The Sweet Spot
If you had asked me if I was going to get a second Master’s degree just two years ago, I would have told you no. It wasn’t that I didn’t love to learn, I do! However, I am busy. Really, really busy. I have three kids that do a million different “things”, and committees to be part of and other adult responsibilities that come with being a mom, wife and teacher. I am also really good at finding trainings being offered within my school district, or county Intermediate School District. With two universities within 10 miles of me there are always trainings, workshops, lectures and learning opportunities available, and I was usually in attendance. If I heard about new things that I couldn’t find trainings on, then I bought a book, did research, and reached out to online communities and other teachers that I knew around the country. I love teaching, and learning, and couldn’t have been happier with my career, degree, and training choices. Until I wasn’t. In my tenth year of teaching I started to feel frustrated with the emphasis on testing and test scores in my district. This led to a feeling of being unsettled, or unchallenged and I wasn’t sure if I was on the career path that I wanted to be on.
Enter a few friends who had just completed the Master’s of Arts in Educational Technology (MAET) at Michigan State University all within a few years. One of these friends was one of my team teachers, who two years ago had left public education when he said he felt like the emphasis from teaching and learning was starting to change. He and a few of his colleagues that I had grown to know had all transitioned easily with their MAET program degrees from teaching children in a public school setting to teaching children in different ways, or to teaching adults in private companies. I too was feeling disenchanted with my school and the negativity against public education, teachers and the emphasis on test scores made me feel like I might have to move on from teaching. I was intrigued by the possibilities that this program offered, as well as the personal and professional growth my colleagues had all made, and when I started to learn more about the program, I knew that I had to be part of it. So I applied, and a year later, my teaching life has completely changed from what it was at the beginning of this journey.
One of the first concepts that I was introduced to in the MAET program during CEP 810 Teaching Understanding with Technology, was the TPACK (Technological, Pedagogical, and Content Knowledge) model which is a framework for introducing and integrating technology into the educational curriculum. This framework emphasizes the need for teachers to focus on the content and lesson objectives first, and then integrate technology as a tool for learning, allowing students to collaborate, create and communicate their learning in different ways with the help of technology. This concept solidified concepts for planning that I had previously, but also made me more intentional with how I thought about adding technology into my lessons.
Before starting this program, I would like to think that I had the Technological Knowledge, Content Knowledge and Pedagogical Knowledge, that are the basis for and help create TPACK. I know that I did not have each of the areas covered equally or working with each other in a way that benefitted my teaching or my student’s learning as it could have. Looking back at the program and the classes that I have taken, I am amazed at the amount of growth and knowledge that I have obtained over the past year, and I would like to think of my growth in terms of TPACK. Although each one of the courses that I have taken fall into one or more of the areas of TPACK, there are a few in particular that I feel really helped me grow as an educator and fall into the most important, overlapping areas on the TPACK diagram. These would be the areas where content, technology and pedagogy overlap and create more intentional teaching, and deeper learning and understanding for teachers and students. These classes not only challenged me to examine my own classroom practices as an instructor, but also challenged me to examine my behaviors as a learner, which ultimately helped my perspective on student’s learning deepen and grow.
The first of these classes was one of the very first classes that I took, CEP 811- Adapting Innovative Technology to Education. This class fell within the Technological Pedagogical Knowledge (TPK) area of the TPACK diagram, and helped me develop my views on technology as to how it could be used effectively in the classroom, and how these technologies are not constrained by a certain type of technology such as the one to one computers (1:1) computers I had in my class. I didn’t realize until we started that this class wouldn’t actually focus on computer use in the classroom, but instead on the Maker Movement and what it’s place within education. I was so excited about this class and the possible takeaways that I would get for my own classroom. Having a 1:1 program in my classroom for several years, I was always looking for new and innovative technologies that I could use with my students. I however had not explored the idea of a Maker Education in my classroom, and dismissed it as something that was meant for older students and adults. I was amazed at how Maker Ed took ordinary things like cardboard boxes, and combined them in new and creative ways with computers or kits that could transform the ordinary to extraordinary.
