There is no end to education. It is not that you read a book, pass an examination, and finish with education. The whole of life, from the moment you are born to the moment you die, is a process of learning.
This course was an intense time of writing and then subsequently reflecting on what it means to have best practices in writing instruction. Through the course, I gained a better appreciation for the difficult work of teaching writing in all subject areas. This course allowed time for areas of study within personal interest - during that time I studied and grew my understanding of argument writing in depth.
This course provided the time and space for a cohort of K-16 teachers to study the impact and effectiveness of our writing instruction. With Dr. Ellis’s guidance, we learned how to conduct academic research and then carried out an academically credible research study. This course was important to me because of my gained understanding of the academic research process as well as to see the effectiveness of writing instruction.
TE 848: Writing Assessment and Instruction Instructor: Jennifer VanDerHeide Summer 2015
This course allowed participants to study best practices in writing instruction and then choose an area of interest to study in particular. I studied the effectiveness of peer feedback on student writing. One piece of this study that I still use in my junior high classroom is an overlay unit created to be taught in conjunction with a writing unit to help students learn the process of providing peer feedback on writing.
EAD 864: Adult Career Development Instructor: Steven Weiland Summer 2015
Through studying a series of adults who have had successful careers within their own diverse fields, this course offered insight into what makes a career meaningful. The numerous life stories that were a part of this course helped to see the total person that a career can ideally fulfill.
TE 846: Accommodating Differences in Literacy Learners Instructor: Shannon Prince Summer 2015
All students learn differently and being able to match students with specific lessons to help them learn is incredibly important. Through this course, I studied how to meet students where they are and help them move to a next step. One of the projects of this course was working with one individual student and tracking her growth through the semester with my intervention. Seeing her grow as a more fluent reader was a satisfying piece to this course.
EAD 863: Training and Professional Development Instructor: William Arnold Fall 2015
Adults learn in a different way than youth. This course provided a number of opportunities for learning about how adults learn best, and then creating training sessions in which I could apply those principles. As a result of this course, I developed and successfully designed and hosted a one-hour staff training and a three-day workshop.
EAD 866: Teaching in Post-Secondary Education Instructor: John Dirkx Spring 2016
Students in post-secondary education settings come from diverse backgrounds and are attending for a diverse set of reasons. Recognizing that is a first step, then helping students to learn together over the course of a semester is a second. This course offered many opportunities to consider best practice in everything from creating a syllabus to crafting a class discussion.
TE 838: Children’s Literature in Film Instructor: Laura Apol Summer 2016
There is more to studying literature made into film than commenting on the scenes that were left out. This course offered the opportunity to look at a number of different book/film combinations and consider possibilities for comparison. The course ended with creating a unit of study of my own that I can teach in my junior high setting.
ED 800: Educational Inquiry Instructor: Steven Weiland Summer 2016
This course offered the chance to consider the variety of ways that people can study a subject and learn from it. Participating in case-study, immersing in a culture, offering choice within a set of primary sources - through this variety of opportunities, I learned perhaps the most significant trait of a person to be educated is the importance of curiosity.
ED 870: Capstone Portfolio Work Instructor: Matthew Koehler Fall 2016
This course offers the opportunity to bring together the learning I’ve been a part of and the educational path I have traversed into one digital space. While it is impossible to encapsulate a lifetime of learning, this course gives a good college try to pull together some of it.