ED 800
Concepts in Educational Inquiry
Dr. Steven Weiland

The introductory course to the MAED program, this class encouraged students to explore the foundations of education through many different lenses. It was entirely self-paced and included six units that spanned centuries of educational philosophy. Each unit concluded with the writing and submission of an essay. Since I came into my Master's without an undergraduate education degree, this felt like a crash course in all of education. The course pushed me to delve into inquiry and my knowledge of what education is and means.

CEP 820
Teaching Students Online
Dr. Anne Heintz and 
Edie Erickson

Teaching Students Online was a course that was recommended to me by my advisor. I had acknowledged in my application for my program that much of my tutoring business had moved online for the Covid-19 pandemic. Much of the course was about discovering online information systems: Course Management Systems and Learning Management Systems. There were weekly readings and writings through a shared Google Doc that created a relationship between myself and my professor. The main semester-long project was the designing of a course module.

CEP 802
Developing Positive Attitudes in Learning
Dr. David Wong

Each MAED degree requires an "Issues Course" which is a class outside of the main concentration area, dealing with something important to the student. This course was my Issues Course. As a tutor, I want to help my students develop a good relationship with learning and education. This course followed the textbook (Motivating Students to Learn) closely all semester with readings and reflections on this topic. Every unit required discussion and responses in Flipgrid. We also had a student we worked with for a semester-long case study on increasing that student's motivation.

TE 855
Teaching School Mathematics
Sunyoung Park

As someone with a Math and Science concentration for my degree, this was one of my required courses. It worked in great synergy with the other class I took this semester, because this class also had a focus on motivating students. The book was Motivated: Designing Math Classrooms Where Students Want to Join In. Throughout the course, we did a lot of action research, trying out the pedagogies we were exploring in class. One of the things that has stuck with me the most was how important justification is to equitable math outcomes. The course culminated in a large action research project, where I looked into "ask-yourself questions" for math story problems.

TE 848
Writing Assessment and Instruction
Rebecca Witte

As a tutor, I end up teaching all subjects. Even though my concentration is in Math and Science Education, I took this writing class as an elective because it is a skill I wanted to develop. There were four units, and each unit had many readings, followed by a Zoom discussion with a group of fellow students. During the course I read Stephen King's On Writing and wrote an essay on it. Additionally, we explored how students might write more effectively when writing in groups. I completed an action research project on this topic, comparing students who wrote in groups vs. students who wrote alone. I discovered the greatest impacts were letting students write about topics in which they were interested and letting them use their authentic voice.

CEP 840
Policies, Practices, and Perspectives in Special Education
Courtney Maher

In the past, I have had parents ask me to come to students' Individualized Education Program (IEP) meeting, to be an advocate for them. I took this course to better understand learning disabilities, the IEP process, and how to show up for my students who think differently. During this course we had to write an IEP with a partner for a fake student off of a profile of information. We explored every nature of disability and accommodations for each one throughout the semester. Additionally, we looked into the legality of special education and what districts are required. Finally, we created a resource notebook to help for the future. Mine was a webpage for students, parents, and fellow educators.

TE 861A
Teaching Science for Understanding
Dr. Terrance Burgess

This is the second course I took toward my degree concentration, and I expected it to be very similar to TE855. It was not. Teaching Science for Understanding had a deep and passionate focus on social justice, and encouraging students who are underrepresented in STEM to feel included in science education. Our main assignments every unit were Curriculum Modifications: assignments and resources that are science-specific to promote inclusion. We also dove heavily into learning the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). The semester ended with a research paper; mine was about exploring and applying NGSS in one-on-one learning situations.

CEP 818
Creativity in Teaching and Learning
Colin Gallagher

The book for this course was Sparks of Genius. We had a shared Google doc for this course called Sparks of [Name]. We also had two creativity colleagues who we shared all our creations with and we gave constructive feedback to all semester. There were eight units that delved into concepts like perceiving and abstracting. There was also a semester-long deep dive into creative thinking called Creativity with a Capital C.

CEP 805
Learning Mathematics with Technology
Dr. Brittany Dillman

This was my third and final course towards my concentration in Math and Science Education. This course looked at a different math topic every unit, focusing in on effective pedagogies and exploring technologies that support math learning. Each unit ended with a technological mathematics creation. There were many shared Google Docs among the members of the class, including pedagogy lists and explanations, tech reports, brainstorming documents, and more. Often there is required feedback to encourage communication as well as sharing ideas among the students of the course.

ED 870
Capstone Seminar
Dr. Matthew Koehler

Many degree programs require a dissertation to graduate; the MAED program at MSU requires the compilation of a portfolio. Instead of diving into a new topic area and writing a major paper, this course had students reflect on their degree program, work, creations, and successes. It is an opportunity to compile everything together and to showcase one's best work all in one place.