Metareflective Essay - Final
Metareflective Essay - Final
Metareflective Essay - Final
Metareflective Essay 1
Metareflective Essay
According to the Mission, Vision, and Values of the Education Doctoral Program (2010)
a scholar “will be stewards of the discipline, individuals entrusted with preserving, creating, and
Further expanding on the EDP’s vision are the core values, which include content expertise,
discipline inquiry, and scholarly disposition. I acknowledge and accept these statements to be
true and necessary to the development of a scholar. These values, in my opinion, encompass me
as an individual, the faculty, the courses and assignments, my cohort, and the scholarly
community as a whole. They have all been an integral and critical component and support my
Reflecting on the personal side of my development one thing that was necessary for my
development as a learner, an emerging researcher, and scholar was to find a method to make
meaning from the information overload that I was experiencing. The readings, discussions, and
assignments felt as if they were in a completely different language, especially when it came to
digesting the various paradigms and philosophies. I knew that I needed to be interactive with the
readings and to do as many hands-on things in order to solidify and ground my new-found
knowledge in a manner that was constructive and transformative for me to emerge as a doctoral
candidate. I took notes of the major key points and wrote down personal connections via
personal or professional experiences that helped me to conceptualize what was being said. This
enabled me to revisit key points, do further research, or ask questions on items that I was not
My interactive process for notes and activities allowed me to build my content expertise
and scholarly disposition. One activity that exemplified this was the Wiki page that I created for
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Metareflective Essay 2
Philosophy of Education. It was here that I was able to synthesize my personal understanding of
the major philosophical paradigms. I tried to include my personal views and understanding of
each of these and as a constructivist, I feel that I learned immensely by giving the facts and basic
information about each paradigm. Putting the paradigms in an educational context was also very
helpful for me as a teacher because I was able to see how each has played a part in the
educational setting. This is an interactive and living document that allows me to have easy access
to the material as needed and I can modify, adapt, and change as I continue to evolve. It is also a
Since the start of my doctoral program, my professional life has evolved from being a
teacher to a full-time MTSS coach. This professional transition has been indicative of the various
courses in the Institutional Analysis track that stretches me intellectually as a student, a teacher,
and leader of MTSS. I have gained a new perspective and have broadened my lens and scope in a
way I did not know was possible. They have added tremendously to my skillset as a teacher,
student, and professional. I can truly look back and see the scholarly growth that I have made
throughout my EDP program and I am eager to see the ways in which I will continue to grow
Being a part of the EDP is being a part of a scholarly community, which as I indicated
earlier encompasses more than just myself. My cohort members, the various courses and
assignments, and the faculty have been cornerstone pieces to the community and my scholarly
development. Included below are a few key pieces that exemplify this.
Learning Outcomes – This assignment used historical, philosophical, and/or policy perspectives
to identify and operationally define learning outcomes suitable for assessment. This activity was
incredibly helpful and beneficial both for this class and for a course I was developing at my
school. This activity facilitated critical discussions of what we ultimately wanted the students to
accomplish in the MTSS structure study hall and how we were going to accomplish it. While I
have had numerous opportunities to design and create learning outcomes as a teacher, this
activity enabled me to apply my knowledge and skills on a more advanced level. Based on
feedback and suggestions from my professor and colleagues, I created a more in-depth product.
While this made them lengthy, they are more explicit and clear. However, I did scale back the
length and the level of readability on the course syllabus, as the targeted students for the course
are struggling readers. Having created a thorough document made it easy and manageable to do
Assessment Rubric – this was to be developed and used to assess one of the learning outcomes
previously identified. As a teacher, I use rubrics frequently as I find them as a great way to set up
my expectations and outcomes for the students on a given topic or assignment. The research and
books confirmed my rational and purpose, and also reaffirmed my philosophy of a student-
centered environment. Like the learning outcomes, I struggled to bring the assignment specificity
and clarity; particularly in creating the ‘exemplary’ category of the rubric. After feedback and
additional reading, I modified the exemplary category to reflect this level, with an understanding
that it is more challenging for students to attain this level without going above and beyond what
is expected. This was an essential piece to the rubric and the process that I had been missing.
Final Assessment Plan – This is a developed assessment plan that aims to promote the
improvement of learning within a particular setting. Reflection, reflection, reflection has become
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Metareflective Essay 4
a reality for myself, for my teachers, for my students, and for the learning process. I cannot
emphasize enough how critical reflection has been for me throughout this course, and in creating
a new course. It is through this process that I have been able to communicate and continually
Class Presentation - We had to select a dataset from our area of interest, identify a meaningful
research question, and conduct appropriate statistical analysis. I was taking this course at the
same time as EDUC 723 and chose to continue my focus on the new MTSS course being
implemented in Sheyenne High School. From this presentation I was able to be a practitioner of
statistics, and although I hate to admit it, (I associated myself with being a qualitative researcher
more so up to this point) I really liked it. It fit with what I was trying to do for my MTSS Study
Hall and my teachers appreciated seeing progress of how the course impacts student success.
related to qualitative inquiry. For this assignment, I submitted my topic presentation on the
Concerns Based Adoption Model (CBAM). The class provided me with the perfect opportunity
to ‘get my feet wet’ with the material before I participated in my independent study in the
summer 2013 semester, in which the focus was to put the CBAM model into practice.
I struggled in the beginning to wrap my head around the concept of a theory informing
practice. It was not until I was finalizing my presentation that things started to fall into place. A
major component of helping me through my frustration was talking with the whole group and it
was from these discussions that I was able to develop a research plan to help facilitate movement
of my project. I was able to gather valuable resources from websites, articles, books, and videos,
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Metareflective Essay 5
which enabled me to gain a deepened understanding of the framework. From there, I was able to
apply my knowledge out and walk through the theory being applied to research. I was also able
to analyze the advantages and disadvantages of the framework and of the research itself.
Survey Project – I had to conceptualize and conduct an instrument development research study in
an articulated field of study. This course is one of those ‘ah-hah’ courses for myself as a learner,
student, and leader in my school. I definitely want to continue to develop my technical writing
skills, and to build on my conceptual framework of how to develop and draft frameworks for
future research. This course has pushed me in the workforce world as I was able to collaborate
with my colleagues to develop an instrument that was tailored to fit our needs. It enabled me to
show my leadership skills in administering the survey and reporting out on the survey, leading to
conversations and starting a plan of action to continually build a positive and open climate.
requires time, research, collaboration, revisions, time, dedication, and TIME in order to create
The Education Doctoral Program has been and continues to be instrumental to building
and developing my skill set and confidence as scholar personally and professionally. All that I
learned throughout the coursework, including the various assignments, interactions with my
cohort, colleagues and faculty members has been one of the most beneficial and rewarding
opportunities. This program has been a blessing at such a pivotal time in my personal and
professional life. It continues and will continue to have a long-lasting impact myself in
unimaginable ways.