Here We Are
By: Alyssa Moon
Two years ago, as I was sitting in a meeting discussing our school community as a college going culture, I began to wonder what I wanted to do with my future. I was finishing up my third year of teaching, and the end of the school year had me feeling a bit burned out – which is how the end of the school year is supposed to feel. I was tired, the students were challenging, and I felt that I needed to step up my game. As a result, I began looking in to graduate school. All the other new teachers were talking about it, and I felt that I needed to get a move on – especially since Michigan requires all teachers to have quite a few credit hours under their belt at the end of five years of teaching. Well, maybe Michigan itself doesn’t require it since it is a state and doesn’t require much but love and care, but the people at the Department of Education are certainly all about it. It was at this point that I took the plunge and enrolled in a program at Western Michigan University.
I attended WMU for my undergraduate degree, and swore that I would not get my master’s from there as well. Don’t get me wrong, Western is a wonderful post secondary institution, but I felt that I needed to be exposed to somewhere else in order to be more diverse and try new things. Alas, the only conveniently located college in relation to where I lived and worked was Western, so after a little bit of research, I picked a program and began.
My graduate studies began in curriculum. I have been involved in the living, breathing document that is curriculum since I began teaching, and felt that having more schooling in the area would be beneficial. The class that I took was fantastic. The instructor was great, and it was really nice to be back in a classroom as the student again. I was enrolled in a summer institute which took place every day for a few hours over the course of two weeks. It was pretty intensive, I learned a lot, and was able to collaborate with other teachers from the area. Enough about Western though, let us move on to how I became a Spartan, shall we?
After my class was all through, I biked the Kal-Haven Trail with a good friend, since I finally had the time between my class and curriculum writing sessions to go on such an adventure. As we rode up to the trail head, she began telling me about her grad program and how great it was. She loved the online format, it worked really well with her schedule, and she was learning a lot. By the time we rode in to South Haven thirty-six miles later, I was convinced. I started putting together a letter for the MAED program, and was a Spartan by September.
And so, here we are. Or rather, here I am. I am completing my last paper for my last class of grad school and am being put to the task – what do I have to show for it? I give an assignment to my seniors at the end of the year that they love to hate, or hate so much that they love, or somewhere in between. They are asked to look back over the past twelve or thirteen years of school and explain what they have to show for it – their topic, their choice, their medium – ready, set, go. This process of reflection is important, otherwise advice such as, “Stop and smell the roses,” would be unnecessary.
As I worked my way though the MAED program, I found some classes to be more beneficial to me than others. I think this is the case with any program in school. As a teacher and coach, I am interested in learning how to help my students, teach my students, and prepare my students for a life long journey of successes and failures. It is important to me to make sure that I know everything I can in order to not only help them to succeed, but also to learn from failure and not let it defeat them.
One class that helped me in this endeavor was Kinesiology 857: Promoting Positive Youth Development through Sport. The objective of this course was very clear: to use sport as a means to promote positive social, physical, and mental development in young people. This course was helpful to me because it opened my eyes to a large variety of issues facing athletes, parents, programs, parents, coaches, and communities. The topic that interested me most was the idea of specialization of athletes at young ages. This is a topic that comes up frequently at the high school level, and is greatly affecting participation numbers in less popular sports. I was introduced to a fascinating book by Tom Farrey, Game On: The All-American Race to Make Champions of Our Children. In this text, Farrey explains the reasons behind the move toward specialization, and the myths behind it as well. He travels all over asking questions of parents and athletes, heads of companies, youth sports organizations both in the United States and other countries, and professional athletes. The text was engaging and told in a storytelling style. The topics in the class were relevant and the assignments were geared toward making me think about who I was as a leader and coach. The final assignment in the class was to create a class, camp, or clinic that could be realistically put to use within our community. I created a class for my students that would teach them how to organize youth sports, and educate them on the importance of variety in the programs. It would also get them in touch with programs in the community geared toward helping children grow positively through sport. This class taught me the importance of education in the arena of sport. Coaching youth sports is similar to education in many ways, one of which is the incredibly personal nature with which people respond to it. Many people who have an experience with sports as an athlete feel that they have an idea of how different programs should be run; it is the same with education. The reality is that many people simply run practice like they remember, run drills that are not rooted in any kind of research, and are not sure how to motivate children. The bottom line is the same as it is in many aspects of life – the more people are educated in their areas of interest, the better it will be for all involved.
