Running head: EVER-CHANGING

Ever-Changing: My Journey in Education

MATC Synthesis Paper

In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the

Master of Arts Degree in Teaching and Curriculum
Department of Teacher Education, Michigan State University

Kayla V. Harris
PID A39229273
June 17, 2015

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Ever-Changing: My Journey in Education

Can you honestly stick to just one job for the rest of your life? This is the question I so
often get asked after family, friends, and even acquaintances from outside the field learn I am a
teacher. Those that know me best are often the quickest to wonder how long I will last with this
career that is so stagnant in their minds. I have never been one to sit still. I am constantly in a
state of exploration, finding new things to do, new places to go, and new sights to see. While
most would think that a job in the field of education is a boring aspect in the life of a thrillseeker, my answer to them is that this profession is far from boring. In fact, it provides such a
thrill in its ever-changing nature. Over the past four years during my time in the Master of Arts
in Teaching and Curriculum (MATC) program at Michigan State University (MSU), my
position, my role, and my job has changed so much that I have found it at times hard to keep up
with the new demands, the new knowledge, and the new experiences. Through this evolving
journey, I have learned so much about what it means to be an educator and about how I can
continue my career in a way that is intellectually stimulating and full of passion, desire, and
professional (and personal) growth.
As one will see, I have gone on an educational journey, a trip where I not only gained a
broader understanding of the field of education and the impact that education has on people here
in the United States but also on people around the world. I participated in work that met the goals
of critical inquiry, accomplished teaching, and collaborative professional development, while
also meeting my personal goals for teacher leadership and contributions to the field. I have been
able to further my own understanding, gain experiences that make me a better and more
knowledgeable teacher, and have worked towards meeting the needs of all of my students in a
safe and collaborative learning environment.

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Expanding My World-View

My story begins where many stories end at graduation. I graduated with my bachelors
degree in education in the spring of 2011 and was ready to move into my internship and change
the world. I wanted to do big things in the world of education, to make a difference in the lives of
many, and to add more to my accomplishments, which I already felt were strong. Prior to my
internship year, I decided to apply for MSUs MATC program so that I could study abroad as
part of a cross-cultural experience in Cape Town, South Africa. I left during the summer of 2011
for a six week experience touching the lives of children halfway across the world.
While my expectation was for me to make an impact on others, the reality was that my
first experiences with the MATC were impacting me in more ways than one. The study abroad
experience (MSUs Cross-Cultural Teaching Abroad) was a mix of in-class work and field
experiences. I had been placed in a fourth grade classroom in Athlone, just outside of the city
center. In my first few days, I witnessed such high levels of disrespect and lack of discipline and
accountability, that I was surprised any learning could be taking place. My views of schools as
places where students listened to their teachers and teachers held their students accountable for
their actions and learning was rapidly changing. In my comparative analysis of the educational
systems in South Africa and the United States (Artifact 1, Goal 1, Standards 3, 4, 5), I wrote
about how these problems were ones that I did not expect to see in South Africa because (as I
believed at the time) they do not exist in the United States. I know, now, how wrong I was.
While the corporal punishment seen in South Africa (teachers hitting and kicking their students)
is not seen in the United States, other forms of disciplinary problems do exist, and whether we
want to believe it or not, there are teachers in the United States who are just as bad at holding
their students accountable. These teachers give the profession bad name.

