Starting Goals

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     I entered into the Master of Arts in Educational Technology (MAET) program with the goal of walking away knowing how to think and teach with a STEM mindset that encouraged failure and learning from. I wanted to learn how to successfully create meaningful experiences that included learning-by-doing to take place through hands-on explorations, collaboration, and inquiry. I hoped for a list of resources that would help me in my lesson planning for my large population of K-5 students as well as how I can engage and encourage struggling learners. 

 

     Living in an ever-changing technological world, I wanted a program where I would be able to explore new technologies and understand their purpose so that I could not only integrate them in my classroom setting but allow my students to explore them as we prepared them as 21st century learners. My end goal was to bring back what I learned and share my experiences with my STEM team of teachers to create a curriculum that suited our specific students needs and guided them towards making future goals for themselves.

 

Detoured Goals

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     I would love to say I reached all of my goals I have made for myself entering into the MAET program but as with any other adventure, you are bound to run into a detour at some point.     

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     My first goal entering into the MAET program of walking away knowing how to think and teach with a STEM mindset has been achieved beyond what I would have expected. Not only am I walking away knowing how to think, I am walking away with an understanding of the STEM mindset, and how to utilize it to guide my thinking and teaching approaches. In regards to my goal of learning how to create meaningful learning experiences that included learning-by-doing, hands-on explorations, collaboration, inquiry, and learning from failure - this was achieved beyond what I could have ever predicted. I didn’t simply learn how to create meaningful learning experiences that included these components but it was from experiencing these components and forming connections that guided my understanding of meaningful learning experiences and how to creatively design them. 

 

     The MAET program did help me reach my goal of exploring new technologies and identifying their purpose. They also guided me to creatively discover the affordances of new and existing technologies beyond their intended purpose. I walked away understanding that for technology integration to be successful, we must understand these affordances to understand it’s resourcefulness in differentiating learning and increasing engagement.

 

     Lastly, because of this program, I will not reach my end goal of sharing what I have taken away with my STEM team to guide our large population of learners. Rather, because of this program and my now strong understanding of learning, I have begun a new adventure where I can guide my own learners in their learning journey towards their future goals by homeschooling them. I am setting new goals of taking the knowledge I have gained from my MAET goals and experiences and create meaningful homeschool learning experiences with the STEM mindset, encouraging inquiry through hands-on explorations and collaboration, and modeling learning from failures and learning-by-doing with everyday life experiences. From my experiences, both at MSU and teaching, I am able to help shape their little learner mindsets as we explore and learn together.