The best class I took in my graduate studies pertaining to coaching was Kinesiology 856: Physical Bases of Coaching. This course was difficult and the studying was slow going, painstakingly so at times, but it was entirely worth it. Every single thing we learned about in the class was immediately applicable to my coaching. I was asked to put together nutritional handouts with information on what to eat and drink before and after activity, and most importantly, these handouts also had to discuss the ‘why’. So often, young people are told to do things without really knowing why they do them. I have found the information I gained in this class to be invaluable with my interactions with athletes. Last year, which was my first year of coaching as an adult, I was not as confident in my ideas as I am this year. I would watch what the head coach was doing, and at times I even disagreed with what he was doing, but because I was not sure, I was less vocal. After learning what I did in the course, I found that I was absolutely correct in my thoughts on pre-workout stretching, and now I have research to back up my claims. It did not stop with the nutrition and the stretching. I also created handouts to use to educate the athletes on drugs, steroids and other performance enhancers. The use of energy drinks and protein supplements are on the rise, and young athletes have very little knowledge of what they could be doing to their bodies. This course helped me to create contacts within my own community that I can use as resources if I have questions, or if I want to have a speaker come to talk to athletes on different topics. This course tuned me in to the use of the video camera as a helpful tool in coaching athletes. I can video tape the athlete doing the long jump, for instance, and break down the penultimate step in a way that I never could before. I can show the athlete what they are doing wrong, instead of just telling them. I realize that this is not new. Using game film of other schools or of basketball and football teams is the norm, but for running and jumping, I had just not thought of it. I am only two weeks in to the season, and I have already been able to show athletes their form, or in some cases, lack of form. It has been an invaluable tool for both me and my athletes.
The other half of my master’s focus was in teaching online. I chose this focus because I have always felt myself to be pretty tech-savvy, and I am interested in the capabilities online learning can give me as an educator. I know that education is moving toward a more paperless format, and I wanted to be able to help prepare my students for the transition.
CEP 820: Teaching K-12 Students Online was one of the most helpful classes I took in the MAED program. This course was immediately relevant for me as a teacher. I had a number of students who were done with all of the courses our school required, and were interested in an independent study course. I used that as an opportunity to introduce them to online learning. This course taught me to create online courses, and showed me exemplum models to guide my creative process, while also educating me on drawbacks and pitfalls to be found with the online format. The course was successful, though not without bugs. This year, I am teaching fully accommodated classes all day long. I have students who have disciplinary issues, learning disabilities, bilingual services, and so on. Because of scheduling constraints, I ended up with three students who were traditionally in Advanced Placement English courses in my class. My class is not a place for them. Their skills greatly exceed those of my students, and this created a problem. I am more than used to differentiating my instruction for a wide variety of learners, and CEP 820 only broadened my horizons in this area. I created a supplementary course for these students which they were to do outside of class, in addition to in class assignments. I had to do some paperwork, and contact parents, but we made it happen. In this way, I was able to introduce these college bound students to drop boxes, the entire Google line, online learning, online discussion, blogging, website creation, research and a wide variety of resources and activities that they will more than likely encounter in the very near future. It is my opinion that blended learning will be a very important tool in the future, and for the schools that are fortunate enough to have technology resources, it probably already is.
