Investing, Not Spending Time

MATC Synthesis Paper

In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the

Master of Arts Degree in Curriculum and Teaching
Department of Teacher Education, Michigan State University

Sarah J. Wright
PID A44 72 4049
March 29, 2022
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Investing, Not Spending Time

“Do you two ever leave this place? They should really get you a cot so you can just sleep

here,” a custodian said to me and my fellow intern while we were completing our internship year

through Michigan State University. We were huddled together, working at a small table in a

classroom with our winter jackets on because the heat had been off since the end of the school

day and it was eight at night. While I did not realize it then, I do now: the amount of time

teachers put into teaching is well beyond the amount of time they have to plan in a regular day.

Between lesson planning, assessment building, stressing over student development,

communicating with parents, and so much more, teachers are often putting in more time than a

typical eight hour work day. This has come to be the norm for teaching, but through the Master

of Arts in Teaching and Curriculum program at Michigan State University, I have learned how to

invest my time planning, not simply spend it. Stephen Covey, author and keynote speaker, once

said, “The key is not in spending time, but in investing it.” Teachers must choose their goals for

the classroom wisely to ensure their time becomes an investment and not an expense.

Time Spent Planning and Designing Lesson

Teachers are often handed curriculum on a silver platter and just need to read the script,

anyone can do it, right? Well, this could not be further from the truth. Having taught in two

districts, three schools, and under four principals, I have learned that lesson planning is one of

the most difficult aspects of teaching. There is much to think about when creating or modifying

lessons in any given curriculum. Lesson design can make a teacher stand out as a quality teacher.

From the very beginning of my time in the MATC program, the focus has been on

aspects of quality teaching. During my internship, several of my MATC courses gave me the

opportunity to practice my skills in the area of curriculum and instruction with a focus in
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different content areas. With a focus on program standard two, I learned to write a ten day unit

plan in each content area. This was time consuming, but the time invested in curriculum design

was well worth the effort. In these lead teaching lesson plans, I attempted new strategies such as

literature circles and math workshop. The opportunity to step outside my comfort zone and try a

new model of teaching different from my mentor teacher was stressful and took a great deal of

planning. At the end of my lead teaching, I saw higher student engagement, deeper

understanding of content, and stronger communication skills being demonstrated by students.

My unit plans show strong understanding of the content I was teaching and how to teach it;

showing my mastery of program standard two. Careful planning takes time, but it is time well

invested because the outcomes develop students with stronger understanding.

I first stepped into a kindergarten classroom in 1998 and technology has evolved greatly

since then. While I was not a teacher in 1998, I feel my experience as a student is valuable in

understanding the evolution of technology in the classroom. Even from the time I started college

until now, technology in the classroom has changed drastically. Schools went from having one

computer lab to have one-to-one devices for all students. This shift has required teachers to learn

quickly and adapt on the go to ever-changing technology.

CEP805 and TE831 were two technology rich courses that taught me the importance of

using technology to enhance teaching and not simply using technology to replace paper and

pencil work. Teachers can spend a lot time playing around with technology and gain no real

enhancement for students. CEP805 showed me how to dig into content standards and use a

critical eye when examining existing technology tools. Just because a technology tool exists,

does not mean it will be beneficial in the classroom. Learning to judge technology tools by the

affordances they offer has helped me to invest my time digging into resources for my classroom
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that will be worthwhile for my students. All the knowledge I gained in this course about how to

judge technology tools was brought together in our final project where I was assigned to build a

digital resource library (Artifact 6) for a legitimate audience. I was able to create a technology

resource library that supports student learning and model evidence of program standard five. I

had to find and evaluate all resources and ensure they offered affordances paper and pencil could

not. Investing time in this digital resource library will be beneficial for years to come. When time

is invested rather than spent, the outcome is often useful for more than just one day of teaching.

