My Adventure in Online Learning
by Amanda Dennison
Getting Started in the MAED Program
A year and a half ago, when I began the Master of Arts in Education program at Michigan State, I really had no idea what it would be like; I had never taken online classes before. I knew I wanted to grow and improve as an educator and refine the skills I had acquired to that point, and the MAED program seemed like a great opportunity to do that with the flexibility I required in living abroad and parenting a new baby. So I jumped straight in and gave it a go, kicking off my first semester in the spring of 2011 with two courses, interested to see where they would take me. I powered through my MAED classes, working hard but also feeling very enriched and rewarded by the whole process. The program proved to be an enlightening balance of theory and practical application, which made me excited to return to the classroom full time in the future and further use all my new knowledge. Whether I used my new degree back in the elementary classroom or in a more specialized position, I felt confident that what I was learning would be extremely useful in improving my teaching, and therefore increasing student learning.
I chose to pursue a double concentration in Literacy and Special Education within my MAED, so most of my courses were in these areas these areas, providing the biggest impact on my learning. Teaching writing and reading in the elementary classroom is my passion, so that concentration was a given. My concentration in Special Education was a little less expected. When I started looking through the program and courses more extensively, I found that many of the courses were focused toward the inclusive classroom. Ever since I started teaching in inclusive classrooms right out of university, I felt that I needed more training in teaching students with special needs. I decided this concentration would be the perfect opportunity to gain that. Following are discussions of a few of the most influential classes I took within my Literacy and Special Education courses, as well as how they are affecting my views and practices as an educator of young children.
CEP 832: Educating Students with Challenging Behavior
CEP 832 provided a very thorough and organized study of a variety of behavioral concerns (everything from aggressive to withdrawn to impulsive behaviors) that occur all the time in the time in classrooms and leave teachers frustrated and wondering how to help the child overcome the behaviors in order to be able to successfully learn and function in the school setting. It is behaviors like these that can leave teachers feeling overwhelmed and burnt out. This was especially a problem for me when I was teaching in NC with very limited support and resources, combined with many students with significant needs. This course provided more practical information and techniques than I could hardly have asked, with plenty of opportunities to apply the learning to a variety of case studies throughout the semester. Through studying symptoms, causes, and responses to these behaviors, I have developed an understanding of them that I believe will allow me to more easily separate the child and myself from the behavior, in order to be less emotionally involved and therefore more effective in addressing the situation. Course texts, especially my favorite, BEST Practices: Behavioral and Educational Strategies for Teachers, vastly expanded my teacher toolkit with research-based strategies for managing and overcoming problem behaviors in order to improve student learning. Conversations and collaboration with my peers in the course allowed me to see that there can be a variety of effective approaches to handling problem behaviors, and there need not be pressure to find the one and only answer to a problem.
CEP 841: Classroom and Behavior Management in the Inclusive Classroom
CEP 841 was an extremely helpful class for me in developing my understanding of why students may be acting out in the classroom, and using that information to address students’ needs. Barbara Larrivee stated, “Much inappropriate classroom behavior stems from unmet needs, undeveloped skills, or expectations incompatible with an individual student’s personality, preferences, learning style, or cultural background,” (2009, p. 146). I learned how a student might mistakenly go about attempting to meet a need in an inappropriate or incorrect way, such as acting out in class to avoid difficult work, not simply to annoy the teacher. These understandings shed new light onto my attempts to figure out, prevent, and tackle student misbehaviors. In combination with these theories, study and practice in creating and using Functional Behavior Assessments (FBAs) and Behavior Intervention Plans (BIPs) helped me to understand how to look for the true function of a child’s behavior (why he or she is doing it) and create a plan that helps the child meet his or her needs in a more appropriate way. As with CEP 832, CEP 841 also vastly increased my confidence and teacher toolkit for managing problem behaviors in the classroom that impede student learning. Both classes helped me to develop an approach that does not see the student as the problem, but rather the situation as the problem, which is consistent with Positive Behavior Intervention and Support systems that are now being used in schools around the world to encourage better behavior, and therefore better learning, in the classroom.
