The Flip Side of Reflection
by: Angela Sonntag/Johnson
Reflection is a task that teachers often ask of their students, but should also do themselves. As a student and educator I am reflecting back on the past year and a half in my Master’s of Arts in Education Program in order to evaluate what I have learned from this experience and how my career goals may have changed.
When first applying for my Master’s program in April of 2009, I knew I wanted to focus on literacy, but I also was curious as to how I could make my future degree more relevant in the 21st century. My interests have always been teaching students in reading, writing, listening, and speaking, but my 3rd grade position at a new school also peaked my interest in using educational technology. Using my passion for literacy and new curiosity about educational technology, I feel that I couldn’t have reached a better choice than to pursue my degree in both literacy and technology.
My beginning hopes were to learn more about the different methods, research, and theories surrounding literacy education and I feel that this program has helped me reach many elements of this continuous growth process. The combined knowledge of subjects like the history of Hirsch and Gardner with the current minds of education has helped me to see where education started and where it is going today. We all have a beginning to which sets the foundation of where our future may go. I feel more complete as an educator knowing about educators that came before me and those today who have been in my shoes before.
With this better knowledge of the past I felt as though it created a great starting point for me to learn about how to take literacy education and add our 21st century tools to it. From my technology courses I found amazing ways to incorporate literacy with technology so that students still experience the arts, but in a way that is more appealing to their current learning styles and way of life. This learning style even appealed more to me than traditional ones, because I am a student in this century as well and I learn best through different modes of technology too! The technology aspect of the curriculum and the program’s design has created ways for curriculum to be integrated across content areas so that my experience as a teacher and student were simultaneous and successful.
The rewards of this program are endless to me as an educator and I’m sure this won’t be the last time I reverse my student/teacher role. With my professional goals temporarily met with the completion of my Master’s degree, there is still much more that I would like to accomplish. This new insight into the world of education, literacy, and technology has inspired me to take a larger role in educating those about the benefits of incorporating technology with education. My career goals have slowly morphed into a greater desire to help others integrate technology into literacy so that the two are concurrent. Perhaps this means I would eventually leave my personal classroom to work and help others in theirs, but the details are not completely clear yet. Regardless of what exact destiny the future holds, my ambitions still remain large and my motivation boundless.
When first applying for my Master’s program in April of 2009, I knew I wanted to focus on literacy, but I also was curious as to how I could make my future degree more relevant in the 21st century. My interests have always been teaching students in reading, writing, listening, and speaking, but my 3rd grade position at a new school also peaked my interest in using educational technology. Using my passion for literacy and new curiosity about educational technology, I feel that I couldn’t have reached a better choice than to pursue my degree in both literacy and technology.
My beginning hopes were to learn more about the different methods, research, and theories surrounding literacy education and I feel that this program has helped me reach many elements of this continuous growth process. The combined knowledge of subjects like the history of Hirsch and Gardner with the current minds of education has helped me to see where education started and where it is going today. We all have a beginning to which sets the foundation of where our future may go. I feel more complete as an educator knowing about educators that came before me and those today who have been in my shoes before.
With this better knowledge of the past I felt as though it created a great starting point for me to learn about how to take literacy education and add our 21st century tools to it. From my technology courses I found amazing ways to incorporate literacy with technology so that students still experience the arts, but in a way that is more appealing to their current learning styles and way of life. This learning style even appealed more to me than traditional ones, because I am a student in this century as well and I learn best through different modes of technology too! The technology aspect of the curriculum and the program’s design has created ways for curriculum to be integrated across content areas so that my experience as a teacher and student were simultaneous and successful.
The rewards of this program are endless to me as an educator and I’m sure this won’t be the last time I reverse my student/teacher role. With my professional goals temporarily met with the completion of my Master’s degree, there is still much more that I would like to accomplish. This new insight into the world of education, literacy, and technology has inspired me to take a larger role in educating those about the benefits of incorporating technology with education. My career goals have slowly morphed into a greater desire to help others integrate technology into literacy so that the two are concurrent. Perhaps this means I would eventually leave my personal classroom to work and help others in theirs, but the details are not completely clear yet. Regardless of what exact destiny the future holds, my ambitions still remain large and my motivation boundless.