Never Stop Learning
By: Nicole Jenkins
As I near the end of my master’s program and reflect back on the last nine years as I prepared to become a teacher and then started my career as an educator, I realize I have accomplished a lot. My experiences in my fifth, second, and kindergarten classrooms, as well as the courses I have taken as an undergraduate and for my master’s degree have molded me into the teacher I am today. The lessons I have learned from my classes and from interactions with my students have all challenged me to become a more effective teacher.
I first aspired to be a teacher a long time ago, when I was just a little girl. There is a long line of teachers in my family, including my mom, grandma, and aunts, and I saw how much they enjoyed their jobs and were able to bring creative ideas into their rooms. I also had a few incredible teachers growing up who motivated me to pursue this career. I hope I have had as positive an effect on my students as they had on me. Throughout my adolescence I involved myself in many extracurricular activities and jobs having to do with children. My passion for working with children never ceased and I longed to become a teacher just like my mom.
I was proud to attend Michigan State University as it was rated number one in the country for teacher education for many years. I still remember receiving my acceptance letter into the College of Education during my sophomore year. I was ecstatic when I opened my letter and cried tears of joy. After graduating from MSU in 2006, I was ready to complete my yearlong internship. I was placed in a fifth grade classroom in Novi, Michigan. I was skeptical about at first as I always imagined myself teaching young children, but I ended up thoroughly enjoying this age group and learning more than I could have imagined. During my internship year, I team taught with two incredible teachers who were very supportive and encouraging. I learned so much about the importance of maintaining a positive, calm demeanor when managing a classroom, and I have carried many of the principles I learned about classroom management from my mentors with me. My team teachers and the fifty plus students in our team also taught me the value of creating a positive classroom atmosphere where students are viewed as valued members of a team and individual strengths are built upon. My ten weeks of lead teaching allowed me to critically critique lessons I taught and see the impact I was having on my students. I received valuable feedback, made necessary adjustments on lessons in order to reach both struggling and high-achieving students, and assessed student learning along the way. This year allowed me to see all that goes into teaching and how in order to be an effective teacher, one must draw on multiple resources and collaborate with peers to plan stimulating, challenging lessons and meet the unique needs of individual students.
In addition to teaching full time during my internship year, I was required to simultaneously take twelve graduate credits. These foundational courses taught about some of the best practices for teaching and had us create and then teach units for each subject area. I learned how many accommodations, modifications, and extensions are necessary to consider when planning lessons. The heavy course load and rigorous teaching expectations showed me just how much work it is to be a teacher. I had to learn how to balance my time between teaching and all the planning and grading that accompanies it, completing my graduate work, while allowing some time for my family and personal life. This was an important lesson as it can be a struggle to successfully balance all of these different components and this is something I will have to do the rest of my life.
I finished my internship year feeling much more confident in my ability to teach. I moved to Atlanta, GA where there were more job opportunities than in Michigan. I began teaching second grade at Austin Elementary in Dunwoody, GA, a well-known, high-achieving school in an affluent community. The staff is full of positive, hard-working teachers who support and push one another to be better teachers. I learned an incredible amount about myself as a teacher during my first year in the classroom on my own. I loved this age group and realized I had a passion for teaching literacy. I was fortunate to receive extensive training on the program Literacy Collaborative, which pushed me to learn and use the most effective methods for teaching children to read and write.
I continued teaching second grade another year before moving to kindergarten. This year will be my third year teaching kindergarten. My favorite thing about this age is their constant excitement about learning and trying new things. I work to keep this enthusiasm and thirst for knowledge alive in all of my students. The other amazing thing about kindergarten is the amount of progress they make in one school year. It is remarkable to see a child go from knowing only some letter sounds in the beginning of the year to comprehending text in only nine months.
