From Uncertainty to Realization: My Journey as a Learner and Teacher

Introduction: How did I get here?

My experience in my undergraduate teacher education program at Central Michigan University prepared me to create a socially just classroom that utilized engaging design and culturally responsive teaching. Entering my student teaching placement in January 2020, I was excited to practice all that I had learned. I taught a full unit in English 10: Of Mice and Men and another unit in World History: the Industrial Revolution. In the midst of preparing for new units, the world as I and my students knew it changed. Suddenly, all that I learned felt inadequate in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Graduating with no ceremony in May 2020 and entering the work force as a full-time teacher that fall was stressful to say the least. The transition to and from online learning was chaotic, and I felt wholly unprepared to meet the social and emotional needs of my students, let alone figure out how to teach Romeo and Juliet in an online setting. 

I had always planned on attending graduate school, and as the public school system transitioned out of pandemic learning and into a post-pandemic world, I knew I wanted a program that could provide me with the knowledge and ability to develop effective learning practices for any learning environment, for any group of learners. I was drawn to the Master of Arts in Learning Experience Design at Michigan State University as the program goals of accessibility, equity, and design aligned with my own. 

Overall, I wanted to become a better educator for my students, and I hoped that this program would help me accomplish this. 

Formative Coursework: What did I Learn?

Despite my commitment to becoming a better educator for my students, I was a little apprehensive starting my first semester of graduate school. I had not been in the role of a traditional learner in several years, and I knew it would be quite a jump from the undergraduate to graduate classroom. One of my first classes was CEP 800 the Psychology of Learning in Schools and Other Settings. Despite my nervousness, I was excited for this class, as I had immensely enjoyed my learning psychology course in my undergraduate program. Upon beginning the course, I had to adjust not only to the amount of reading and writing required each week, but also the ungrading method the program utilizes. As someone who has always been driven to get that “A” grade, the time spent revising and iterating assignments was new for me. However, I embraced the challenge this class brought, and threw myself into learning the theories and learning models. 

As I learned more about theories I had been introduced to in my undergraduate degree such as Gloria Ladson-Billing’s (1995) Culturally Relevant Pedagogy and Vygotsky’s (1979) Zone of Proximal Development, I began to think more critically about my practices as an educator. Several questions emerged as I worked through the course:  was I taking an assets based approach or was I allowing my personal biases to get in the way of choosing effective strategies for my students; how had the pandemic shaped my and my learners’ brains; what theories underpinned my understanding of my students? As I worked through the weeks, I found answers to these questions in theories such as Culturally Relevant Pedagogy, trauma-informed practices, and neuroscience. Incorporating this knowledge into my schema of learning theories, I began to think more critically about my approach to creating a classroom environment and learning experiences.  

CEP 800 helped me understand what practices I unconsciously incorporated into my teaching like constructivism and andragogy. The class then helped me add additional theories like Freire’s (2009) Pedagogy of the Oppressed and Lave and Wenger’s (1991) situative theories to my practice. As I learned, I explored the tension between the theories I was drawn to and the reality of the contemporary public education system. While I believe in student-centered practices that honor and acknowledge student identities, the factory style of education prefers behaviorist ideas of rewards and punishments. Through exploring this tension, I created a personal Theory of Learning grounded in collective, sociocultural, and culturally aware practices that I now use as the foundation for all learning experiences I plan in my classroom. 

Carrying my understanding of learning theory and commitment to practices that value the whole learner, I entered CEP 813, Electronic Assessment for Teaching and Learning, with the goal of integrating my new knowledge of learning theory into assessment. While I learned the basics of Wiggins and McTighe’s (2005) Understanding by Design (UDL) in my undergraduate program, I struggled my first few years of teaching with making relevant and effective assessments outside of tried-and-true methods I was familiar with such as essays and multiple choice tests. In CEP 813 I refreshed my knowledge of UDL, practiced alignment between objectives, activities, and assessments, then applied this knowledge through drafting creative assessments. This helped my curriculum planning, especially as I entered my first year of teaching AP Language and Composition. Rather than panic about how to help my students meet the requirements for the big ideas and smaller objectives the course requires, I used backwards design to ensure students were always working towards a clear goal.  

