Embracing Change

MATC Synthesis Paper

In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the
Master of Arts Degree in Teaching and Curriculum
Department of Teacher Education, Michigan State University






Ashley Andersen
PID: A36985433
June 19, 2014







The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the
dance.
Alan Wilson Watts
Who I am, what I believe and what I aspire to do are products of the endless changes
that are constantly pushing me to grow and challenge who I was before; before I was a
student, before I was a teacher, before I became a professional. Change is the result of using
newly acquired information to solve problems. As I think of my strengths and weaknesses
across the board, in each role that I play, I see that the two are intertwined. I seek to find an
answer to any problem that arises in my life, personally and professionally. I consider each
endgame and what it takes to get there. When I determine a solution to my problem I act on
it immediately. For this reason, I consider my strength to be that of a problem solver that
embraces change when the solution is known. However, when the solution to my problem
is unknown and when I am unable to see the endgame, my greatest weakness emerges as I
become reluctant to surrender to change.
As a professional educator in and out of the classroom, I realize that each day brings
change and that embracing those changes helps to develop a professional identity. I realize
that my students change and that I need to adapt to those changes in order to meet all of
their needs. I realize that curriculum, assessments and standards change and that it is my
responsibility to transform with them. Throughout my journey as a teacher, embracing
these types of changes has been a challenge to me as I have learned to accept that I will
never have all the answers. What I do have however, is the desire to learn. Through the
Masters of Arts in Teaching and Curriculum program I have had the opportunity to engage
in meaningful reflection and inquiry. I have learned to ask question and acquire knowledge

that will support me in my ability to embrace change regarding my professional identity,
differentiation and student assessment.

Building my Professional Identity
I entered my first year of teaching with ample field experience. Prior to becoming a
novice teacher, I completed two student teaching internships, one for my elementary
education certification and one for my early childhood certification. Through a study
abroad opportunity, Cross-cultural Teaching, I participated in another student teaching
experience in South Africa where I taught first grade for five weeks. Needless to say, I
thought I was the most experienced first year teacher out there. I knew just the teacher I
wanted to be and the teacher I didnt want to be. Then, when I entered my first classroom
and began my first year of solo teaching, culture shock took over. I remember asking
myself, What am I doing here? The image of my perfect classroom, my perfect students,
and the perfect teacher were swept away by lack of support, lack of resources, and lack of
sleep- I was in survival mode. Everything I thought teaching was, vanished right before me
as I battled to keep my students engaged and revive curriculum that was 20 years old. Its
hard to admit, but before I began my first year, I truly thought I knew everything there was
to know about teaching. I had been so successful in my field placements and had such
wonderful mentors that my perception of myself as a teacher was inflated. I was in no way
prepared to fall flat on my face- it hurt. I remember being so worried about what my
students, their parents, my colleagues, and my administration thought of me. As I adjusted
to survival mode and I began to pick myself back up, I realized I needed to look at the big
picture. I needed to remind myself of what I believed good teaching is. I needed to

remember that I was a professional. I needed to understand that my professional identity
would grow only as I grew. Unfortunately, I did not learn this until my second year of
teaching when I was also enrolled to continue work in the MATC program. I was hopeful
that my first experiences and my future studies would act as agents of change and allow me
to better define my role as a professional.
TE 807 (Professional Development and Inquiry) was the first course I was enrolled
in after taking two years off to focus on teaching in my own classroom, in my own school. I
could not have picked a better time to renege in my studies as the stress of teaching was
overpowering my desire to be an educator. In TE 807 I was given the tools I needed to
reflect on my first year of teaching and learn from it. During this course my passion for
teaching was revived as I was able to reflect and refocus on my professional identity. I was
able to identify what was important to me as an educator by mapping out the profession
(Artifact 1: TE 807 Mapping Out the Profession). I was able to read about problems of
practice and engage in conversation with colleagues. My active participation in these
activities taught me that change is something to celebrate as it often leads to deeper
understanding. In addition, I learned that there is a time for problem solving and a time for
reflection. The solution to some of my most challenging problems was found as I extended
my own knowledge base. Realizing that my own knowledge was limiting me was a
revelation. I learned to think deeply about my own understanding regarding education and
educational practices and discovered effective processes to use when I was in need of help
(Artifact 2: TE 807 Designers Portfolio/Action Research). It was in this course that I was
able to bridge the gap between theory and practice. My work in this course proved that my

