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The Impact of MAET

The Impact of MAET

How my experience in the Master of Arts in Educational Technology program impacted my thinking and practice.

When I was young, adults would ask me, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" Throughout my primary education, I answered that I wanted to be a teacher. I loved school and learning. I enjoyed participating in class when the teacher called on me, and I responded to a question correctly. I had great relationships with my teachers and wanted to be like them. I originally applied to Michigan State University to pursue a degree in elementary education. I changed my major to chemistry and then to marketing. I landed on marketing as a major because I worked at a retail store part-time and excelled. It made sense to me to get a business degree since I showed an aptitude for that field. By the time I graduated, I was promoted to Store Manager and was responsible for a $3 million business. I didn't realize then that most of my Store Manager job was teaching. I taught employees how to fold, sell, lead, and many other skills.


As I worked my way up through management in retail companies, I became more aware that I was teaching, and I was good at it. I had the opportunity to train and teach new store managers and district managers, help design a global training program, and facilitate group training programs for more than 200 people at a time. I decided to move into Learning and Development as a career and needed to figure out how to transition. My experience in learning and development was extensive, but I needed the educational background or title to make me an attractive candidate to potential employers. I decided to pursue a Master's Degree in Educational Technology (MAET) at Michigan State University to round out my resume and learn the theory behind the practice of teaching online. The program helped me build confidence in my skills as a teacher and curriculum creator in the corporate world. It exposed me to the history, research, and theories that helped develop my philosophy on pedagogy and educational technology.


In my career, I designed many things: processes, policies, training programs, and more. Before I took Learning Technology through Design, CEP 817, during my master's program, I didn't utilize any standard or recognized process to design; I did what I thought felt right. Throughout the course, I learned about the Stanford Design Process's five steps: empathize, define, ideate, prototype, and test. I followed these steps when designing policies, training programs, and more, without knowing it was a defined, well-known process. For example, anytime I created a new policy for my retail stores, I would have the team review the policy and provide suggestions for improvement before implementing the policy. I knew that designing a policy based on their ideas would help with the execution of the policy; it helped add details and nuance I may have missed without getting their input. Knowing I was using steps that helped design effectively helped build my confidence. I always worried that my experience with learning and development wasn't as valid as someone in a Learning and Development role, and putting theory behind the steps I already took helped me realize that my experience was just as legitimate as anyone else's experience.


Learning about the design process reiterated the importance of the first step, "empathize." The purpose of the empathize step was to start from the point of view of people who would utilize the design. Designing from the users' point of view helped guide the process to a successful design. I learned that what designers thought might be an excellent solution to a problem didn't always align with what users needed. This realization helped me vow to continue starting with end users when designing and stay close to them throughout the process to ensure the design meets their needs.

After taking CEP 817 and many classes in the Department of Counseling, Educational Psychology, and Special Education, I decided to step out of the department of my master's program to take an elective, Adult Learning, EAD 861, in the Department of Educational Administration. I needed to understand the difference between young and adult learners to tailor my pedagogical and technological choices to benefit them. The class outlined the differences in adult learners' social contexts, cognition, motivation, and how adults learn.


In taking EAD 861, I realized that in addition to making the correct pedagogical and technological choices when teaching adults, I must consider the adult learners' social context, personal experiences, and more to make learning experiences inclusive. Considering the contexts of adult learners tied back to the empathize step in the Stanford Design Process that I learned about in CEP 817. As a trainer and teacher, I can't only make choices based on my experiences. In my job, many employees spoke Spanish as their first language. We provided policies, standard operating procedures, and HR support in Spanish. Doing this fostered a more inclusive environment and supported our employees as adult learners. I was already applying some of the concepts from EAD 861, which further bolstered my confidence in my work experience.