Designing curriculum is hard work and takes true investment from teachers. In my first

few years of teaching, when expectations piled up, I was quick to look for an outside resource to

meet my needs. I usually wasted time trying to find something and settled for a sub-par resource

because I was short on time. The MATC program has helped me gained the confidence and

ability to design my own tools and resources. Practice program standards two, four and five has

helped me invest my time in better teaching practices and stronger curriculum.

Time Spent with Students

No matter how great a lesson is or how much time a teacher invests in planning, unless a

teacher knows their students, it will not be successful. A teacher must take time to build

relationships with students and learn their strengths and growth areas. It is through relationship

building teachers can set the foundation for high student engagement which will result in

learning growth. The first standard of the MATC program is “understanding and commitment to

students and their diversity.” I view this standard as one of the most important. Teachers must

know each student individually and recognize the diversity they bring to the classroom.

One of my first classes I took for the MATC program was TE801 during my internship.

The first assignment for this course was about getting to know the classroom, students, and
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community I would be spending my internship working. One of our tasks for this assignment

was to identify mathematical and social strengths for each student. In my reflection I wrote, “It is

easy to say that you know your students well and know all of their strengths and weaknesses, it’s

an entirely different thing to have to write them all down” (Artifact 1). In Artifact 1, I also wrote

“As a classroom teacher who spends about seven hours with students every day, it is my job to

spot their strengths and use them to aid in the structure of my classroom.” My MATC courses

have helped me learn the importance of investing time early in the school year to get to know my

students and this skill has been a key factor in the success of my classroom each year.

Beyond getting to know students and using their diversity in the classroom, the activities

students engage in need to be worth their time. I teach at the middle school level, so I only see

my students for about fifty minutes a day. It is important that the activities I have them engage in

each day are opportunities for them to invest their time improving their skills and not simply

spend their time with mindless activities. TE855 was one of my favorite courses of the MATC

program. In this course my skills as an educator and curriculum designer improved greatly. The

purpose of this course was to support me as an educator in taking “pragmatic steps to change my

practice over the course of the semester” (TE855, Bieda Syllabus). MATC standard two is to

“understand subject matter, how to teach it, and how to design curriculum, instruction, and

assessment to foster students’ understanding.” This goal was a strong focus in TE855 where we

practiced writing curriculum in our instructional design projects. I had the opportunity to take

pre-existing curriculum and enhance it through ways being studied in the course. One example

was when I turned a notes heavy lesson on special cases of equations (with no solution or infinite

solutions) into an opportunity for students to practice using justification to support their

reasoning. In just one lesson, I saw my students’ communication skills improve and their ability
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to back up their claims required them to have a deeper understanding of concepts. Through this

MATC course I developed techniques to support my students in the classroom and make the time

they are in my classroom an investment in their learning journey.

When students know classroom expectations, a classroom functions at a higher level.

Less time is spent on management and more time is invested in actual learning. An elective I

took for the MATC program was CEP841 where we explored ways to “develop individuals who

are self-regulated learners – learners who have internalized for themselves why, when, where,

and how to behave” (CEP841, Mariage Syllabus). When students are self-regulated learners they

are capable of focusing more attention on learning academics instead of learning how to behave.

Investing time in the beginning of the year to promote self-regulation in the classroom is

essential for student learning to reach its full potential.

A major portion of CEP841 was a special topics project where I selected a topic I was

interested in, completed research and designed a presentation to communicate my new learning

(Artifact 8). For this project, I select a discipline technique called Cooperative Discipline. This

project helped me to achieve MATC program standard number four, to be reflective and

complete systematic inquiry and refinement of my practice. Through studying Cooperative

Discipline, I learned how to best set up my classroom for student success. I reflected on practices

in my classroom that were problematic and not supporting student self-regulation, such as not

having clear classroom expectations. This project helped me understand how to defuse

problematic behavior. By investing time in discipline and helping my students to self-regulate

their behavior, I am able to make the most of the limited time I have with my students each day.