In the summer of 2009 after my second year as a classroom teacher, I began my Master of Arts in Education at MSU. I wasn’t sure I wanted to complete my master’s online, but am so thankful I chose to as it allowed flexibility in completing course work so I could work around my school schedule. I started the master’s program with a concentration in literacy, but midway through the program I switched to a concentration in Special Education. I realized I had become confident in my ability to teach literacy, largely due to the Literacy Collaborative training I went through at my school. On the other hand, I felt that I could use more tools and strategies for working with learning problems, which is why I made the switch in concentration areas. I have learned a lot through my time in MSU’s MAED program, but there are a few classes I took that were truly influential: CEP 841: Classroom Management in the Inclusive Classroom, CEP 842: Methods of Instruction in the Inclusive Classroom, and CEP 832: Educating Students with Challenging Behavior.
CEP 841: Classroom Management in the Inclusive Classroom showed me the importance of proactive classroom management. It is so critical to develop a classroom atmosphere where all students feel comfortable and are willing to take risks. Many students with learning problems lack social skills, and this class taught me how important it is to explicitly teach my students social skills. A beneficial component of this course was the viewing of videos by Richard Lavoie. He is a powerful speaker who I was lucky enough to see in person last fall. CEP 841 introduced me to Lavoie and his influential ideas about working with children. He spoke of social skills as the “hidden curriculum” that children with learning disabilities often lack, even skills many view as simple and naturally learned, such as asking questions. Lavoie talked about how teachers need to break social skills down into the most finite point and take social skills errors as opportunities to learn. I have made a big effort to teach social skills both explicitly to the whole class and in context when situations arise in hopes of increasing my students’ ability to interact with others as well as to strengthen their self-efficacy. Lavoie talked about how it is our obligation as teachers to build our students’ self-efficacy. We need to model acceptance of people different than us, teach students conflict management strategies, and build a positive classroom atmosphere where every child is valued. Lavoie said, ”Our job is to simply make sure every child that crosses our paths has more poker chips than when they came to us.” This quote had a big influence on me and is one I will continue to remember when responding to and interacting with students in my classroom. I truly believe that more important than the content learned is how a child feels about him or herself. If we want to create a world of acceptance and appreciation for differences, this type of atmosphere needs to begin in the classroom.
The major project I completed in CEP 841 was a study on the classroom management program, Conscious Discipline. This program, designed by Becky Bailey, is a classroom management program with a goal of helping teachers develop and become attuned to their emotional intelligence so they are able to consciously respond to, interact with, and thus teach their students valuable communication skills. The program places a large focus on building positive relationships and teaching students social and conflict resolution strategies that they can apply in the real world. A major goal of Conscious Discipline is to help students become problem solvers and effective communicators. The idea is that through modeling and explicitly teaching these behaviors, our students will develop social and emotional awareness and will begin to value themselves and their relationships with others. My study on Conscious Discipline taught me so much about how to effectively communicate with children, both when I want to acknowledge something great they accomplish and when they make poor choices or have trouble getting along with others. The philosophy of Conscious Discipline aligns with my own beliefs on classroom management and I have used many of the ideas I learned through this study in my classroom.
CEP 842: Methods of Instruction in the Inclusive Classroom was another worthwhile course I took for my concentration area of Special Education. This course taught us ways we can vary our instruction in the classroom in order to reach all learners, including those with learning disabilities. The class helped us recognize that all students and people learn in unique ways, and we need to find ways to teach the curriculum in ways that reach different learning styles. Through this course we saw that it is possible to teach one concept in many ways so that visual, auditory, tactile, and kinesthetic learners can all utilize their strengths to build new knowledge. One of the major assignments in CEP 842 was to create a Universal Design for Learning (UDL) lesson that varied the materials used, activities, as well as the assessments so that children had more choices when learning a new concept or skill and could make more meaning. Learning about Universal Design for Learning made me more mindful of how I teach and assess my students in every lesson, and I can say that I make much more of an effort now to take into account the various learning styles in every lesson I plan; I try to incorporate activities that reach visual, auditory, tactile, and kinesthetic learners in every subject area.
