EDU 698: Student
Teaching/Culminating Research Seminar
This course is for
graduate students who are close to completing their Master's of
Science in Teaching degree. The course provides a seminar format for
students to discuss current topics and issues that arise in their
100 hour field practicum placement that they complete while
registered for this course and prepares them to conduct an action
research project in their field placement setting. To view my
past course syllabus, assignments and grading rubrics, please
click here
to visit the course website I created and click on the provided
links to view my work. In the Spring 2008 semester, I taught this
course online. Please view the
online discussion directions and
learning module sample to better understand a sample of my work.
I find that this is an exciting
course to teach because students can talk about and connect their
field observations to in-class discussions. One of the assignments
that I created to facilitate students' reflections on and
conversations about their own teaching is to have them videotape one
lesson that they teach in the field, write a reflection on their
observations of themselves while teaching and present what they've
learned about teaching through their reflections. Part of students'
in-class presentation is to show a 5 minute video-clip of their
teaching. I've chosen to ask students to show a segment of their own
teaching in class so all class members have a shared observational
experience that we can discuss in class. Student presentations will
begin in November. To view the assignment description,
click here.
Although students are initially hesitant to show their video-tape to
their peers, they have repeatedly mentioned that this is a
worthwhile assignment for them because they can begin to reflect on
their own teaching and ways that they facilitate elementary
students' learning.
Students who take EDU 657 are
asked to complete various teaching assignments while completing
their field practicum. The teaching assignments were part of the
course and program requirements before I started teaching the
course. When I started teaching this course, I didn't have any written descriptions for the
practicum assignments so I talked with another professor who also
teaches this course to learn more about the assignment requirements.
Then, I wrote an assignment description for students' field
practicum requirements. I followed the same pattern for
understanding all of the other assignments that were already part of
this course. While the assignments were well thought-out, there
weren't any written descriptions for students to fully understand
their course requirements. To view the assignment descriptions that
I created for this course, please visit the course website by
clicking here. Assignments are linked by clicking on the title of
each assignment.
To prepare students to choose a
topic for their action research project, I have encouraged them to
do some preliminary observations to think about ways that student
learning could be improved in their host classrooms. I use email
dialogue with students so I can communicate with them one-on-one as
they begin to define and narrow their research topic. While
this is incredibly time consuming on my part, it allows me to have
the necessary individual student contact for ongoing assessment so I
can provide the needed support that I believe is essential during
the beginning stages of this project.
To better prepare students for
writing a comprehensive literature review (one component of their
action research project), I've created an outline that I will
distribute for their reference. To view the literature review
outline, please
click here.
As a scholar, I believe that one
of my strongest areas of expertise is with understanding educational
research design, development and evaluation. I am very excited about
teaching this course because I believe that it is an area where I
can use my knowledge to contribute greatly. One of the ways that I
am helping students to understand how to write a proposal for their
action research project is by using my own research as an example
for their reference. In class, I have shown students copies of
my own research proposals, notes and analyses and have been told
that this practice is helping them to more fully understand all
aspect of a research project -- from early design, to planning and
conducting the study.
One of the elements that I see
missing from the MST program is students publishing their action
research studies that they're completing. Throughout the past few
semesters that I have taught this course, some of my students have
presented their action research projects at our annual Scholar's
Day. A goal that I have for this program is to create
a partnership with host teachers to help them learn about effective
classroom research so they can work alongside preservice teachers to
formulate and carry-out a research project that will have the
potential to (1) contribute to in-service and pre-service teachers'
professional understandings about conducting action research,
and perhaps more importantly, (2) contribute elementary students'
learning.
I consider this to be the most
rigorous course that I have taught and that students take in the MST
Program. I find it very rewarding to guide my students through the
learning process as they reach the goals for this course. |