The Mighty Sand Dune of Knowledge is Forever a Work in Progress
By: Laura Stokes
Learning is a never ending process and something that you continue to do throughout your entire life, whether you intend to or not. It is like a sand dune where each thing you learn is like a grain of sand that builds up until you have an entire dune, however it is never complete. From the time you enter the world and take your first breath, to the time that you leave, you are learning. I feel that learning is the easy part because it happens so naturally, but teaching takes a little bit more effort. You have to learn the ins and outs of topics and concepts to explain it to others so that their learning process can be an easier one as well. This is the reason that I became a teacher. I wanted to make learning fun and exciting for people and knew that teaching was my way to do this.
As I have mentioned before, teaching and learning can be similar to a revolving door. There is always going to be a new way to do something, or a way that can be considered outdated and not the best practice. The only way to be sure to stay up to date on new things, as well as try them out in the classroom is to see what works best for you and your students. My time in the MSU online program has given me the confidence to be able to implement new things in my classroom, as well as the knowledge to know if they are what is best for my students. If something doesn’t work, I have other ideas to fall back on and try. This is great because as a teacher, I know that year to year and maybe even day to day I will end up with different students and not all things will work the same for all students.
To me, confidence is such an important thing to have when you are a teacher because you have multiple people depending on you to teach them what they need to do to advance their academic careers. Since most of my experience is in first grade, I know that I am setting them up for how they will feel about school for the next 11 years and beyond. I want the experience to be a positive one, so having a confident attitude will help my students feel confident also. One way that I have been able to achieve this is to take classes that I know I will learn from and that will give me pieces of wisdom to take back and share with my students and colleagues. I also found that it was a great opportunity for me to take courses that helped increase my confidence in areas that I was less than confident in.
One course I enrolled in increased my confidence in an area that I truly struggled with, which was writing instruction. I took a course called TE 848 Methods of Writing Instruction. This course was able to give me confidence almost immediately. I found a way to take things that I had been doing in my class, and bring it to the next level so that my students were asking more inquisitive questions, and taking a more active role in their learning. They also started to show enthusiasm with writing. I am a firm believer in using poetry, song, and rhythm to teach with in the class. I had been using poetry since my first year teaching, but had always done the same things with it. For example, I have my students use a poetry journal where they glue down the poem I give them daily on the left hand page, and write or draw what I ask on the right hand side. My writing course was able to give me confidence and ideas to change up the boring routines I had grown used to doing with my students, as well as change things that could end up causing my students to dislike poetry. I learned that I didn't have to always explain the poems to my students and have them do an activity with them, but that we could read a poem without analyzing it just for fun. My students truly began to gain a passion for poetry and found fun in it, which is something I wasn't always able to get from them with the activities that I was using. I was grateful for fresh new ideas to switch up those routines, and I know that my students appreciated it as well. I spent less time on direct instruction and more time seeing what they could accomplish. My voice was being heard less, and their writing began to get a voice that they could each call their own.
I took two other courses that also allowed me to feel more confident as a teacher were calledCEP 882 Teaching Literacy for Students with Mild Disabilities, and TE 846 Accommodating Differences for Literacy Learners. I have taught in public schools where my classroom was a full inclusion class. I have always prided myself in the ability to differentiate my instruction accordingly for my students. One area that I struggled with was differentiating it for students who had mild disabilities, such as a learning disability. I would do the best that I could, but the ideas that I could come up with were minimal and not always effective. I wanted to fix this so I decided to take courses that would allow me to feel more confident in my differentiating skills as well as making the accommodations necessary for those students who struggled with literacy. Both of these courses did just that and then some. They were able to not only make me feel one hundred times more confident as a teacher of students with differences, but they gave me a variety of activities and ideas to try out if the few I had failed. As we know, all children learn differently, even those with the same disability. By having a toolbox full of ideas to try with the many different students I meet in my classroom, I can be sure that I am giving them the best educational experience that I can, and that they will be successful. For example, I would differentiate my guided reading center with me for each of my reading groups, but I didn't really think to differentiate each and every center in my classroom. These courses explained ways that I could take a center activity that they did on their own and differentiate it to target their individual levels without having to do much more effort. I also established a color coding system for students who need that visual. Each group had a different color that matched our center chart on the board. For each of the center activities, I had a different bag at each center that had the differentiated activity inside. The bag color matched the color of the group so that the students could easily pick their own activity out when they got to the center instead of wasting time. I was able to use the color coding idea throughout many other activities in the classroom. I also learned different ways to group students, and that I wasn't stuck with each group forever, it was OK to switch them often and for different subjects. I saw a positive outcome for all of my students including those with the disabilities when I began to do this. The progress that they began making was amazing and I know I can credit it to the different things I learned in my courses and had in my "toolbox".
