Caitlin Johnson 

Fall 2011

TE 802: Reflection and Inquiry in Teaching Practices I

Instructor: Dr. Joyce Parker and Dr. Amelia Gotwals 

Description: This was the first teacher education course I took as a part of my masters. I took this course before I even considered getting a masters, as I took it during my student teaching year. Michigan State's teacher preperation program has students take several masters courses which can apply towards our masters degree during our full year internship. This course focused on how to apply our science content knowledge in our teaching. We were challenged to apply our content, as well as pedagogy to our classrooms that we were in for student teaching. I was able to learn my content knowledge at a much deeper level and gained an understanding for how to apply the many educational philosophy concepts the classroom. 

Spring 2012

TE 803: Professional Roles and Teaching Practices II

Instructor: Jay Meeks

Description: Throughout this course I was able to discuss many teaching hurdles with other internship students that were teaching in similar teaching settings (urban high needs) but my fellow classmates were from all across the different curricula. I was challenged to look at other subject areas and pushed to plan more cross-curricular lessons in my daily teaching. I grew as an educator especially in my abilities to relate to students and reach out to students who were in need of specialized attention. This course prepared me for working with all different types of educators in different subject areas with the same common goals. In the work place I often reach back to what I learned in this course to help strategize with my colleagues in different subject areas. 

TE 804: Reflect and Inquiry Teaching Practices II

Instructor: Dr. Joyce Parker 

Description: This course was another course that I took during my internship year, as the second portion of what I took first semester with Professor Joyce Parker. I was asked to analyze my student work, and data they generated on a day by day basis. Though the planning and analyzing of work that I did in this course was very time consuming and lengthy, not something that would be practical to utilize in my day to day instruction I learned the value of analyzing idividual student results. As the semester continued we learned how to take these lengthy processes and modify them so we could integrate them into our daily work.  I continued to work on building stronger inquiry lessons, and learned to let my inquiry lessons be a bit more student centered as opposed to teacher led. 

Fall 2014

TE 831: Teaching School Subject Matter with Technology 

Instructor: Doug Hartman

Description: When I originally signed up for this course I was very concerned that I would struggle, technology has never been something I was afraid of but it certainly was not something I ran towards with open arms! Professor Hartman was so understanding and walked us through everything! I was pushed to look into all sorts of different types of technology I had never even heard of let alone used! I was able to seamlessly flip my classroom, which means to offer video lectures for my students as homework, as well as work with technology in my classroom. This was especially helpful for teaching science on a budget as I was able to explore a variety of virtual labs and simulations with my students. With our society moving more and more towards technology this course was an invaluble one in my education. I am now much more comfortable using technology in my classroom, and am much more open to learning new technology practices. 

Spring 2015 

ED 800: Concepts Educational Inquiry 

Instructor:  Steven Weiland

Description: In ED 800 I was able to look at several different instructors and educators views on inquiry and teaching. I read several books and analyzed them in the self-paced course. The books we read offered many perspectives on some of the centralized issues in education. I was struck by how many issues are the same throughout grade level, socioeconomic class, and subject area.  I not only learned a great deal from the different perspectives the different educators and authors offered but I also learned a great lesson in time management since the course was self paced. 

TE 861 A: Teaching Science Understanding

Instructor: Tamara Heck

Description: This course was a wonderful addition to the many professional developments I had attended at my job as well as the teaching I had been doing over the past few years. Often times there is a push in science to memorize only and not really learn and learn by doing. In this course I was asked to look at current science practices and make them work for me and my students. I designed several lesson plans that incorporated science understanding and pushed my students to learn through inquiry not through memorization. 

Summer 2015

CEP 800: Psychology of Learning in School and Other Settings

Instructors: Dr. Cary Roseth and Douglas Campbell

Description: In this course I was asked to look at the different ways and locations students learn. In education classes we typically think of learning as something we teachers assist our students with during school hours and the only learning they really do outside of school is maybe their homework! This course reminded me that everyone learns every single day they are living! I was able to read some fascinating articles about how we are doing a disservice to students by almost discouraging learning in places other than school by not allowing them to reflect on the learning they do every day, and by not allowing them to see learning as a positive. This course helped me see how every situation can be a learning moment both in my classroom and with my own children. I was also given the opportunity to learn how to teach my students that they can learn outside of the 60 minutes they have with me a day, I was taught how to show them to look for the learning moments in their day to day life as often the lessons you learn outside of the classroom are the most meaningful. 

TE 846: Accommodating Differences in Literacy Learners

Instructors: Amanda Smith 

Description: This course was a course that I was worried would not help me as it was designed for literacy of all ager k-12, I assumed that the focus would be on english language learners and younger students, and many of our readings were, however I still got a lot out of the class! I worked at a test-in high school at the time and I was concerned that what I was learning wouldn’t apply to the students I was teaching, however when I was asked to do a case study I chose a student I had a close relationship with and I was able to look at what literacy struggles look like in a student who has been labeled ‘gifted’ her whole life. I learned many lessons on how to work on expanding literacy while still teaching my content area, which is something that is impressed upon all educators but often given little direct strategies in which to do so. I was also given strategies on how to work on identifying literacy issues for learners of all abilities 

Fall 2015

TE 861B: Inquiry, Nature of Science

Instructor: Dr. Amelia Gotwals

Description: In this course I was pleased to have an instructor that I had had early in my masters education. Amelia offered me the opportunity to continue to push myself to be a better educator. I was able to re-design a unit on density that I had taught my freshman level science class for several years. With the redesign focusing on inquiry I was able to make some very valuable changes that I will carry when and if I teach the unit again. I was able to really look at my students ability and learn how to change my lesson plan to suite their needs in such a way that was not overwhelming on my part as I planned. After having several inquiry based science instruction courses throughout my masters program and my undergrad I initially thought this course wouldn't have much to offer but I was so wrong. It was the perfect course to tie up lose ends and to show me how easy it was to tie in inquiry in all topics. 

Spring 2016

ED 870: Capstone Seminar

Instructor: Dr. Matt Koehler

Description: This is the capstone course of my masters program. I was asked to reflect on my journey in my master program and how my teaching has changed and my vision for my furture has changed throughout. I was asked to write three essays during the semester that looked at where I was when I started my masters program, where I planned on going from here, and what I had really gained from my masters program. Throughout the semester each week we looked at different aspects of our master journey and compliled all of our experiences. It really helped me see how much I had changed and grown as an educator, and a person over the past several years.