Halfway through my third year as an educator I decided that it was time for me to learn more.
I had just moved to Jeju Island, South Korea and was living by myself for the first time. I had never considered working toward a master’s degree as the public school district I worked at in North Texas only provided an additional $1,500 payraise for educators with a master’s degree. It did not seem worthwhile whatsoever. However, after switching to international teaching, I learned quickly that most international schools provided a significant bump in salary for educators with a master’s degree. As shallow as it seems, that was what gave me the final boost to pursue a master’s degree in educational technology rather than pouring my efforts into a variety of ed tech professional development from multiple sources.
I am an ambitious person but I cannot say that I am someone with long-term plans. Moving international was a way to push myself to enjoy one day at a time and use new opportunities to expand my perspective of the world around me. That being said, I was attracted to the Master of Arts in Educational Technology (MAET) because of the flexibility that it provided students when it came to choosing courses. Perusing the course catalog made the excitement grow as my eyes caught several classes that I wanted to take. I felt safe in the idea of joining a program tailored to my interests and allowed me the ability to alter my direction at anytime.
Over the Seas
The most influential part of my MAET experience took place in Galway, Ireland. I decided to forgo the opportunity to spend the summer back in the United States to enroll in the four week MAET Overseas cohort offered by Michigan State University. The program, at the time, was organized into three different cohort groups based on the number of MAET classes completed so far. I was enrolled in the "Year Two" cohort as a student that had completed several online courses prior.
From 8 AM to 3 PM each day I had the privilege of working with five other classmates from a variety of educational settings (some from US public schools, others teaching in countries like China and Japan) on major projects such as an Educational Technology podcast, creating professional development sessions for fellow overseas students, and identifying a problem of practice within our own teaching for the "TPACK That!" project. While these projects were done in isolation, the formative assessments were a combination of material from all three classes or a variety of activities like providing feedback to a small start-up company working on a VR experience for Galway tourists or visiting the Computer and Communications Museum of Ireland to see how technology has evolved over decades.
The four weeks of coursework with MAET instructors in Galway is nothing short of extraordinary. I was immediately thrown off by the initial meeting of all the overseas students (around 20 in total) and being given my first "Quickfire Challenge". For those who are unfamiliar, the Quickfire Challenge. was inspired by the show "Top Chef". Contestants are asked to complete a task in a short amount of time with specific constraints. In this case, I was given a basket of various art supplies, a piece of A4 paper, and a request to show "Why" I teach in whatever way I wished to show classmates and instructors.
From 8 AM to 3 PM each day I had the privilege of working with five other classmates from a variety of educational settings (some from US public schools, others teaching in countries like China and Japan) on major projects such as an Educational Technology podcast, creating professional development sessions for fellow overseas students, and identifying a problem of practice within our own teaching for the "TPACK That!" project. While these projects were done in isolation, the formative assessments were a combination of material from all three classes or a variety of activities like providing feedback to a small start-up company working on a VR experience for Galway tourists or visiting the Computer and Communications Museum of Ireland to see how technology has evolved over decades.
The four weeks of coursework with MAET instructors in Galway is nothing short of extraordinary. I was immediately thrown off by the initial meeting of all the overseas students (around 20 in total) and being given my first "Quickfire Challenge". For those who are unfamiliar, the Quickfire Challenge. was inspired by the show "Top Chef". Contestants are asked to complete a task in a short amount of time with specific constraints. In this case, I was given a basket of various art supplies, a piece of A4 paper, and a request to show "Why" I teach in whatever way I wished to show classmates and instructors.
The GIF below illustrates how Quickfire Challenges usually made me feel.
From there, I was launched into a short four-week program where three MAET courses were all thoughtfully combined with the instruction by two MAET instructors: Liz Boltz and Sean Sweeney. Somehow they were able to teach us concepts from:
- CEP 800 - Learning in School and Other Settings
- CEP 815 - Technology and Leadership
- CEP 822 - Approaches to Educational Research
CEP 800: Learning in School and Other Settings
This course in particular did not have a major project that revolutionized my teaching (in fact, I feel that I bombed the TPACK in Action project as I was transitioning between schools in South Korea and Vietnam and did not feel confident about upcoming curriculum at the time). However, my biggest takeaways from this course came from the time given for me to dive deeper into teaching and learning theories with face-to-face support from two MAET instructors.
I especially want to credit Liz Boltz for her infectious love of learning theories; the way she facilitated discussions and provided feedback on formative tasks slowly started to alter my perspective on the topic
This course in particular did not have a major project that revolutionized my teaching (in fact, I feel that I bombed the TPACK in Action project as I was transitioning between schools in South Korea and Vietnam and did not feel confident about upcoming curriculum at the time). However, my biggest takeaways from this course came from the time given for me to dive deeper into teaching and learning theories with face-to-face support from two MAET instructors.
I especially want to credit Liz Boltz for her infectious love of learning theories; the way she facilitated discussions and provided feedback on formative tasks slowly started to alter my perspective on the topic
CEP 815: Technology and Leadership
In short - this course was overwhelming and frustrating. I will not hide that I cried several tears trying to complete this course as it often left me feeling pressured to complete major tasks in a very timely manner. Each Friday the Year Two cohort was responsible for conducting a Cross-Share professional development opportunity. Cross-Shares were Friday meetings between all of the Overseas cohort groups as a way of sharing our work with each other and wrapping up the week as a group. These combined meetings would take place from 10:30 AM - 12:00 PM where an hour of the time was allotted for Year Two students to conduct activities between the remaining students and MAET instructors. |
But to circle back - why did this course make me cry?
