Teaching Amidst Uncertain Times

MATC Synthesis Paper

Kortney Smith

PID A45905874

Master of Arts Degree in Teaching and Curriculum

Department of Teacher Education, Michigan State University

June 29, 2021

Introduction

When I started my Master of Arts in Teaching and Curriculum (MATC) journey, our

country was in the midst of frightening and uncertain times. Not only was there a raging global

pandemic, there was social unrest due to the murder of George Floyd. As an educator, I was

faced with many challenges at the start of my graduate program and a new year of teaching.

Countless questions were raised in regards to how I was going to best support my students in a

virtual environment and still address inequities surrounding race in a predominantly White

school. I quickly became passionate about these issues and the opportunities I had as an educator

to make an impact on my students, school, and community. The knowledge I gained from my

graduate program helped me to understand my identity, the identity of my students, how to

support my students academically and emotionally, and how to step into collaborative work with

my colleagues (Standards 1, 4, 6). Nothing has been perfect, and there is still much work that

needs to be done within my classroom and community.

Remote Learning

The beginning of the 2020-2021 school year was certainly a chaotic, confusing, and

stressful time. I remember my colleagues and I getting together, sharing ideas with one another,

asking questions, and doing research as we were about to embark on a journey of preparing for

virtual learning. We needed to think about new instructional and engagement strategies, logistics

of scheduling our day, supporting the social emotional needs of our students, and ensuring

academic success. Virtual teaching was something we had never done before and it seemed near

impossible.
 One question we raised was how we were going to set up expectations for students in a

virtual environment. During this time, I was enrolled in CEP 809 Data-Driven Instruction within

Multi-Tiered Systems of Support. This class supported me in making decisions about PBIS

within a virtual setting. I created a PBIS matrix and used my school’s “buzz words” of kind, safe,

cooperative, and respectful to develop expectations of students when they were participating in

live meetings, using technology, and working independently at home (Goal 2, Standard 3). This

assignment in CEP 809 helped me think about expectations I have never needed to consider

before, and allowed me to provide guidance to both my students and colleagues as we navigated

a new learning and teaching environment.

In addition to expectations, my colleagues and I had to thoughtfully consider what the

biggest needs were for our students within a virtual environment and during a global pandemic.

It was decided that social emotional learning was the most important for our students. Our school

designed weeks worth of SEL lessons and videos. We focused on relationship building and

classroom community. Together we created asynchronous assignments on Seesaw that promoted

mindfulness practices. Prior to the start of the school year, I completed TE 807 Professional

Development and Inquiry and developed a classroom inquiry plan (Artifact 1, Goals 1, 2, 3,

Standards 1, 2, 4, 5). Something we discussed in this course was whether or not teachers and

schools use SEL as a means to control students for better academic performance, or for the

well-being of students. This was interesting to learn about because our school placed a lot of

emphasis on SEL, so I was curious what the motive was in my school. Different aspects of my

plan included reading about SEL, observing other teachers, interviewing teachers, and analyzing

a video of my own SEL lessons. Although I could not carry out the entire plan this school year, it

did cause me to question what I was using SEL for within my classroom. I wanted to make sure
that the purpose of my SEL lessons was for the well-being of my students, not to control them

and their behavior. To do this, I put a large focus on mindfulness and breath work. I explicitly

taught the meaning of mindfulness and told my students why it is important. I modeled

mindfulness practices and participated in activities with my students, making sure they knew that

even as an adult this practice was valuable to me. Seeing the growth in my students’ emotional

health was incredible. Even more exciting was when I overheard my students giving each other

mindfulness tips in times of sadness, worry, or frustration.

While mental health was a priority this past school year, concerns were also raised about

the academic success of our students. Starting the year off remotely undoubtedly meant there

would be some learning loss, especially for the youngest learners. Providing high quality

instruction and interventions was imperative. Since it was my second year of teaching, I was still

new to collecting data, interpreting it, and choosing interventions. There was an added challenge

of administering assessments and interventions to students online. CEP 809 prepared me in

finding valid and reliable interventions. For Assignment 6 (Artifact 2, Goal 2, Standards 1, 2) I

researched Tier 2 interventions that I could use in my classroom. I discovered incremental

rehearsal as an intervention for teaching students letter names and letter sounds and applied this

knowledge to my instruction. When my school transitioned to full days of in-person learning, I

was still responsible for four online students. Sadly, I did not have the time in my schedule to

provide these students interventions. Through collaboration with my paraprofessional, we

developed individual student schedules and I trained her on incremental rehearsal, which she

delivered to my online students.