As I mentioned, I became a teacher to be sure to find ways to make learning fun and easier for students. I try very hard to find ways to make sure that the learning that takes place in my classroom happens in a fun and engaging way for my students. This involves taking the time to get to know my students’ likes and dislikes, as well as what they may or may not already know about new topics. I took one class while pursuing my master’s degree from MSU that truly inspired me and gave me the fuel to get through a difficult year because it brought me back to the root of why I became a teacher. The course was calledCEP 882 The Nature and Design of Compelling Experiences. During this course, we were given a chance to be a photographer, architect, interior designer, set designer for television talk shows, store designer, music artist and fashion designer. It was through this course that I learned to dissect the purposes of all of the different types of art that we experience on a daily basis. Some of them we take for granted and some of them I have truly never taken the time to get to understand. While taking the course, I realized how important it is to pay close attention to even the smallest details in any art form. To me, teaching is an art form, and the way we plan lessons is also an art form. As teachers we have to come up with the main focus of our lesson and all of the supporting details. To me, this is the best part of teaching and where you have an opportunity to show your students how much you value their likes and learning styles by trying to incorporate them into the planning process. I learned that the slightest detail, such as the color I copy an activity on to can change the attitude that my students have towards the activity. It can excite them if it is colored, or make little to no impression at all if it is left white. The fact is, that by paying as close attention to even the slightest detail, I am can ensure that my students will be engaged, have a wonderful experience, learn what it is they need to learn, and be able to apply it to real life experiences. Again it falls onto confidence, and this course gave me the confidence that I am capable of planning lessons that do pay close attention to the details that will make the most difference in the experience my students have.
I can’t say that this has been an easy journey, because it hasn’t, but it has been both challenging and rewarding. I have pushed myself as a learner to get the most that I can out of each course. I feel that you get out of it what you put into it, and I put everything I could into each and every course. In doing so, I think I was able to appreciate the readings that each instructor took the time to carefully align to each course. I have kept them all, and those that were from the web are in page protectors within organized notebooks because I refer back to them as often as I can. It is important to not just take the course, pass it and move on, but take the important things that I have learned from each course and apply them. I frequently look back on readings that have made an impact on me and it reminds me of some of the great ideas I sometimes forget I learned about. I look at it as “what good is learning a new language if you have no one to share it with?” What good is learning new ideas if you don’t use or share them? Not only do I find it refreshing to look back on things that I have learned, but I enjoy sharing them with friends and colleagues. I have taught for four years, but I am in no way an expert on teaching. I am always learning and enjoy gaining new ideas from my colleagues as well. I want to gather as many grains of sand to add to my sand dune of knowledge.
As I have mentioned before, teaching and learning can be similar to a revolving door. There is always going to be a new way to do something, or a way that can be considered outdated and not the best practice. The only way to be sure to stay up to date on new things, as well as try them out in the classroom is to see what works best for you and your students. My time in the MSU online program has given me the confidence to be able to implement new things in my classroom, as well as the knowledge to know if they are what is best for my students. If something doesn’t work, I have other ideas to fall back on and try. This is great because as a teacher, I know that year to year and maybe even day to day I will end up with different students and not all things will work the same for all students.
To me, confidence is such an important thing to have when you are a teacher because you have multiple people depending on you to teach them what they need to do to advance their academic careers. Since most of my experience is in first grade, I know that I am setting them up for how they will feel about school for the next 11 years and beyond. I want the experience to be a positive one, so having a confident attitude will help my students feel confident also. One way that I have been able to achieve this is to take classes that I know I will learn from and that will give me pieces of wisdom to take back and share with my students and colleagues. I also found that it was a great opportunity for me to take courses that helped increase my confidence in areas that I was less than confident in.
One course I enrolled in increased my confidence in an area that I truly struggled with, which was writing instruction. I took a course called TE 848 Methods of Writing Instruction. This course was able to give me confidence almost immediately. I found a way to take things that I had been doing in my class, and bring it to the next level so that my students were asking more inquisitive questions, and taking a more active role in their learning. They also started to show enthusiasm with writing. I am a firm believer in using poetry, song, and rhythm to teach with in the class. I had been using poetry since my first year teaching, but had always done the same things with it. For example, I have my students use a poetry journal where they glue down the poem I give them daily on the left hand page, and write or draw what I ask on the right hand side. My writing course was able to give me confidence and ideas to change up the boring routines I had grown used to doing with my students, as well as change things that could end up causing my students to dislike poetry. I learned that I didn't have to always explain the poems to my students and have them do an activity with them, but that we could read a poem without analyzing it just for fun. My students truly began to gain a passion for poetry and found fun in it, which is something I wasn't always able to get from them with the activities that I was using. I was grateful for fresh new ideas to switch up those routines, and I know that my students appreciated it as well. I spent less time on direct instruction and more time seeing what they could accomplish. My voice was being heard less, and their writing began to get a voice that they could each call their own.