As I find myself at the end of my first (yes, I will more than likely get another) master’s degree, I feel that I have grown by leaps and bounds in both my teaching and coaching. The skills I learned were immediately applicable to my current situation, and because of this, these skills were more valuable. So, as I sit here, near the end of my fifth year of teaching, I take this opportunity to look back at what I have done, and I realize that I really am pretty good at what I do. A teacher, a coach, a life-long learner, a collaborator, a digital native, and a Spartan to boot – and that is only the beginning. As I look to the future, I know that I will continue to learn and to look for more ways to help my struggling students, and I will always be open to new ideas. But for now, for this moment in time, I am happy with what I have done, and so – here we are.
I attended WMU for my undergraduate degree, and swore that I would not get my master’s from there as well. Don’t get me wrong, Western is a wonderful post secondary institution, but I felt that I needed to be exposed to somewhere else in order to be more diverse and try new things. Alas, the only conveniently located college in relation to where I lived and worked was Western, so after a little bit of research, I picked a program and began.
My graduate studies began in curriculum. I have been involved in the living, breathing document that is curriculum since I began teaching, and felt that having more schooling in the area would be beneficial. The class that I took was fantastic. The instructor was great, and it was really nice to be back in a classroom as the student again. I was enrolled in a summer institute which took place every day for a few hours over the course of two weeks. It was pretty intensive, I learned a lot, and was able to collaborate with other teachers from the area. Enough about Western though, let us move on to how I became a Spartan, shall we?
After my class was all through, I biked the Kal-Haven Trail with a good friend, since I finally had the time between my class and curriculum writing sessions to go on such an adventure. As we rode up to the trail head, she began telling me about her grad program and how great it was. She loved the online format, it worked really well with her schedule, and she was learning a lot. By the time we rode in to South Haven thirty-six miles later, I was convinced. I started putting together a letter for the MAED program, and was a Spartan by September.
And so, here we are. Or rather, here I am. I am completing my last paper for my last class of grad school and am being put to the task – what do I have to show for it? I give an assignment to my seniors at the end of the year that they love to hate, or hate so much that they love, or somewhere in between. They are asked to look back over the past twelve or thirteen years of school and explain what they have to show for it – their topic, their choice, their medium – ready, set, go. This process of reflection is important, otherwise advice such as, “Stop and smell the roses,” would be unnecessary.
As I worked my way though the MAED program, I found some classes to be more beneficial to me than others. I think this is the case with any program in school. As a teacher and coach, I am interested in learning how to help my students, teach my students, and prepare my students for a life long journey of successes and failures. It is important to me to make sure that I know everything I can in order to not only help them to succeed, but also to learn from failure and not let it defeat them.
One class that helped me in this endeavor was Kinesiology 857: Promoting Positive Youth Development through Sport. The objective of this course was very clear: to use sport as a means to promote positive social, physical, and mental development in young people. This course was helpful to me because it opened my eyes to a large variety of issues facing athletes, parents, programs, parents, coaches, and communities. The topic that interested me most was the idea of specialization of athletes at young ages. This is a topic that comes up frequently at the high school level, and is greatly affecting participation numbers in less popular sports. I was introduced to a fascinating book by Tom Farrey, Game On: The All-American Race to Make Champions of Our Children. In this text, Farrey explains the reasons behind the move toward specialization, and the myths behind it as well. He travels all over asking questions of parents and athletes, heads of companies, youth sports organizations both in the United States and other countries, and professional athletes. The text was engaging and told in a storytelling style. The topics in the class were relevant and the assignments were geared toward making me think about who I was as a leader and coach. The final assignment in the class was to create a class, camp, or clinic that could be realistically put to use within our community. I created a class for my students that would teach them how to organize youth sports, and educate them on the importance of variety in the programs. It would also get them in touch with programs in the community geared toward helping children grow positively through sport. This class taught me the importance of education in the arena of sport. Coaching youth sports is similar to education in many ways, one of which is the incredibly personal nature with which people respond to it. Many people who have an experience with sports as an athlete feel that they have an idea of how different programs should be run; it is the same with education. The reality is that many people simply run practice like they remember, run drills that are not rooted in any kind of research, and are not sure how to motivate children. The bottom line is the same as it is in many aspects of life – the more people are educated in their areas of interest, the better it will be for all involved.
