“What are you going to do with that?” is the typical response I get when I tell people I am about to complete my Master of Arts in Educational Technology (MAET) degree. A graduate degree in education is not usually what people expect a paramedic to pursue to advance their career as a patient care provider. The conversation usually continues with me denying that I am planning a career change, or letting them know I am not obtaining a teaching certificate to teach high school. After that, there is usually a pause as they try to understand why I would spend the time to obtain a degree where the benefit is not so obvious. For me the answer is clear. I am going to improve my practice as an educator of the subject I am most passionate about; emergency medicine. And yet when I reflect on my initial search for a graduate program, “what are you going to do with that?” was the question I asked myself often when weighing my options.
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The stimulus to stop delaying and finally pursue my graduate degree came from my desire to obtain a full-time faculty position at the college where I had been teaching as an adjunct. Graduate degrees for those involved in emergency medicine are typically focused on obtaining a higher level of medical license, such as a Physician Assistant, or focused on administration or emergency management. I soon realized that while these programs would help me get the position I wanted, none of them would improve my skills in ways that would benefit my students. I felt that to improve as an educator I needed a deeper understanding of educational theory. After a long search, I found the Master of Arts in Educational Technology (MAET) program at Michigan State University (MSU). During my investigation of the MAET program I read the article; Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge: A Framework for Teacher Knowledge by Dr. Mishra and Dr. Koehler (2006). With courses designed to support the TPACK framework, and my increasing interest in using technology in the classroom, I knew the MSU MAET program would allow me to accomplish my goals.
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My first course, CEP 810: Teaching for Understanding with Technology, introduced me to the idea of expert versus novice learning. EMS education typically involves taking a content expert and having them explain concepts and demonstrate skills to the less experienced students. There is little appreciation that the content expert, by achieving their higher level of knowledge and skill, has become a more expert learner than the students. When the content expert presents their information, they typically do so from their position as an expert learner, using a style they prefer, not considering that the student does not have the experience, skill, or base of knowledge to understand the content the way it is being presented. Lessons are often designed in ways that work well for expert learners, but do not meet the needs of novice learners. This disconnect can also be seen in published textbooks and resources that many Emergency Medical Service (EMS) instructors rely on heavily. As an expert learner, I am able to contextualize and organize new information in ways my students are not. Understanding the differences between expert and novice learning allows me to more specifically design my lessons, and adjust my presentation of content, to better reach my students and be more effective as an instructor for learners of all levels.
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When I started the MAET program I was concerned that I would have very little in common with the other students in my courses. I had the mistaken assumption that my subject matter, student population, and teaching environment were all unique enough that I might not relate with other MAET students teaching in more traditional educational settings. This belief that my instructional situation is somehow unique, is also shared by many other EMS educators. This belief tends to isolate those in my field, who then fail to benefit from being part of a larger network of educators sharing wisdom and experience. I now realize the challenges that we face as educators, and the solutions to overcome these challenges, are not specific to any one topic or setting. In CEP 811: Adapting Innovative Technology to Education, this fact became clear when a fellow student, a kindergarten teacher, developed a lesson plan to address a problem she was having with her students understanding a particular topic. Her solution was creative and engaging, and I quickly saw a correlation to a problem I was having with my own students. The next week I adapted her lesson plan, still using the same piece of technology with the same student interactions, and created a very effective lesson for my college-level paramedic students. My students were participating in nearly the same activity as her kindergarteners, yet engaging with my specific content in ways that proved both fun and effective. My participation in the MAET program has given me a connection to a larger network of educators working in a variety of settings. Moving forward I plan to stay connected with, and encourage my fellow EMS educators to participate in these larger communities of practice, that continue to be a valuable resource in my development as an educator.