TE 842: Advanced Methods of Elementary School Reading
TE 842 was a course that helped me to take inventory of what I already knew about teaching and assessing reading, as well as increase my knowledge of research-based methods for such. While course learnings affirmed my practices in several areas, such as teaching reading comprehension, encouraging students’ motivation and interest in reading, and teaching phonemic awareness and phonics, I also found several areas of weakness that I was able to focus on improving through course readings, papers, and projects. These included reading assessment, vocabulary instruction, and promoting inquiry in the classroom. I have plans to amend the way I teach all of these in the future due to what I learned in TE 842.
In the area of reading assessment, I discovered that I had been relying too heavily on the assessments required by my school or district, and simply assuming those were a sufficient measure of students’ reading abilities. My eyes were opened to a much wider range of useful assessments that I will now have available to me to supplement required assessments and better inform my teaching due to a deeper understanding of what students’ specific abilities and weaknesses are in the area of reading. Regarding vocabulary, I found that my instruction in this area has been quite informal to this point, and therefore lacking. I believe this is mostly due to the oral nature of vocabulary instruction in kindergarten, however I plan to be much more intentional about what vocabulary I teach in the future and how I teach it, using methods such as word play, graphic organizers, and word spoke charts. I have developed a new appreciation for how crucial vocabulary is to both reading and overall learning. “After all, words are the currency of education,” (Blachowicz & Fisher, 2011, p.225).
A final area I was strongly influenced by in TE 842 was in promoting inquiry. Even without full-fledged inquiry circles, inquiry-based comprehension lessons, such as those in Harvey and Daniels’ Comprehension & Collaboration: Inquiry Circles in Action can increase student inquiry, collaboration and comprehension in a way suitable for even kindergarteners. What really appeals to me about this method is how using the cross-disciplinary approach of inquiry-based learning could give students ample opportunities to learn, practice, and use reading for authentic purposes. This is certainly a direction I plan to move toward in future teaching.
TE 848: Methods of Writing Instruction
Writing Workshop is my absolute favorite part of teaching, so I was sincerely looking forward to taking TE 848 to improve my skills as a teacher of writing. That said, I was not expecting it to be as powerful of a class as it was, radically changing my thoughts in a couple of areas and helping me to be not only a better writing teacher, but also a better writer. One of my favorite quotes from this course was in the book What a Writer Needs, by Ralph Fletcher. Fletcher really explained the job of a writing teacher when he stated that a mentor in writing, “reaches into the chaos, finds a place where the writing works, pulls it from the wreckage, names it, and make the writer aware of this emerging skill with words” (1993, p. 14). Besides the lovely imagery of this statement, Fletcher described what I think is one of the most important things a teacher does: she finds and highlights a skill that is barely beginning to emerge in a student’s writing, no matter how much of a mess the rest of it is. I learned that by naming and celebrating what a student did (even if it was unintentional-- or maybe especially if it was unintentional), the teacher can build on that skill and encourage the student to take it even farther. This understanding will guide the way I approach writing conferences with future students, as I attempt to help them understand what they are doing in order to take their writing to the next level.
The most profound change in my thinking from this course was in the area of teaching handwriting. I will be honest: I do not enjoy teaching handwriting, and previously did not see much of a purpose to it. In our course readings, however, I stumbled upon some research that completely changed my thinking and helped me to realize that it is not just about having pretty handwriting. “According to Graham (1999a), text production skills of handwriting and spelling accounted for 66% and 41% of the variance in compositional fluency and 25% and 42% of the variance in compositional quality at the primary and intermediate grades, respectively,” (Edwards, 2003). The research is clear: handwriting significantly affects the content of writing. I was so blown away by this information that I chose to do my research project for the course on the topic of handwriting. I not only learned quite a bit about how to properly teach handwriting that will significantly affect my future teaching of it, but also found that lack of sufficient training in teaching handwriting seems to be a noteworthy problem for many teachers, and that teachers are not spending as much time teaching handwriting as is needed to be effective (see Teaching Handwriting: Research vs. Teacher Practice, by Amanda Dennison).
