Personal goal statement - MAET @ MSU

I seek entry into Michigan State University’s Graduate School program for Educational Technology due to my firm undergraduate foundation and my balanced strategy for utilizing this program to achieve my professional goals.

I earned my Bachelor of Science degrees in Chemistry and Secondary Education from Vanderbilt University. The Chemistry department in the College of Arts and Science emphasized hands-on applications of content material and the analysis of laboratory data. Analytical, general, organic, and physical chemistry courses utilized labs to explore topics with lab partners that required coordination and communication. Students collected data with digital probes, NMR and IR spectroscopy, and other techniques requiring the integration of technology that was subsequently analyzed with the latest graphing software for statistical analysis. I learned how to conduct proper research and documentation in a chemical literature course. The Secondary Education department at Peabody College emphasizes communication. I improved my communication skills not only through English, Communication Studies, and writing courses but also through courses highlighting classroom technology, especially microcomputer-based systems. Technology entered the classroom through students delivering presentations, reviewing current software available, preparing websites and activities on the internet, and conducting our work, records, and portfolios by electronic means. I learned through my undergraduate courses that there are numerous and growing means of utilizing technology for communication of information. I also learned that teachers, students, and the general public are only utilizing a small fraction of the resources available to them for both practical and lack of exposure reasons, which I’d like to explore during my graduate program.

Schools these days are developing to the point where they are dependent on technology for internal assignments and external relationships. The field of educational technology manifests itself in communication, information processing, and data storage. I wish to harness the potential of these manifestations in the classroom, in the administration of schools, in the education of the general public, and in my own research. Especially in the first field of communication, I think that a strong foundation educational technology allows me to effectively operate classes, programs, and schools. I plan to facilitate effective utilization in classes and programs through future trainings and peer-modeling, as a teacher. I plan to reach the larger community by employing my understanding in programs and schools, as an administrator. My long-term professional goal centers on sharing my dissertation in service-learning with the education community.

I seek to become a master teacher, an enterprising administrator, and solid scholar in my chosen field. My students benefit from instruction and programming that emphasize technology that they grow up using. Teachers often find themselves “behind the curve” and unable to use available software, hardware, and services – and employing technology is one of the necessary development areas for master teachers, in my opinion. Administrators also need to understand technology for proper investment decisions, facilitations of its use among disenfranchised teachers, and innovative uses to help schools operate effectively and efficiently. Finally, today’s scholars find a bedazzling and confusing array of tools for research, collaboration, and communicating information – and they must know how to efficiently collect, decipher, process, and publish their findings using the latest technology. Teachers, administrators, and scholars must all be able to contend with these choices brought by today’s technology. The emphasis in education is shifting away from rote learning to processing the vast amounts of current and future information, and thusly the world needs professionals trained to operate in this new paradigm.

My strong undergraduate education and five years of work experience in the U.S.A. and internationally have allowed me to mature and reflect upon technology’s role in my practice. Subsequently, I hold a strategy as a teacher and administrator that eventually will lead to my doctoral degree in service-learning.