Showcase of Graduate Work
Through the Master of Arts in Educational Technology program at Michigan State University, I completed many projects, assignments and essays. This coursework helped me grow as an educator and continue my journey of being a lifelong learner. On this page, you will find a showcase of the graduate work that I completed during my master's program. The pieces I chose for my showcase fall into three different categories: collaboration, technology and learning. Not only do these three categories organize the graduate work I completed, but these three words, collaboration, technology, and learning, summarize my experiences as I completed my master's degree. Each section includes the work I am most proud of and the work that has helped shape me into the educator that I am today.
COLLABORATION
Natalie D'Amico and I had the pleasure of presenting at STEAMLab 17 on July 19, 2017 in Waverly, Michigan. In our one hour session, we defined STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, Mathematics), talked about what STEAM could look like in the classroom, planned a STEAM activity and provided our participants resources so they can easily implement STEAM in their own classrooms.Click here to view the PowerPoint for our session.
Bridget Bennett, Shari Saddison and I hosted a webinar through the MSU Bridge Site called Using Technology Effectively to Assist Learning. In this webinar, the guest speakers provided insight into their views and experiences of effective technology use, as well as when it is appropriate to use technology to assist learning. Additionally, the speakers engaged in discussion about information literacy, an expected skill for 21st century students. Click here to view our recorded webinar.
On this website, Bridget Bennett, Shari Saddison and I dusted the surface about where people get their perceptions about educators. We had anticipated that the media directly affects the perception and beliefs that people have of teachers and education; however, from the research we conducted, we found that real life experiences have a greater impact on how people view teachers. Click here to view our website, which includes the video we created around this topic.
TECHNOLOGY
My first experience with Technology, Pedagogy and Content Knowledge (TPACK) was using unconventional kitchen tools to cut vegetables. The purpose of this was to repurpose items for a different use, which is extremely important to consider when creating learning experiences using technology. To view my blog post and video, click here.
I created a technology based grant proposal for transformative learning. This project challenged me to integrate technology in a transformative way into my classroom. To do so, I considered many different factors of my teaching, especially pedagogy, content and technology (TPACK). By using backwards design, I was able to create a learning experience for my students that contains all of the elements of TPACK and even more educational technology topics. To view my grant proposal, click here.
LEARNING
In this project, I worked with a struggling literacy learner to provide interventions based on formative and summative assessments. By drawing on best practices for literacy instruction, I developed and implemented lesson plans for my literacy learner and analyzed data to assess the effectiveness of the interventions. Click here to read about my literacy learner in more detail.
In this essay, I created a new definition of learning. Specifically, I explained what it means to learn, such as building on prior knowledge, managing one’s own individual learning, having a deep understanding of concepts, and transferring
information from previous experiences to new contexts. Click here to read my full essay.
In this blog post, I shared the meaning of a professional learning network. I created a visual of my own professional learning network using Popplet, which includes social media, my colleagues and professional development. Click here to see my Popplet in more detail and read about my goals for my professional learning network.
Image Attributions: The images above are my own or they are free from the Wix photo library.