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During my experiences abroad, I came to the realization that education, while seen to
some as a gateway to a better life, was not as valued by all. There was little respect for the
teacher in the classroom I observed, and with that lower level of respect came less discipline and
accountability. In my analysis, I wrote, When students only see violence in response to their
outbursts, they will perpetuate that violence even further (Artifact 1, p. 3). By allowing this
violence to exist in their schools, teachers are only demonstrating to students that it is an
acceptable form of social discourse. In addition to this, by only showing accountability in the
completion of work instead of its correctness, teachers are teaching students that it is not
important whether or not to do a job correctly, but that they must simply get it done as quickly as
possible. This instills a very weak work ethic in these students. My previous notions of a teacher
as being primarily a dispenser of knowledge quickly changed as I realized that teachers must also
work to provide an education in character traits (such as work ethic) and social protocols
amongst other things. As I worked to wrap my head around the ways of teaching that I had seen
and the school system I had experienced first-hand, I began to gain a deeper understanding of
these problems of practice and policy, not only in our own nation, but around the world. As I
look back now, I can see that my knowledge of these problems had only just begun. By seeing
them abroad in such a blatant way, I began to notice the more subtle effects of these problems
here in the United States. By reflecting on how education is viewed around the world, I gained a
deeper world-view.
Learning First-Hand
As I returned back to the States from my one-of-a-kind experience abroad, my internship
year was waiting. While my views of education had been a little jilted, I was sure that these
problems of practice and policy would be something left abroad and that the American school

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system would prove to be a piece of cake after all of my intense learning experiences so far. I
was assigned to a first grade classroom in Southfield, Michigan and looked forward to the
journey to come.
My internship was met with a struggling relationship with my mentor teacher but a deep
commitment to be a learner of teaching. My goal was to absorb as much as possible during this
one year endeavor so that I could be the best teacher possible upon starting my career. Sadly, my
mentor teacher began turning me away from the profession, and I spent a majority of my
internship learning what not to do, both from lessons that fell flat and from my mentor teachers
old-fashioned way of teaching that was far from the best practice I had been taught at MSU.
While field experience is supposed to supply interns with the bulk of their new
knowledge, this was not the case for me. Instead, my internship classes helped to shape what I
learned about lesson planning and professional inquiry. During TE 801, I was exposed to the
idea of creating big ideas along with each of our lesson plans (specifically during our
mathematics instruction). In my math unit plan, I took these big ideas and funneled them into
learning objectives and process goals for my students. This in turn became a multi-week
mathematics unit where I used my knowledge of lesson planning to create inquiry-based
activities for my students to complete in the field (Artifact 2, Goals 1, 2, Standards 1, 2, 4, 5).
This unit shows how I was using my students prior knowledge, interests, and life
experiences to shape how and what I was teaching. It also lays out a specific plan for
differentiating to the needs of the various students in my classroom in a way that would help
them also meet the learning goals at their own level. At the time, I felt it was a good
representation of what I should be doing in the classroom in terms of instruction and lesson
planning. It was far different from what I had done in the field during my undergraduate courses,

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and felt like a much deeper unit that built upon a variety of essential standards. Looking back
now, only a few years later, I realize that I still had a long way to go. It is a good lesson, dont
get me wrong, but I could have done so much more to make the content accessible to my
students by differentiating for the variety of different learners that I had in my classroom at that
time. I also could have done much more by way of making the content relevant to my students.
At the time, these struggles were not ones I identified. Instead, in my reflection, I wrote about the
challenge of creating lessons that I felt comfortable with that (my mentor) would also approve
of, as her style of teaching was so different from what I was learning (Artifact 2, p. 26).
As I continued through my internship, I came to the realization that giving students a
chance to connect to a topic could be the biggest difference in whether or not they learned. Not
only did I have a chance to experience this with the creation of a literacy unit in TE 802, but I
was given the chance to create a presentation that I gave to my fellow classmates on my unit plan
and the new knowledge that I came to as a result (Artifact 3, Goals 1, 2, Standards 2, 4, 5). A
majority of my internship year was spent using basal readers for all of my literacy instruction,
due to the fact that my mentor preferred this way of teaching. During my literacy unit in TE 802,
I found that using trade books (as opposed to basal readers) to teach literary elements and study
genre provided a much more authentic setting for discourse amongst my first graders, and this
allowed them to take away a higher level of understanding of big ideas. While I continued my
internship with the use of basal readers (per the request of my mentor teacher), I have not gone
back to using them in my current teaching setting.
Through this small gain in knowledge, however, I realized that my understanding of
literacy and the acquisition of literacy skills was severely lacking. While I knew that I needed to
be developing lessons that worked towards my students understanding of big ideas and that