The other meaningful project we completed in CEP 842: Methods of Instruction in the Inclusive Classroom was to design a professional development program for a school staff. My group focused our program on math instruction for students with disabilities. Within the program we designed, we included several activities and discussions that would help staff understand what it is like to have a learning disability. We then focused on the different learning styles as this is something teachers need to be attentive to when designing and teaching lessons; people learn in different ways and when we recognize this and plan lessons that take this into account, our students are going to make greater gains and classroom material will become more meaningful to them. Within the professional development program we created, we also explained and gave examples of many of the methods of instruction we learned about in the course, including Universal Design for Learning and co-teaching. This final project was a valuable learning tool as we had to summarize all that we learned in the course and provide our own examples of how to use the various teaching methods we were introduced to.
CEP 832: Educating Students with Challenging Behavior was the third worthwhile course I took in the MAED program. The course was well organized and was divided into various problem behaviors, including social withdrawal, aggressiveness, hyperactivity, and oppositionality. With each challenging behavior, after learning effective techniques to deal with the behavior, we looked at case studies and identified situations in our own classrooms, and applied the strategies we learned. It was very helpful to read about how effective and ineffective teachers dealt with various situations, and also to see the exact wording that might be used in tricky circumstances. As an ending project for this course, I conducted a case study on a child in my classroom that was low achieving and had social issues. I tried many strategies I learned about in CEP 832 with this child and found many of them to be successful in helping her both socially and academically. The content of this course was very relevant and I will carry many of the ideas and approaches I learned with me in my future classrooms; I feel much more prepared to deal with challenging behaviors.
As I focus in on these three valuable courses I took and reflect back on all that I learned through my time in the MAED program, I realize that I have become a confident, competent teacher, largely due to all that I have learned in my master’s program. I feel prepared to tackle problem situations that arise in the classroom and I feel that I am utilizing the best teaching practices. I know so much more than I did just five years ago when I began my teaching career, yet I am also aware that the best practices for teaching will continue to grow and change in the future. I am ready and eager to continue to learn more as I continue my career as an educator; I understand how imperative it is for me to be a lifelong learner so that I can best support my students and help them develop a love for learning as well.
I first aspired to be a teacher a long time ago, when I was just a little girl. There is a long line of teachers in my family, including my mom, grandma, and aunts, and I saw how much they enjoyed their jobs and were able to bring creative ideas into their rooms. I also had a few incredible teachers growing up who motivated me to pursue this career. I hope I have had as positive an effect on my students as they had on me. Throughout my adolescence I involved myself in many extracurricular activities and jobs having to do with children. My passion for working with children never ceased and I longed to become a teacher just like my mom.
I was proud to attend Michigan State University as it was rated number one in the country for teacher education for many years. I still remember receiving my acceptance letter into the College of Education during my sophomore year. I was ecstatic when I opened my letter and cried tears of joy. After graduating from MSU in 2006, I was ready to complete my yearlong internship. I was placed in a fifth grade classroom in Novi, Michigan. I was skeptical about at first as I always imagined myself teaching young children, but I ended up thoroughly enjoying this age group and learning more than I could have imagined. During my internship year, I team taught with two incredible teachers who were very supportive and encouraging. I learned so much about the importance of maintaining a positive, calm demeanor when managing a classroom, and I have carried many of the principles I learned about classroom management from my mentors with me. My team teachers and the fifty plus students in our team also taught me the value of creating a positive classroom atmosphere where students are viewed as valued members of a team and individual strengths are built upon. My ten weeks of lead teaching allowed me to critically critique lessons I taught and see the impact I was having on my students. I received valuable feedback, made necessary adjustments on lessons in order to reach both struggling and high-achieving students, and assessed student learning along the way. This year allowed me to see all that goes into teaching and how in order to be an effective teacher, one must draw on multiple resources and collaborate with peers to plan stimulating, challenging lessons and meet the unique needs of individual students.
