Gina Wilkins

“Every teacher needs to improve. Not because they are not good enough, but because they can be even better.” –Dylan William

 

“What do you want to be when you grow up?” This question is asked to children at a very young age. Although it may be difficult for some to answer, I always had a clear vision in my foresight. I wanted to be a teacher. During my senior year of high school, I began to investigate the exact path for this career choice. I still did not know what kind of teacher I wanted to be.  All I knew was I wanted to inspire students the way my teachers inspired me. During one class, a teacher had us take an online survey to determine jobs which best matched our personalities. Sure enough, landing first on my list, was a high school math teacher. I remember reflecting on this for a long period of time. Thoughts about my own math teachers ran through my head. Math had always been my favorite subject. I pondered being able to give high school students the same experiences I received. However, I had difficulty foreseeing myself teaching this age group. After a few job shadowing experiences, I decided on perusing a career as a middle school math teacher. With the help of guidance counselors and academic advisers, I soon discovered that Michigan State University was where I wanted to receive my education. Joy still fills my heart when I think of the day I was accepted. After four years of study and a yearlong internship, I received a Bachelor’s of Art in Elementary Education with a focus in Mathematics.

 

Three years have passed and I have yet to teach in a middle school classroom. That’s okay! Working with lower elementary is extremely rewarding. Every morning I wake up excited to begin my day. Guiding my students to build a strong foundation of mathematical skills is gratifying. Yet, there is much more learning to complete. Educators are lifelong learners. Daily, we learn from our students what their individual needs are. As an elementary teacher, you are in charge of teaching students all subject areas. Therefore, I need to be prepared to meet the needs of any learner. So far, all my experience has been in lower elementary. During the early years of education, it is necessary for students to develop a strong language arts foundation. It is necessary to be prepared to give students the best education possible. The only way to be prepared to do that is through higher education. Therefore, I chose to return to Michigan State University to achieve a Master of Arts in Education with a focus in Literacy.

 

Graduate work has helped me to understand literacy learning to a depth beyond what I knew existed. For example, I have always struggled with helping learners to meet the cognitive demands of narrative writing. Beyond the expectations required from students, I have always felt uneasy about whether or not my students gained what I felt was “mastery.” According to rubrics, sufficient growth had been made, but I still always felt the heart of their stories were missing. After taking Writing and Assessment, I soon realized what was missing from my writing instruction. During this class, we were required to read a book by Katherine Bomen, titled Hidden Gems. Through reading and discussing this book, it became clear to me I was failing to see the beauty in every piece of student writing. With each writing piece, I would assign a rubric of things students needed to include. During individual writing conferences with my students, I always tended to focus on areas of growth. Although this did help them to achieve goals, I was suppressing the true beauty and voice of their writing. They were so focused on trying to meet the rubric requirements, they failed to include personal touches. Instead of telling students what is missing from their writing, I began to mostly give positive feedback. In addition, instead of providing a strict rubric, student instead received a list of suggested ideas. Receiving positive feedback helped students to build confidence and encourage them to continue doing the things I stated they were doing well. In addition, this helped to create a classroom culture in which students were not afraid to express themselves and try a technique in the writing. Focusing on the beauty of each piece of student writing helped to change the dynamic of writing time. Although I valued student writing all along, students could now feel it, too.

 

During this course, I also learned the importance of reading student writing with other educators. As discussed in class, collaborating helps educators to gain outside opinions about what the writer is doing well. It also provides second opinions about the next teaching point for the student. In addition, an unbiased point of view may help to find the strengths that were not seen before. Since, personally, I had so much success with making small changes to how I was responding to student writing, I decided to share this idea during a staff meeting. My colleagues were very responsive. They hoped doing this would help different grade levels better understand student performance during various levels. Our principal began setting aside time for staff members to participate in this. The attitude about student writing began to slowly shift to become more positive. Across grade levels, my colleagues and I began to make connections about aspect of writing that was developmental versus a gap in education. Most importantly, the positive light shined through to our students. Overall, students felt more confident about writing and therefore practiced it more!

