Running Head: The Phases of Teaching 1

The Phases of Teaching

MACT Synthesis Paper

In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the

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

Angela L. Eckerle
PID A40175574
July 22, 2017
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As a young girl I knew I wanted to become a teacher. I loved working with others and

helping them to achieve their goals. I did not truly understand what teaching meant, however,

until I attended Michigan State University and learned all the different aspects of the field. I

learned a lot in the university classroom, but being able to apply what I learned in class during

my internships really prepared me for the profession. Growing up we paint pictures in our heads

of our dream job, and for me my picture has changed only for the better, and I have learned that

this picture is forever changing since there is never one right way to teach.

I attended Michigan State for my undergraduate study and returned for my masters in

teaching and curriculum knowing that I would be provided with the best resources and professors

to help me become a better educator for my students. After undergrad, I held a yearlong

internship at Holt High School where I began to study the readings of good teaching practices

and was able to try them myself. I found my internship to be an invaluable experience, and

know I would not be the teacher I am today with out it and the support that I obtained during that

year. New teachers easily become overwhelmed as they are trying to please everyone, including

their administrators, colleagues, parents and most importantly their students. During this time

these teachers often forget to take care of themselves, which can cause them to lose sight of their

teaching practice. Luckily, I was able to have peers experiencing the same aspects as I was

during my internship and a mentor that was well equipped and knew what signs to look for. As I

thought during my internship, I would learn a lot about how to teach, which was true, but in fact

I learned most was that I needed to make time for myself. With a mentor teacher always

available she was able to keep me in check and help me find ways to create more time for myself

and not bring work home every night.

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Now fast forward to my fourth year of teaching and finishing my masters program, I am

still having troubles separating myself from school but am now able to realize how my mentor

teacher was able to help me during a stressful year. According to Moir , a new teachers attitude

can change during four different phases: anticipation, survival, rejuvenation, reflection, and will

recycle back to anticipation (Moir). Even though Moir believes this to be true for new teachers, I

have experienced this every year I have been teaching.

At the end of every summer I become excited to start the new school year and work with

my students, but then become stressed and overwhelmed with keeping up with grading and

lesson planning. This stress usually causes sickness and even the feeling that you will never be

able to get yourself out of a hole. Then to your relief when winter break allows you to rest and

get back on your feet and finish the next half of the school year. As the end of the school year

approaches you begin to reflect on what has gone well and what could be better so you can create

a to-do list over the summer to help the next school year be even better than the last. With these

different phases that a teacher can go through, having a mentor to help and support you through

is very invaluable to not burn out and stay in the survival phase the entire year.

After completing my MATC coursework I have realized how fortunate I have been to go

from intern to preparing to mentor new teachers. Going through these phases myself and

knowing how I was supported by my mentor and now being able to use my knowledge obtained

from Moir I find to be invaluable. When I began teaching I was afraid to ask for help as I

thought it would make me seem weak, but now after knowing that these phases that teachers go

through I feel I could advise new teachers that I was nave and made my internship and first

years of teaching harder on myself because of this mindset.

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When I finished my undergrad at MSU one of my teaching professors asked me what I

was most nervous for when getting into the classroom. I told her that I was nervous to find out

how I can bring my personality into the classroom and still be able to teach the content. She told

me that this is an important goal to have for myself, but will find that my teaching persona will

be ever changing. I first thought there was no way, I am who I am and dont want to constantly

make changes to fit in. After reading Cruickshank and Haefele, I learned there are ten

different types of teacher traits and teachers personalities use a combination of this list (2001).

As I found after taking the Philosophic Inventory Self Test that I was a mixture of progressivism

and existentialism teaching philosophies, holding true to the idea that teachers are combinations

of traits. If I didnt combine my creativity with my knowledge of content I would not be able to

give my students the opportunity to see how math is all around them.

My mentor teacher realized how much of a passion I had to bring math to life for my

students and would help me brainstorm, which I believed encouraged a stronger philosophic

viewpoint of progressivism. What I had also found throughout teaching was that not all teachers

were like me, and this is where the combination of traits could be any mixture to create a well-

rounded teacher. But this also means that there could be a combination that creates a teacher that

you need to avoid.

