Finding the Quality Educator

MATC Synthesis Paper

In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the

Master of Arts Degree in Teaching and Curriculum
Department of Teacher Education, Michigan State University

Kelly Adsit
PID A39227939
August 7, 2015

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After completing my pre-service education, I had wonderful ideas about teaching and
who I was going to be in my classroom and school. While educational theory can be a tool to
develop quality teaching, it is not always successful for every teacher when put to the test of
reality. Teaching as a practice is another view of education I had yet to experience on my own.
After my pre-service education I knew who I wanted to be in theory, but it was through my
Masters of Arts in Teaching and Curriculum (MATC) I set out to learn who I wanted to become
professionally in practice and theory. Through my studies and the understanding of my
professional identity, I have formulated what I believe to be a quality teacher, which strongly
includes the value of creativity and failure. With this knowledge, I strive to be this quality
educator and to impart my knowledge and experience to other teachers to become their concept
of a quality teacher.

Part I Discovering the Quality Educator

Walking out into the education world after student teaching I quickly realized how naive I
was in my understanding of teaching. Student teaching was a very important period of learning
to become a stronger educator, but it is a very new experience having a classroom all on your
own. It was not until I continued my masters course work did I truly understand what my flaws
were and how they changed my understanding of quality teaching. I did not understand the
nuances of quality teaching and where I lacked in information and practice in areas of my own
teaching. Through research I was able to fill my gaps in knowledge and develop a better
understanding of what quality meant in education. I looked into the research of Dewey,
Fenstermacher and Richardson, Green, Jewett and MacPhee, and the University of Michigan to
understand: What is quality teaching? Through their research I developed what I understood

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quality teaching to be and expressed this in my TE 807 course in my revised understanding of

quality teaching [Artifact 1: What is Quality Teaching Essay]:
A quality teacher is one who will develop relationships with their students to best
learn how to reach them, who can manage a classroom to foster a positive
learning environment, while at the same time they can understand the content to
create and reflect on lessons that connect students to relevant content. Another
important factor that must be included in this vison is successful results that the
students have learned the intended information. If a teacher is successfully able to
achieve each of these factors, they would then reach a level of educational quality.
(Adsit, 2015, Pg. 1)
Understanding what quality teaching has allowed me to evaluate my own position within this
definition and how I could become better. I feel that I was becoming a quality teacher, but I did
have to learn more about parts of my content, effective methods on how to help my student relate
to and understand the content, and how to better reflect and collaborate with colleagues.
My new realization of quality teaching allowed me to embrace an exercise from my
graduate work. I was encouraged to re-evaluate where I receive all my information and how I
could restructure my information diet, as Gee would state, to expand my knowledge and
perspectives. I recognized that, just like my original definition of quality teaching, my
information diet was lacking perspectives outside everything I already believed. What is the
point of trying to enhance yourself if you are just continuing to reaffirm everything you already
know? Evaluating where my information and research comes from helped me to understand
areas of my practice that I needed to look into and explore in more depth. [Artifact 5:
Information Diet Reflection] One concept that I used to explore new pathways was the idea of
failure as a learning mode. It was something that I always shied away from because it has
always felt to be taboo in school, but now I was looking up information that greatly expanded my
once off limits view of a useful learning tool.

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As I continued my graduate work, I realized that if I wanted to be a quality educator then

I would have to begin to adapt my teaching practices to allow for students to create and reflect on
their assignments. I began to realize that failure as learning mode embraced the definition of a
quality teaching and produced authentic learning experiences. Carol Dweck discusses the idea of
growth mindsets where students display learning through growth rather than achievement. This
reflects a much more realistic approach to problems that students will face after their K-12
education. Problems are often solved after continuous revision and adaption. When inventing
the lightbulb Thomas Edison said, I have not failed. I have just found 10,000 ways that do not
work. Lessons should be designed on this principle idea rather than just the principle of pass or
fail. This, however, forced me to alter the culture within my classroom to have students
embrace failure rather than the negative connotation that traditional education generally forces. I
now started to look at design lessons that replicated authentic learning experiences that
incorporated growth mindset and failure as a learning mode. I was able to express my revised
perspective on failure and the research through my White Paper in TE 812. [Artifact 3: White
Paper on Failure as a Learning Mode and Infographic]
My utilization of failure in the classroom has also encouraged me to adapt other
ideologies in the classroom. To be a quality teacher means to continuous innovate and allow
students to be creative in the classroom. Through my graduate class on creativity, my eyes were
opened to what creativity really looked like. In a paper I wrote called Where is Creativity in the
Classroom, I reflected on all I had learned regarding how creativity can become present in
classrooms today. [Artifact 4: Essay on Creativity] This class left a lasting impact on my
professional identity because I realized the creative potential I had, as well as the unique places
where I could incorporate creativity in my classroom. After reading a quote by a Harvard

