I am the first member of my family to earn a Master’s degree. When I told my parents I was going to enroll in graduate classes and get a Master’s in education they were excited, but I could sense the skepticism. My mom is a teacher, but does not have a Master’s and my dad has worked in a factory every day since earning his Associates degree back in the Seventies. They wondered why I would get a degree if I did not need one to perform my job. I was taken aback hearing this from another teacher, especially my mother. I took it in stride and kept working. A year later, I am graduating from a prestigious university with a Master of Arts in Education. While this may seem like a stopping point for some, I am not done yet. I still have more to learn and more to give. My future consists of more coursework and more learning, at home, in the classroom, and online.
When I tell my friends that I am earning my Master’s degree, they always ask where I am getting it from. Telling them that it is coming from Michigan State usually would not surprise anyone, I bleed Green and White, but I live in Virginia now. So I tell them I am doing all of the coursework online. They usually look at me and tell me they have never heard of a Master’s degree being offered online from such a prestigious school. The opportunity to be a part of this online learning community has set me apart from my friends and colleagues. The online learning community is the wave of the future. With improvements in technology every day, more and more can be taught online. By participating in this community, I set myself up to model the student of the future for my students. I am going to use this experience as an online learner to promote online learning to my students. The first way I will do this is by implementing the online course I developed in my Teaching K-12 Students Online course. In doing so, I will switch roles from learning content online to learning how to teach online. It will be an ongoing experience of growth and maturity in creating a new online learning community with my students.
My future also consists of being a head varsity baseball coach. I have had this goal since my playing days were over and I have not given up. While I have not achieved this specific goal yet, I have still become a better coach through this Master’s program. In the future I look forward to continuing my learning through coaching clinics and more graduate coursework in coaching specifically. I always thought that I could learn enough to be a good coach by simply coaching. After five years of coaching, this is not the case. The clinics and coursework I take in the future will put me in a position to become a successful head varsity baseball coach and to not only teach the game of baseball to my players, but to teach life lessons and become an example of a lifelong learner or the game.
My coursework in the program has focused on special education and coaching, but there is another group of students that deserve more from me. I have built a great toolbox for teaching students with disabilities, but it is the ESOL population that needs my attention now. This program has taught me not only how to teach students with disabilities, but how to learn online effectively. I plan to use the motivation I have for learning and helping another subgroup by continuing my education in learning how to teach ESOL students more effectively. To do this, I have already joined a cohort in my school district to earn a Master’s from George Mason University in education with a concentration in ESOL. While this will not be an online program, I am excited about the opportunity of sharing my experiences in online learning with the program directors in an effort to begin to build this ESOL cohort in to an online learning community similar to that of the one created at MSU.
Looking forward I am excited. I know that I will never stop learning about teaching. While my content does not change that often, the students do, and as such, my teaching must also evolve. The only way I can stay with the game is to continue my education. I will be turning thirty in a couple years and will have two Master’s degrees, but that will not be enough. So I leave this program with a challenge to myself and my colleagues in education. Learn every day!