Alissa Arden

Opening Learning Opportunities by Opening a Digital World

 

I remember as a high school student sitting in the perfect row of desks diligently copying down notes from the overhead projector. I worked hard to memorize the steps of each Algebra or Calculus problem, failing to always understand why the magical operations I performed helped me find the correct solution. Despite my occasional confusion, I still liked math and its puzzle-like nature that allowed me to feel a grand sense of success when my answer was the same as my instructor’s. I would occasionally glance around the room and see sleeping students, some with drool, some without. This sight only reiterated my desire to be a math teacher who could make learning fun and create a classroom students are excited to enter. This seemed like a realistic and easily attainable goal at the time.

As fate would have it, I ended up changing my major to English and once I was a professional teacher, I found it easy to design engaging lessons with endless opportunities for students to demonstrate creativity and understanding. However, after only one year, I was transferred to the mathematics department (my minor area of undergraduate study). At the risk of sounding dramatic, I felt like my creative energy was sucked out of me. While I still had strong personal relationships with my students and had a fun classroom environment, I truly struggled with engaging my students with the course material. Once again, I looked around the classroom and saw sleeping students, some with drool, some without, only this time, I was the cause. Realizing I had turned into the exact image I was trying to avoid, I decided I needed to change my teaching practices; I needed to find ways to create an environment similar to the one in my English classes.

 

After a year of teaching math, I enrolled in a semester-long course through my intermediate school district called EMATHS, which focused on integrating Common Core tasks and TI-Nspire calculator technology into the classroom. Additionally, I signed up for a three-day summer course, which focused solely on TI-Nspire tasks. While these were not the fix-all, I found that simple exposure to new ideas and opportunities to engage with other math professionals helped inspire my thinking. It was at this point that I started researching graduate programs. I found that given my busy schedule, the online Master’s in Educational Technology (MAET) program through Michigan State University would be the best fit for me to reach my goals as an educator and future technology integrator. While I would miss-out on the face-to-face interaction I benefited from in my professional development opportunities, I found that discussion forums, peer feedback, and virtual meetings filled that void and still allowed me to learn from and be inspired by others.

 

Upon entering the MAET program, I thought simply utilizing technology would make content engaging for students. It seemed that throwing a cell phone activity at them would at least keep them alert and awake. Reflecting back, that is a horrible picture of what engaged truly is and should be. Additionally, for math, I felt limited in how to construct lessons and assess learning. Traditionally, I simply gave notes and a homework assignment most days. I used class discussion, homework, and tests to assess students. My classroom was repetitive in nature because I did not know how to stray from my routine. I wanted to change. I initially made an effort to include more calculator explorations, as this was the main source of technology my professional development and personal learning experiences focused on in my first year of teaching math. However, as I progressed throughout my graduate program, I learned this assumption that I would engage learners through the use of a tool relied too much on the instrument and not enough on the educator and students using the tool. While all of my MAET courses helped develop my thinking, three courses in particular pushed the boundaries of the possibilities I saw for my classroom.

 

One of the first courses I took was CEP 810: Teaching for Understanding with Technology. This course focused on using technology to access information from sources such as blogs, YouTube videos, forums, etc. I had the opportunity to explore the wealth of information Online by creating a Networked Learning Project. I had the freedom to choose any new skill I wanted to learn via digital resources. The beauty of this project is I could pick a completely random topic like learning how to create beach waves in my hair, so I did. I found I was excited to learn, to experiment, and to create video and written blogs reflecting on my learning process and progress. After participating in this learning experience, I realized I have a responsibility as an educator to show students the access they have to information via different mediums. Moreover, I could similarly use online resources to supplement instruction I provide in class for my students. In my own classroom, I began to post resources on my Weebly site such as instructional videos for topics like line of best fit and dividing polynomials, interactive practice problems, an online graphing calculator, articles comparing methods for solving quadratics, etc. While students do not have much freedom with regards to what they learn given there are state standards for mathematics that must be met, they can have freedom in how they learn. I hope to provide opportunities in the future where students must explore topics on their own using outside resources. CEP 810 deepened my belief that when a learner researches independently and is forced to teach a topic, they will be pushed to attain a greater level of understanding.