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psychologist in the Sparks of Genius by Robert and Michele Root-Bernstein (1999) I was struck
with the realization of the creativity deficit in our educational system today.
I am toldthat in so distinguished an institution as MIT, a student can have
mastered calculus to the satisfaction of the teacher by having solved the problem
on the final examination. On entering the physics course he cannot see how to
apply the calculus to the solution of problems in physics. There is something very
much wrong about what has been learned when the skills are not transferable.
(Root-Bernstein, 1999, Pg. 17)
Reflecting on this quote, it led me to realize that many times as educators we are so focused on
getting the student prepared for the test that we forget to teach them the skills and creativity to
transfer their knowledge to the real world. From that point forward I knew that to become the
quality teacher I desired I must make this a priority within my teaching and lessons.
My Masters of Arts in Teaching and Curriculum (MATC) has led me to evaluate the core
principle ideas of what it means to be a quality teacher. This has forced me to look beyond my
information diet and consider alternative teaching methods that extend beyond traditional
teaching practices. As a result, I had to reinvent myself to embrace many of these qualities to
ensure that students were not just knowing the content, but understanding and applying it
through authentic learning experiences. At times this has required me to alter the culture within
my classroom to embrace ideas that society has often shied away from. This has led me to see
failure as a learning mode and creativity as cornerstone ideas in the classroom and I continue to
seek out alternative teaching methods that continue to enhance student learning.

Part II Becoming the Newly Discovered Quality Teacher

The discussion in Part I primarily focused on my journey to understanding what makes a
quality educator. While I understand that this is continuously evolving, I have applied what I
have learned to date to my current teaching practices. This section will discuss in greater detail

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how I have applied these principals to my classroom. It is important as an educator to not just
understand what it means to be a quality educator, but to also apply those quality concepts in
practice. I will represent the ideas of a quality teacher through an account of a lesson that I
performed in my classroom that embodies ideas of failure as a mode of learning and creativity in
addition with measurements of growth and collaboration. These ideas are valuable in the
classroom for the reason that they enhance student inquiry and develop complex critical thinking
skills.
One of the methods I have gravitated toward due to the increased opportunity for the
students to apply their own creativity and to learn from their failures is simulations. There is one
simulation in particular that is a prime example to represent the ideas of failure and creativity in
the classroom and where I was able to review the lesson and enhance these values. Through a
peer review cycle, I worked with a colleague in TE 807 to review and revise my lesson.
[Artifact 2: Simulation Lesson Instructions with Annotations and Statement about Lesson]
Looking over my lesson allowed me to create a stronger learning opportunity for my students,
and working with a colleague gave me a new perspective on my own teaching practices.
In this simulation, my students had the opportunity to explore relations between current
day countries and international diplomacy in a simulation centered on the common class favorite,
North Korea. In this simulation my students were assigned to countries and positions loosely
based on their interests. This allowed students to express their knowledge and diversity in the
lesson. They were instructed to proceed forward from the point of North Korea threatening to
send nuclear missiles into South Korea. They were expected to create their own goals for their
countries, based on the research they had done in the beginning, and to successfully carry out
their goals through international diplomacy. The students became very aware of the frustrations

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of world politics and were met with failure in their actions almost every step of the way. The key
for those students, which many realized, was that they needed to continuously alter their
approach if they wanted new and more effective diplomatic outcomes for their country. In many
of the reflections at the end of the simulation, students first expressed their frustrations, but then
explained how they learned from them and moved forward.
In looking at the creativity elements, the students were in control of where the simulation
went. Students had to propose treaties and deals with other countries that were fighting to
accomplish their separate goals as well. The students were also able to create headlines that
could be as detailed or as broad as they chose. This could cause suspicion or discourse amongst
the other countries. In the end, the students had created their own reality and many of them
began to act as though they were living in it. The creativity and the brilliant strategies that I saw
within that simulation were moments that will stay with me through my teaching years. This
simulation is the type I strive to bring my students on a yearly basis. After the summation of the
material, the simulation provided the students the ability to apply and demonstrate the skills they
have developed over the year.
Another element that I identified as a skill of quality teachers is the ability to evaluate and
reflection on teaching practices. One way in which I do this is through a yearly goal. In this
yearly goal I decide on a portion of my teaching that I would like to improve and relate it to
something that is important for the students to gain by the end of the year. In doing this I can
collect and track data throughout the year. This past year I was able to track data concerning my
students progress on writing structure and using evidence to strengthen their work. [Artifact 7:
Yearly Professional Goal Data from Past School Year (2014-15)] I feel that the data collection
and evaluation is an important portion of this process. Through the data I have been able to see