Bullying in the workplace is present no matter where you work, and surprisingly with

how many rules and laws we follow as teachers to prevent bullying, there is nothing to protect us

as adults from it. As an intern you are willing to do anything to help build your resume, as a first

year teacher you are willing to do anything to make sure you keep your job, and in years after

that you continue to uphold this because you have grown accustom to this idea of bending over

backwards. Unfortunately there are people that might feed off of you and take credit for your
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time and effort. We all know this is present in the workplace and could name someone like this,

but until I had read about these types of people I was fine with letting this happen. I would keep

my nose to the ground and keep a smile on my face, but I know that if I cannot get rid of the

narcissistic environment around me, I would be more stressed and never be able to overcome the

survival phases, as I would constantly be walking on eggshells. With the readings I have learned

to be careful with whom I speak with about the problem, and document. While thinking of ways

to mentor a new teacher, this would be something to offer help with as being stressed to due a

bully is too distracting and takes away your focus from your students.

Throughout the MACT program I have been asked what makes a great teacher. After

completing the program, I cant give you one specific answer but rather can simply say a great

teacher is one that strives to work hard for the benefit of their students. At the end of the school

day students do not know how many degrees you have, who you have collaborated with, who

you have bullying issues with, how you were evaluated, and even the philosophical viewpoint

that you have on teaching. What students do realize is how much you are willing to do in order

to connect with them and make learning fun. But we all know as educators that in order for our

students to realize this, we need to go through the above list and then some in order to be the best

we can be. That is why I chose to continue my education and complete my masters in Teaching

and Curriculum in order to dig deeper into my practice.

During my time with the MATC program I also decided to certify in technology.

Technology is constantly changing in the classrooms, and this program gave me many new

resources as well as tips on how to adapt with new technology. The most important thing that I

learned as trying to bring more technology into the classroom was to try one new resource at a

time and actually sit down to learn it. Dont go through the resource and find its missing
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something and quickly disregard it to move onto the next bigger and better thing. Technology is

just a tool to use to make the content better, not something that has to have everything in order to

be effective.

Technology, Pedagogy, and Content Knowledge or TPACK, ensures that if the three are

used together how it can effectively improve your practice. In the classroom I have used

technology for lessons, but after learning about TPACK, I realized that the technology that I used

was providing answers instead of helping my students explore questions. The technology used

should be a tool to help students dig deeper into the content that the teacher presents. The

teacher is to use their methods to present the curriculum and the technology helps to rope in the

learner. I have found that when I have created lessons that utilize the TPACK framework my

students have been more engaged.

We live in a world of teaching were students hold devices with all of the answers, but

allowing students to use these devices to create a deeper understanding is more beneficial and

sparks their interest. For one class I was asked to repurpose a lesson plan and incorporate a new

technology. What I had found once completing this assignment was that it created a more

exploratory lesson for my students. Instead of me being in front of the class and lecturing on the

new topic, the students were able to use the technology to discover and create definitions for

themselves. The lesson allowed the students to use their own words to describe what they saw

taking place with the technology. Then at the end of the lesson I used technology to aid in the

formative assessment and could instantly see results of their levels of understanding, rather than

go home and risk the chance of not grading it within one night to ensure my class was ready for

the next days lesson. During undergrad we had studied how important this type of feedback
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was, but now seeing the instant results allowed me to analyze how to make adaptations for

individual students easier.

This masters program instilled in me that what we learn in class is best understood when

put into practice. When asked to make adaptations to lesson plans whether to incorporate a

better use of technology or to ensure the content knowledge was being upheld, they never were

complete until implemented. Even once the lesson was taught the most important part of this

practice would be the reflection on if the adaptations made were effective. The reflection

process wasnt necessarily a quick written blurb, but at times video conferencing classmates to

bring up issues that took place in order to work together to find solutions. As teachers we ask

students to work together to problem solve, and I found that when asked to participate in these

practices during my course work I found these brainstorms to be very informative and even

breakthroughs at times.

