To begin our online experience, please take a few minutes to introduce yourself to the group. What is your degree program/major? What kinds of teaching experience do you have? Why did you sign up for this course, and what do you hope to learn from it?
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ReplyDeleteBeth said...
ReplyDeleteHi everyone! My situation is that I started teaching high school high school seven years ago, and then left teaching high school after three years after I had my son, Ethan, who is now four. To make some money while being a stay-at-home mom, I adjuncted for a small Christian University in Bourbonnais, IL near where I live. I fell in love with teaching at the university level (or maybe it had something to do with getting away from the bell system, more on that to follow in subsequent posts, I'm sure). Anyway, at that point I 1) decided to go back to school to begin work on a PhD in English Ed and 2) was offered a full-time teaching position at Olivet where I taught full time for three years until this year when I decided to take a year off of teaching to finally complete my coursework. I'm looking forward to having a year where I will have one less commitment and can focus much more on my studies. As Amna would say, take it more "seriously" (: I also have a thirteen-month-old daughter, Farrah who I'm looking forward to spending more time with this year!
I'm really looking forward to this class and getting to know you all better. Since I'm at the point where I need to start making research/dissertation decisions, I'm hoping that this class will play an integral role in this. I believe teacher research is essential in offering a counternarrative to most of the research that is out there that it completed by accrediting bodies and others who exist to make money off of our students. I would also like to see teachers encouraged to and rewarded for their research because, having taught high school, I know that most of those who are not currently "researching" in the formal sense probably are not because they are not given the time/money/accolades they deserve to do so! Okay, I'm ranting, sorry, more on this later!
Hi Everyone!
ReplyDeleteMy story is much like Beth’s…in a way. Okay, maybe, the only thing that we really have in common is that we were both teachers and were both curious about teaching education at the collegiate level. However, when it comes to class and discussion, we will and do have many things in common—only because we have been in a classroom and do have practical experience, which seems to be one lens we can view teacher research. …maybe?
Anyway, my story is this: I grew up in northern Indiana. I came to Purdue in 2002 in search of my undergraduate degree. I had made the choice to become an English teacher after a series of excellent English teachers in my middle school and high school career; and, the thought that it would be a wonderful venue to help further my curiosity in education and literature. See, the plan was never to teach high school English for the rest of my life. My life goal has always been to receive my PhD in something…so I came to college for answers. As an undergraduate, I wandered through my first couple of years looking for my inspiration. For a while, I was sure that I would not even receive my teaching license and instead go straight into a graduate program in Medieval Literature. Thankfully, I met Janet…and found my inspiration. With her support and guidance, I became an English teacher and am now back here, four years later, to begin what I have been waiting to start—my graduate program in Education focused in English/ Language Arts. There are so many wonderful things that I can say about teaching literature. I could not have chosen a better content to begin researching teenagers and teaching. The amount of things that can be taught, researched, and observed through literature and composition is endless…morality, existence, purpose, etc.
So, I come to this class with many questions. I come to this class curious about why and how students learn? What is it that makes a student want to learn? How do we, as teachers, inspire our students? How do we make them curious? How do we keep them curious? Why do they even care what we have to say? …I could go on forever. In this class, I hope to answer a part of one of these questions; or maybe, find a new one through discussion with you guys and/or our readings.
Taylor
Hello all,
ReplyDeleteI have a story that is similar to both Beth's and Taylor's. Like Taylor, I was inspired to pursue English Education as an undergraduate because of the influence of many excellent middle school and high school teachers. I graduated from Purdue in May 2001 and began teaching here in the Lafayette area the following fall because my fiance (now husband) had gotten a job at the university. I found my niche in a small Catholic junior high. I just love those kids; I think my love has something to do with my sense of humor :-)
I left my full-time job because I was having trouble getting pregnant. However, I continued to work at Sylvan Learning Center until the birth of my daughter, Elanor, who just turned 3 at the beginning of August. By the time she was about 2 months old, I had realized that I needed some intellectual stimulation - so I applied to graduate school! Furthering my education has been a great way to stay in touch with teaching despite the fact that I'm out of the job market at the moment. I have been pursuing a Masters in Curriculum and Instruction with a concentration in English Education one class at a time for two years now and will hopefully be finished in December 2011. We now also have a ten-month-old son, Daniel, so I'm looking forward to devoting all my attention to being a stay-at-home-mom for a few years before he starts kindergarten.
I chose to take this class because I had taken the required EDCI 533 as an undergraduate. Based on that experience, I knew I wanted to learn more about research methods that would be beneficial in my role as a classroom teacher, as I plan to return to teaching rather than pursuing a PhD (for the time being). I'm looking forward to getting to know you all and to working with you!