School supports the academic needs of children, but it also supports social development.

Throughout the course CEP 800 Psychology of Learning in School and Other Settings, I worked
on a piece that reflected my personal theory on learning, incorporating the knowledge I learned

from various readings about how people learn (Artifact 3, Goals 1, 2, Standards 1, 2, 3, 6). I

enjoyed this course a lot because I could make connections between my coursework and what

was happening in my classroom with ease. One connection I made was how people learn with

others. Students in Young Fives spend a lot of the day engaging with their peers in play-based

learning and hands-on activities. These activities foster the development of important skills such

as cooperation, sharing, and turn-taking. However, a virtual learning model presents challenges

in regards to promoting the development of social skills. My learning in CEP 800 reinforced that

a lot of learning happens socially, so I used this to get creative in my online classroom, as best I

could. When a student asked me a question, I would deflect to another student, trying to

encourage the process of social learning. I facilitated conversation between my students and used

different engagement strategies. During our breaks from live meetings, some students wanted to

stay in the meeting with friends and play with playdough. At the beginning of the year, I always

said no so that students could use the bathroom or get a snack. I could tell, though, that my

students were craving play-like interaction with their friends. So, I began letting students stay in

the meetings and they showed each other their playdough creations and even taught one another

how to make something.

Another way people learn that I read about in CEP 800 is through positive reinforcement.

Again, I had to think creatively about how I was going to provide positive reinforcement in a

virtual classroom. My school has paper “buzz tickets” that students earn for demonstrating kind,

safe, cooperative, and/or respectful behavior. The remote teachers came together and thought of a

way to still provide buzz tickets to our remote students. Together we came up with a Google

slide that looked like our paper buzz tickets (Artifact 4, Goal 2, Standards 1, 6). During live
meetings, if a student was being kind, safe, cooperative, or respectful, we would reward them a

buzz ticket by posting it to their Seesaw account. Being in CEP 800 reminded me of the multiple

ways people learn, and kept me motivated to honor my students throughout their learning

journey and do my best to support them.

Lastly, a virtual environment presented logistical challenges in regards to how we were

going to create a schedule, communicate this to families, and make asynchronous lessons easily

accessible. My grade-level collaborated and worked to create weekly lesson templates that were

user friendly, including a schedule with links to all of the live meetings and asynchronous lessons

on Seesaw (Goal 2, Standard 5). These templates were appreciated by families who were able to

navigate them with ease. With practice, even some of our youngest learners were able to utilize

these templates independently. Upon transitioning to full days of in-person learning, an

administrator from a different school district reached out to me asking for advice that I would be

willing to share with staff at her school. I created a powerpoint presentation with voiceover,

informing the audience of different safety measures and instructional strategies I used when

students came back into my classroom (Goal 5, Standards 5, 6).

Teaching for Social Justice

The year 2020 not only brought us a pandemic, it brought us incredible social unrest after

the murder of George Floyd. Protests happened all over the country and there was an outcry for

help from the Black community. These events inspired people to learn about the injustices

communities of color face and the systems of oppression that are at work. I remember feeling

very passionate about understanding what was happening in our country, and I was excited when
my courses were addressing these issues. I was ready to learn and take my knowledge to the

classroom.

We cannot discuss teaching for social justice without examining power. At the start of my

graduate journey, I took a course called TE 820 Power and Pluralism in School Practice. This

course was the first time I had been introduced to the complexity of power hierarchies and their

impact on children and adults. It was also the first time I considered how power plays a role in

my classroom and how the education system as a whole uses power to create generations of

children who conform and lack individuality. In my first essay for this course (Artifact 5, Goals

1, 2, Standards 1, 3, 4), I offered my opinions on an article written by a mother of a child

described as “impulsive” by her classroom teacher. This assignment helped me to realize that

when I have a classroom full of 22 children, there has to be some level of conformity among

them, otherwise learning would not happen. As a teacher, it is my job to honor each individual

student’s learning style and give them some power and choice in the classroom whenever

possible. Further, as an educator I need to continue to think about and research new ways to give

students power within the walls of my classroom and also in the community.

