Talitha Gentry

If you have spent time reviewing the work presented in this portfolio you may notice a common theme: my passion for education stems from an unwavering desire to unlock my purpose in life.  Pursuing my own education has been the predominant path I have taken to fulfill my needs for self-actualization; however, I have spent ample time to be cognizant of the learning that takes place outside of the classroom.  A huge component of my resolute need to learn is watching how new information and knowledge is manifested in my life.  Learning undoubtedly has helped me to become more intelligent, but it has also transformed who I am in a host of contexts.  My analysis of this transformation will incorporate how the coursework in Michigan State University’s Masters in Educational Technology (MAET) program enhanced my understanding of the needs of an adult learner, incited my ability to integrate and apply technology in a variety of settings, and encouraged me to redefine our professional development opportunities for instructors. 

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Integrating Personalized Learning Environments

 

As a leader within a prestigious organization it has become imperative that I constantly seek professional development opportunities for myself, my peers, and my colleagues.  Higher education, like K-12 settings, has changed tremendously over the past decade.  Old pedagogical approaches have now been enhanced with methodologies that embrace the individual learner, and orchestrate curriculum to include a variety of learning styles.  The MAET curriculum provided a unique opportunity for me to conduct my own research (particularly in my CEP 822 Approaches to Educational Research course) to find applicable new approaches to instruction to the adult learner, and the knowledge I learned regarding Personalized Learning Environments (PLE) has been priceless in my daily professional life.  PLE’s are basically “adaptable learning environments that offer alternatives to instruction” that are based on the individual’s learning styles, prior knowledge, and interests (Sahin et. al, 2016).   A simpler interpretation is that PLE’s are individual learning plans that aim to address the individual learning needs of the student.  The environments also essentially thrive from the restructuring of traditional teaching methods, as the educator must create a unique curriculum that revolves around individual learning plans. 

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In my professional higher education experience I have witnessed a vast array of students, and unfortunately many of those students are plagued with a host of disparities that impacted their abilities to matriculate successfully in college.  I have encountered students who have faced insurmountable adversities, while others lacked support from educational figures and their environment.  Some students have discussed how they never were taught accountability, and many never knew there were alternatives to learning beyond sitting in a classroom lecture.  On the other hand, we also have students who are well-adjusted to the college setting, and experience minimal challenges with the rigors.  Why do these disparities exist?  What can we as educators do to minimize or equalize the educational divide? 

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I wanted to enhance our curriculum by adding levels of personalization so that each assignment used elements of auditory, visual, and kinesthetic learning principles.  PLE’s provide this to students effortlessly, and they also help students to acquire the necessary skills and knowledge to lead so that they can have productive lives within their social communities (Waldeck, 2007).   While I initially thought that my proposals would fall on deaf ears, I had a plethora of professors, administrators, and staff that also felt that a change was needed immediately, and that we had to do more to help our students to be successful.  Other initiatives and trials are still currently in the works, but I was honored that our first research project started with the implementation of PLE’s in the online classroom.

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Applying Technology into Practice

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My level of comfort with technology has always been relatively high; however, I was initially very conflicted in moving towards integrating technology in my setting.  While my focus was always on the adult online learner, I still held traditional educational methods in high regard.  These sentiments changed quickly as soon as I immersed myself in my courses!  In CEP 816 (Teaching and Learning Across Curriculum) the course focused on integrating new media literacies into teaching and learning curriculums.  Professor Paul Morsink encouraged me from the onset of the course to try to apply as much of the content as possible to my current setting as I was the only student who was not in the K-12 arena. 

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Our cumulative task was simple: create a “dream” project of a lesson plan to support your students, but matriculating to this final requirement would require each learner to develop comfort with technology.  Professor Morsink tasked us with creating a lesson plan to teach students about a topic that may be challenging to understand or outside of their comfort zones.  We were provided with a range of topics, but I gravitated to finding something that would challenge me beyond my normal conventions.  While my fellow peers found topics that were somewhat easy to teach to students, I stumbled upon an area that immediately peaked my interest: epigenetics. 

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The word itself could incite a mass outbreak of cognitive overload.  When I first saw this topic I immediately thought of statistical formulas, complicated biological diagrams, and an incessant array of weird terms and definitions that would only make me feel inferior to those who studied it.  I scurried to find some semblance of meaning in how this tied into the course, and Professor Morsink suggested that I try reviewing a few chapters in David Bjorklund’s work, “Children’s Thinking.”  Coincidentally, I found a chapter that explored the biological basis of cognitive development, but in particular, the theory of epigenetics.  How on earth could I recreate this text?  How could I make this an engaging and informative lesson with my lack of teaching experience and comfort with online course modules? While the text by Bjorklund is extremely precise and meticulous at describing how epigenesis occurs on a biological level, it could easily be misunderstood by a student without a science background. 

