Where did it start? During our first meeting as a class Dr.

Appelbaum explained that our culminating project should serve as a reflection of a graduate course work at Arcadia University. I began to reflect on why I chose Arcadia for my Masters program and my main goal of completing my Masters degree. Most teachers complete their Masters degree to help them move along the pay scale, to maximize their validity in their current position, and help them obtain their level two teaching certificate. I, of course, wanted all these things from a Masters degree. However, where several teachers desire to further their education ends at those three goals, I wanted a degree that meant something to me. My desire for further education did not end with a pay raise. During my professional semester, the semester prior to student teaching, I thought that I would love to be one of my professors. To "teach teachers" seemed like such an amazing an impactful profession. Obviously, to successfully do this I would need years of experience in a classroom to have any insights to share. So I continued my road towards secondary mathematics classrooms with a goal in the back of my mind to eventually end up in a room full of future teachers. One of my professors had once explained that his masters and doctorate was in mathematics education. When it was time for me to begin considering graduate programs I looked specifically for schools that offered degrees in mathematics education specifically. I attended an open house at Arcadia and expressed my desire to eventually become a professor. It was explained to me that I would be better suited to enroll in a full time doctorate program. As that option was not financially possible I enrolled in the program thinking I would just continue on my long scenic road toward my goal rather than the direct route. During our first class, when I was asked to reflect on what my Masters degree meant to me, all of the above came flooding back to me. Four years ago when I started my program this end goal was very fresh in my mind. Four years later, with four years of life and work piling up, this goal get pushed further down and it was not until I stopped to reflect on the scenic road I had taken that I remembered why I chose it. As I thought about my desire to "teach teachers" I thought about how four short years had changed me as a teacher, as a student, and as a person. My opinions are not what they were when I was sitting in a classroom during my professional semester. This got me thinking about why my opinions have changed and how the knowledge I have gained over the last four years could have impacted me during the semester before I entered a classroom. And so from this massive reflection stemmed my project to reflect and investigate on a teachers education. Where did I take it? I was initially overwhelmed by the amount of information that I could take in from this project. I actually still am overwhelmed by the depth in which this simple reflection could become so massive. I decided to stay small, within a realm that I could control and handle. I started with preservice teachers. The most accurate way to place myself back in my mindset of my professional semester was to find people who were already there. With the assistance of the education chair, I had a volunteer whom I was able to interview at the start of her student teaching, and at the end. From these interviews I was able to gain insight in specifically what a student teacher thought they wanted to know going in to the classroom, and leaving the classroom what they realized they

needed to know. It was also interesting to take this information and compare it with their degree requirements. To help narrow my topic to focus on I did a little research on the general topic of teacher education. The articles that I found gave me even more to think about so I actually went the other way and stepped back from research. I did not want to research teacher education and just pick topics to research further, I wanted to develop my own specific topics to research further. I did take a look at degree requirements for education at a few different schools. I was curious to see primarily if there had been any changes to my undergraduate school since I completed my undergraduate degree. I was also interested in seeing any similarities or differences between local schools. As the project started from a very personal reflection, it only made sense that that personal reflection piece would carry throughout the project. I maintained daily journals each day to reflect on teaching matters. These journals were not intended to keep track of my progress with my project, but rather they were part of it. The journals started out as interesting things that I noticed about my teaching each day. At the end of each day I would ask myself questions such as, "What happened that was interesting today? How did I learn to react in that way? What is something that happened that I may not have known what to do with 5 years ago?" These glorious insights into how I became the teacher I am quickly became releases for something that happened that day. Not necessarily something that I was able to quickly respond to a handle like a veteran teacher, but something that made me uncomfortable or something that I didn't know how to handle. It turns out that both types of entries resulted in being helpful. They helped me realize that there is no such thing as an "expert" teacher. No teacher will ever know everything. No matter how many years of experience you have there is still a situation out there that you have not encountered yet. There are veteran teachers, who have seen more than others, but still have more to learn. In addition to my daily journals I reflected heavily on my own individual program of study as an undergraduate education major. I was curious to see what I remembered specifically from those courses, how I valued them then, and how I would value them now if I were to take those courses a second time. To help me reflect on specific courses I used old texts and literature to review as well. Reflecting on these courses in turn ended up being an overall reflection on my development as a teacher. My overall development as a teacher resulted in a very basic comparison between, what I learned in school, what I learned on the job, and what I learned in grad school. One of the parts of my own personal reflection that I was most excited for was my rewriting of my philosophy of education. I distinctly remember writing a philosophy of education prior to ever stepping foot in front of a classroom and having no idea what it meant. So, without looking back at my old philosophy of education I have rewritten my current philosophy and I was able to compare the two.

Where did it take me? I started this project thinking that it would be a massive research undertaking and I would come out at the end with a clear concise paper and hard facts to defend my stance. It turns out that is not the avenue I took at all. As I stated earlier, it was difficult to really immerse myself in research without having an exact focus on what I wanted to research. I needed those areas of research to

develop themselves. I absolutely think that research is a key piece to this project, I just think that I wasn't necessarily at that point at the start of this semester, I am now. I was really excited by how many people were really enthusiastic and excited by the questions I was asking in regards to my own teacher education and teacher education in general. It seemed as though getting answers to my questions was not nearly as important as just asking them. I started this project wanting to have a perfect thesis and develop my perfect answer and response. What I found instead what I really had several thesis ideas, this simple idea of a reflection could have taken a million directions. So rather than choose one direction I began to focus on asking questions to interested others in also choosing one of those directions.

Who needs to know? I would like to think that anyone and everyone related to the field of education needs to hear what I have to say. I think that what I was hoping would be an end result has really become a beginning step to an area that needs to be researched and explored. I think that it is an area that is too big for one person alone and so I hope to interest others into looking into what goes into a teachers education. How can we maximize the effectiveness of education courses, of professional semesters, and of student teaching? What is it that teachers really need to know before they go into a classroom of their own? Are we preparing teachers to the best of our ability, why or why not? I think these are important questions that any teacher or student should considers, especially at the undergraduate and graduate level. I also think that education does not take one form and so it is important for educators of every respect and every level to be engaged in a conversation about these questions. End result and Future Endeavors. After much question as to how I would "end" my project I decided on a witty take on one of the books I had read in an undergrad class. Instead of the popular "55 essential rules of the classroom I have, 55 things you need to know as a teacher. I figured since much of the semester had be focused on my own insight, that it was best to "end" my project with my own personal findings and insights. I have "end" in quotations, because this is far from the end of this project. As I have stated earlier I think this semester has become more of a groundwork semester of me looking at where to go and getting all of my personal biases and opinions out of the way. I think now would be the time to get the hard facts laid out. To continue this project I think the first step would be to get more pre-service teachers to interview. I would need volunteers that were both graduate and undergraduate, different backgrounds, different certifications, different universities and colleges. In short, I would need a much wider variety of volunteers. I would also like to look more in depth at where the requirements for teachers come from and how often they change. Again, this would require input from several universities and colleges. Additionally, I would like to compare and contrast teachers with significant classroom experience during their education with teachers with little classroom experience during their education. I would like to see if there is a significant difference in their success in a classroom of their own. Furthermore, I would like to see if there is a difference in their levels of success, what areas specifically they excel.