 

Inspired by CEP 810, the freedom of choice I learned I could provide to my students, and the desire to not only engage but engage with my students, I took CEP 820: Teaching Students Online within the next few semesters. This course focused on designing an online classroom that could be used to create a flipped classroom, a hybrid classroom, or a fully online course. I created a hybrid Algebra course making use of applets, Google Docs, and discussion forums. I realized using a digital medium for discussion and exploration in conjunction with classroom instruction allows instructors to give students a voice who might not normally have one in the classroom. Learners can utilize online environments to engage further with the material as well as with instructors and peers. While this course did not have a dramatic impact on my teaching practice, as I have not had the opportunity yet to use the online course with my students, it did have an influence on my beliefs about learning. Learning is a continuous process in which a person is motivated to engage with content and consequently understands the material’s applications to additional tasks. By designing various opportunities for students to learn and demonstrate understanding, an educator can support his or her pupil’s construction of knowledge. Students can then independently extend this knowledge to other activities to meet personal needs and goals. Online learning environments can provide self-paced educational opportunities, which allows time for additional research using online resources at home. Moreover, this alternate learning setting helps a teacher formatively assess learning and adapt to individual and whole-class needs. In the future, I hope to use discussion forums and digital activities within a hybrid classroom to interact with my students, scaffold and extend their learning, and address misconceptions. Many times, in a room full of 30 students, it is challenging for an educator to meet individual needs. Like CEP 810, CEP 820 motivated me to consider additional opportunities for learning outside the walls of the classroom to reach all students.

 

While CEP 820 helped me learn new ways to interact with students and promote learning, CEP 813: Electronic Assessment for Teaching and Learning helped me learn new ways to assess learners and promote understanding. Before taking this course, I struggled with ways to assess students apart from quizzes, posters, and cellular device quiz tools like Socrative, Kahoot, and Quizizz. While digital quizzes decreased feedback time and allowed me to assess understanding and adjust my pedagogical strategies for certain topics, these tools did little to promote creativity. Once again, my teaching approaches were not creating the learning environment I wanted where students were excited to become part of. However, once I started completing assignments for CEP 820, I discovered new ways to not only gauge understanding, but to use assessment as a vehicle for learning. I explored video games like Minecraft where students can build and create in a virtual world, digital posters that students can share publicly, virtual bulletin boards where students can post ideas and respond to classmates, and digital portfolios where students can save and share work. All of these tools allow students to be creative and have the freedom to demonstrate understanding separate from the traditional pencil-and-paper test. Through this experience I learned that, as an educator, I have the opportunity to provide students with choice as to how they demonstrate their knowledge of course content. In allowing students to create revisable digital expressions of learning, I provide them with an opportunity to track their progress and be self-aware of their own growth as a math student.

 

After my experience in the MAET program, I believe I have the tools and skills necessary to better reach all students and support their learning and demonstration of understanding in more creative and engaging ways. During my initial years as a professional educator, I followed a routine and believed tools, rather than pedagogical strategies, could be the fix-all for student engagement. I grappled with how to introduce digital tools into the math classroom in an effective way. I now realize a teacher must create valuable learning opportunities with these tools that meet a purposeful objective. Each of the courses in my graduate program has shaped how I view the learning process and have inspired how I can use digital tools effectively. I have learned that technology gives students more freedom to learn with greater autonomy, gives educators the ability to extend classroom instruction and interaction, and gives both the flexibility to be creative. After my time at MSU, I have new goals as a teacher. I want to provide new opportunities for accessing information, new opportunities for creativity, and new opportunities for reflection and self-assessment. I believe I can achieve these objectives given I break my cycle of note-based instruction and test-based assessment by introducing online learning environments for interaction and gathering information and digital tools for demonstrating understanding. Moreover, I will have a fervent focus on how I weave these tools into instruction so they are utilized with a clear learning objective in mind and allow students to achieve personal goals.