Lauren K. Zebula
Annotated Transcript
TE 804: Reflection and Inquiry in Teaching Practice II
Dr. Jeff Bale | Spring 2010
This course was a continuation of TE 802. It further expanded on teaching stategies in the world language classroom. In this course I was tasked with creating lesson plans, sharing artifacts from the classroom, and shadowing teacher and other school support professionals in our internship school. Our major project was creating a unit plan for use in our internship and future classrooms. I also worked in groups to discover solutions to isseus we ran into during our interships. Finally, we created an electronic teaching portfolio in which we shared our resume, lesson plans, unit plans and the like. Dr. Bale led us through the everyday nuisances, joys and issues that we would encounter in our impending career teaching the world languages.
ED 800: Concepts of Educational Inquiry
Dr. Steve Weiland | Spring 2013
This course was designed to be an introduction to the Master's of Education program. In this course I was introduced to the types of inquiry typically used in the field of education. Using these inquiry methods, we investigated learning societies across the world. These inquries included a look at the history of education in the United States, education theories like progressivism and essentialism, an ethnographic study of the Maori people in New Zealand and finally the impact of technology on our own education. It was a course that not only served as an introduction to the program, but that helped me to form some essential skills that would be needed throughout the rest of the MAED program.
EAD 824: Leading Teacher Learning
Dr. Nancy Colflesh | Fall 2013
In EAD 824, Dr. Colflesh led us on an interactive journey which explored all facets of leading teacher learning, from how adults learn and how to meet their needs to designs and activities for learning sessions to discovering the plethora of free and paid books, webinars, articles, and other resources available via the web. I also discovered the changing role of principal- from school manager to instructional leader, someone who leads teacher learning by conducting walk-throughs and formal observations which produce positive feedback, critiques for the future and a focus on improvement. I learned the importance of creating a growth-centered climate throughout the school, in which everyone, not just students, are expected to learn and grow, whether it is through professional learning communities (PLCs) or through providing staff with the necessary resources. Finally, I was able to create my own teacher learning plan- including gathering the necessary resources, creating the timeline for implementation, and of course budgeting the money needed to put my plan into action.
EAD 822: Engaging Diverse Students & Families
Dr. Muhammad Khalifa | Fall 2013
In EAD 822, we used a variety of books and articles to discover the complexity of the backgrounds of our students. I was able to break down the notions of culture, race, gender and religion and discover not only their impact on my students but also how my own experiences and opinions have shaped who I am, who my students see me as, and how I approach the diverse students that I have. This course forced me to shift my thinking in terms of working with diverse students. One of the primary projects in the course was a group proejct in which we created a webpage and a presentation based around a case study focusing on the sexual oreintation and harrasment of a school staff member. The other was a case study analysis of my own in which I used my observations of differing levels of parental and community invovlement in different types of schools and researched solutions in order to increase involvement in schools of all types.
EAD 801: Leadership & Organizational Development
Dr. Debbie McFalone | Fall 2012
EAD 801 was a very interactive class in which we explored what it meant to be a leader. First and foremost, I discovered that being leader is not a matter of holding a certain title, but a way of being and interacting with others. My major takeaways from this course included that leaders have to form a personal relationship with those whom they are leading, you must have strong beliefs which you can clearly communicate to others, and that a leader has to be able to establish a trust with those who they are leading. I also found that successful leaders are collobrative in their leadership approach, as they don't try to do it all alone. Finally, this course helped me to learn that in order to be a leader, your communication must be clear at all times and ultimately the best leaders, are servant leaders who keep the needs of the business, school, or organization first. This was one the most enjoyable and interesting classes that I took during this program and it really laid the foundation for me when it came to developing my capacity for and beliefs about educational leadership.
TE 802: Reflection and Inquiry in Teaching Practice I
Dr. Jeff Bale | Fall 2009
This course was designed to accompany the year-long school-based internship. I was able to futher explore concepts and strategies in teaching world languages. I used research methods to improve my teaching and student learning, developed a toolbox of strategies for instruciotn and assesement, participated in professional conferences (such as the Michigan World Language Association Conference), and explored techonologies that are useful both in the classroom and more generally as a professional. Major assignments included videotaping and reflecting on our teaching and conducting action-research that would ultimately help improve our management of the classroom.
TE: 803 Professional Roles and Teaching Practice II
Dr. Peter Youngs | Spring 2010
In this course we focused on the professional responsibilities and other roles that we often take on as educators, in addition to teaching in our own classroom. One of our major endeavours in this class was to choose an activity, club, or sport to sponsor for our “Commitments Project”. This course and especially this project taught me not only the impact I can have on my school but about the importance of building relationships with students outside of the classroom.
TE 846: Accommodating Differences in Literacy Learners
Erin Jurand | Spring 2013
TE 846 focuses on how to teach literacy skills to all learners and across all curriculums. We focused the majority of our learning on the Response to Intervention program (RTI) that is in place in schools today and on developing strategies to reach these students who struggle with reading, writing and general comprehension. We further broke this down by students with special needs, English language learners (ELLs) and students who lack motivation. My major take away from this course was that teaching literacy skills is not just the job of the elementary school teach or the secondary language arts teacher, but instead we are all tasked with teaching literacy and advancing struggling readers, no matter our grade level or subject area.
**This course also fullfills Michigan's literacy requirement law**
CEP 832: Educating Students with Challenging Behavior
Dr. Jana Auperlee | Fall 2012
In this course we read about and discussed our own experiences with students who exhibit challenging behavior. Units of study included students who are: hostile-aggressive, passive-aggressive, defiant, hyperactive, distractible, immature, rejected by peers, withdrawn, and unmotivated. These units of study primarlily centered around Jere Brophy's book Teaching Problem Students. Throughout the course, I worked collobratively with my classmates to complete anaylsis and solution plans for a variety of case studys on a various children with problem behaviors. I also completed a semester long case study on a student in my own classroom who exhibited some of these behaviors and the interventions I put in place to help manage this student's behaviors and improve his learning.
ED 870: Capstone Seminar
Dr. Matt Koehler | Spring 2014
The goal of this course was to tie together our learnings and experiences in the MAED program. I used the web-based authoring site Wix to create an electronic portfolio which captured and presented my work that I created throughout the MAED program. I also had the chance to engage in the valuable process of reflection, considering my past goals, synthesizing my experiences in the program, and thinking about what my future holds for me as a learner after I complete my master's program.
Image courtesy of www.education.msu.edu
| Master of Arts in Education