Reflection has always been an important practice of mine. That being said, I have no doubt that my experiences in the Master of Arts in Educational Technology (MAET) program at Michigan State University (MSU) has pushed it even further to the forefront of my professional and personal practices as an educator.

 

Looking at my experiences in the MAET program, there are many experiences that affected the way I approach my job as an educator as well as how I view my associated roles and responsibilities

In particular, I have realized the importance of creativity, choice, and questioning in my classroom which can be greatly enabled with the mindful use of technology. To put it broadly, creativity, choice, and.questioning open the door to potentially increased student motivation, engagement, and achievement for students.

Along with these positive impacts of mindful implementation of technology in the classroom I have been confronted with the unintended consequences of technology in education. Primarily I am concerned by the ways inequities in access and quality of instruction can impact student achievement. Additionally, the use of increased technology poses significant changes to the roles and responsibilities of educators using technology to also ensure fair protections of their students’ privacy and rights in a connected, data-hungry world.

 

This is my attempt to reflect and reconcile my many learning experiences in the MAET program. At my core, I believe technology has the power to bridge long-standing social, economic, and racial divides. I have always believed in the power of understanding and acknowledging the issues that most challenge the right to an equitable education. With social justice and equity being pillars in my role as an educator, I hope to use the knowledge I gained throughout the MAET program to better address the needs of my students in an imperfect, digital world. With all of this in mind, I hope to prepare them to the best of my ability for success in my classroom and beyond.

 

Note regarding abbreviations for courses completed through the MAET program: Courses are abbreviated as Teacher Education (TE) and Counseling, Educational Psychology, and Special Education (CEP).

 

 

 

During the summer of 2017 I was enrolled in the MAET Hybrid program at MSU and over the course of two weeks, we read and discussed Warren Berger’s A More Beautiful Question (2016). Ultimately this text and the coursework that accompanied it had a major impact on my role as an educator. Primarily, I realized the importance of creativity, choice, and questioning within my classroom.

 

Technology allows us to bring increased student choice, opportunities for inquiry and questioning, and broader exploration of creativity into our classrooms. It is our responsibility as educators to use technology in meaningful ways to promote this type of learning. When students have increased freedom and choice in their learning, they are more engaged. When students are offered multiple ways to express and explore their creativity and passions, they are engaged. When students are allowed to ask difficult questions and work toward findings their own answers, they are engaged. Increasing student engagement can lead to increased motivation and achievement in the long term, but it is up to us to provide the space.

 

Student Motivation, Engagement, and Achievement

Looking back at A More Beautiful Question and the way it impacted my practice as an educator, it is easy to notice the shifts first in my experiences as a learner. A specific learning experience that impacted my views on student choice, motivation, engagement, and achievement was part of CEP810: Teaching for Understanding with Technology. This was my Networked Learning Project. To explain it generally, I was tasked with learning something new, anything I was curious about or interested in. The catch was that I was only able to use my professional learning network (PLN), or resources and tools found online. I chose to learn how to build and care for plant terrariums.

 

I was excited to give this project my all because it was something that genuinely interested me, and I got to learn more about plants, which was a budding interest of mine. When it came time for me to compose blog posts about my learning, it hardly seemed like homework to me. Instead, it seemed like I was contributing to the online community of terrarium aficionados which had offered me guidance through my learning process. To better understand my Networked Learning Project, view my blog posts at this link.

 

This directly impacted my classroom instruction the following school year as I embarked on incorporating Genius Hour into a unit of study. Genius Hour, also known as 20Time or Passion Projects, basically followed the same outline of my Networked Learning Project. Students chose something that they were interested in or passionate about, and each week they had an hour or two in class just to explore their individualized learning experiences while keeping me updated with blog posts. To see a more detailed explanation and student examples, please view my blog post on the topic.

 

Students were engaged, they were learning, and they built blogs. They learned how to navigate the internet looking for tutorials, apps, or tips to help them reach their goals. Students were excited to come to class, especially when they got to work on their Genius Hour projects. When it comes to achievement, nearly all students received 80% or higher for their final grade for their Genius Hour work.

 

Although it was a challenge to get other teachers and administrators to buy into the idea of Genius Hour, I came prepared with not only my personal learning experiences as proof but the proof presented in my coursework, especially A More Beautiful Question. When we look at the most innovative and successful leaders of companies and organizations in this country, they all embrace creativity and choice. Although the process of inquiry poses its own challenges, namely failure, it is from failure that ideas change, develop, and grow into their full potential.

 

Iterative Thinking & Learning Experiences for Students and Educators

Iterative thinking and learning have impacted my approaches as a teacher and learner. Iterative thinking refers to an understanding of thinking and learning coming from design learning which was introduced to me during my MAET courses and mentioned in A More Beautiful Question. Basically, iterative design asks you to develop and define ideas to work towards a final product or process with an understanding that you will often have to go back, start over, and come at things from various different angles before achieving your goal.