In addition to feeling more confident about creating meaningful assessments, I began working with nontraditional forms of grading and assessment, deepening my knowledge of the United States’ educational system and the history of assessment in this country. From the early roots of standardized testing to the factory style of education, I slowly began to piece together why my education (largely completed post No Child Left Behind) looked like it did. I spent the rest of the semester grappling with the way students have become commodified by the education system, and how I can help my classroom break from the unfortunate tradition of turning students into numbers and changing a desire for knowledge into an extrinsically-motivated grade-point-hunt. While I can not undo years of standardized testing and grade-driven learning, I can de- emphasize the importance of grades in my classroom, and teach my students that they are more than a standardized test score. I have begun doing this through introducing more creativity into the classroom and emphasizing learning as part of a process, rather than a series of instructions with instant gratification via grade. 

As I moved through my graduate program, completing graduate certificates in learning sciences and learning design, I grew more confident as an educator. My students benefited from my new knowledge. I could better meet their needs, create more accessible learning modules, and make relevant and meaningful assessments. Though I felt more confident as a classroom teacher, I was uncertain how my courses for the Learning Design Leadership would go. Starting as a new teacher at a school where many of my colleagues were long established in the community and also old enough to be my parents,I had not felt comfortable entering leadership positions or publicly sharing my opinion when I joined school improvement committees. 

Learning Design Leadership, CEP 856, helped me better understand leadership and management as a whole. I used to think that to have a leadership position in education required not only a specialized degree but many years of experience to back it up. I learned that I do not necessarily have to hold a formal leadership position. Debra Meyerson’s (2008) Rocking the Boat: How to Effect Change Without Making Trouble has been formative to my understanding of leadership. Reading excerpts from this book in class, I came to understand that I did not necessarily have to hold all the power to make meaningful change at my school. By making small changes in my classroom and holding to them, I can slowly but surely impact my school’s culture. I have already started to implement this. In a traditionally red district that has been a hotbed of political dissent in recent years, many of my LGBTQIA+ students felt unsafe being their authentic selves at school. One of my goals for the school year became to help my LGBTQIA+ feel more accepted at school. I began small by offering students the opportunity to share their preferred pronouns and names with me, then having conversations about what they were comfortable with in class. This practice spread to the English department, and then to the school at large as it turned out many teachers students originally perceived to be not friendly to their identities, were merely unsure of how to be respectful. I am now the advisor for my school’s Gay-Straight Alliance and many of my LGBTQIA+ students report they feel safer at school, and that staff members are more likely to intervene in bullying situations. These acts did not come from the top of the organization down, but rather from the bottom up. I achieved this confidence and strength because of my Learning Design Leadership class, which equipped me with the tools to make meaningful change and be a leader amongst my peers.

Reflection: What do I now Know?

While I entered my masters’ program with the goal of becoming a more effective teacher from a planning and execution standpoint, I slowly realized throughout the program that my primary focus had ultimately shifted to the following program goal:

“Create accessible and inclusive learning experiences and environments, rooted in the learning sciences, educational psychology, and theories of teaching and learning”

(Michigan State University, n.d.).

Psychology of Learning in Schools and Other Settings, CEP 800, helped me understand the theories that underpin my own practice as well as the dominant and emerging theories in the field of education. I am now able to make decisions on what theories would be the best fit for a particular group of learners be they students in the classroom, teens outside the classroom, or my adult colleagues. While my understanding of educational psychology developed due to CEP 800, Electronic Assessment for Teaching and Learning allowed me the chance to understand the United States’ education system as a whole. I was able to understand how the education system developed as it did, and what I could do to make changes in my own classroom. From creating my own theories of learning, assessment, and classroom practices, I was then ready to explore how to effect greater change, which Learning Design Leadership, CEP 856, helped me to do. From learning more about management and leadership as a whole, to what steps I could take as a classroom teacher to be a leader amongst my colleagues, I have grown more confident as a professional. 

I began the MALXD program with a desire to be a more effective classroom teacher. My thinking was largely centered around my own practices as a classroom teacher. While my understanding of educational theory and learning sciences has grown overall, as evidenced by my theory of learning, approach to assessment, and ability to integrate technology, my goals have expanded beyond this initial desire. 

This program has given me the knowledge, skills, and confidence to take what I have learned to my school and district as a whole. I am no longer content to make just my classroom a safe and inclusive space for learning, I want teachers in my school to feel empowered to make those decisions and learning experiences as well. I also now have the tools to assist my colleagues with making changes to their classrooms as well. 

Instead of relying on what education I have received from my undergraduate and now graduate program, I am motivated to continue learning and growing in my practice. While one of my primary goals is still to be an effective teacher for my students, I am now committed to bringing positive change to my school for staff and students alike. This confidence would not be possible without the knowledge and training I received from Michigan State University’s Master of Arts in Learning Experience Design. 

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