Synthesis Essay: A Reflection Upon Completing My Master's Degree

When I applied to the Michigan State online master's program three and a half years ago, I was seeking a means of growing professionally in the midst of a rather barren climate of an overseas post at an international school that offered nothing in the way of professional development. Instead of selecting random online courses or workshops, I wanted a comprehensive program that I could use as a means to explore new ideas and grow as a teacher. Of course, one rarely knows what they are actually getting into, but as I move closer to the end of my coursework in the program, I realize that there were many transformative aspects of the program. I chose to concentrate in the areas of literacy and technology, and there are major trends in my thinking that recurred in these two domains.

But before we delve into those trends, there is something more basic and personal that I learned from the three years of study. One of my concerns beginning an online program was that I would be unable to be self-motivated and monitor my progress enough to stay on top of the coursework. I am a procrastinator and I thrive on the stress and adrenaline of deadlines. Surprisingly, I was able to develop an organized manner of scheduling my work to ensure that I had adequate preparation time to both participate in discussions and complete assignments. An old friend said to me recently that I have become so responsible. I, in my usual self-deprecating manner, said I'm more responsible; I just have more responsibilities. But it is true; I have matured through the challenges of completing coursework while working full time and being recently married. My wife has been wonderfully supportive and encouraging throughout the three years. So although I certainly grew in my professional knowledge and skills, this has also been a journey into a different stage of my adult life.

Furthermore, I learned to celebrate procrastination, or rather I learned to recognize and name what I am doing through my procrastination. I enjoy reading and preparing for assignments, but the act of writing is challenging and requires a perfect storm of intellect, readiness, and focus. Much of what may previously have been labeled procrastination I now call rehearsal. I find that in the days and hours before writing an essay, a reading response, or other project, I am thinking about and crystallizing the idea in my mind. The act of writing becomes the performance for all that mental rehearsal, and in the performance new ideas emerge on the journey of thought. So along with learning to become organized and responsible, I have also learned about myself as a learner and writer.

Returning to the two major trends of my coursework. Throughout the entire program I was seeking a clearer understanding of the difference between progressive, inquiry-based learning and traditional, rote learning. The first course I took in the program, Concepts of Educational Inquiry, with Dr. Steven Weiland was an excellent initiation into the understanding of these two approaches to teaching and learning. Through reading John Dewey and others who promote inquiry-based learning, I began to experiment with constructing my lessons in a way that gave students the forum to develop their own questions and their own understanding of what we studied. Of course, I was attempting this within the strictures of a prescribed curriculum, but I found that when students constructed their own meaning around a topic they took more ownership and were more invested in the work. It became more their work and less what I imposed upon them. For example, in beginning to write memoirs in fifth grade, I gave the class a list of various books and shorter memoirs and let them read and take notes around the question “What is a memoir?” Through reading and discussion with their peers, they were able to come up with specific criteria for what constitutes a memoir. Once we had established a list of criteria, they use the criteria they had created to write their own memories. I continued similar models of this type of lesson design in all subject areas; having students generate questions, having them gather evidence and discuss, experiment, and present a result or conclusion. I found that I became more a helpful guide on their journey, rather than a circus master demanding that they jump through my hoops.

I continue to use the courses I took in the master's course to experiment more with this approach to teaching. In Dr. Punya Mishra’s Learning Technology by Design, I wanted to merge this constructivist approach to meaning making with the digital tools I was using for the course. For our course project we were to design a website, a blog, or another digital portal to teach a concept. I challenge myself I chose to design an interactive website to teach one of the more mundane topics of fifth grade: the use of the comma. I had a vision of how the website would work, but I had never seen a website function the way I envisioned it. I wanted a website where the students were co-creators in their discussion and understanding of how commas are used. It seems like I was creating a social networking site about commas. I create the site and made the first page viewable to my students. I ask them to find a sentence online or in print, and put in the comment section. So we had twenty-four examples of commas being used. Then on the second page, I pulled three sentences from their posts. Each sentence used the comma following the same grammatical rule. Through the comments section, the students had to post their idea of how the comma was used. In other words, through their online discussions and comments they were defining the grammatical rule rather than having it handed to them. This discussion and meaning-making through collaboration was essentially the same as what I was doing with my groups, discussions, and partnerships, in the master's courses. I was emulating the online format and recreating for my fifth graders around the study of commas. We ended up observing, analyzing, and defining ten different comma rules on the website. The students actually became interested, and some even excited, about discussing and analyzing comma usage. So the very structure and pedagogical methods of the online courses were affecting how I was teaching and using technology.