Courtney
Since I was a little kid, I have been drawn to the world of teaching. I can't think of a time where I ever wanted to be anything but a teacher. My teaching career started in the middle of a school year at an alternative school where I was a permanent substitute for a BD/ED teacher (I'm not sure if these are the correct abbreviations anymore). The class was a self-contained class, which meant that I taught all subjects and had students ranging from 6-12. In a nutshell, it was an interesting experience. From there, I moved to Indiana where I began teaching 7th grade language arts at Westfield Middle School (probably the polar opposite of my previous job). This is my fourth year there and I still love it.
ReplyDeleteAs for my personal education background, I received my Master's degree in Language Education from IUPUI in the summer of 2008 and started working on my PhD within the department of Curriculum and Instruction (focusing on English Education) here at Purdue a year later. I am hoping to work with people who are or want to be teachers (more specifically English/language arts teachers). At this point, I have reached my final year of course work prior to working on my dissertation and all the fun that comes along with that. Because my research project is around the corner, I thought that this would be an interesting class to use to provoke my thinking about my own research interests. Throughout this course, I hope to gain some clarity in my research interests and some concrete ideas as to how to implement such research projects.
Hi everyone!
ReplyDeleteWell, where to begin in telling you about myself.
Like many who go into teaching, it was my own teachers who inspired me to go down this path. I decided I wanted to be a teacher at an early age, but I didn't know what I wanted to teach. In high school, I finally settled on English because literature and writing are (as Julie Andrews sings) a few of my favorite things!
When I was younger, I wanted to teach elementary school. When I got to high school, I decided I wanted to teach high school. When I got to college, I decided that while I wanted to teach high school for a time, I eventually wanted to teach college, and here I am trying to make that happen by getting a PhD in English Education.
As far as my research interests go, YA literature and writing are at the top of the list. For numerous reasons, too many to go into here, I've always been fascinated with YA literature. I also love writing - doing it and teaching it. I enjoyed teaching writing at the high school level (in my American Lit / remedial English classes), and for the past few years I've enjoyed teaching composition at the college level. I simply love language and how we can use writing to express ourselves and communicate with the world.
Well, that's a bit about me. I look forward to getting to know all of you this semester!
Hello everyone,
ReplyDeleteWhen I started college my plan was to be a doctor. A lot of my family are in the medical profession and so I grew up knowing that's what I would do. When I got in my first college science course--biology--I got intimidated by the difficulty of the class and decided science and medicine weren't for me (though I still sometimes think my life would have been much easier had I stuck with this plan). So, anyway, I had always loved to read and, so, I decided to be an English literature major. I finished a B.A. and M.A. program in English lit. at Marshall University, and in my M.A. program I focused on systemic functional linguistics (SFL), literary theory, and Appalachian literature. In graduate school I was a TA and taught freshman composition courses for two years and also worked at the campus writing center. After graduating I got married and began working as a full-time adjunct at Marshall University (still teaching comp. classes, but 4 per semester instead of 1) and I also worked as a K-12 substitute teacher in a rural WV county on the days I wasn't teaching at Marshall. During this time I was basically trying to figure out what I wanted to be when I grew up. I thought about law school. I applied to some marketing programs. I knew that whatever I did I wanted to use SFL in some capacity. My grad school office mate and good friend had went to Purdue for linguistics after Marshall and had just transferred into the Education department because there were a couple professors there using SFL. We had always talked about applying SFL theory to how we teach writing, and, at Purdue, there were scholars researching this! I was really excited at this news and applied to the EDCI department, and was accepted into their Ph.D. program in literacy and language. I'm getting to do a lot of interesting research here--some using SFL and some not. I am interested in researching how we teach writing from primary grades through college; language in the content areas; academic language; multimodality; SFL/functional grammar; and social semiotics. Since I do not have a formal background in education I am looking forward to this course--as I think it will certainly fill in some of the many gaps in my knowledge. Okay, I think that's enough for now. If you have questions just ask! See you all tomorrow.
Hi All,
ReplyDeleteI have wanted to teach "school" since the fourth grade. What I wanted to teach changed every year because each year of school introduced me to new information I enjoyed. By the end of high school, I decided on secondary social studies and journalism. At Ball State I majored in both secondary education - social studies and history. My minor was journalism education. I also earned an honors diploma and an honors in writing distinction. It was the distinction and course work for the honors college that helped me land my first job, teaching English and economics.
I taught a combination of English, journalism, and social studies (primarily world history and geography) in a high school setting for 6.5 years. I was never allowed to teach the combined history/English course that schools started to offer, but I included primary documents and major literary works in my curriculum when I could.
When I started questioning the curriculum and asking why the administration wanted me to teach/operate my classroom in ways I didn't agree with, I decided to move on to graduate school. Currently, I am a second year master's student in Curriculum and Instruction. I have not declared a speciality area, but I gravitate towards social studies and have developed an interest in multiculturalism. The plan is to transition the master's degree into the PhD program.
Ultimately, I want to be a teacher educator. While teaching, I hosted many students from Purdue and Wabash College and found that I loved serving as a mentor to them as they prepared to enter the classroom. I enjoy learning about the ways people learn and developing strategies for each students individual achievement.
Marianne