Not only was I asked to hold video-conferences with classmates but even to follow each

other on twitter. My students use social media 24/7 so when asked to post assignments on this

resource I was nervous at first for the world to see my work. I quickly found that the work that I

was completing was to help fellow educators learn along with me. Educators constantly search

the web in order to find resources to use, which during this program I had been creating. When

posting my work on a blog it often times would get much traffic but as soon as I added hash tags

on twitter and linking my blog, I was giving my work the opportunity to be found be simpler

searches. I also found through twitter that adding other educators and educational sites I was

able to broaden my info-diet. Often times when we search the web, our browser has become

biased based on our previous searches. By adding different organizations on twitter I was able to

obtain information that a search engine might not have shown me due to this bias.
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I have also learned when using resources from the Internet that I must look at the type of

copyright. If I am using the resource for educational purposes and create a remix of whats

provided then I have to made sure that those rights are granted in order to uphold my digital

citizenship. Remixing is the mash-up of other peoples ideas or work in order to repurpose to

create something new. For example, I took a childrens puzzle, Makey Makey kit, computer, and

an online maze mixed them together to help students work through the steps of a problem. Every

step the student took with each puzzle piece, it queued the computer program to move through

the maze. Projects like this allowed me to see how I can reuse anything in the classroom and

give my students an opportunity to problem solve.

Overall these experiences allowed me to reflect on how I can better myself as a teacher

and figure out what it means to become a great teacher. In my last semester I was asked to put

together a mentorship tool kit for incoming teachers. My experiences with technology,

repurposed lesson plans, and various teaching practices articles allowed me to highlight what

tools I thought would have been most helpful during my internship and first year of teaching.

The tool kit allowed me to think of scenarios that I have experienced and use the research during

this program into action. From curriculum help, technology, and even parent involvement I was

able to incorporate my traits as a teacher into what I thought would be best when a colleague was

seeking advice. When making this tool kit I kept thinking back to my mentor teacher during my

internship and how much support she had provided to me and know when I needed help the most

and was too stubborn to ask. She often would make suggestions during our prep time and try to

incorporate it in a way that it would benefit my next lesson, which always opened up an avenue

for a more honest dialogue and helping me to exit survival mode. As a young teacher you cannot

predict what curve ball will be thrown at you next and mentors arent going to be sitting in the
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class to advise you later during your prep. This tool kit allowed me to take some of those

scenarios and put together the advice that I was given or what I had to learn myself and wish I

would have known before hand. When looking back and reflecting during the tough beginning

years it make me more appreciative of the experiences and advice that I was given, and hope that

the resources that I have provided can one day do the same for another teacher. I know I could

easily expand the tool kit I created, but for now I know there is still more to experience and

learn. One day I hope to make my experiences come full circle and mentor an intern, as I finish

my masters program I feel I have prepared for the next step of my career in teaching but know I

have much more to learn before I can give a young teacher the experience that I had.

As I come to my conclusion I believe Sullivan and Glanz say it best by stating, Teaching

is complex and not easily defined or understood, (p. 35, 2013). When trying to explain my

experiences and define how I have become a better teacher, it has been hard to put into words but

rather I can feel humbled as I see improvements when putting my education into practice. I

know I have much more to learn and that the ones who really benefit are my students. I cannot

wait to see what lies ahead of me as an educator, and know that this program has helped shape

me into who I am as a teacher. So when thinking back to my pre-internship fear of my

personality as a teacher, I have found my professor was right that it has changed. Every year is a

new beginning and with each beginning I find myself trying new things and changing how I

present information. My philosophy stays the same but my day-to-day style may change in order

make sure I am able to reach all learners as for how the content can connect to them. I cannot

define what I do as a math teacher at all times but I can say that I understand that my learning is

not complete in order to become a great educator. Therefore as I finish my masters, I am

thankful for the phases of anticipation for how the program would help me become a great
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teacher, surviving a full time job while trying to complete coursework, rejuvenating during

breaks between classes, and as always reflecting on my practice in order to better myself to

better my students.
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References:

Cruickshank, D.R., & Haefele, D. (2001). Good teachers, plural. Educational Leadership, 58

(5), 26-30.

Leahy, R. (1995). Becoming a Teacher: Accepting the Challenge of a Profession

Moir, E. (n.d.). Phases of First-Year Teaching.