Another area that I have experience I sense of growth and transformation is through the my renewed engagement as a reader and the intentional study of children’s literature in MAED program. After my bachelor's degree in philosophy many years ago, I had been a rather unfocused reader floating between authors I occasionally read and areas of interest like the spice trade or Asian history. My reading stamina was declining and my interaction with text was more a pipe-dreamer’s entertainment. I love the exposure to new reading that I got through so many of the course. One that stands out is Dr. Steven Weiland’s course Adult Career Development. We read several biographies and autobiographies, a genre I rarely read previously, and wrote about the subjects and then made connections to our own careers and growth in life. I chose to take the course because it was at a time when I has changing my career and I found the course, its readings, and my life had a interplay that enriched the experience. The idea of connecting to the text became more visceral as I read about real people making decisions about their careers as I contemplated similar choices. I was a reminder of the richness of the reading life.

Being a teacher of reading, one might assume that I daily celebrated the richness of the reading life. Perhaps I celebrated what I taught which, at the time, was Romeo and Juliet, The Odyssey, To Kill a Mockingbird, and a few other books, but I did not really know much about what kids were reading. After moving back to fifth grade from ninth grade, I took Dr. Laura Apol’s Awards and Classics of Children’s Literature, and started reading much more juvenile fiction. It was a course that asked us to ponder the intention of the awards such as the Newbery as well as the intentions of the authors. I read Little Women and analyze the conflict of Louisa May Alcott’s real life choices and the ending she was pressured to create for the novel. Through this and other readings, I started to enjoy the complexity of children’s literature. I have since then read many more juvenile books, usually ones that students recommend like The Hunger Games and When You Reach Me. But this renewed engagement with reading carries over into my personal reading life as I have become a faster, more focused, and much more eager reader in the last three years.

Seeking an opportunity to read and learn more about children’s literature, I elected to take Dr. Laura Apol’s course Methods and Materials for Teaching Reading. The exposure to many more excellent children’s books was one benefit to the class, but far richer and more profound was the thematic power of the literature I read. I focused on the BrothersGrimm Fairy Tales which I had never known were great warnings against succumbing to human vices that used parables of murder, cannibalism, and suicide to emphasize their point. Other analysis of children’s literature revealed how cultural stereotypes and identities are fabricated even in seemingly innocent children’s literature. I have learned to be a more critical reader of the literature that present and interact with my students about. I have learned to appreciate the complexity and power of children’s literature, and I have learned that the great power of literature is that in reading it we are empathizing with characters and thus learning to empathize with others in the world.

So I have learned the power of designing lessons that foster a constructivist approach to meaning making, and I have learned to use digital tools to create opportunities for students to collaborate and construct meaning together. Furthermore, I have grown as a reader, not just in my exposure to more literature, but with my reengagement with the fulfillment that comes from having a powerful reading life. These two developments provide me focus and strength as a teacher and will continue to guide my development and exploration, but they also have added to the richness of my life personally.

One last, but significant, transformation that has come about through my interaction with a community of learners over the last three years, is in my life as a writer. To be honest, I had not crafted much writing of any significance other than some cover letters, resumes, and country songs, for many years before starting the MAED program. I had done a substantial amount of writing in my undergraduate years, and I had been teaching writing to high school students more recently, but I had not crafted anything of significance in a long while. Not that I was trepidatious about the expectations of the course, I just didn’t know what was coming. During the first course of the program, Dr. Weilands Concepts of Educational Inquiry, I wrote several essays and I was greatly appreciative of the substantial feedback he provided for each essay I submitted. I recognized early in the program that my writing was a vehicle of dialog and interaction around understanding, and not just an assignment to ensure that I received credit. I continued writing in subsequent course, and occasionally would have my dad proofread as essay before I submitted. My dad said that I expressed sophisticated ideas clearly and succinctly in my writing, and that I presented well-developed arguments. Okay, I don’t remember the exact words but it was something like that. The point is that my father, who is a prolific writer of novels, poetry, and political essays, recognized that I was not half bad at expressing myself in writing. There’s nothing like a little encouragement to help someone flourish. I started enjoying crafting the essays for each course, and relished in a nice turn of phrase or a concise, strong point. One professor commented that she thought I was “a gifted writer, with elegant prose and an engaging style.” Well, that certainly makes a person start to realize that they possess a skill they may have previously been unaware of. That is another value of working with a community of learners; we point out one another’s strengths rather than working blindly without feedback or encouragement.

I now have a solid argument against those who claim that technology isolates individuals and makes us less social. My MAED coursework has been a social experience. I have collaborated with peers and we have learned from one another about children’s literature, adult career changes, design theories, and many other topics. I have designed websites in which students collaborate to develop understanding together, and I have experienced the transformative power of simple words of encouragement. In conclusion, I have become a reader again, I have become aware of my talent as a writer, and I have witnessed the power that inquiry-based pedagogy lends to the experience of learning.