When I first started working with the Makey Makey kits that I had chosen to work with, I was amazed at the variety of learning opportunities that were available! A true growing moment happened for me as I explored and experimented with the Makey Makey for a lesson that I was creating around electricity and conductors. My own 7 year old daughter was watching me play with the kit, and when I finished, she asked if she could also play with the kit. At first, I felt like I needed to guide her and play with her, but instead I decided to let her be imaginative and explore on her own. When she was done, she not only was able to replicate the experiments that I did, but she was also able to figure out a variety of other things that were possible with the kit that I hadn’t. It was a truly eye opening experience that exposed me to the possibilities of the Maker’s Movement and the capabilities not only for my student’s learning, but also a way to take lessons to a higher level of student engagement. If my own 7 year old could create and make without directives from me, then my students certainly could do the same. I was inspired by the things that I learned in this class to bring Maker’s Education to my students and allow them authentic opportunities for exploration and creativity in expressing their understanding of a concept. Instead of me guiding them through lessons, especially in the areas of science and math. It helped me realize that I could have them guide themselves as well. They didn't need my help to figure out what to do with the ordinary items they were given, they could create and innovate all on their own! This gave my students more independence as learners than I was previously comfortable giving them, and inspired me to allow them time to
Another class that I took at the beginning of my MAET journey that also influenced my daily classroom practices and the way I approached my curriculum both as a teacher and a learner was CEP 812- Applying Educational Technology to Practices. What I learned in this class falls into the Technological Content Knowledge (TCK) domain of the TPACK model, which focuses on looking at how technology can change a learning when applied to the curriculum. This course required me to step out of my own comfort zone to examine and learn different types of technology that I had previously stayed away from such as coding and video games. These technologies have always been interesting to my students, however I knew very little about them and they intimidated me. This class pushed me outside of my comforts zones and while working with a group of my peers, we researched how using coding and video games in the classrooms not only interests and appeals to students, but it also allows them to connect their own experiences and prior knowledge to the content being taught by using games they are familiar with and interested in such as Minecraft and Scratch. Since this class I have incorporated more coding activities such as Scratch Jr. to allow students to creatively express their learning in non traditional manners that are fun, appealing and relevant to their lives.
This course also focused on using higher level questioning with these technology based activities. This prompted complex thinking in my students, and I found myself looking for more ways to ensure that I was allowing students opportunities to not only receive instruction with technology but also present their learning and understanding using technology. Doing this allowed me to make sure that students were not using technology as consumers, but rather being taught, encouraged and using technology to be producers of knowledge.
The third and final area that overlaps in the TPACK diagram is Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK) which focuses on the teacher's ability to understand how technology and curriculum can work for and against each other, and how to overcome those difficulties through appropriately applying technologies to enhance lessons, assessments and the way that students present their knowledge. This is the area that I feel I have grown the most with, and through taking CEP 813 Electronic Assessment, I was able to really dig deep into this domain and examine my understanding of curriculum and assessments. We did this by creating a rubric that could be used to assess assignments that we were giving our students, researching Content Managing Systems that were most effective/developmentally appropriate for our classrooms, and discussing and examining formative versus summative assessments. This course took everything that I thought I knew about teaching and assessing students and threw it out the window. I realized that my views on assessments and teaching students were rigid, and although my thinking about assessments and how to approach learning with students was not necessarily “old fashioned” it wasn’t up to par with what we as educators know today. This course coupled with an amazing group of students this year who let me try out concepts being taught throughout the school year gave me a renewed perspective on teaching, learning and assessing my students, and that was exactly what I needed at that point of my teaching career.
When you put all of the pieces of this diagram together, you create a Technological Pedagogical and Content Knowledge (TPACK) domain. This could be referred to as “the sweet spot”, the place where everything comes together or synthesizes. As I come to the end of my MAET journey, I can say that this course, CEP 807 is a culmination of the program for me. Over the past few weeks it has been amazing to see all of the things that I have accomplished and all of the doors that have opened for me since the beginning of this program. With all of my courses each making up a piece of the TPACK diagram, I am now standing at the center in the TPACK spot, amazed at all of the knowledge I have gained, confident in my ability as a leader of technology, teaching and learning within my school, and refreshed by this program that came into my life at the exact right moment.
You might ask, so now that you feel you are a TPACK pro, are you done learning? Do you feel as though you now have all of the knowledge needed to continue on in your career? Of course not! And that is part of being in that sweet spot of TPACK. I have the knowledge of my career previous to the MAET program, and the knowledge gained and changed by the MAET program to now guide my future learning, and future career as an educator. I am ready to continue to learn, push myself and grow, and for that I am forever grateful for this MAET program and the path it has taken me on.
Retrieved from www.tpack.org , 2017
Retrieved from www.tpack.org, 2017