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my weaknesses and which students I needed to spend more individual time assisting. This past
year I was lucky to have been part of a collaborative learning team that adopted the same goal
and we were able to develop the beginnings of a peer reflection system. These methods of
evaluation and reflection of my own teaching have advanced me down the path towards
becoming a quality teacher. Failure even has a place within teaching. If we do not chose to look
at our failures and learn from them, then we will struggle to move forward just like our student
do.
An element of a quality educator extends beyond literature and application of key
principals, but more importantly is their utilization of colleagues and experts as collaborative
tools. A quality teacher is one who embraces the growth mindset mentality. One of my courses
required me to use the web app Popplet to map my professional learning network. [Artifact 6:
Popplet of Professional Learning Network (PLN)] This visually displayed the vast resources
that I have available to me to aid in advancing myself as a teacher. Once I began to incorporate
ideas of failure within the culture of my classroom, I realized the importance that failure plays in
our lives as a professional. I no longer saw myself as an individual teacher, but a member of a
community. I realized that quality teachers are those who understand their faults as an educator
and utilizes their network to advance their own teaching practices. In addition to utilizing
teaching communities to aid in teacher practices, they can also provide the ability for teachers to
transition into more leadership roles. Their experience and educational expertise are able
valuable commodities that could aid in providing support to more novice teachers to encourage
the advancement of quality teaching within the whole community.
Understanding what it takes to become a quality teacher is one thing, but to put the
aspects of creative and effective lessons, positive environment and relationships, successful

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outcomes, and revision of work into practice is another. I am still working to revise and improve
my practices and knowledge, but I have worked hard to utilize the information I have gained.
With experience, I have been able to take theories and make real use of them. I have also
developed my own expertise that I have begun to add to my professional learning network. My
goal moving forward is to become a leader within my professional community to help spread
quality teaching to novice educators who are looking to develop their own practices.

Part III Helping to Spread Quality Teaching

An essential responsibility of a quality teacher is their ability to transition into a
leadership role. With low teacher retention rates and mentoring programs that lack support and
knowledgeable mentors, it is an important role of quality teachers to diffuse their experience and
practices among their teaching communities and in curriculum development. Teacher leaders
provide the opportunity for teachers to reduce the sink or swim mentality so often felt by novice
teachers, which cause them to avoid creativity in fear of risk resulting in failure. In addition,
their experience can create consistency and sustainability for schools. I have begun to transition
into this role as a teacher who is continuously advancing my practices to be a quality educator.
This can be demonstrated through my participation in school committees and as a collaborative
learning team leader.
I have participated in committees in my school and there is one in particular that I was
proud to be part of. I joined the Model Schools Committee at my school over a year ago. In this
committee, a group of teachers within the school were working with administration to create a
writing program that would help to improve our scores on the state mandated tests. Overall the
committee was focused on create a writing initiative that would roll out across the school to

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ensure that all the teachers were incorporating the necessary writing skills for our students to
develop into proficient writers prior to graduation. Working together, the committee we created a
school rubric to help create a standard evaluation method for the students writing. We then were
the pilot group of teachers to use the rubric and practice teaching methods for writing to help test
out our work and then re-evaluate the program based on our feedback and data. [Artifact 8:
Working Rubric from Model Schools Committee and Writing Pilot Overview Information] This
was a very rewarding committee to participate in because I felt like I was making a difference in
my school community. Due to my social studies background I also felt like I brought some
expertise when it came to teaching writing. This has been one of my most satisfying experiences
as a teacher leader within my community.
Other opportunities to continue to grow as a teacher leader will continue in the next year
when I will become the leader of the collaborative learning team for AP Psychology. This is an
exciting opportunity for me to help fellow novice teachers who are new to the curriculum and to
teaching. My hope is to help express what I have learned about what quality teaching is to my
team next year and in our practices.
My journey to transforming into the quality teacher I desire has begun, but it continues
each year. Through all the knowledge I continue to gain through my graduate work, professional
development, and my own research, I will grow into the quality teacher I envision, but I will
strive to reach the exceptional. The Masters of Arts in Teaching and Curriculum (MATC) has
encouraged me to continue to grow and become a stronger and influential educator within my
community.

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References
Dewey, J. (1904). The Relation of Theory to Practice in Education. Middle Works.
Dweck, C. S. (2006). Mindset: The new psychology of success. New York: Random House.
Fenstermacher, G. D., & Richardson, V. (2005). On Making Determinations on Quality in
Teaching. Teacher College Record.
Gee, J. (2013). The Anti-Education Era: Creating Smarter Students through Digital
Learning. New York, New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Green, E. (2010, March 2). Building a Better Teacher. The New York Times Magazine.
Jewett, P., & MacPhee, D. (2012, October). Adding Collaborative Peer Coaching to Our
Teaching Identities. The Reading Teacher, 66(2).
Root-Bernstein, Robert Scott., and Michle Root-Bernstein, Sparks of Genius: The Thirteen
Thinking Tools of the Worlds Most Creative People. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin,
1999.
University of Michigan. (2015). High-Leverage Practices. Retrieved March 15, 2015, from
TeacherWorks: http://www.teachingworks.org/work-of-teaching/high-leverage-practices