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As I started to create my course, I tried to be cognizant of the student experience with learning new material.  The majority of my students were adult learners and while most possessed a solid understanding of technological resources I could not create a site that would be overly complicated.  I wanted to create an environment where cognitive load was kept equalized, with a suitable mix of text and media to engage the reader to want to learn.  So, I created a balance of where the student could easily navigate the content, but I wanted to integrate a variety of sensory experiences to appeal to the individual learner. 

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Did you catch that moment of unexpected reflection? Ah yes, I have discovered a tie to my passion for PLE’s before I even encountered the concept in later courses!    We discussed how PLE’s are essentially an approach to curriculum where information is personalized based on how each student learns, and my first run at making an online course module was all about incorporating elements that would embrace varied learning styles.  There are options to interact with the learning material using auditory, visual, and kinesthetic senses, as one must be cognizant that variety in mediums helps the learner build a unique connection to the learning material.  And despite the relatively short assignment this was a clear foundation that peaked my interest into creating personalized learning for everyone, not just students.  I wanted to capitalize on this newfound discovery and try to reinvent the stagnant course modules that some of our online students struggled with completing.  There had to be a better way to adopt these changes, but the process had to start with educating our most vital staff: our instructors. 

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Revamping Professional Development for Instructors

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Professional development is a daunting task; however, is it really all that different than personalizing environments to our students?  Instructors come from a variety backgrounds and utilize an array of approaches to curriculum, yet they all have a common goal to teach students to the best of their abilities.  But another question to be asked is are all instructors as comfortable with technology as their students?  Shockingly after conducting a number of independent surveys with my own employer I discovered that the answer was no.  Many of our instructors came from traditional on ground classroom environments, and while technology was utilized, it was mainly surface level word processing applications.  Most were also able to use the online platforms to integrate their curriculum because it was an automated process completed by our Information Technology (IT) department; however, instructors were vastly oblivious to completing such a task on their own. 

 

In order to reach our goal to revamp our online platforms to include PLE elements I had to encourage instructors to embrace technology and creativity.  This was a cornerstone of learning concepts in CEP 812 (Applying Educational Technology to Practice), and was a key component of how I set up curriculum and/or course module changes.  According to Mishra and Koehler it imperative to incorporate technology as recently teacher education has shifted focus to general "pedagogical practices independent of subject matter;" however, it also requires that the instructor transforms their teaching by finding more creative ways to represent and present subject matter while also making it accessible to all students (pg. 1018-1026, 2006). I decided to create several online class sites to not only introduce instructors to navigating online course modules, but I also wanted to provide them options to test out modules that gave them the highest level of comfort. 

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The first site that I created was a professional development workshop to learn how to integrate technology into the classroom.  In this Wix site located here instructors had the opportunity to complete a week long workshop and course modules that explained the importance of classroom management.  While the content is geared towards relevant information for the instructor, it also is forcing them to interact with technology differently than they may have in the past.  For example one of the course modules has an integrated online quiz that they are required to take at the end.  Instead of completing a traditional paper quiz instructors are allowed to complete the quiz immediately after reviewing material, but as the grading instructor I also had access to show them their results immediately.  Each day we would review their interactions with the assignments and provide ample time to reflect in group discussion with their peers and facilitators. 

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The second site that I created utilized an online course module that was very similar to the one that had already been adopted by our school and can be viewed here or you can watch the quick screencast of how to navigate the page below.  This module contained actual classroom curriculum for new undergraduate education students.  The course was also built to include elements of PLE’s and technology as we wanted instructors to embrace how both entities could coexist harmoniously.  Curriculum did not have to be stagnant: instructors had full range to create engaging and thought-provoking modules that could incite student learning.  This site by far was one of my most challenging assignments, as it forced me to analyze each step that is required to create an online course; while also ensuring that the content was relevant and appropriate to my student demographic. 

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The Transformative Impact of Technology and Learning

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This journey has indeed been adventurous, and it has encouraged me in unimaginable ways as it pertains to embracing the individualization of learning.  The MAET program helped me to transcend beyond my comfort zone and learn to experience knowledge rather than just learn it.  I learned to embrace my background, but also to reevaluate past professional and educational experiences.  I’m an 80’s baby that learned in a traditional setting; however, that does not mean that those experiences cannot be appreciated!  Our educational landscape will continue to shape itself over time, but we must never shun the personal aspect of learning.  There is no perfect approach or method to learn: it also based on the human experience and no one can truly say that a person is wrong for their preference.  I no longer approach learning in a “one size fits all” manner, it is all about finding what makes the most sense for me, and sharing that knowledge with others!  I hope you enjoyed reading through my journey in the MAET program, and stay tuned for more soon!