The Online Degree Experience
In addition to all the above-described new understandings I came to as a result of my MAED courses, I also gained new insights, perspectives, and experiences from pursuing an online degree and taking my first ever online courses. I discovered that it takes quite a bit of self-discipline and organization to take online classes, especially 2-3 of them at a time. Frankly, I am not sure I would have handled that so well at the age of 18 as an undergraduate! As a result of my MAED courses, I became more familiar with many useful technological learning and teaching tools, through creating wikis, digital podcasts and videos, using VoiceThread and Audacity, and learning all about a variety of types of assistive technology for students. All of these experiences made me much more comfortable and knowledgeable as I attempt to effectively incorporate appropriate technology use into future teaching. I still have many questions regarding the use of technology with students, particularly with the very young children I teach, but I feel I will be significantly more informed and thoughtful about these issues in the future as a result of this experience.
Parting Thoughts
As a whole, I complete the MAED program feeling refreshed, rather than tired. I am excited about what I have gained from this adventure in online learning, and I am ready to tackle the next teaching challenge with my increased knowledge, skills, and confidence. I look forward to seeing where this degree takes me in the future: how it will help me better serve my students, and how I will continue to grow as a teacher and learner.
Blachowicz, C. L. & Fisher, P. J. (2011). Best practices in vocabulary instruction revisited. In L. M. Morrow & L. B. Gambrell (Eds.), Best practices in literacy instruction (4th ed., pp. 224-249). New York: Guilford Press.
Fletcher, R. (1992). What a writer needs. Portsmouth, New Hampshire: Heinemann.
Harvey, S. & Daniels, H. (2009). Comprehension & collaboration: Inquiry circles in action. Portsmouth, New Hampshire: Heinemann.
Larrivee, B. (2009). Authentic classroom management: Creating a Learning Community and Building Reflective Practice (3rd Edition). Boston, Massachusetts: Allyn & Bacon.
Reavis, H., Sweeten, M., Jenson, W., Morgan, D., Andrews, D. & Fister, S. (Eds.). (1996). BEST Practices: Behavioral and education strategies for teachers. Colorado: Sopris West.
A year and a half ago, when I began the Master of Arts in Education program at Michigan State, I really had no idea what it would be like; I had never taken online classes before. I knew I wanted to grow and improve as an educator and refine the skills I had acquired to that point, and the MAED program seemed like a great opportunity to do that with the flexibility I required in living abroad and parenting a new baby. So I jumped straight in and gave it a go, kicking off my first semester in the spring of 2011 with two courses, interested to see where they would take me. I powered through my MAED classes, working hard but also feeling very enriched and rewarded by the whole process. The program proved to be an enlightening balance of theory and practical application, which made me excited to return to the classroom full time in the future and further use all my new knowledge. Whether I used my new degree back in the elementary classroom or in a more specialized position, I felt confident that what I was learning would be extremely useful in improving my teaching, and therefore increasing student learning.
I chose to pursue a double concentration in Literacy and Special Education within my MAED, so most of my courses were in these areas these areas, providing the biggest impact on my learning. Teaching writing and reading in the elementary classroom is my passion, so that concentration was a given. My concentration in Special Education was a little less expected. When I started looking through the program and courses more extensively, I found that many of the courses were focused toward the inclusive classroom. Ever since I started teaching in inclusive classrooms right out of university, I felt that I needed more training in teaching students with special needs. I decided this concentration would be the perfect opportunity to gain that. Following are discussions of a few of the most influential classes I took within my Literacy and Special Education courses, as well as how they are affecting my views and practices as an educator of young children.