Quite simply - preparing professional development with five strangers for your colleagues AND instructors is an extremely intimidating project that was done three times in a three week span in addition to two other graduate level classes. Instructors would introduce a theme on Monday and by Friday morning all six of us in the Year Two cohort would conduct our professional development.
Broad themes like “ethics of technology” were given to us on Monday afternoons. We, as a cohort, really struggled to create engaging activities when we ourselves felt like amateurs in our understanding of these topics. Our instructors really tried to shift the power over to us so we could make decisions in a timely manner and create the necessary materials for the rest of the Overseas Cohort.
Although the process was grueling and overwhelming it did teach me that anything can be done if you are really pushed. In all honesty, I think the pressure of this project and repeating it three times in quick succession plays a part in why I felt comfortable making the sudden change to online learning during February 2020 (before the rest of the world switched over). As one of the first schools in Vietnam to switch to online learning - 24 hours felt incredibly daunting as we turned everything over on its head.
Quite simply - preparing professional development with five strangers for your colleagues AND instructors is an extremely intimidating project that was done three times in a three week span in addition to two other graduate level classes. Instructors would introduce a theme on Monday and by Friday morning all six of us in the Year Two cohort would conduct our professional development.
Broad themes like “ethics of technology” were given to us on Monday afternoons. We, as a cohort, really struggled to create engaging activities when we ourselves felt like amateurs in our understanding of these topics. Our instructors really tried to shift the power over to us so we could make decisions in a timely manner and create the necessary materials for the rest of the Overseas Cohort.
Although the process was grueling and overwhelming it did teach me that anything can be done if you are really pushed. In all honesty, I think the pressure of this project and repeating it three times in quick succession plays a part in why I felt comfortable making the sudden change to online learning during February 2020 (before the rest of the world switched over). As one of the first schools in Vietnam to switch to online learning - 24 hours felt incredibly daunting as we turned everything over on its head.
CEP 822: Approaches to Educational Research
The course that left me pleasantly surprised - I absolutely abhorred conducting research until this course. Liz Boltz was the primary instructor for this course and definitely pushed students to bring research to life with a major project called “Bridging Research and Practice”.
Liz thoughtfully put together audio clips from the Michigan Association for Computer Users in Learning (MACUL) from educators that were asked, “How do you cultivate curiosity in the classroom?”. From there, the Year Two cohort received those clips, transcribed them one-by-one, and began to “code” them based on the content of each audio clip.
While dissecting each audio clip and making sense of patterns throughout all of the responses we were also tasked with creating a three-episode podcast series that included updates on the research we were conducting and how we interpreted the data given to us.
This quickly became a rewarding experience for me as I volunteered myself to be the producer for the first podcast episode. This included facilitating conversations to create content for the episode, scheduling recording times for each “guest” (my fellow classmates), attending all recording sessions, and consistently communicating with the cohort about the progress of the episode and what was needed from them in terms of episode content, sound quality, and transcribed materials once recording was complete. The final step, as the producer, was for me to edit all of the recorded sessions in GarageBand and put together a refined product that included smooth transitions. In the end we created a short series of 30 minute episodes called “EdTech Galway”.
The course that left me pleasantly surprised - I absolutely abhorred conducting research until this course. Liz Boltz was the primary instructor for this course and definitely pushed students to bring research to life with a major project called “Bridging Research and Practice”.
Liz thoughtfully put together audio clips from the Michigan Association for Computer Users in Learning (MACUL) from educators that were asked, “How do you cultivate curiosity in the classroom?”. From there, the Year Two cohort received those clips, transcribed them one-by-one, and began to “code” them based on the content of each audio clip.
While dissecting each audio clip and making sense of patterns throughout all of the responses we were also tasked with creating a three-episode podcast series that included updates on the research we were conducting and how we interpreted the data given to us.
This quickly became a rewarding experience for me as I volunteered myself to be the producer for the first podcast episode. This included facilitating conversations to create content for the episode, scheduling recording times for each “guest” (my fellow classmates), attending all recording sessions, and consistently communicating with the cohort about the progress of the episode and what was needed from them in terms of episode content, sound quality, and transcribed materials once recording was complete. The final step, as the producer, was for me to edit all of the recorded sessions in GarageBand and put together a refined product that included smooth transitions. In the end we created a short series of 30 minute episodes called “EdTech Galway”.
All-in-All
While there was an overwhelming amount of information and material passed onto me throughout the four-week period - there was an incredible amount of wisdom shared with me as well. It was obvious how much the instructors were passionate about the field of educational technology and their pursuit for knowledge was infectious. Prior to the Galway cohort I would complete assignment involving pedagogical theories begrudgingly and despised the idea of doing proper research. However, just listening to Liz Boltz’s perspective about the affordance of using certain research strategies made me think differently about how I approached my own pursuit of knowledge and how to think more deeply about my methodology in the classroom.
It is hard to believe that my MAET journey is coming to an end after two years. It had been my sincerest hope that it would conclude in Galway, Ireland during the summer of 2020 but it is fairly obvious as to why this did not happen. However, joining the Master of Arts in Educational Technology program at Michigan State University has helped me solidify my own identity as an educator and made me more cognizant of the choices I make in and out of school in a technology-rich world.
It is hard to believe that my MAET journey is coming to an end after two years. It had been my sincerest hope that it would conclude in Galway, Ireland during the summer of 2020 but it is fairly obvious as to why this did not happen. However, joining the Master of Arts in Educational Technology program at Michigan State University has helped me solidify my own identity as an educator and made me more cognizant of the choices I make in and out of school in a technology-rich world.
Without the MAET program I do not think I would truly understand the depth of daily technology use and how our technology choices impact our way of thinking. Today I feel more equipped with tools and skills to pursue my own ambitions and to impart these same ideas in the most meaningful of ways with my own students.