Meg Zastrow
Student & Teacher
Annotated Transcript:
Below you will find a list of courses I have taken to complete my master's degree and what each of the courses entailed.
TE 802
Fall 2012
Reflecting and Inquiry in Teaching Practice 1
Instructor: Denise M. Acevedo
This course is the social studies component of my program. The goal of the course was to create a unit plan around standards that is authentic and engaging to students. We were encouraged to not only think about what we were planning and teaching, but why. Through teaching social studies, the end goal would be to help students understand their place in the world and their community, as well as helping them to become better citizens.
TE 803
Spring 2013
Professional Roles and Teaching Practice 2
Instructor: Michelle Williams
This course had a strong focus on learning and developing your classroom management style. We focused on thinking through and establishing classroom expectations and procedures. In this course, we were also pushed to develop our teaching presence in our classroom and establsih ourselves as professionals. After these methods and practices are in place, you are better able to develop activities and projects for students. When the class runs well, the classroom runs better and allows the teacher to focus more on the learning.
TE 804
Spring 2013
Reflection and Inquiry in Teaching Practice 2
Instructor: Rochelle Rubin
TE 804 was designed to help us deisgn lessons and units as well as learn best methods for teaching science. It taught essential skills such as researchign and identifying resources available as well as getting to know what your students know and the ideas they already hold. This course then worked on helping to create lessons and a unit in science. We then looked at our learning goal and identified whether we had met the goal based on data.
ED 800
Sum 2014
Educational Inquiry
Instructor: Steven Weiland
This course focused on the foundational building blocks of education. We looked back at the original purpose of education and how it has transformed over the years as the needs have changed. We researched and learned about the methods and domains of education and inquiry like philosophical thought, inqiury, organization of curriculum, theories of the mind, reflection focused on other culture experiences, and technologies. Having the basic building blocks helps you to understand where education has come from and knowing current methods helps you become a better teacher.
TE 846
Sum 2014
Accommodating Differences in Literacy Learners
Instructor: Amanda Smith
This course supported and strengthed my understanding that all learners are different. It focused on assessment and instruction methods to help a variety of literacy learners. Many strategies were focused on in order to help teachers with a wide variety of literacy learners in their classroom. The course also discussed how motivation, culture, and learning disabilties effect literacy learning.
TE 845
Fall 2014
TE 849
Spring 2015
CEP 820
Spring 2015
TE 848
Spring 2016
ED 870
Sum 2016
Language Diversity and Literacy Instruction and Assessment
Methods and Materials for Teaching Children's & Adolescent Literature
Teaching Students Online
Writing Assessment and Instruction
Capstone in Educational Technology
Instructors: Matthew Koehler, Sarah Keenan, Spencer Greenhalgh, and Brittany Dillman
This course helped me gather my work throughout my master's degree program and put it together into my online portfolio. This portfolio displays many things like my philosophies, learning goals, and my learning over the years. We had the opportunity to engaged with other students to give advice to create portolios that demonstrate our skills and show personality. This was the last course of my program and tied the previous courses together.
Instructors: Anne Heintz and Liz Owen Boltz
As many things have been transformed with technology, this class focused on learning to teach students online. We were encouraged to look at the benefits and drawbacks of teaching online. What advantages does technology provide? Eventually, after researching online platforms, we created a course online. Learning to use resources, including peer collaboration, was a necessity.
Instructor: Mark McCarthy
This course was deisgned to help us look at ourselves as writers across various genres. If you understand yourself as a writer, you can identify the process you use and habits you have when writing. Through readings, we were able to see the relationship between reading and writing across various genres. When discussing the process with other students, we are able to better understand different ways that people write, which helps us better understand and teach our own students. We are better equipped to differentiate our writing instruction.
Instructor: Laura Apol
TE 849 focused on different types of literature that ranged from picture books to chapter books. It not only focused on if the book was a good reading choice for a child, but focused on the dialogue and discussion that could take place from a book. The goal was to find ways to get our students actively involved and engaged in a story instead of being passive. It revealed issues within literature in schools, such as changes in genre and what genres mean and look like now. Not everything is black and white (clear cut and defined) with genres, now there is grey.
Instructor: Patricia Edwards
This course focused on literacy and language development. Understanding the balancing that needs to be done when teaching students with a second language is important to develop both their language as well as the literacy. We looked at different approaches such as sheltered instruction, bilingual education, and sheltered immersion. In addition to being sensitive to diverse language needs, understanding different cultural values is important to teaching the student.