My confidence grew throughout my program, and working through my final class, Capstone in Educational Technology, CEP 807, allowed me to reflect on my work and learning. This course aimed to create an online portfolio of projects and writing completed during the MAET program. As I went through the course, I reflected on what I've learned and how it has impacted me. Several of the classes in my program taught the history and theory behind teaching and learning. I came to understand philosophies such as Cognitivism, Constructivism, Behaviorism, Humanism, and Social Learning Theory. Reflecting on the theories helped cement my philosophy around teaching and learning online. I saw each of the theories applicable to my pedagogy.


Cognitivism is applied by having learners self-reflect to help build their knowledge. When I coach my employees throughout the year, I ask them to reflect on what they have done well and what needs improvement. We record these reflections for review during each subsequent coaching conversation. When I train an employee on a new process, such as how to pick orders in the assembly department, I ask them to reflect on the steps of the picking process and quiz them on what to do in certain situations to help reinforce the training.


Behaviorism rewards employees who meet or exceed productivity goals and punishes those who consistently miss them. Each employee has an hourly productivity goal. We record and review employee productivity every week. Employees who meet or exceed their goals receive praise, both individually and in front of the group, along with periodic rewards such as gift cards or food. Employees who miss their goals consistently are held accountable with write-ups or performance improvement plans.


I apply Constructivism by providing problem-based activities to create knowledge. When teaching retail employees to understand how certain selling behaviors impact different metrics, I show them the calculations and then give them a problem such as, "If we increased our Average Order Value from $55 to $56, while all other metrics, like transactions, stay the same, what would be the amount of additional volume generated by the $1 AOV increase?" Problems like these allow learners to apply theory to real-life scenarios and help build learners' knowledge and understanding.


I operate from the humanistic learning theory, which puts the student at the center of learning instead of the teacher. Being student-centered brings us back to empathizing and ensuring that I base my teaching on the students' needs and wants. One way I apply the humanistic theory is by allowing employees to learn skills they are interested in and applicable to their current jobs. Offering an Excel training where employees signed up instead of requiring all employees to take the training, even if it didn't apply to their position, demonstrated the humanistic goal of building knowledge that immediately applies to the student.


I apply social learning theory to build teams in each department. Employees learn from those around them. I have at least one senior employee in a team who meets or exceeds their job requirements. The senior employee is a leader and mentor from whom others can learn. I also ensure that employees demonstrate a positive attitude and take the initiative to demonstrate behaviors for others to model. If an employee demonstrates negative behavior like gossiping or being late to work, we address these behaviors immediately. The saying "one bad apple can spoil the whole bunch" is true.


My confidence grew from 2021, when I started the educational technology program, to 2024, when I finished it. My belief that my experience in retail and operations with learning and development was less valuable than others has changed. As I took classes, I realized that I was doing many of the things at work that I learned about in my classes without knowing the formal theory behind them. Learning the formal theory and understanding why the things I was doing at work were successful bolstered my confidence. While reviewing my past work in CEP 807, I realized how much work and learning I had completed while working full-time. I took ten three-credit courses over two-and-a-half years. I learned about technology such as video editing through iMovie, Screenpal, and Camtasia, basic graphic design in Canva, and how to make a podcast. I gained exposure to the theory and history of learning, the education system, and assessment practices.


More importantly, over the two-and-a-half years, I also learned about myself. I learned how to balance the workload of school, my job, and personal commitments. I didn't always do the best at balancing, but I continued to reflect on what did and didn't work for me and got into a rhythm. I learned how to support my thoughts and arguments with carefully researched facts to back up my thinking. I learned to analyze research, theory, and writing critically. I learned to take feedback on my work gracefully and how to apply feedback to make significant improvements in further iterations of the work.


Reflecting on my work and learning while building my portfolio in CEP 807 led me to one of the most exciting takeaways from the MAET program: I learned about educational technology and learning theory from educators who used them while teaching. I was only sometimes conscious of that fact, but learning through seeing the application of my course topics helped reinforce my knowledge and made me feel confident that I chose the right program at the right school.


I may not have ended up in a traditional teacher role, but I teach in my career and consider myself a good teacher. My experience in learning and development is valuable, and the work I have completed in the MAET program was influential in building my knowledge and skills.

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