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connected to their lives, I struggled to do this in the context of still teaching students how to read,
how to write, and how to become fully-literate members of our community. This is where I
decided to continue my masters with a look at literacy and language, and I was excited to
continue this journey in my next position.
A Wrench in the Plans
The universe (fate, destiny, whatever you want to call it) had other plans. After my
internship, I was hired as an elementary Spanish teacher at a local charter school and was faced
with a situation that was completely new to me. This new position brought on a total shift in
gears. No longer was I working with students on core subjects, but instead I was spending about
30-60 minutes a week with each class focusing on Spanish vocabulary using a non-existent
curriculum. Foreign language curriculum in the state, after all, is just one large document to
cover all of K-12 education. I was left with a feeling of total helplessness as I struggled to figure
out what I needed to be teaching, what I needed to learn, and what the expectations were for me.
While my internship had prepared me for planning individual lessons and some larger
(two week) units, I had no idea where to start in discerning years worth of curriculum and
logically placing it into order. To add to everything else, my charter school was working on
consolidating their entire curriculum into grids that aligned with the Common Core State
Standards (CCSS), and each unit was responsible for creating UbDs (Understanding by Design
lesson plans) for each of their units. Being the only Spanish teacher at the school, I was left to
work on most of this myself, and, after months of studying the curriculum and meetings with my
curriculum director and the high school Spanish teacher, I emerged with CCSS-like grids for
each of the grade-levels that I was teaching (Artifact 4, Goals 1, 3, Standards 3, 4, 6). These
grade levels look a little different due to the format of my school, but essentially it laid out

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everything I was to teach K-5 and included big ideas, standards, I can statements, resources,
and assessments.
Being able to rewrite the curriculum and having it accepted by not only my
administration, but also by our charter schools authorizer as valid was a huge step forward in
my professional growth. It showed that I could take my subject matter (one that was new to me)
and design curriculum and instruction in a way that would foster students understanding and
growth. From these CCSS grids, I began to make unit plans that would accompany each big idea
and give a more detailed look at what would go into the unit to help students master the content.
One of these UbD units is also shown as part of Artifact 4.
As an enhancement teacher, I found myself in a position far different from the one that I
was trained for, but it was also a position that I highly believed in. I, after all, had found great joy
and achievement in learning a new language as a child, and I wanted to bring those feelings to
my students. As part of professional development at my school, I was asked to develop a
presentation on the benefits of not only Spanish, but all of our program enhancements on the
impact of the learning of the whole child and not just their academic learning (Artifact 5, Goal 3,
Standards 1, 5, 6). Through this presentation, I was beginning to get a feel for what could be in
my future as a teacher leader, one who would take their part in aiding to the professional
development of others in addition to my own. Just as I was beginning to settle into my position
as a foreign language teacher and forget my desire to learn more to fill my own gaps in literacy
instruction, my role changed once again.
New Adaptations
After spending two years teaching Spanish, I was asked to move back in the classroom as
a first and second grade teacher. I had just felt that I was coming into my own and becoming the

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professional that I wanted to be, not only for my students but also for the sake of the profession
as a whole. While I was not making the big difference that I had initially envisioned, I was
helping to make progress in my small part of the world. As I looked forward to being back in the
classroom, I realized once again how much I still need to learn about being a classroom teacher,
especially when it came to literacy instruction, which was and continues to be my greatest
weakness as a teacher. While I still have a lot of room to grow in this area, I have already seen
major improvements over the course of the past year through my experiences and the completion
of my concentration classes with the MATC.
Through the completion of TE 846 and the accompanying Literacy Learner Analysis
(Artifact 6, Goals 1, 2, Standards 1, 2, 3, 5), I came to learn that each child is very different in
how he or she learns and acquires literacy skills. As the literature I studied during TE 846 states,
Becoming fully literate in the 21st century has come to mean, among many things, using
strategies independently to construct meaning from traditional as well as electronic texts, using
text information to build conceptual understanding, effectively communicating ideas orally and
in writing, and developing the intrinsic desire to read and write (Mandel Morrow & Gambrell,
2011, loc. 601). In my Literacy Learner Analysis, I noted that for many students struggles may
keep them from learning and acquiring such skills (Artifact 6, p. 1). I was able to assess and
work with one student in what proved to be as much a learning experience for me as it was for
her. I also began to fully understand the various facets of literacy learning. What had before been
a misunderstanding of the components of reading (i.e. fluency, accuracy, and comprehension),
finally began to fit into place for me. I found that I was beginning to see the use and benefits of
Developmental Reading Assessments (DRAs). Before, they had simply been another arbitrary
test, but I was beginning to see how each component fit into the larger picture of what literacy is