 

I took a more in-depth look at iterative thinking as part of CEP 815: Technology and Leadership. During this course, I was tasked with creating a three-minute video detailing three main ideas and practical implications of an article. The article I looked at was “Creative and Computational Thinking in the Context of New Literacies” (Deschryver & Yadav, 2015). A major idea presented in the article pertained to students grappling with new literacies, which can be thought of as multimodal or digital literacies. To be successful with new literacies, you must understand that digital learning processes often require many iterations of work before reaching the desired results. This is critically important for students to understand as they are forced to use creative and computational thinking skills in order to show their learning in 21st-century classrooms.

 

For example, when my students create research infographics in an informational writing unit, I often have to remind them that the creation of their infographic is similar to when they create a piece of writing--it is a process, not a product. They will constantly have to go back, creating multiple iterations, redefining the ideas they are trying to present, before feeling satisfied with their work. I believe if students understand the new modes of thinking required of them as members of a tech-enriched world, it is vital that they see iterative thinking as an invaluable asset to their learning and success. My students will continue to encounter and refine creative thinking, computational thinking, and iterative thinking outside of my classroom, and I believe their future success, regardless of where their lives take them, will depend largely on their fluency with these skills.

 

 

 

 

Throughout my time in the MAET program, a major takeaway of mine concerned the unintended consequences of technology in education. I owe it to the MAET program for my increased awareness of the ways inequities in both access to technology and the quality of technology instruction can impact student achievement. Additionally, educators need to take on new responsibilities to ensure fair protections of their students’ privacy and individual rights in a connected, data-hungry world. The impacts of ignoring any of these challenges can pose severe, lasting impacts on our students and their achievement inside and outside of the classroom.

 

New Responsibilities & Considerations for 21st Century Educators

One experience that completely altered how I view my role as a classroom teacher happened when an instructor of CEP 815 handed me an article titled “Pedagogy and the Logic of Platforms” by Chris Gilliard (2017). 

 

In his article, Gilliard explains digital redlining as “the creation and maintenance of technological policies, practices, pedagogy, and investment decisions that enforce class boundaries and discriminate against specific groups,” a process which ultimately leads to a digital divide amongst individuals, essentially the haves and have-nots in terms of access to technology (Gilliard 2017).

 

The concepts of digital redlining and a digital divide were things I had thought of in the past, but never in those terms, and never realizing the long-term impacts of the practice. In the article, Gilliard brings to light the issues of digital consent and the process and impacts of the data-mining of students’ online presence. These were things I had never considered.

 

As an educator with a one-to-one classroom, I never considered the implications of asking my students to sign up for a variety of websites and online platforms using their school-created Google accounts. I never paused to consider how their performance of online tasks would be compiled as part of their burgeoning online profile associated with their name, with their Google accounts. I never paused to think what all of these platforms did with the data they collected on my students. I never realized the risk posed to consistently low-performing students. I never considered, five years down the road, GED programs being advertised to them online, with their performance on online classwork in seventh grade being a component of the data file used to target them for these ads. My experiences in MAET changed all of that for me.

 

(In)Equities in Education: Access, Instruction, & Achievement  

This experience was perhaps the most formative for me during my time in the MAET program. I become so engaged with these issues that I decided to learn more about them.

 

That brings me to the research I conducted and wrote about as part of CEP 822: Approaches to Educational Research. I wrote a research essay titled, “Literacy, Technology, and Student Engagement”.

 

I wanted to learn more about student engagement and motivation, especially in low-income  English Language Arts (ELA) settings. I considered how technology could be used to increase reading and writing literacy skills, with special attention to new literacies enabled by technology. I hoped that by embracing new literacies, students would naturally become more engaged with classwork, and by extension, they would improve their literacy skills.  I looked at the unintended consequences and affordances of embracing technology within settings similar to mine, being that I work in a Title I school in a rural community with one-to-one technology for students.

 

I learned a lot about the critical role of high-quality instruction with technology impacts students, especially in low-income communities. I began to see the way the digital divide made itself clear in schools like mine. Namely, some students have access to a computer at home, and many students have access to personal smart devices. That being said, I learned that students’ access to different types of technology and the way in which they used them impacted their learning with new literacies in the classroom.

 

 

 

Looking back at my research paper after reflecting on my entire experience in the MAET program, it makes sense that I end this reflection with the work that pushed me in new directions as a teacher. Not only that, the research process and writing of the essay were some of the most engaging experiences of mine. The research directly related to the community where I teach, to my students, to their access to technology, and the quality of instruction I provide them.

 

I have the MAET program to thank for opening up my eyes to various areas of educational technology that continue to influence my pedagogy and daily practices as a teacher. I am grateful for the learning opportunities I have been afforded, and I look forward to continuing to grow as an educator and an advocate for my students and my colleagues.