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Medical providers in emergency situations often operate under a great deal of stress. Preparing students to perform procedures successfully in an emergency can be a challenging task. In CEP 812: Applying Educational Technology to Issues of Practice, I explored the theories of working memory and cognitive load, and the effect they have on learning and completing tasks. In our efforts to simulate the stress of an emergency during training, it can be very easy to overload a student’s working memory and introduce heavy cognitive load. Only students with strong working memory, and the ability to learn under heavy cognitive load, tend to succeed. EMS students are often placed in simulated stressful situations too early in the learning process, before skill mastery has been obtained. The overloading of working memory and heavy cognitive load can make it impossible for the student to improve procedural skills beyond minimal competencies. Through my better understanding of working memory and cognitive load, I have changed my approach to teaching procedural skills. I am now able to design improved lessons that take these limitations into consideration. By allowing students to practice skills to a higher level of mastery, in smaller steps, I can reduce unnecessary cognitive load and prevent overwhelming working memory with too much information at once. In recent courses, I have delayed the use of stressful simulation until students have proven higher levels of procedural skill mastery than I used to require. By eliminating early simulation, I have found that students are taking less time overall to master skills, and their performance during the eventual simulations is improved despite participating in less simulation.
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Assessing a student’s true depth of cognitive understanding can be difficult in EMS education. To obtain their provider license after graduation my students must pass a computer adaptive exam, using multiple-choice style questions, administered by a national certifying agency. To better prepare students to be successful on the national exam, many EMS instructors exclusively use multiple-choice exams for both formative and summative assessment. In CEP 813: Electronic Assessment for Teaching and Learning, we explored assessment, and the ways in which assessment can best be used as a learning tool. Accepting the idea that formative assessment has no value if the student is not able to correct mistakes and receive another chance to demonstrate that learning occurred, was very transformational for me. Realizing the limitations that my current assessment practice had, I looked for ways to design a formative assessment that would help monitor the progress of my students, and that my students could use as a learning tool. Believing that exposure to assessments in the style of the national exam increase student success, I decided to try and modify my current assessments to meet my goals. During the course, I designed an electronic assessment tool that allowed students to be assessed, receive immediate feedback, link them to resources, and after additional study return them to the assessment to demonstrate their learning. Technology allowed me to add dimensions to my existing assessments without altering their form. While my students interact with the assessment quite differently than a traditional multiple-choice exam, the initial interaction with a question is the same as a student would have on their national exam. I have revised my assessment tool slightly since the course, and now use it with both my online and classroom based courses. Feedback from my students has been very positive, and I am encouraged to continue to develop the assessment tool further with the principles of assessment I learned in CEP 813.
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As I reach the completion of my graduate program, it is difficult to remember all the details of every course I completed. While there are many projects and courses that I remember well, and can attribute to making significant changes in my practice as an educator, there are many smaller moments throughout the program that cumulatively are just as important. I was fortunate to be teaching actively throughout the duration of my graduate work. As every week progressed, and new readings and projects were undertaken, I could take what I was learning and implement it into my teaching immediately. A short reading introducing a project would often inspire me to try something completely different with a lesson I was teaching the next day. While I had many less than successful lessons as I tried new ideas and techniques, these were far outnumbered by the successes. When something new worked, it became part of my ongoing practice. Over the course of the program this process helped me to build habits and find valuable techniques that I will continue to use be become a better educator.
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My choice to pursue a Master of Arts in Educational Technology degree has proven to be the right decision. While I no longer work for a college, and won’t be applying for any faculty positions, I am still teaching and more passionate than ever about education. I look forward to graduating, and the sense of accomplishment that will bring. I also look forward to sharing my experiences with my colleagues, and helping to improve EMS education as whole by applying what I have learned as a technology leader. I have accepted that this is not the end of my academic pursuits, there is still so much more I want to learn. Whatever path I choose going forward, I will prepare myself to answer that familiar question; “what are you going to do with that?”.
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References:
Mishra, P., & Koehler, M. J. (2006). Technological pedagogical content knowledge: A framework for teacher knowledge. Teachers College Record, 108(6), 1017-1054. DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9620.2006.00684.x