Laura Piper
Educator and Lifelong Learner
Fall Semester 2010
TE 802 Reflection and Inquiry in Teaching Practice I
Instructor: Sara Snyder
I completed this course during my internship year. This course focused primarily on developing goals and visions of effective literacy teaching. We spent most of the time in this course discussing and reflecting on literacy teaching with fellow interns. It was an essential course for me as a new teacher to assist me in refining lessons, strategies, and student goals.
Annotated Transcript
Below are descriptions of the courses that make up the
Master of Arts in Education Degree, with a Literacy Concentration,
that I am working towards from Michigan State University.
Spring Semester 2011
TE 803 Professional Roles and Teaching Practice II
Instructor: Justin Bruner
This course was completed during my internship year. The three objectives of this course were (1) how to plan and execute an integrated social studies curriculum, (2) the role teachers play in teaching students with special learning and behavioral needs in the general education setting, and (3) ethical responsibilities as a teacher. A project that I learned most from this course was creating an online resource for fellow interns about students with autism. Additionally, in this course I became familiar with Michigan teaching requirements and certification requirements.
TE 804 Reflection and Inquiry in Teaching Practice II
Instructor: Judy Whitcomb
During my internship year this course guided me in my development of teaching science, as well as pushed me to further develop in collboratively reflecting with fellow interns. I enjoyed this course because I learned the benefit of collaborative teaching and lesson planning. I recall brainstorming science lessons together, and then analyzing the lessons after they'd been taught and coming up with ways we could improve the lesson next time. This course has pushed me to become the reflective teacher I am today.
Spring Semester 2013
ED 800 Concepts of Educational Inquiry
Instructor: Dr. Steven Weiland
It was in this course that I was introduced to some of the founders of education, and beliefs that the educational system was built on and have evolved around. Those whose contributions I learned of and continue to affect my teaching are John Dewey and Vivian Paley. Paley greatly impacted my vision of the type of reflective and strong teacher I strive to be. We read Paley's book, The Girl With the Brown Crayon, in this course which continues to play a role in my teaching practices.
TE 849 Methods and Materials for Teaching
Children's and Adolescent Literature
Instructor: Dr. Laura Apol
In this course I became familiar with numerous pieces of children's and adolescent literature. I was pushed to think of strengths and weaknesses of pieces of literature. I was introduced to new ways of thinking and analyzing literature in addition to teaching literature. A main theme in this course was "What Literature Can Do...", my answer to this prompt broadened greatly throughout this course. From this course I found myself reading read-alouds differently to my first graders, I had a new understanding of how to teach literature and was able to scaffold better discussions about texts among my students.
Fall Semester 2013
TE 831 Teaching School Subject Matter with Technology
Instructor: Erica Hamilton
This course pushed me to discover ways of successfully integrating new technologies into the classroom. Not only did I learn of a plethora of tech tools, I also learned how to evaluate their use. As a result of this course I am able to identify that I want to continue pushing myself to use technology as an enhancment, not only as substitutions of current non-technology resources used in the classroom.
TE 842 Elementary Reading Assessment and Instruction
Instructor: Chad Waldron
From this course I have compiled a collection of literacy assessments which will be useful in my classroom to support in identifying student areas in need of support. In addition to providing assessment resources, this course pushed us to evaluate them, use them in our own classrooms, and analyze the data collected to guide instruction. For this course's final project I completed a thorough case study of a student complete with assessments, a planned course of instruction, and documentation of student growth.
Spring Semester 2014
TE 846 Accommodating Differences in Literacy Learners
Instructor: Dr. Patricia Edwards
This course provided the opportunity for me to learn instructional strategies and assessments which accomodate a wide range of literacy learners. As differentiation is a large part of today's general education classroom, this course was of great use in developing additional teaching strategies to support the individual needs of students. One part of this course I greatly enjoyed was the large variety of teachers (P.E., specific subject teachers, health, etc). This variety pushed my thinking on ways literacy is and can be integrated across curriculums.
CEP 805 Learning Mathematics with Technology
Instructors: Dr. Ralph Putnam & Eryn Stehr
Upon completion of this course I was anxious to teach math and utilize all of the technology resources I became aware of and familiar with. I discovered online resources I had never heard of before that brings visualization of geometric shapes into the classroom, games for independent math fluency practice alive, and resources for individualized support. This course also introduced to me the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics' Principles and Standards for School Mathematics and how we can integrate the strands of technology into mathematics education.
Summer Semester 2014
Ed 870 Capstone Seminar
Instructors: Dr. Matthew Koehler, Joshua Rosenberg, Spencer Greenhalgh, and Brittany Dillon
This course is the home stretch! I am currently enrolled in this capstone course. It is the last one left to fulfill my Master of Arts in Education degree requirements. This course's purpose is to reflect and summarize on what I have learned throughout my degree program. Additionally it is designed to help compile the work I have accomplished throughout the program.