 

During my undergraduate courses, motivation was greatly discussed. However, without having a class of students to call your own, it was difficult to take ownership on what a student might need to become motivated to learn literacy skills. However, every year I taught, I have always been confronted with a handful of unmotivated readers. Accommodating Differences in Literacy Learners helped me to refresh my memory and discover different ways to motivate students. Now that I have a class of my own, I could easily relate strategies to individual learners. Getting a lot of ideas for how to motivate students, and finding resources, was extremely helpful. For example, developing phonics skills is a key to success in reading and writing. Literacy activities, such as “Word Talks” and “Word Sorts,” helped students make connections and find patterns in phonics which they did not see before. These hands-on activities, in a game format, spark the interest of many students. They have fun while learning at the same time. Watching the engagement level of students who normally dread word work was heartwarming. Gaining these new teaching strategies for helping students to develop literacy skills reiterated to me the importance of being a lifelong learner. Every day, studies are being done to find research-based activities which motivate and help students achieve success.  

 

In addition to a variety of motivation and skill level in my classes, I have also had differences in cultural backgrounds. About a quarter of my class is of Hispanic background. A mixture of English and Spanish is spoken at home. Family members of these students, and the students themselves, code switch between the languages. These families struggle with maintaining their identity and culture. The courses I have taken provided with ample opportunity to explore the depiction of minority culture in children’s literature. Since a large population of students I teach are of Hispanic background, I decided to focus specifically on how Latinos are represented in children’s books. Overwhelmingly, I found my classroom library completely lacked books which portrayed Hispanic characters. Upon looking to the school library, I found similar results. The books that were available were all placed around Hispanic holidays, such as Cinco de May. I could not find a single book, with Latino characters, which matched the life of my students. Taking the next step, I explored surrounding public libraries in my area, hoping to find the pattern broken. Yet, similar results were found. I wanted to take immediate action. After all, how could I expect students to practice strategies, such as text-to-self connections, with books they could not relate to. In order to fill my own classroom library with authentic literature which depicted the lives of the Hispanic students in my classroom, I did a bit of research. I found websites such as, Good Reads, to provide great recommendations with match the life of many Hispanic families who have been in the United States for generations. I shared my lists with the school and public librarian. I am continually notified when books are in and ready to be checked out. Now, when I ask students to make self-to-text connections, I can feel confident that all students in my class can make a connection with a character who is similar to themselves.

 

As mentioned above, I remember beginning the Master of Arts in Education program with the hope of becoming a better teacher of literacy. What I did not completely understand yet was the all the components involved in being literate. Since the time of completing my undergraduate degree, the definition of what it means to be literate has expanded to include digital literacy. Before taking the program, I thought of students using technology as the “bells and whistles” to teaching. Taking Teaching School Subject Matter with Technology has made me realize it is vital students develop digital literacy skills. Reflecting on my own experiences, on a daily basis, I need to decide if something I read online is from a reliable source. After all, I use digital literacy for numerous of things. Students need to be able to cite sources and immediately identify what a reliable source is in order to gain and use information accurately in the future. Most importantly, students need to be safe while using online browsers. Students receive talks from firefighters about fire safety, and talks from the dentist about hygiene, yet, before this course, the students did not receive internet safety. However, now, all students at my school receive talks at the start of every year about internet safety. The future is unknown, but without doubt, technology is not going away and students need to be prepared to use it.

 

I ended the program with being asked to learn to use technology to create an online portfolio. This was intimidating to me, as I lacked experience with doing so. However, in countless ways, it was beneficial to go through this process. I experienced this assignment with feelings similar to what I picture a struggling student going through. I first had to learn how to use a website creator, complete assignments, then show my learning on the website in a digital-appealing way. Communicating with peers and professors helped me to be successful. After all, teachers are learners, too. Being challenged helps us to remember the feelings our students feel when we ask them to complete challenging tasks.

 

The program in its’ entirety has influenced the way I educate my students. As shown above, the classes I have challenged me to think outside of the box. I have had the opportunity to learn from professors that care deeply about teaching and are great role models. They have pushed me to look at myself as an educator and look to how I want to be. I have learned that I am always going to be growing and improving. Since starting this program, I have become more confident to share ideas and I now understand the larger purpose behind technology. When looking at literature and curriculum, I closely examine if it fits the background of the students I teach. Gaining knowledge of best practices has helped to shape how I teach literacy, overall helping to make me a well-rounded educator.

 

Throughout the program, I have told friends, family, and colleagues that I have never felt this way about college. Each time I would gain information, I would immediately apply it to current students or students I had in the past. I was learning for outcomes larger than my own personal gains. The work I have accomplished seemed more like homework I completed for my students. Learning was done to ensure each individual student receives the best education possible. Being so close to finishing is bittersweet. However, I realized as an educator my learning will never end. I will always continue to learn for myself and my students.