professional identity would continue to evolve as long as I was willing to embrace the
changes that came with it.
As my experiences with education have changed, my professional identity has
changed. Realizing that this change is necessary in order to be an effective classroom
teacher is vital to my continued growth in the field. As my time in the classroom spans
across three years, I can see how my professional identity has changed in just that short
time. My greatest area of growth is in my passion and ability to collaborate with colleagues.
Asking for help was the first hurdle I encountered as this involved admitting I didnt have
an answer and realizing the endgame as out of sight. Once I was able to tackle that obstacle
I became addicted to the collaboration process. This passion has pushed me into leadership
roles within my school district. I currently serve on the districts math committee; a
committee comprised of grade level teachers that work to create common math
assessments. In addition, during the 2013-2014 school year I worked with a small group of
teachers and administrators at my school to initiate the Teachers Learning Together
program. This initiative is designed to get teachers into other teachers classroom to
promote learning from one another. In this work I assisted in creating a school wide
resource guide that helps other teachers learn about the program (Artifact 3: Teachers
Learning Together/Field). In addition to creating a resource guide, I provided colleagues
with professional development seminars on the topic, which ultimately led to the program
becoming a school wide practice.

Creating a Differentiated Classroom: Using Assessment to Inform Instruction

Differentiation took on a whole new meaning to me once I was teaching in my own
classroom. The term, when used in my undergraduate program, basically meant adding
some modifications to a lesson that you were most likely not going to use in a small column
on the right side of the page. Now, as a teacher of diverse students, I see that planning
meaningful lessons for the whole group, in addition to individual students, is necessary in
order to engage all students in the learning process. Accommodating for the needs of the
various learners that enter my classroom, specifically in the area of literacy, has been a task
I have chosen to pay great attention to in my early teaching career. My beliefs regarding
differentiation evolved in TE 846 (Accommodation for Different Literacy Learners) as I
learned that planning for and providing students with differentiated literacy instructions
daily is key to a students success. For this reason, I began implementing literacy centers
within my 90-minute literacy block. While my students engage in literacy centers I am able
to work with small groups of children while using an array of effective literacy instruction
activities that are sequenced, systematic, intentional, teacher-directed and explicit. In
addition, during my literacy centers I am able to provide students with individualized
activities to work on independently. These activities enhance student learning and provide
each learner with additional practice at his or her own academic level. In TE 846 I had the
opportunity to work extensively with a struggling literacy learning to create a case study
that outlined the learners academic needs and instructional activities to meet those needs
(Artifact 4: TE 846 Literacy Learner Analysis). This process altered my beliefs regarding
differentiation yet again as I gained knowledge of child development theories within the
processes of reading and writing and learned how to use grade-level content standards to
set informed and purposeful goals that facilitate student learning. All students are unique

learners with different academic needs. Just as my understanding of differentiation has
changed as I learned to foster the development of each child, I am sure the instructional
strategies I use to meet each students needs will evolve as I continue to learn and as my
students continue to grow.
Throughout the MATC program I have realized that creating a differentiated
classroom would not be possible without understanding, interpreting and using
meaningful assessments to inform instruction. Assessments provide valuable information
that can and should be used to further develop each students skill set and knowledge base.
In TE 842 (Advanced Methods of Elementary Reading) I was given additional assessment
resources that I can now use to explore student achievement and enhance my
differentiated classroom. In addition, TE 842 taught me to interpret assessment data in a
way that will allow me to pinpoint student progress and then locate research based
instructional activities and practices to match student learning goals.
Although I see the value in assessment when used to drive instruction and create a
learning environment where students are encouraged to engage in multiple learning
opportunities, the very idea of formal assessments when solely used to track students is
something I am still attempting to understand. With expectations on the rise at the state
and national level and with the increased amount of standardized assessments, I worry for
my students. I worry that the assessments are not developmentally appropriate. I worry
that the data is not being used in a productive manor to promote learning. I worry about
my students whose test scores dont match their ability because they experience test
anxiety. The information I gained during TE 842 has given me more ground to question the
use of standardized assessments. In this course I engaged in activities that showed the

value in using assessment data to guide instruction and provide students with
opportunities to reach their learning goals. I was shown how best practices in literacy
instruction can lead to student understanding and success. For these reasons, as an
educator I am still attempting to understand why standardized assessment data is
communicated back to teachers with a simple set of scores. What I see as the purpose of
assessments has changed since my first year of teaching to now. Although I am learning to
embrace change, I am unsure how to surrender to a change that I do not fully agree with.
This is an area I plan to explore further as my career continues. I hope that I will be able to
gain enough knowledge to embrace this change or possibly confront it and hope the change
embraces me.
In conclusion, I have realized that change is necessary to make progress. Most
importantly I have learned that surrendering to change is difficult but necessary in the field
of education. My engagement in the MATC program has provided me with one agent of
change. However, it has also equipped with a skill set that I can use to reflect and inquire on
my personal experiences so they too become agents of change. In the words of Anthony
DAngelo, Become a student of change. It is the only thing that remain constant.