When I started in the MAET program my only idea of technology was flipping the classroom.  Oh, how I was wrong and how this program has expanded my knowledge and beliefs in the educational world.  They have opened doors to me that I did not realize to exist if not for these courses.  I have been connected to people through a digital realm that have expanded my personal learning network.  With Twitter, I have become connected with educators all over the world.  My future learning is based off my experiences.  I plan to continue expanding my personal learning network and the use of Twitter helps me expand in shorts snips on my own terms with a focus of my own.

                This program has pushed me to become a better teacher and expand my pedagogy.  I started with my teaching passion in high school when helping my classmates to my college classmates in my engineering classes.  In those classes, the teachers lectured scribbling problems on the overhead projector moving forward as fast as they could scroll the transparency.  While I was lucky enough to pull the material from the screen to the tests, my friends were not all as lucky.  I was the transition for my friends to help them catch up to the teacher.

               Now I am the teacher and have more tools available to help reach all of my students.  While I do at times revert to those teachers who lecture to my students but I try to add more to them.  I have screencasts where I rework problems from the notes where they can pause and rewind along with additional practice problems they can find online.  I try to find videos and links of other people working out similar problems and explaining the needs of these ideas.  Moreover, I have become more accommodating for my students and know that there are more ways I could meet their needs.  This is where I, as a learner, need to continue expanding g my pedagogy and TPACK framework.  The MAET program has taught me more about myself as a teacher and they ways that I meeting students’ needs and ways that I am falling short of others.

 

                Coming into the program I thought flipping my class was going to be a redeeming quality to my students.  While I have learned that, there is benefit to this practice I should have taken a closer look into the demographics of my students.  Most of my students have access to high-speed internet, not all of them did, and that ended up causing an inconsistency.  The students who did not have access ended up coming into school early, working during their lunches, and staying late which caused them to make some sacrifices that I did not account for.  After a while the students declined in my transformation, their frustration was passed along to me, and I soon gave up as well.  This seemed to be a failure at first only caused me later to expand understanding of my students.  I need to know more about my students before starting the next big idea in education and while flipping does work for many educators, it is not for my students at this time.  However, there are great ideas that I can pull from their framework.

                I want to have a classroom that is a mastery based where students show their understanding and then progress to the next objective.  If they are to struggle then they can receive my help do not have to move on until they have a full understanding of the concept.  This allows those who are motivated and excel in the classroom to move a pace that better suits their needs and those who require more attention, receive the devotion that they need.  There will still be guidelines as to when the material needs to be covered but allows flexibility for each individual student. 

                While I reflected on my practices and realized that I mirror my teachers from the past in some aspects, I hope to learn from them and make myself into the teacher that is remembered for their helpful teaching style.  I will continue to expand my learning and networking through social sites such as Twitter.  The information is delivered in short and concise message that allows the reader the choice to dwell further into the content or skip and catch up on the latest news.  As a future learner, I want to learn about my own practices and how others are successfully implements theirs.