Enhancing Learning with Technology
Goal Reflection Essay
After teaching for two years and gaining confidence as a teacher I decided to go back to school myself to earn my Master’s in Educational Technology. I had known since my junior year as an undergrad student that one day I would be back at Michigan State for the MAET program, it was just a matter of when. Before being able to start the program I had to write a goal statement, identifying what goals I was hoping to achieve throughout the coursework.
In my application to the program I wrote, "It is my goal as an elementary school teacher to help each child succeed and master all areas of academics. With the growing use of technology in society, I feel that it is important to bring this to the classroom to help meet the needs of each child". Another goal that I had was to be able to be a leader in technology at my school in which I could relay my knowledge to other teachers as well.
Over the last 2 years, my goals have changed and expanded slightly. One reason for this was my change in schools. The school district that I am now teaching in has so much more access to technology, which allows for my ideas of what I would like to do and see with technology expand. I still want to meet the needs of each student and now with access to an abundance of technology, I can take this one step further to incorporating differentiated instruction through technology in all aspects of the day. I also wanted to become a leader in the school which this program has helped me with. As I learned more and more through the courses, I continued to take this information back and share new ideas with my grade level teammates and colleagues. I have been able to step up and show other teachers how to incorporate technology into their classroom in different ways, as well as to be a go to person when their technology is not working. This has helped make me feel as a true contributor to the overall benefit of the school, instead of a quiet new teacher.
I can now see the difference of wanting to use technology in the classroom and using it as a tool to apply and expand on learning. The technology is not the focus, the focus is still the learning content, and I can just now use technology to help better meet those learning goals. While my goals may have changed slightly from the beginning of the program, they have changed for the better to incorporate deeper thinking and a bigger picture which will hopefully have a broader impact on student learning.