I took two other courses that also allowed me to feel more confident as a teacher were calledCEP 882 Teaching Literacy for Students with Mild Disabilities, and TE 846 Accommodating Differences for Literacy Learners. I have taught in public schools where my classroom was a full inclusion class. I have always prided myself in the ability to differentiate my instruction accordingly for my students. One area that I struggled with was differentiating it for students who had mild disabilities, such as a learning disability. I would do the best that I could, but the ideas that I could come up with were minimal and not always effective. I wanted to fix this so I decided to take courses that would allow me to feel more confident in my differentiating skills as well as making the accommodations necessary for those students who struggled with literacy. Both of these courses did just that and then some. They were able to not only make me feel one hundred times more confident as a teacher of students with differences, but they gave me a variety of activities and ideas to try out if the few I had failed. As we know, all children learn differently, even those with the same disability. By having a toolbox full of ideas to try with the many different students I meet in my classroom, I can be sure that I am giving them the best educational experience that I can, and that they will be successful. For example, I would differentiate my guided reading center with me for each of my reading groups, but I didn't really think to differentiate each and every center in my classroom. These courses explained ways that I could take a center activity that they did on their own and differentiate it to target their individual levels without having to do much more effort. I also established a color coding system for students who need that visual. Each group had a different color that matched our center chart on the board. For each of the center activities, I had a different bag at each center that had the differentiated activity inside. The bag color matched the color of the group so that the students could easily pick their own activity out when they got to the center instead of wasting time. I was able to use the color coding idea throughout many other activities in the classroom. I also learned different ways to group students, and that I wasn't stuck with each group forever, it was OK to switch them often and for different subjects. I saw a positive outcome for all of my students including those with the disabilities when I began to do this. The progress that they began making was amazing and I know I can credit it to the different things I learned in my courses and had in my "toolbox".
As I mentioned, I became a teacher to be sure to find ways to make learning fun and easier for students. I try very hard to find ways to make sure that the learning that takes place in my classroom happens in a fun and engaging way for my students. This involves taking the time to get to know my students’ likes and dislikes, as well as what they may or may not already know about new topics. I took one class while pursuing my master’s degree from MSU that truly inspired me and gave me the fuel to get through a difficult year because it brought me back to the root of why I became a teacher. The course was calledCEP 882 The Nature and Design of Compelling Experiences. During this course, we were given a chance to be a photographer, architect, interior designer, set designer for television talk shows, store designer, music artist and fashion designer. It was through this course that I learned to dissect the purposes of all of the different types of art that we experience on a daily basis. Some of them we take for granted and some of them I have truly never taken the time to get to understand. While taking the course, I realized how important it is to pay close attention to even the smallest details in any art form. To me, teaching is an art form, and the way we plan lessons is also an art form. As teachers we have to come up with the main focus of our lesson and all of the supporting details. To me, this is the best part of teaching and where you have an opportunity to show your students how much you value their likes and learning styles by trying to incorporate them into the planning process. I learned that the slightest detail, such as the color I copy an activity on to can change the attitude that my students have towards the activity. It can excite them if it is colored, or make little to no impression at all if it is left white. The fact is, that by paying as close attention to even the slightest detail, I am can ensure that my students will be engaged, have a wonderful experience, learn what it is they need to learn, and be able to apply it to real life experiences. Again it falls onto confidence, and this course gave me the confidence that I am capable of planning lessons that do pay close attention to the details that will make the most difference in the experience my students have.
I can’t say that this has been an easy journey, because it hasn’t, but it has been both challenging and rewarding. I have pushed myself as a learner to get the most that I can out of each course. I feel that you get out of it what you put into it, and I put everything I could into each and every course. In doing so, I think I was able to appreciate the readings that each instructor took the time to carefully align to each course. I have kept them all, and those that were from the web are in page protectors within organized notebooks because I refer back to them as often as I can. It is important to not just take the course, pass it and move on, but take the important things that I have learned from each course and apply them. I frequently look back on readings that have made an impact on me and it reminds me of some of the great ideas I sometimes forget I learned about. I look at it as “what good is learning a new language if you have no one to share it with?” What good is learning new ideas if you don’t use or share them? Not only do I find it refreshing to look back on things that I have learned, but I enjoy sharing them with friends and colleagues. I have taught for four years, but I am in no way an expert on teaching. I am always learning and enjoy gaining new ideas from my colleagues as well. I want to gather as many grains of sand to add to my sand dune of knowledge.