In addition to teaching full time during my internship year, I was required to simultaneously take twelve graduate credits. These foundational courses taught about some of the best practices for teaching and had us create and then teach units for each subject area. I learned how many accommodations, modifications, and extensions are necessary to consider when planning lessons. The heavy course load and rigorous teaching expectations showed me just how much work it is to be a teacher. I had to learn how to balance my time between teaching and all the planning and grading that accompanies it, completing my graduate work, while allowing some time for my family and personal life. This was an important lesson as it can be a struggle to successfully balance all of these different components and this is something I will have to do the rest of my life.
I finished my internship year feeling much more confident in my ability to teach. I moved to Atlanta, GA where there were more job opportunities than in Michigan. I began teaching second grade at Austin Elementary in Dunwoody, GA, a well-known, high-achieving school in an affluent community. The staff is full of positive, hard-working teachers who support and push one another to be better teachers. I learned an incredible amount about myself as a teacher during my first year in the classroom on my own. I loved this age group and realized I had a passion for teaching literacy. I was fortunate to receive extensive training on the program Literacy Collaborative, which pushed me to learn and use the most effective methods for teaching children to read and write.
I continued teaching second grade another year before moving to kindergarten. This year will be my third year teaching kindergarten. My favorite thing about this age is their constant excitement about learning and trying new things. I work to keep this enthusiasm and thirst for knowledge alive in all of my students. The other amazing thing about kindergarten is the amount of progress they make in one school year. It is remarkable to see a child go from knowing only some letter sounds in the beginning of the year to comprehending text in only nine months.
In the summer of 2009 after my second year as a classroom teacher, I began my Master of Arts in Education at MSU. I wasn’t sure I wanted to complete my master’s online, but am so thankful I chose to as it allowed flexibility in completing course work so I could work around my school schedule. I started the master’s program with a concentration in literacy, but midway through the program I switched to a concentration in Special Education. I realized I had become confident in my ability to teach literacy, largely due to the Literacy Collaborative training I went through at my school. On the other hand, I felt that I could use more tools and strategies for working with learning problems, which is why I made the switch in concentration areas. I have learned a lot through my time in MSU’s MAED program, but there are a few classes I took that were truly influential: CEP 841: Classroom Management in the Inclusive Classroom, CEP 842: Methods of Instruction in the Inclusive Classroom, and CEP 832: Educating Students with Challenging Behavior.
CEP 841: Classroom Management in the Inclusive Classroom showed me the importance of proactive classroom management. It is so critical to develop a classroom atmosphere where all students feel comfortable and are willing to take risks. Many students with learning problems lack social skills, and this class taught me how important it is to explicitly teach my students social skills. A beneficial component of this course was the viewing of videos by Richard Lavoie. He is a powerful speaker who I was lucky enough to see in person last fall. CEP 841 introduced me to Lavoie and his influential ideas about working with children. He spoke of social skills as the “hidden curriculum” that children with learning disabilities often lack, even skills many view as simple and naturally learned, such as asking questions. Lavoie talked about how teachers need to break social skills down into the most finite point and take social skills errors as opportunities to learn. I have made a big effort to teach social skills both explicitly to the whole class and in context when situations arise in hopes of increasing my students’ ability to interact with others as well as to strengthen their self-efficacy. Lavoie talked about how it is our obligation as teachers to build our students’ self-efficacy. We need to model acceptance of people different than us, teach students conflict management strategies, and build a positive classroom atmosphere where every child is valued. Lavoie said, ”Our job is to simply make sure every child that crosses our paths has more poker chips than when they came to us.” This quote had a big influence on me and is one I will continue to remember when responding to and interacting with students in my classroom. I truly believe that more important than the content learned is how a child feels about him or herself. If we want to create a world of acceptance and appreciation for differences, this type of atmosphere needs to begin in the classroom.
