Below you will find a concise list of the courses I took to fulfill my degree requirements for my Master of Arts in Literacy Education program. Classes are listed chronologically, and include course descriptions with brief summaries of what knowledge I gained from that particular class.
Spring 2012
TE 803: Professional Roles and Teaching Practices
Instructor: Tara Kintz
This course was taken concurrently with my teaching internship and focused primarily on the work of engaging with students and developing teaching strategies that encouraged reflection and development of practical methods. Specifically, I was able to build strategies for interacting with students on an individual level through conferencing and personal reflection. Ultimately, this course provided me with the opportunity to experiment with many different types of instructional strategies and collaborate with fellow teachers to build a set of practice and applicable teaching skills.
TE 804: Reflection and Inquiry into Teaching Practices
Instructor: Christina Berchini
Much like TE 803, this course focused on reflective teaching practices, but with a special emphasis on English/Language Arts education. This course allowed me to collaborate with fellow teaching interns to develop strategies and materials that were directly applicable to the work that was being done in my internship classroom. At the conclusion of the course, I reflected on my internship experience and produced a project in which I explored some of the curriculum that I had helped develop for my mentor teacher during my intership year experience.
Spring 2015
ED 800: Concepts of Educational Inquiry
Instructor: Dr. Steven Weiland
Primarily, the course served as a broad introduction into graduate studies in education, with an emphasis on developing skills for thinking critically about the process of teacher inquiry by examining several texts related to the subject throughout the history of modern American education. This course provided with the basic fundamentals of educational theory that allowed me to have a greater depth of perspective in my subsequent coursework. Essentially, this course was a good starting point, as it game me a frame of reference from which to examine the complexities of teaching as a profession.
Summer 2015
TE 843: Secondary Reading Assessment and Instruction
Instructor: Justin Coles
This course began with a close examination of recent debates and topics of discussion in how reading is instructed in the United States, including a critical look at the Common Core State Standards Initiative. As the course progressed, I was able to apply my understanding of the current debates in reading education to the particular group of students I engage with daily. I was able to complete a project in which I closely examined the demographics and reading abilities of a sample population at my school in order to plan future instruction.
TE 846: Accommodating Differences in Literacy Learners
Instructor: Amanda Smith
This was one of the most beneficial courses for me in terms of developing my skills as an educator of students with varying needs. The course provided me with a working understanding of how to address the individual needs of a variety of students and then gave me the opportunity to put those skills into practice with a case-study project in which I was able to work one-on-one with a student to develop targeted literacy instructional strategies. This kind of close-examination case study work gave me a rare glimpse into the complicated nature of student engagement and provided me with several tools for reaching students with varying learning styles.
Fall 2015
TE 865: Teaching and Learning K-12 Social Studies
Instructor: Tamara Shattuck
Although I exclusively teach English/Language Arts, I am certified to teach social studies as well, and this particular course gave me the opportunity to delve into this particular subject and develop my skills as a social studies educator while examining the historical development of social studies education in America and throughout the world. At the conclusion of the course, I created a project that focused on cross curricular education, specifically integrating novel study into the social studies classroom. This project allowed me to more clearly see the broad ways in which English and language arts can be applied throughout the curriculum.
Spring 2016
TE 848: Writing Assessment and Instruction
Instructor: Mark McCarthy
As an English/Language Arts teacher, I often find teaching writing to be a daunting task, as giving clear and consistent feedback to students can prove difficult when class sizes continue to swell. This course provided me with countless resources and opportunities to reflect on my teaching process regarding writing and allowed me to experiment with new methods and strategies to improve my skills as a writing instructor and a facilitator of student writing as well. I walked away from this course feeling much more confident in my skills as a writing teacher and my coursework proved invaluable toward achieving this goal.
Summer 2016
TE 838: Children's Literature in Film
Instructor: Dr. Laura Apol
Far from being a film study course, this class allowed me to explore the complex relationship between literature and visual interpretation. While developing skills of closely and critically examining text and film, I was also able to further push my thinking about choices that authors and filmmakers make when crafting a book or film, and how those choices influence the perceptions of both the reader and the viewer. Particularly, my coursework involved juxtaposing written text with film representation to explain the complex relationship between the two mediums and how authors and filmmakers are motivated to convey certain thematic elements or messages in their work.
TE 849: Methods and Materials for Teaching Children's and Young Adult Literature
Instructor: Mark McCarthy
This course focused on sampling a wide variety of literature from several different genres, including children's picture books, young adult novels, graphic novels, and poetry as well. In addition to broadening my content knowledge, this course also allowed me to explore strategies for teaching reading that targeted a wide variety of students based on interest in certain genres. Not only did this course strengthen my skills as a teacher of reading, but it also allowed me to critically examine works of literature as well.
Fall 2016
ED 870: Capstone Portfolio Course
Instructor: Dr. Matthew Koehler, Aric Gaunt, and Spencer Greenhalgh
As a final course in my master's program, this course gave me the opportunity to build this website and reflect on my experience in the program while simultaneously setting new goals for myself into the future. During this course, I was able to reflect on my learning process while continually working to build my skills with technology and web design as well. This course allowed me to connect together, the various elements of my master's program, as evinced by my reflective essays that I wrote for the course.