Date Taken
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Course Name
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Instructors
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Course Overview
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Fall 2015
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TE 802: Reflection and Inquiry in Teaching Practice I
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This course, the first of my graduate program, took place during the fall of my student teaching internship year. Providing scaffolding for my early development as a teacher, this course supported me in effective lesson design, backwards unit-planning, and integration of the Common Core Standards for Mathematical Practice into my classroom. In order to achieve these goals, we conducted "Teaching Experiments" that pushed the boundaries of traditional teaching methods. One of the cornerstones of this course was the first two cycles of a lesson study with two classmates, in which we explored the "Chalk Talk" lesson structure to support full-class engagement.
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Spring 2016
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TE 803: Professional Roles & Teaching Practice II
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The foundation of this course was an introduction into action research. For my Case Study project (located within my Graduate Showcase), I selected a student in my lead-taught class who presented symptoms of learned helplessness to observe with the goal of supporting growth as a student. After developing and selecting a primary hypothesis and analyzing alternatives, I put a plan into action. My second action research project in this course was my Instructional Repertoire Project, in which I identified a problem of practice, developed an Action Plan and an Evaluation Plan, and reflected on the results.
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Spring 2016
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TE 804: Reflection and Inquiry in Teaching Practice II
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As a continuation of TE 802, this course extended my work with "Teaching Experiments" and lesson study. In this course, I developed the foundations of this portfolio, as well as solidified my early philosophy for the teaching of mathematics. As the year concluded, I wrote my Professional Growth Plan in order to reflect upon challenges of my student teaching internship and to plan for early career growth.
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Summer 2016
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ED 800: Concepts of Educational Inquiry
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Throughout this course, an introduction to the MAED program at Michigan State University (MSU), I explored five domains of educational inquiry: philosophy and history of education; classroom-based teacher research; ethnographic observation and autobiography; biography and history; and theories of the mind and curriculum. My reflections in this class included exploring the educational philosophies of John Dewey and W.E.B. DuBois through the lens of progressive education. This course was self-paced and emphasized the use of hypermedia, allowing me to reflect on the role of learning outside of a traditional classroom format. To connect the themes of the course, my studies concluded with a final reflection on the role of technology in my own education as well as within my classroom.
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Summer 2016
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TE 855: Teaching School Mathematics
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In this course, I explored intersections between content, identity, and power in mathematics teaching and learning. Learning in this course drew upon my own experiences and perspectives as teacher and student, with particular emphasis on my identity as a female within a historically male-dominated subject area. One of the explorations I found most intriguing in this course was of the innately political nature of teaching; even mathematics, which many see as removed from matters of politics, religion, and culture, is political in the sense that any teaching decision (to incorporate social justice topics or not, how to group students, what curriculum to teach) has extended impacts that reach beyond the classroom and into the community.
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Summer 2017
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CEP 841: Classroom and Behavior Management in the Inclusive Classroom
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In this course from MSU's Counseling, Educational Psychology, and Special Education department, I studied methods for behavior management for students with diverse needs on the individual, classroom, and school level. Topics of study included the development of classroom routines and behavior management systems like PBIS (Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports) and No Nonsense Nurturing. I explored No Nonsense Nurturing from the perspective of a first-year teacher in a school using many (though not all) aspects of this system.
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Summer 2017
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EAD 822: Engaging Diverse Students and Families
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As teachers, we must be considerate not only of the backgrounds and identities of our students, but also of their families. In this course, I studied the historic and modern positions of Black, White, Hispanic, Asian, Native American, and Pacific Islander individuals and cultures within the American educational system. Cornerstone to the development of my understanding of the experiences of people different from myself was the development of an understanding of my own identities. In my Racial Autobiography and reflections, I examined my views on race, gender, religion, and sexual orientation as both teacher and student in order to better understand my role as a culturally responsive educator.
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Spring 2018
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TE 857: Teaching and Learning Mathematical Problem Solving
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The teaching of mathematics and its methods are a source of conflict among teachers, students, administrators, families, and communities, with debate surrounding the divide between traditional and progressive teaching methods. Traditional teaching methods present a false image of mathematics as isolated from creativity and connected meaning. In this course, I studied methods for incorporating authentic and meaningful problem-solving into my classroom, including equitable teaching practices, culturally relevant task selection/design, and student groupings. I also teamed with other classmates to conduct a lesson study cycle exploring the impact of individual engagement on group success within tasks.
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Summer 2018
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ED 870: Capstone Seminar
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Reflection, as seen in my experiences throughout my Master's program, is central to the educational profession. In this capstone course, the culmination of my degree program, I developed this portfolio to demonstrate the evolution of my understandings throughout this program. The documents included in this portfolio represent my perspectives and learning, from my goals at the time of applying to this program to the development of this annotated transcript demonstrating the whole of my studies and the creation of my future learning goals beyond this program.
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Planned: Fall 2018
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TE 831: Teaching School Subject Matter with Technology
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