior issues. I made some suggestions to the students general education teacher for ways to include the student more in the general education classroom community and through the implementation of these suggestions, the undesirable behaviors did

The Evolution of a 21st Century Educator 4 diminish. To this day, whenever a teacher brings a child to our child study team for behavior

issues, my first suggestions always revolve around ways to strengthen the relationship between the student and teacher. In the Trenches- My Very Own Classroom I feel that most people learn best through experience and this has certainly been true for me and teaching. Experience coupled with meaningful reflection and inquiry have been my best teachers. The year after I finished my internship I was hired in the same school district, different school, as a half-time teacher in a cross-categorical elementary special education classroom. I taught in the afternoon while my co-teacher taught the same group of students in the morning. Collaboration was a must and since we had similar teaching styles, it was fairly simple. We lesson planned each week together and shared responsibilities quite evenly. Collaboration between some of the general education teachers and me was not so easy. Through this experience, I learned that it is important to have give and take and to actively listen to the thoughts and opinions of your collaborators. Through the online MATC program I have been able to improve my collaboration skills and have seen how technology can help facilitate collaboration. In my TE 807 course, I participated in a group inquiry project (Artifact 3) using technology both to communicate and design the project. We communicated through Google Chats and used a Google Document to outline our project. We also used Popplet, an online concept mapping tool, to brainstorm and our final project was an outline of a website for teachers to use to facilitate development of content knowledge. This was one of my few positive group work experiences and it sparked my interest in educational technologies leading me to question how I could incorporate technology more into my daily classroom instruction.

The Evolution of a 21st Century Educator 5 After my first year of teaching, I moved over to the school where I interned to take on a full-time K-4 resource room position. With the first year of teaching under my belt, I felt more at ease in my classroom and decided I wanted to take on more leadership roles within my school and district. I joined our school improvement team and district math committee (Artifact 6) as a way of fulfilling my desire to have more input in some of the big decisions and policies in my district. As a member of our school improvement team, I have played a part in constructing and monitoring our building school improvement plan as well as presenting our goals and plan to the AdvancEd accreditation team which eventually led to our district being one of the first in the state to receive accreditation. As a member of the math committee, I have had the pleasure of collaborating with colleagues at various grade levels throughout the district to evaluate and modify our math programs and align our curriculum to the Common Core State Standards. Being a member of these teams has allowed me to build more professional collaborative relationships and make changes within the district that have enhanced students learning. I decided to begin my Masters program in the summer of 2011. The first class I took was TE 810, The History of American Education. I thought that by taking this class, I could use what I learned about the history of our education system to help me shape the future in my own small way. It was during this time that I came to the realization that the structure of our current education system was designed to serve the industrialized 20th century and is not the best fit for preparing our 21st century learners for their future careers. I took a look at the modern education reform common standards movement (Artifact 7) and was able to see not only how it originated but also the potential positive impacts of this movement on teaching and learning. However, I still was not convinced that this reform was they key to bringing education into the 21st century and continued to wonder how I could facilitate this in my own classroom.

The Evolution of a 21st Century Educator 6 In the spring of 2012, my school district passed a building and technology bond. I was very excited about the technology piece because this was an area where we had been lacking, and lets face it; its difficult to bring teaching and learning into the 21st century without current technology. We had one computer lab that did not even have enough computers to accommodate some of the upper grade classes and while most of the classrooms did have SMART Boards, mine did not. In fact, all I had in terms of technology was one computer and some portable CD players. I was disappointed when I heard that it would take a few years before we reaped the benefits of the bond so I decided to test my luck and ask my special education director about the possibility of getting an iPad for my classroom. I was thrilled when a month later, my brand new iPad was delivered to my room! Now I would love to say that I jumped right in and started planning lessons that incorporated this new technology but unfortunately, that was not the case. I was not familiar with the iPad and how exactly it could be used in my lessons and I was a bit overwhelmed with the task of figuring it out. So there it sat, unused in my classroom until summer rolled around and I had my TE 807 class. For the culminating project in this class, I had to do an individual action research project (Artifact 8) that addressed a question I had regarding my practice. I chose to look into how I could use the iPad in my small group lessons and as a management tool for myself. Through a multistep inquiry process, I spent time investigating applications and putting together a prototype of how I planned to assess the quality of the applications and my students progress. The following school year, I put the prototype to use and shared my findings with colleagues in my building who were also getting iPads. Through this process, I discovered that inquiry can be an ongoing process and somewhat cyclical in nature but it is certainly worth the time and effort since it helps me continually focus on improving my teaching.

