Another Gas Station | Katherine B Hsieh

The Harvesting Season

MSU is a school well known for its teacher education programs, and the fifth-year teacher internship year was a big part of the program. Students in the education program were considered as post undergraduate students who take graduate level courses. There were six courses with four foci on each core subject area – Language Arts, Mathematics, Science, and Social Studies as well as two courses guiding through building a teaching portfolio and being teacher interns. In each of the core subject area courses, teacher interns had to design and teach mini lessons and unit lessons. Through the entire internship experiences, student interns go from observing mentors to gradually taking over the entire classroom. It was an extremely challenging and rewarding year for me. Learning how to use apply my knowledge about education to find different motivations to encourage student learning and classroom management were the two critical areas I have learned. This experience prepared me in becoming a classroom teacher not only in teaching methods and practices, but also my personality and philosophy as an educator.

Pursuing a degree in Master of Arts in Educational Technology (MAET) at Michigan State University (MSU) was a life changing decision that I made. There were a few reasons that came along with the decision of getting the degree through MSU – the study abroad program, transferring credits from teacher internship year as well as the Serious Game Design certification. Throughout the three-year experience, I have learned and grown a lot from

many different aspects from making the decision to go back to school, experiencing the world through new lenses, pushing myself out of the comfort zone, bringing technology to students, to being passionate about exploring possible future path.

After finishing my teacher internship at MSU, I immediately got a job in Greenville, Michigan as a 2nd grade Chinese immersion teacher. For a while, I felt lost because there is no longer a big goal in life for me to go after. Getting a job and moving out was the big mile stone that I had been working towards to for the past 24 years. All the sudden, the unexpected strong feeling of emptiness and lost was the new worry I had.

To me, instead of an experience where one enjoys learning the catching up with the ongoing changing world, education has always been more like a tool and way to get one’s foot in the door to make money. Going back to school was not the first choice coming to mind to solve the problem of not having a new goal to work toward for. The decision was a bit surprise to my family. I had only made the choice because I felt like I did not have enough understanding and tools to do what I wanted to do for my students. I wanted to go back to school to learn more for my students.

When I first started teaching in Greenville, I came to realization that many of the theoretical knowledge that I learned during my undergraduate years were becoming useful in my everyday teaching. In the process of choosing my area of focus, I have met and talked with a few professors and program directors. We talked about possibilities and my desperation wanting to help children in Chinese immersion program in the States by developing learning materials that could range from curriculum, apps, to games. It took me about a month to decide which program I wanted to do via MSU, and I finally chose to do the MAET program with certification in Serious Game Design and Research. This decision-making process was a critical learning point for me from this program. In the meantime, I have learned to be more responsible for my decisions. I was enthusiastic about perusing this degree because I chose to rather than because my parents wanted me to. I committed to new responsibilities because I want to be better.

My first courses in the MAET program were the Serious Game Design courses. I learned the most knowledge out of this part of the program because I had limited knowledge and experiences with playing games, especially serious games. My personal goal for entering the program was to be able to eventually participate in designing learning and teaching tools for students in Chinese immersion program. These courses introduced what serious games are and how I could possibly design games as tools for students. I have had a lot of practical experiences in researching, exploring, playing, designing, prototyping, playtesting, and analyzing different games that could help solve different problems for people. Every single assignment was an opportunity for me to get to know what I was passionate about. I did not do them just for completion of assignments, but I was willing to put in more effort and time walking way learning new things each time. These were very enjoyable courses.

The Serious Game Design courses opened a new door of interest for me in looking at teaching and learning through the lenses of game designing and playing. Before taking these courses, I never knew about this area of expertise. My impression and understanding of games had always been for entertainment. These courses provided opportunities for me to play games as both players and designers. Through different assignments, I was able to diagnose the pleasure and usability for different games as players as well as the design purpose and research as designers. Much like opening a can of worms, my curiosity in serious game design was growing out of control. I was constantly relating to designing serious games for different problems that I saw in students and everyday life. Whenever I saw a game, my head would start to spin to analyze the theory and purpose behind the game. I had never experienced such as high enthusiasm learning and studying about something other than teaching.