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and what each child needs to master in order to be successful. As I learned more from my work
with this one student, Alice, I saw the ways that I could incorporate such knowledge into my
work on a larger scale with my class of 38 first and second graders and their own unique
strengths and struggles in reading.
While my abilities to diagnose reading difficulties was expanding and growing, so too
was my knowledge of the teaching of writing and the various forms that it can take. As a learner,
I am not much of a writer. It is not an activity that I enjoy. In fact, I tend to dread it and
procrastinate with many of my writing assignments. Teaching writing was, and still is, even
harder than teaching reading because of my perceptions of it on a personal level. In order to
write, I need to find topics to write about and formats of writing that I feel passionate enough
about. I have found this to be true for my students as well.
In my experimentation in the areas of literacy, I took on an inquiry project where I used
the students in my class to learn more about the process of teaching writing by internally
motivating students to write. In TE 848, I completed a Teaching Project Paper (Artifact 7, Goals
1, 2, Standards 1, 2, 4, 5) where I describe my findings of completing a multi-genre writing piece
(which is often only seen in high school or college classrooms) with my second grade students.
The results were quite telling: I found that, with the right amount of scaffolding, structure, and
support, multi-genre writing can have a positive effect on second grade students. The use of a
common theme or topic to pull together writing across genres allows students to spend less time
researching and developing background knowledge and more time writing about a topic that they
have chosen carefully and that they feel deeply connected to. Their writing, in turn, becomes less
painful and more profound (Article 7, p. 13).
By coming to these conclusions on my own through reflective, systematic inquiry and a

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commitment to my students and our curriculum and subject matter, I learned so much more than
if someone had simply told me what to do. I have begun to find a way to reach my students in a
subject that I was unfamiliar and uncomfortable with, mainly due to the use of Self-Regulated
Strategy Development, which was introduced in TE 848. While there is still a long way to go for
me, especially in my writing instruction, I feel that I am growing, learning, and ever-changing
as a teacher along with my students.
The End of One Journey (And the Start of Another)
While there is a finality in achieving my masters degree, and a finality in synthesizing
the learning that I have gained in the past four years, I know that my journey in education is far
from over. There is a lot more changing to do, both on a personal level and as a professional in
the field. While my most current plans are to continue to teach, I really feel as though my current
knowledge and position will allow me to go anywhere and do anything in the field. Whether that
means continuing my education through a PhD program, becoming a mentor to new teachers, or
simply gaining a more thorough knowledge of teaching through continued professional
development and inquiry, I know that I will continue to look at my life and my journey as an
ever-changing experience that will lead me to further knowledge and a greater commitment to
the field and to my students. As for making those big changes in the field of education as
mentioned above, I have found that, for now, I am at peace with the journey that I am taking. My
smaller changes and contributions are making a difference in the lives of my students and my
immediate community. I see the joy on my students faces on a daily basis, celebrate their
learning and growth with them during ah-ha moments, and know that this is the reason I went
into teaching. These small contributions are what matter in the end.

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References

Mandel Morrow, L., & Gambrell, L.B. (2011). Best practices in literacy instruction (4th ed.)
[Kindle version]. Retrieved from Amazon.com.