The best class I took in my graduate studies pertaining to coaching was Kinesiology 856: Physical Bases of Coaching. This course was difficult and the studying was slow going, painstakingly so at times, but it was entirely worth it. Every single thing we learned about in the class was immediately applicable to my coaching. I was asked to put together nutritional handouts with information on what to eat and drink before and after activity, and most importantly, these handouts also had to discuss the ‘why’. So often, young people are told to do things without really knowing why they do them. I have found the information I gained in this class to be invaluable with my interactions with athletes. Last year, which was my first year of coaching as an adult, I was not as confident in my ideas as I am this year. I would watch what the head coach was doing, and at times I even disagreed with what he was doing, but because I was not sure, I was less vocal. After learning what I did in the course, I found that I was absolutely correct in my thoughts on pre-workout stretching, and now I have research to back up my claims. It did not stop with the nutrition and the stretching. I also created handouts to use to educate the athletes on drugs, steroids and other performance enhancers. The use of energy drinks and protein supplements are on the rise, and young athletes have very little knowledge of what they could be doing to their bodies. This course helped me to create contacts within my own community that I can use as resources if I have questions, or if I want to have a speaker come to talk to athletes on different topics. This course tuned me in to the use of the video camera as a helpful tool in coaching athletes. I can video tape the athlete doing the long jump, for instance, and break down the penultimate step in a way that I never could before. I can show the athlete what they are doing wrong, instead of just telling them. I realize that this is not new. Using game film of other schools or of basketball and football teams is the norm, but for running and jumping, I had just not thought of it. I am only two weeks in to the season, and I have already been able to show athletes their form, or in some cases, lack of form. It has been an invaluable tool for both me and my athletes.
The other half of my master’s focus was in teaching online. I chose this focus because I have always felt myself to be pretty tech-savvy, and I am interested in the capabilities online learning can give me as an educator. I know that education is moving toward a more paperless format, and I wanted to be able to help prepare my students for the transition.
CEP 820: Teaching K-12 Students Online was one of the most helpful classes I took in the MAED program. This course was immediately relevant for me as a teacher. I had a number of students who were done with all of the courses our school required, and were interested in an independent study course. I used that as an opportunity to introduce them to online learning. This course taught me to create online courses, and showed me exemplum models to guide my creative process, while also educating me on drawbacks and pitfalls to be found with the online format. The course was successful, though not without bugs. This year, I am teaching fully accommodated classes all day long. I have students who have disciplinary issues, learning disabilities, bilingual services, and so on. Because of scheduling constraints, I ended up with three students who were traditionally in Advanced Placement English courses in my class. My class is not a place for them. Their skills greatly exceed those of my students, and this created a problem. I am more than used to differentiating my instruction for a wide variety of learners, and CEP 820 only broadened my horizons in this area. I created a supplementary course for these students which they were to do outside of class, in addition to in class assignments. I had to do some paperwork, and contact parents, but we made it happen. In this way, I was able to introduce these college bound students to drop boxes, the entire Google line, online learning, online discussion, blogging, website creation, research and a wide variety of resources and activities that they will more than likely encounter in the very near future. It is my opinion that blended learning will be a very important tool in the future, and for the schools that are fortunate enough to have technology resources, it probably already is.
As I find myself at the end of my first (yes, I will more than likely get another) master’s degree, I feel that I have grown by leaps and bounds in both my teaching and coaching. The skills I learned were immediately applicable to my current situation, and because of this, these skills were more valuable. So, as I sit here, near the end of my fifth year of teaching, I take this opportunity to look back at what I have done, and I realize that I really am pretty good at what I do. A teacher, a coach, a life-long learner, a collaborator, a digital native, and a Spartan to boot – and that is only the beginning. As I look to the future, I know that I will continue to learn and to look for more ways to help my struggling students, and I will always be open to new ideas. But for now, for this moment in time, I am happy with what I have done, and so – here we are.
Back to Table of Contents