CEP 832: Educating Students with Challenging Behavior
CEP 832 provided a very thorough and organized study of a variety of behavioral concerns (everything from aggressive to withdrawn to impulsive behaviors) that occur all the time in the time in classrooms and leave teachers frustrated and wondering how to help the child overcome the behaviors in order to be able to successfully learn and function in the school setting. It is behaviors like these that can leave teachers feeling overwhelmed and burnt out. This was especially a problem for me when I was teaching in NC with very limited support and resources, combined with many students with significant needs. This course provided more practical information and techniques than I could hardly have asked, with plenty of opportunities to apply the learning to a variety of case studies throughout the semester. Through studying symptoms, causes, and responses to these behaviors, I have developed an understanding of them that I believe will allow me to more easily separate the child and myself from the behavior, in order to be less emotionally involved and therefore more effective in addressing the situation. Course texts, especially my favorite, BEST Practices: Behavioral and Educational Strategies for Teachers, vastly expanded my teacher toolkit with research-based strategies for managing and overcoming problem behaviors in order to improve student learning. Conversations and collaboration with my peers in the course allowed me to see that there can be a variety of effective approaches to handling problem behaviors, and there need not be pressure to find the one and only answer to a problem.
CEP 841: Classroom and Behavior Management in the Inclusive Classroom
CEP 841 was an extremely helpful class for me in developing my understanding of why students may be acting out in the classroom, and using that information to address students’ needs. Barbara Larrivee stated, “Much inappropriate classroom behavior stems from unmet needs, undeveloped skills, or expectations incompatible with an individual student’s personality, preferences, learning style, or cultural background,” (2009, p. 146). I learned how a student might mistakenly go about attempting to meet a need in an inappropriate or incorrect way, such as acting out in class to avoid difficult work, not simply to annoy the teacher. These understandings shed new light onto my attempts to figure out, prevent, and tackle student misbehaviors. In combination with these theories, study and practice in creating and using Functional Behavior Assessments (FBAs) and Behavior Intervention Plans (BIPs) helped me to understand how to look for the true function of a child’s behavior (why he or she is doing it) and create a plan that helps the child meet his or her needs in a more appropriate way. As with CEP 832, CEP 841 also vastly increased my confidence and teacher toolkit for managing problem behaviors in the classroom that impede student learning. Both classes helped me to develop an approach that does not see the student as the problem, but rather the situation as the problem, which is consistent with Positive Behavior Intervention and Support systems that are now being used in schools around the world to encourage better behavior, and therefore better learning, in the classroom.
TE 842: Advanced Methods of Elementary School Reading
TE 842 was a course that helped me to take inventory of what I already knew about teaching and assessing reading, as well as increase my knowledge of research-based methods for such. While course learnings affirmed my practices in several areas, such as teaching reading comprehension, encouraging students’ motivation and interest in reading, and teaching phonemic awareness and phonics, I also found several areas of weakness that I was able to focus on improving through course readings, papers, and projects. These included reading assessment, vocabulary instruction, and promoting inquiry in the classroom. I have plans to amend the way I teach all of these in the future due to what I learned in TE 842.
In the area of reading assessment, I discovered that I had been relying too heavily on the assessments required by my school or district, and simply assuming those were a sufficient measure of students’ reading abilities. My eyes were opened to a much wider range of useful assessments that I will now have available to me to supplement required assessments and better inform my teaching due to a deeper understanding of what students’ specific abilities and weaknesses are in the area of reading. Regarding vocabulary, I found that my instruction in this area has been quite informal to this point, and therefore lacking. I believe this is mostly due to the oral nature of vocabulary instruction in kindergarten, however I plan to be much more intentional about what vocabulary I teach in the future and how I teach it, using methods such as word play, graphic organizers, and word spoke charts. I have developed a new appreciation for how crucial vocabulary is to both reading and overall learning. “After all, words are the currency of education,” (Blachowicz & Fisher, 2011, p.225).
A final area I was strongly influenced by in TE 842 was in promoting inquiry. Even without full-fledged inquiry circles, inquiry-based comprehension lessons, such as those in Harvey and Daniels’ Comprehension & Collaboration: Inquiry Circles in Action can increase student inquiry, collaboration and comprehension in a way suitable for even kindergarteners. What really appeals to me about this method is how using the cross-disciplinary approach of inquiry-based learning could give students ample opportunities to learn, practice, and use reading for authentic purposes. This is certainly a direction I plan to move toward in future teaching.
