PROFESSIONAL LEARNING GOALS REFLECTION
My personal mission is to empower students with the leadership skills and knowledge to become agents of positive change.
To help fulfill my mission, I applied to the Master of Arts in Education program at Michigan State University with a focus on literacy. Through this program, I set out to learn best teaching practices and foster a love of literacy among my students. I have worked to meet these goals and will continue to work towards them in the future. I chose to pursue a specialization in literacy because I believe that reading is a powerful and transformative tool that can help my students become positive agents of change.
GOAL #1
Develop My Knowledge of Best Teaching Practices
The Master of Arts in Education (MAED) program at Michigan State University boasts about utilizing collaboration among peers, technology and digital tools, providing opportunities to apply new learning, and research-based teaching. These are all skills and techniques I emphasize in my own classroom and believe to be important in 21st-century learning. I believe I met this goal to develop my knowledge of best teaching practices throughout my time in the MAED program. I learned best practices in reading and writing instruction, how to accommodate for differences for literacy learners, and analyze reading data. During the program, I met with students one-on-one to provide individualized fluency support and met with Dr. Steve Graham to expand on my knowledge of writing instruction. I also applied my learning with case studies, projects, and papers. I want to continue to learn and use research-based practices to better my classroom instruction.
GOAL #2
Inspire Students to Be Lifelong Readers
Reading is important to children’s personal and intellectual development, as well as to their academic achievement. Students who enjoy reading will be able to learn more than I could ever teach them. That is why it is important for me to inspire students to be lifelong readers. While working in the MAED program at Michigan State University, I have learned about the importance in giving students a voice and choice in their reading. Through my coursework, I designed individualized lesson plans for students based off of their personal interests and developed a project-based unit for text structure. These authentic and engaging ways of teaching reading were helpful in explaining content. I would like to spend more time learning how to develop a classroom culture with a love of literacy. This is a goal I feel I have a lot more to learn about and develop in as I advance in my teaching career.
REFLECTION
After reflecting on my goals from my MAED program, I have realized that my goals are largely the same. I would like to spend more time developing a classroom culture that shows a deep love of literacy. I find a lot of my inspiration in people like Donalyn Miller and Colby Sharp, the creators of the Nerdy Book Club.
I would also like to grow in my professional knowledge. I plan on doing this by attending conferences such as the MRA (Michigan Reading Association), professional workshops designed by the Kalamazoo Regional Educational Service Agency, and the Scholastic Reading Summit.
My past, present, and future goals all revolve around my personal mission to educate and inspire my students to become positive agents of change.
“Reading changes your life. Reading unlocks worlds unknown or forgotten, taking travelers around the world and through time. Reading helps you escape the confines of school and pursue your own education. Through characters – the saints and the sinners, real or imagined – reading shows you how to be a better human being.”