Running Head: M.

ED IMPACT ON PROFESSIONAL CAREER 1

M.Ed. Impact on Professional Career

Jerrold R Warren
Education 5990 – Masters Completion Capstone
Nebraska Wesleyan University
May 11, 2019
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At the end of each school year I like to reflect on the events that occurred throughout the

semesters. I look at the positive aspects of the year: the jokes with students and staff, student

growth both academically and maturity, and of how I grew as a professional. I also look to the

negative aspects of the past year: the students I didn’t quite reach, the frustrations of when my

perfectly planned lesson fell through, or the long nights spent brainstorming how I was going to

make the “difficult” student succeed in my classroom. Throughout this Masters

of Education program, I have felt that my understanding and comfort with my profession has

deepened significantly. This master’s program has taught me to critically reflect on my

profession; collaborate with coworkers, parents, and administration; identify problems of

practice in my classroom and then research solutions; encourage my students, coworkers, and

myself to be the best that we can be; and most importantly, perseverance to push myself through

difficult challenges.

The major pillar of this program for me was the idea of reflection in my practice.

Reflection for me used to be an exercise that I would complete only when something was going

horribly wrong and I was searching for a solution. In a project that I endearingly named “The

Captain’s Log” for the course Education 5140: Reflective Practitioner, I quickly realized that

daily reflection is much more than “my day was horrible and this was why”. Reflection is

celebrating the student that struggled all through a unit yet the lesson finally clicked. Reflection

is laughing at the ridiculousness that are 12 and 13 year olds in 7th grade. Reflection is hurting on

the inside for the struggling student that just got moved into their third foster home of the year.

Through this project, that I have continued to this day, I am able to reflect on my practice while

equally celebrating and venting about events that occurred throughout the day. I have found that
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through reflection, I find myself searching for solutions to my day-to-day problems of practice

rather dwelling on the negatives.

I have continued to write entries into “The Captain’s Log” periodically throughout the

week, though the entries are less detailed than what they were for the project. Even when I am

not physically writing, I am reflecting throughout my day as to what went well, what hasn’t gone

well, and the reasons why. After taking Education 5220: Trauma Informed Classrooms, I have

started reflecting on how factors outside of my classroom influence my students. This has helped

me realize that in many instances, my classroom is not necessarily the cause of the student

behaviors, but can be a temporary solution. My school is the lowest socio-economic school in the

Millard Public Schools and since taking this course, the cause of many student behaviors have

started to make sense. Through these classes and reflection, I have the opportunity to create a

positive and emotionally safe classroom for my students.

Collaboration has been another pillar of this program on my practice. I have always

enjoyed learning and looking for practical solutions to my problems of practice. Throughout this

program I have enjoyed reading and discussing material and studies that are applicable to my

classroom. While there is no one specific class that I can pinpoint being the catalyst for this

change, the idea has been present throughout the entire program. The Omaha-Six Cohort has

become a family over the past two years and our discussions about our classrooms have become

deeper as the classes have progressed. Prior to this maters program, I preferred to work

independently and solve my own problems. Now, our cohort enjoys collaborating and work

together to solve problems.

Furthermore, my coworkers and administration have become genuinely interested in the

content of my classes and will seek me out on Thursdays to ask what I learned. One of my
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administration assigned projects this year was to work with my PLC to update and tier the 7th

grade World Geography assessments. This was perfect timing as I was currently enrolled in

Education 5240: Educational Assessments course. This course taught me how to assess students

but also gave me knowledge that I could bring back to my PLC to develop our assessments with.

Second, my school is developing a mental health / trauma informed classroom program

this year that I was able to help collaborate with. Both of my summer courses, Education 5220:

Trauma informed classrooms and Education 5230: Psychology of Teaching and Learning, helped

with this process. One piece of information that impacted my learning was the lesson about

A.C.E.s which better helped me understand the needs of my students and sometimes their

behavior. I helped lead a book study using Fostering Resilient Learners which was our text for

our Trauma Informed Classroom text. During this book study we created our own self-care

plans which many teachers and administrators also found to be a valuable exercise. In working

with my cohort members these past two years, I developed the skills to be able to collaborate

with my coworkers on projects effectively.

Being a central part of this program, the skill of effective research and application of

findings has impacted my profession immensely. As mentioned earlier while discussing

reflection in my classroom, this master’s program has taught me to actively look for solutions to

my problems of practice rather than ignoring them. Education 5150: Instructional Technology

and Education 5160: Content Area Strategies really made start to think critically about my

classroom practice and look for already researched solutions. When talking with a coworker, she

told me that more-than-likely there was research out there already for most common classroom

problems. Have students blurting out in class and not raising their hands? There is research for
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that. Have students struggling with being on time and bringing materials to class? Guess what,

there is research for that!

Other than the aforementioned research problems and solutions, one such problem that I

researched was the seating arrangements of my classroom. One of my cohort members was

researching interactive choice seating, and after hearing about her research shared in class, I

began research for applications in my own classroom. I found research that suggested grouping

students in varied academic abilities actually brought the groups closer together and encouraged

engagement with the lesson and each other. In addition, at a district meeting this fall, the

secondary social studies teachers came together to brain storm engagement strategies to get

students more excited about social studies. I was able to use my research for my problem of

practice about historical empathy and role playing simulations to talk to a group of teachers and

district administrators.

Positivity and perseverance are two other pillars that I feel greatly influenced and

impacted my profession. From the very first class of this master’s program, Education 5110:

Introduction to Positive Psychology, I began looking for the good in every situation both in and

out of my classroom. This positivity has helped me while processing with the more difficult

students that I teach. I changed out my Safe Seat activity sheets to encourage students to reflect

on their behavior and attitudes in a more positive light. When I process with students, I always

start with telling my students the good things that I like about them and that I am thankful that

they are in my class. I have found that this has broken down some of the barriers that my

students have put up over the years. My classrooms participate in Thankful Thursday every week

where they start off by “Hunting the Good Stuff” and then go into writing thank-you letters to

people that have impacted them this week. 7th grade attitude and behavior is a historically major
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problem and I have found that Thankful Thursday and other mindfulness practices have

impacted my classroom greatly.

I have included perseverance as my final pillar of learning because teaching all day while

completing this graduate degree has been a lesson in time management and persevering to

complete everything. I have a Monday Meeting with each of my classes where we discuss highs

and lows of the previous week and goal set for the coming week. During this meeting, we also

outline any challenges, inside and out of school, my students might have during the upcoming

week. We talk about persevering and staying on top of everything, and when they feel that they

cannot succeed, we talk about mindfulness and appropriate self-care. Once again, our summer

courses of Education 5220: Trauma and Education 5230: Psychology of Teaching and Learning

gave me the tools necessary to set up these meetings and guide my students through goal setting

and creating a safe learning environment.

At the start of this graduate degree program, I was excited about learning strategies to

engage my students in my instruction while building relationships with my classes. This program

has exceeded those expectations with providing applicable content and strategies in order to be

an effective educator. Through reflection, collaboration, and research, I have developed

classroom management and instructional methods that my students engage and learn with.

Through the positivity and perseverance taught with this program, I am able to instill in my

students strategies to be successful as they move on to 8th grade and high school.