While I was in Ireland, I experienced taking the air plane alone, exploring new cities, asking for help, planning for my trip, living in dorms, going out to bars, signing up for activities, speaking at a conference, and much more for the first time. I found myself feeling more confident in communicating and sharing with people just as much as feeling okay pushing myself to the next level. This experience has shaped me to become a more extrovert person than I was before. I have become better at willing to deal with possible failures and learn from them rather than play safe all the time. I have grown a lot as a person more critically, independently, and risk taking from the traveling perspective.

Academically, I was challenged a lot. The courses were focused on physiology of learning and school of other settings, technology leadership, and approaches to educational research. With all the work from three courses condensed into four weeks, the workload was heavy. The three major projects were the Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) project, research 101 project, and the Global Resources in Education and Technology (GREAT) conference.

The TPACK project focused on working with a partner and use the TPACK model to consult and help each other solve a problem of practice he or she has been experience. Through this project, I had the opportunity to tryout some technology tools I learned in class. The research 101 project focused on conducting a research on a focused topic with in groups, and our topic was learning space. This project

was a simpler project, however, I learned a lot about learning space as well as collecting raw data to support the research.

The GREAT conference for my CEP 815 course was a huge focus we had because we had put together the entire conference from reserving venue, scheduling, promoting, inviting guest speaker, to holding a session with a partner. The most challenging part of this course for me was to get ready for speaking at the session. I signed up for a very unfamiliar topic – coding. With lots of research, I became familiar with being able to speak about how to integrate coding with other core subject areas for classroom teachers. On top of that, I also overcame my fear in speaking in front of peers and felt confident. I made a tremendous growth at the actual conference comparing to when I was rehearsing the session to my professors. Also, having to work very closely under high pressure with my partner. We went through working together, encouraging each other, to overcoming conflicts. This was a course that impacted me the most in this program. Overcoming the fear and hesitation and proofed myself that I could be great and be different was a turning point for me at the personal development level. This one course, I will never forget!

Just through everyday classes, I have learned and explore so many different tools and ways to integrate technological into teaching and learning. This part of the experience not only enriched my knowledge and technological teaching practices in the classroom, but also broaden and ensured my interest in going in to serious game design industry as a teacher in the near future to help develop teaching and learning tools for students, especially Chinese immersion students.

Finally, the capstone portfolio course does a fine wrap up job designing for students to take the time to organize and reflect the entire master program as well as setting future learning goals. From all the courses, I have become much better at challenging myself, setting goals, reflecting on past experiences, and making plans to work toward my goals. I am now bringing a lot of what I have learned throughout this program into my classroom with my students. Not only had I harvested academic knowledge and experiences, but I also grew a lot as a person and educator through MSU’s Master of Arts in Educational Technology.

At some point of time, I have specified my initial goal when entering the MAET program from designing and developing learning and teaching tools for Chinese immersion students to learning and teaching apps or games. I have had many chances to design games that target on problems or gaps that my students had to better help them. These initial ideas and designs are much like seeds that I have planted to help me get closer to my goal. Realizing that I enjoyed being a designer a lot in addition to being an educator, I had a more defined area that I wanted to work toward to by the time I was done with these courses. I have always known that I might feel settled just to be a teacher for the rest of my life. I have always known that I would like to try something different other than being a classroom teacher. These courses turned the lights onto a new possible path for me in the technology field.

These Serious Game Design courses also initiate coming up with new ideas in teaching students in my classroom. Gamifiying classroom management system as well as communicating with students with a game player background to gamify the idea of going to school and overcoming challenges was something new to me and my students. Throughout the school while I was taking online courses, I thought of new ideas to bring in to my classroom constantly. This made teaching even more enjoyable and refreshing; as I think of new ideas each time, I was able to think and evaluate critically from game play, designer, and teacher’s point of view.

After completing the certification in Serious Game Design and Research, my last big bulk part of the MAET program was going abroad to Ireland. I have always dreamt of traveling to different places like many of my friends. However, my family and I rarely travel far away from home because of our family owned restaurant. Neither had I ever traveled or lived separated from my family. The study abroad program was a four-week long program in Galway, Ireland. After comparing the financial piece, I figured a bit more investment in going abroad, I will be pushing myself more and learning more. When I booked my tickets, I gave myself extra two days prior to arrival as well as one extra week after the program. I wanted to push myself out of the comfort zone to travel and take risks on my own without any plans of how I was going to spend the extra time. I have always been very reserved about taking risks and stepping out of my comfort zone and trying new things. Because of this program, I have found myself to be more and more comfortable exploring different possibilities along with deciding to enter the MAET program.