One way to give students more power is to foster student agency. TE 807 guided me to

think about ways I can give students a larger voice in my classroom, school, and community. My

assignment “Student Agency Inquiry Questions” informed me of ways I can advocate for my

students to play a role in decision making (Goals 1, 2, Standards 1, 4). I brainstormed different

questions staff should be asking so that students could have more agency on the district, school,

grade and classroom levels. Many of these questions I brought up to my colleagues and reflected

on for my own teaching. From this assignment, I took the idea to offer my students choice in
what intervention they want to use for the day, what sorts of activities were available for literacy

centers, and what sorts of materials or play things they wanted for the classroom.

Another important way to prepare for social justice work within the classroom is by

reflecting on identities. Many courses throughout the MATC program challenged me to think

about my identity and how it interacts with my students and society at large. The course EAD

850 Multicultural Education was very interesting to me and largely influenced my understanding

of intersectionality, which was and still is important during a time of social unrest. This course

also challenged me to think about how to be a multicultural educator beyond the stereotypical

lesson plans on different cultures. The critical practice analysis assignment (Artifact 6, Goals 1,

2, Standards 1, 3, 4) I completed required me to consider how my identity as a White, middle

class woman interacts with the multiple identities of my students. This is something I have

applied to my teaching and have reflected on as I make decisions in the classroom. What

privileges do I hold that my students do not? How do I understand my students and give them

more power in the classroom? Another aspect of this assignment that impacted my lesson design

was the importance of holding classroom discourse that acknowledges the mistreatment of others

because of their identity. EAD 850 helped give me the confidence to foster these difficult

conversations with students.

These difficult conversations do not stop at students. They need to be held with

colleagues and the community as well. The staff within my building came together and started a

book club about anti-bias curriculum and teaching for social justice (Goal 3, Standards 1, 2, 3, 4,

6). I feel confident in this space because of my graduate program at MSU, which prepared me

well in regards to problems of practice and inequities in school and society. In the club, we are

reading What If All the Kids Are White? This book is extremely relevant in our predominantly
White community when we address how we will teach students about diversity. Participating in

this book club has been valuable to me and others because we are collaborating together and

sharing our experiences and knowledge to design a better, more equitable curriculum for our

students. Without my graduate program I do not think I would have had the confidence to be an

active participant in these discussions. It is the first time I have felt somewhat like a teacher

leader.

My feelings of teacher leadership, thankfully, did not stop at this book club. Recently in

my capstone course, TE 872 Teachers as Teacher Educators, I designed a professional

development for my colleagues introducing them to teaching for social justice and how we do

that as educators (Artifact 7, Goal 3, Standards 5, 6). Creating this professional development

was a powerful moment for me as it was the first time I felt like I had really mastered a crucial

concept that I could educate others about. I do not claim to be an expert, by any means. There is

always more to learn when we are speaking about social justice.

Conclusion

At the start of my graduate program at MSU, it seemed like I was never going to make it

through the year ahead. So many challenges and unknowns were presented to me as an educator.

As a second year teacher, I was asked to teach five-year olds virtually, even though I was still

learning how to teach under normal conditions. Our country was faced with social unrest that

could not be ignored in the classroom, causing myself and my colleagues to research and

implement ways to teach for social justice. My time at MSU gave me the knowledge and skills to

best support my students amidst uncertain times. One last assignment that serves as a great

reminder to me every day of the kind of educator I want to be, is my quality teaching poster from
TE 807 (Artifact 8, Goal 2, Standards 1, 4). This poster hangs in my classroom and encompasses

all of the goals I have had for myself as an educator throughout this program and still strive

towards. Every time I pass this poster, I am inspired to be the best I can be for my students, my

colleagues, my school, and my community. The work has only just begun.