ANNOTATED TRANSCRIPT
Below you will find a description of the courses I completed for the Master of Arts in Education program at Michigan State University.
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The following acronyms are used as class codes below:
ED- Education TE- Teacher Education CEP- Counseling, Educational Psychology, and Special Education
TE 802 was one of the first courses I completed during my teacher certification internship year. In this course, I created a unit plan and lesson plans designed around explicitly teaching thinking strategies so that students become engaged, thoughtful, independent readers. My unit plan focused on teaching my third-grade students how to connect to a text with text-to-self, text-to-world, and text-to-text connections. After designing and implementing my unit plan, I gathered student-data and reflected on my teaching.
While completing TE 803, I worked to meet six different learning goals. I deepened my learning in various social studies topics, designed a unit plan utilizing best teaching practices, discussed my professional and ethical responsibilities, created accommodations to meet the needs of special education students, participated in a lesson study and reflected on my teaching. I worked with my classmates, professor, field instructor, and mentor teacher to help meet these goals and develop as an educator.
TE 804 Reflection and Inquiry in Teaching Practice 2
Semester: Spring 2016
Instructor: Marti Beitner-Miller
In TE 804, I learned how to design and implement inquiry-based science instruction in an elementary classroom. I developed and taught a unit exploring light energy. I conducted several science talks and created experiments designed around experiencing different scientific phenomena, At the end of the unit, I also analyzed student work and participated in a professional learning community to reflect on my teaching.
TE 842 Elementary Reading Assessment and Instruction
Semester: Fall 2018
Instructor: Dr. Laura Tortorelli
During TE 842, I explored the characteristics of effective reading assessment and instruction. I analyzed student data and developed lessons to meet individual student literacy needs. I also participated in a book study with several classmates, where we read and discussed the book "Inside Information" by Dr. Nell Duke. I learned how to use project-based learning to effectively teach informational texts.
TE 848 Writing Assessment and Instruction
Semester: Spring 2019
Instructors: Dr. Patricia Edwards & Tracy Weippert
In this course, I learned best practices for teaching writing instruction. I met with different researchers such as Troy Hicks and Steve Graham. I analyzed the writing curriculum implemented by my district and reflected on my instruction. I also participated in a book study and worked with a small group of peers to discuss our learning.
TE 846 Accommodating Differences in Literacy Learners
Semester: Summer 2019
Instructor: Christina Ponzio
For TE 846, I explored the characteristics of effective literacy instruction for all learners. I developed my knowledge of best practices in reading and writing instruction, learned how to create adaptations and modifications to accommodate literacy learners, and utilize assessments to drive my teaching. I also developed and implemented a personalized lesson plan with specialized teaching techniques and tasks to a diverse literacy learner.
This course helped me to push my thinking about the purposes, traditions, and characteristics of both formal and informal education. In this course, I completed different units of study where I reflected on the philosophy of education, classroom-based education, ethnographic observation, and theories of the mind and curriculum. I learned about educational theorists such as John Dewey and studied the education of eminent Americans such as Benjamin Franklin.
TE 831 Teaching School Subject Matter with Technology
Semester: Fall 2019
Instructor: Dr. Doug Hartman
In TE 831, I explored different ways to enhance my teaching with technology. I learned about different teaching frameworks such as TPACK. TPACK is a technology integration framework that identifies three types of knowledge instructors need to combine for successful integration—technological, pedagogical, and content knowledge. I also learned how to repurpose lesson plans by utilizing different technological tools such as Classkick, Flipgrid, and Voicethread.
CEP 832 Educating Students with Challenging Behavior
Semester: Spring 2020
Instructors: Dr. Vicky Mousouli & Dr. Jana Aupperlee
For CEP 832, I explored the psychological and behavioral characteristics of children who are "hard to teach." I learned about effective classroom management techniques and instructional practices. I also developed, implemented, and reflected on a personalized plan to help an individual in my class who displayed low-achieving and failure-oriented behaviors.
In this final course, I had to design an online portfolio. This portfolio was created to display my professional learning, showcase myself as an educator, and share my future learning goals. Throughout the course, I utilized the platform Flipgrid to reflect on my work and share my learning.