I have just come to the end of my first year working full time in an International School as a Performing Arts Teacher and completing my MA part time online. The year has certainly had its moments and it has changed my perspective on some areas of eucation as well as my time management and approach to life in general.
On commencing my MA I opted to do 2 units in the first instance. I asked for advice on units and whether or not the ones I was considering taking were the right choices. Of course I was told it was up to me whether I did 1 or 2 units and when I asked if Research Methods in Education (RME) was a good unit to start with I was told that should be fine. RME's unit description states that at the end of unit students will understand different knowledge forms, concepts in educational research and ethical implications among a number of other points. I clearly should read between the lines and realised that this unit was a direct lead in for the dissertation at the end of the course. It turns out I am not the only student who made this error as I have seen numerous other posts on the Facebook group for the course stating that they too have started with this unt. I truly wish someone had told me that ths was the unit where you did the groundwork for your dissertation and doing it first might not be the' best idea.
Doing 2 units at once was not my wisest idea. I did manage and amazingly got distinctions for both essays, but I decided very quickly that doing one unit at a time was far better.
I also discoverd that despite trying to be a diligent students and completing the set reading and activities online they did not always feed into my essay. Often the readings were very old. Sometimes the links were broken and you couldn't even access the materials you were being asked to read. The activities where you were expected to respond were generally ignored by students. I certainly began to ignore them as comments were years old and recent comments non-existent. In most courses the tutor wasn't regularly present online and so you didn't feel encouraged to participate.
My most recent course was Technology For Learning (TeFL) the tutor was certainly more responsive in this unit, but there was moments of irony. The unit explored what is considered 'good' or 'best' practice for online learning and in previuos units this did not occur. Sadly this set up my opinion for this unit and I was reluctant to engage. The courses need greater maintenance and time given by staff as we are paying vast amounts of momey for this without perhaps getting what we really should be.
Something that really sticks out to me as I study that many schools and educators are not keeping abreast of the latest research and applying it to their practice. I am as guilty as anyone else. When you are teaching you don't have time to research and begin to plan a way to implement what you have found into your teaching. If teachers and schools are to remain up to date then greater time needs to be given to Professional Development. This obviously costs money as covering classes to allow teachers to work in this way takes considerable time.
As a classroom teacher you should be able to take suggestions, research and ideas to management. Whether or not these get applied and utilised is another matter. Can we really provide students with the best if we continue under the current conditions for educators?