The major project I completed in CEP 841 was a study on the classroom management program, Conscious Discipline. This program, designed by Becky Bailey, is a classroom management program with a goal of helping teachers develop and become attuned to their emotional intelligence so they are able to consciously respond to, interact with, and thus teach their students valuable communication skills. The program places a large focus on building positive relationships and teaching students social and conflict resolution strategies that they can apply in the real world. A major goal of Conscious Discipline is to help students become problem solvers and effective communicators. The idea is that through modeling and explicitly teaching these behaviors, our students will develop social and emotional awareness and will begin to value themselves and their relationships with others. My study on Conscious Discipline taught me so much about how to effectively communicate with children, both when I want to acknowledge something great they accomplish and when they make poor choices or have trouble getting along with others. The philosophy of Conscious Discipline aligns with my own beliefs on classroom management and I have used many of the ideas I learned through this study in my classroom.
CEP 842: Methods of Instruction in the Inclusive Classroom was another worthwhile course I took for my concentration area of Special Education. This course taught us ways we can vary our instruction in the classroom in order to reach all learners, including those with learning disabilities. The class helped us recognize that all students and people learn in unique ways, and we need to find ways to teach the curriculum in ways that reach different learning styles. Through this course we saw that it is possible to teach one concept in many ways so that visual, auditory, tactile, and kinesthetic learners can all utilize their strengths to build new knowledge. One of the major assignments in CEP 842 was to create a Universal Design for Learning (UDL) lesson that varied the materials used, activities, as well as the assessments so that children had more choices when learning a new concept or skill and could make more meaning. Learning about Universal Design for Learning made me more mindful of how I teach and assess my students in every lesson, and I can say that I make much more of an effort now to take into account the various learning styles in every lesson I plan; I try to incorporate activities that reach visual, auditory, tactile, and kinesthetic learners in every subject area.
The other meaningful project we completed in CEP 842: Methods of Instruction in the Inclusive Classroom was to design a professional development program for a school staff. My group focused our program on math instruction for students with disabilities. Within the program we designed, we included several activities and discussions that would help staff understand what it is like to have a learning disability. We then focused on the different learning styles as this is something teachers need to be attentive to when designing and teaching lessons; people learn in different ways and when we recognize this and plan lessons that take this into account, our students are going to make greater gains and classroom material will become more meaningful to them. Within the professional development program we created, we also explained and gave examples of many of the methods of instruction we learned about in the course, including Universal Design for Learning and co-teaching. This final project was a valuable learning tool as we had to summarize all that we learned in the course and provide our own examples of how to use the various teaching methods we were introduced to.
CEP 832: Educating Students with Challenging Behavior was the third worthwhile course I took in the MAED program. The course was well organized and was divided into various problem behaviors, including social withdrawal, aggressiveness, hyperactivity, and oppositionality. With each challenging behavior, after learning effective techniques to deal with the behavior, we looked at case studies and identified situations in our own classrooms, and applied the strategies we learned. It was very helpful to read about how effective and ineffective teachers dealt with various situations, and also to see the exact wording that might be used in tricky circumstances. As an ending project for this course, I conducted a case study on a child in my classroom that was low achieving and had social issues. I tried many strategies I learned about in CEP 832 with this child and found many of them to be successful in helping her both socially and academically. The content of this course was very relevant and I will carry many of the ideas and approaches I learned with me in my future classrooms; I feel much more prepared to deal with challenging behaviors.
As I focus in on these three valuable courses I took and reflect back on all that I learned through my time in the MAED program, I realize that I have become a confident, competent teacher, largely due to all that I have learned in my master’s program. I feel prepared to tackle problem situations that arise in the classroom and I feel that I am utilizing the best teaching practices. I know so much more than I did just five years ago when I began my teaching career, yet I am also aware that the best practices for teaching will continue to grow and change in the future. I am ready and eager to continue to learn more as I continue my career as an educator; I understand how imperative it is for me to be a lifelong learner so that I can best support my students and help them develop a love for learning as well.