The Evolution of a 21st Century Educator 7 I would say that inquiry has been at the heart of all my most meaningful experiences during my MATC program and has led to my deeper understanding of both my students and the subject matter I teach. As a resource room teacher, I typically see students in small groups for 30 minutes to an hour for reading, writing, and/or math. I create these groups based on ability since this helps when differentiating instruction. An inquiry project (Article 2) during my TE 846 course however allowed me to see that I need to be more flexible with my grouping. During the project, I worked with 2 students on a series of phonics lessons focusing on consonant digraphs. While one student caught on fairly quickly and was ready to move on, it took the other student much longer to grasp the concept. This led me to question the static nature of my groupings. As a result, I now try to do more strategy groupings that are flexible in nature so I can target my students individual needs more effectively. I pride myself on developing strong relationships with my students to create a positive learning environment where students feel supported and respected enough to take risks to further their learning. I am in a unique position in that I see many of my students through several consecutive years which helps these relationships strengthen over time. I have a pretty diverse group of students both ethnically and socioeconomically so it is important that I am aware of and respect all their backgrounds. In my TE 849 course, I spent a couple weeks learning about multicultural literature and realized that my classroom library at the time did not have enough books that were multicultural in nature (Artifact 1). I learned that it is important for students to read books that include characters that are reflective of themselves. After some reflection and in response to this new learning, I went out to beef up my classroom library with more multicultural books at various reading levels. I also now try to steer clear of books that may be culturally

The Evolution of a 21st Century Educator 8 inaccurate or present cultural stereotypes. Having multicultural literature in my classroom helps validate my students diverse backgrounds thus, strengthening our classroom community. When it came time to pick my final elective course for my program, I chose to take TE 831 because it focused on educational technology. As described above, I realized that our education system was out of date and needed to be ushered into a new century, and I thought this class would give me some ideas and force me to learn more about educational technology. Not only that, but the fact that most of my students still knew more than I did about how to use my iPad did not sit well with me. Prior to this course, I considered technology to be an add on to my lessons. I planned my lessons out and then, threw some sort of technology component in when possible. During this class, I learned the proper way to plan for technology integration in a 21st century classroom through the theory of TPACK. TPACK states that when planning a lesson, a teacher should take into account 3 domains of knowledge including technological, pedagogical, and content knowledge to design an engaging and effective lesson. Artifact 4 is an example of a lesson I created and taught while taking into account the TPACK theory. By taking a fraction lesson I typically would do without technology and incorporating a concept mapping iPad app, my students were able to not only strengthen their digital literacy skills, but they also had the convenience of a concept map they could use to study and build on in future years. This course introduced me to a multitude of educational technologies, many of which are free, and taught me that if I want to be a 21st century educator, I need to make the time to stay current with and use the educational technologies out there.

The Evolution of a 21st Century Educator 9 Into the 21st Century- The Future My time as an online MATC student has helped me understand and experience what it means to be a 21st century learner. It is now one of my goals to help provide my students with some of those same 21st century learning experiences. I plan to do this by staying current with educational technology by following educational technology blogs, Twitter feeds, and attending technology professional development opportunities. Then, when planning my lessons, I will use the TPACK framework to purposefully include technology in my daily lessons to enhance the learning objectives. I see myself as a lifelong learner and want to instill this same love of learning in my students. One way I plan to continue this learning is through the inquiry and action research I have experienced during this program. In my TE 842 course, I wrote a paper about my teaching beliefs regarding reading instruction (Artifact 9). This paper was started at the beginning of the semester, was added to throughout the semester, and was completed at the end. It is an example of how I have come to think of inquiry as an ongoing process. I believe a great teacher always has more to learn and action research is one way I can directly impact my own teaching. Not only do I hope to improve my own practice but I would also like to help improve teaching and learning throughout my building by taking on more leadership roles and sharing what I have learned during my MATC program. Our technology department is stretched pretty thin as far as time and personnel goes and, with the new technology from the technology bond coming in the next year or so, it would be helpful for staff to have a go to person to help with technology questions. I would love to be this person and also begin some sort of mini technology share sessions within our building. I know that my biggest issue with technology in

The Evolution of a 21st Century Educator 10 the past was finding the time to learn it and this would help other teachers in my building who may currently have the same challenge. The world we live in now is much different than the world even just 30 years ago and our education system needs to reflect these changes. We are part of a globalized economy where technology skills are important and by the time my students are ready to go out into the workforce, they will be a must. In order for them to be competitive, they will need to not only be digitally literate, but also possess abilities to think creatively and collaborate with peers. The mission of my school district is, Preparing students for lifes next step. By using the skills of inquiry and collaboration to continually improve my practice and by purposefully integrating technology into my lessons using TPACK, I believe I will be on track toward achieving this goal.