TE 848: Methods of Writing Instruction
Writing Workshop is my absolute favorite part of teaching, so I was sincerely looking forward to taking TE 848 to improve my skills as a teacher of writing. That said, I was not expecting it to be as powerful of a class as it was, radically changing my thoughts in a couple of areas and helping me to be not only a better writing teacher, but also a better writer. One of my favorite quotes from this course was in the book What a Writer Needs, by Ralph Fletcher. Fletcher really explained the job of a writing teacher when he stated that a mentor in writing, “reaches into the chaos, finds a place where the writing works, pulls it from the wreckage, names it, and make the writer aware of this emerging skill with words” (1993, p. 14). Besides the lovely imagery of this statement, Fletcher described what I think is one of the most important things a teacher does: she finds and highlights a skill that is barely beginning to emerge in a student’s writing, no matter how much of a mess the rest of it is. I learned that by naming and celebrating what a student did (even if it was unintentional-- or maybe especially if it was unintentional), the teacher can build on that skill and encourage the student to take it even farther. This understanding will guide the way I approach writing conferences with future students, as I attempt to help them understand what they are doing in order to take their writing to the next level.
The most profound change in my thinking from this course was in the area of teaching handwriting. I will be honest: I do not enjoy teaching handwriting, and previously did not see much of a purpose to it. In our course readings, however, I stumbled upon some research that completely changed my thinking and helped me to realize that it is not just about having pretty handwriting. “According to Graham (1999a), text production skills of handwriting and spelling accounted for 66% and 41% of the variance in compositional fluency and 25% and 42% of the variance in compositional quality at the primary and intermediate grades, respectively,” (Edwards, 2003). The research is clear: handwriting significantly affects the content of writing. I was so blown away by this information that I chose to do my research project for the course on the topic of handwriting. I not only learned quite a bit about how to properly teach handwriting that will significantly affect my future teaching of it, but also found that lack of sufficient training in teaching handwriting seems to be a noteworthy problem for many teachers, and that teachers are not spending as much time teaching handwriting as is needed to be effective (see Teaching Handwriting: Research vs. Teacher Practice, by Amanda Dennison).
The Online Degree Experience
In addition to all the above-described new understandings I came to as a result of my MAED courses, I also gained new insights, perspectives, and experiences from pursuing an online degree and taking my first ever online courses. I discovered that it takes quite a bit of self-discipline and organization to take online classes, especially 2-3 of them at a time. Frankly, I am not sure I would have handled that so well at the age of 18 as an undergraduate! As a result of my MAED courses, I became more familiar with many useful technological learning and teaching tools, through creating wikis, digital podcasts and videos, using VoiceThread and Audacity, and learning all about a variety of types of assistive technology for students. All of these experiences made me much more comfortable and knowledgeable as I attempt to effectively incorporate appropriate technology use into future teaching. I still have many questions regarding the use of technology with students, particularly with the very young children I teach, but I feel I will be significantly more informed and thoughtful about these issues in the future as a result of this experience.
Parting Thoughts
As a whole, I complete the MAED program feeling refreshed, rather than tired. I am excited about what I have gained from this adventure in online learning, and I am ready to tackle the next teaching challenge with my increased knowledge, skills, and confidence. I look forward to seeing where this degree takes me in the future: how it will help me better serve my students, and how I will continue to grow as a teacher and learner.
Blachowicz, C. L. & Fisher, P. J. (2011). Best practices in vocabulary instruction revisited. In L. M. Morrow & L. B. Gambrell (Eds.), Best practices in literacy instruction (4th ed., pp. 224-249). New York: Guilford Press.
Fletcher, R. (1992). What a writer needs. Portsmouth, New Hampshire: Heinemann.
Harvey, S. & Daniels, H. (2009). Comprehension & collaboration: Inquiry circles in action. Portsmouth, New Hampshire: Heinemann.
Larrivee, B. (2009). Authentic classroom management: Creating a Learning Community and Building Reflective Practice (3rd Edition). Boston, Massachusetts: Allyn & Bacon.
Reavis, H., Sweeten, M., Jenson, W., Morgan, D., Andrews, D. & Fister, S. (Eds.). (1996). BEST Practices: Behavioral and education strategies for teachers. Colorado: Sopris West.