Megan E. Rosenbaum
Masters of Educational Technology Portfolio
Go For The Goals
I often have find myself explaining the importance of setting goals to my students, the importance of having clearly defined, attainable expectations and a desired outcome. Having a goal to work toward allows a person to take note of progress and accomplishments, as well as having means for self reflection and evaluation. As an educator, knowing the pedagogical importance of goal setting, I thought long and hard about what my goals were going to be as I made the decision to complete my Master’s of Education Technology (MAET) degree at Michigan State University. What did I want to accomplish through continuing my education? What did I expect to learn, what experiences did I expect to gain?
In an essay I completed while applying for the MAET program I defined my goal as: “I want to continue studying education, I want to have the opportunity to explore aspects of my career that I otherwise wouldn’t get to do. I want to have the opportunity to collaborate and share with professionals who have these same passions and experiences, and mostly I want to grow as a teacher.” Looking back at these goals a year later after completing my various coursework, I recognize a familiar sentiment. At the start of this program all I knew is that I wanted to continue my education, I wanted to continue to expand my brain and my knowledge, and I had hoped to gain experiences that somehow would make me a better teacher. This grandiose, yet general goal of “becoming a better teacher” is something that I feel all teachers are alway striving for. What does it really mean though? What makes me a better teacher? More experiences? Better test scores? Happier students? A year later, after completing 21 credit hours of coursework toward my degree, my goals still take on the same shape yet have become more defined.
My current goals are to further develop my knowledge and experience with the design aspect of being a teacher. Truly learning and mastering the craft of designing lessons that are best suited for my “users” (students). Additionally I strive to use my knowledge and experience with being a good designer to further fine tune my curriculum, classroom environment and teaching styles.
In taking the opportunity to reflect on the goals that I set for myself upon beginning my degree program and my current goals, I have realized that my goals have become more specific, more defined and in many ways notably more attainable. My goals have changed not in context but in level of depth. Before starting this journey, not knowing what this program had to offer me as an educator, I simply wanted to somehow have my Master’s degree help me to “become a better teacher”. What that would actually look like was still unknown to me. Yet now, through my coursework I have started to define what “being a better teacher” entails and specific feature of this process that I can strive toward. I attribute the majority of this new depth to CEP 817, Learning Technology through Design, where I began seeing teaching as a design process.
With a clear and defined goal to continue working toward, I will continue to master my craft and become a better teacher.