Without students the work teachers do is pointless. Therefore, teachers need to make the

most of their time with students. To do this, it is essential for teachers to take the time to get to
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know students’ diversity, their academic strengths and establish clear behavior expectations.

When these three elements are well-establish within a classroom, time can easily be invested in

student learning and not spent dealing with behavioral issues.

Time Spent Collaborating with Peers and Learning

Teaching can easily become an isolated and lonely job. Many teachers have the freedom

to do what they wish, so they shut their door and do not collaborate with other teachers. But,

teaching is meant to be a collaborative job. The work teachers do is difficult and they need the

help of peers, parents and students to be successful. MATC standard six includes collaboration

initiatives and professional learning communities. When these are used correctly, a teacher is

better able to educate students and develop curriculum that is worthwhile to students.

In TE807, we began by reflecting on our beliefs of quality teaching. Throughout the

semester I explored different views on quality teaching and refined my own stance on quality

teaching (Artifact 3). One of my tenets of quality teaching was that a teacher is an expert in

content and delivery (MATC Standard 2). In this description I included that collaboration

between teachers must happen for teachers to become experts. Having opportunities to discuss

and view other’s teaching makes one a better educator. When teachers invest time collaborating

to find better ways to teach and improve their practice, time is well invested and not wasted.

A problem I often face in teacher collaboration is that time is spent doing too much

fellowship. It is easy for teachers to become friends because so much time is spent together. I

have found it important to set aside time to collaborate and time to fellowship. When these two

events are separated, time is better invested in improving teaching practices. Finding a balance

between fellowship and collaboration is key for a teacher to refine their practice, improve the

curriculum and design assessment to foster students’ understanding.

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When teachers invest time collaborating, problems are often identified that exist within

the classroom. Having conversations about issues that arise can help teachers to find ways to

improve their practice. Throughout my time in the MATC program, I have had the opportunity to

complete several action research projects to find ways to improve my practice. All of the topics I

explored where problems I brought to other educators and they never had great solutions. Some

conversations do lead to fruitful solutions, but when another teacher cannot help, action research

is a great option to analyze issues of practice within my classroom (program standard 4).

While several of my courses did provide action research opportunities, the first course to

show me the potential of action research was TE804, which meets MATC program standard

four. In this standard, educators show they are reflective and inquire about one’s practices. I was

curious as to why my students were not independent problem solvers and what I could do to

better support their learning. An issue I saw in my internship classroom was students raising their

hand and doing nothing while waiting for the teacher’s assistance. I spent time researching what

other educators do to try to support students’ independence to overcome challenges. I

implemented a new technique, which you can read about in Artifact 2, and tracked its

effectiveness. In the end, I learned my technique did not work well and I went back to the

drawing board to try something else. This experience taught me that what works in one teacher’s

classroom, may not work in another and teachers need to have perseverance to overcome

problems facing their classroom.

Collaborating is important to successful teaching. The ability to bounce ideas off other

educators and try them in my own classroom shows my commitment to MATC program standard

four. Meaningful collaboration with teacher peers has allowed me to grow in my identity as a

teacher and continue to refine my teaching practices.

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Time Spent Grading and Offering Feedback

When I first started teaching I graded everything students turned in. I quickly became a

robot and only marked incorrect answers, but did not provide any feedback. There just was not

enough time to provide meaning feedback to all of my students on all of their assignments.

When I continued working on my MATC program, I learned the value of feedback.

Feedback helps students to make improvements in their learning and their journey to

mastery of content. Without feedback, students only see a score and often equate their abilities to

a number and give up on improving if the number was lower than they wanted. The opposite is

also true – if a student scores high, but gets no feedback on their work, it can feel like their hard

work was not appreciated or valued and they may not try as hard on the next assignment.

I experienced this defeating feeling first hand in one of my MATC courses. Some

professors took the time to provide detailed feedback and others just gave a score on

assignments. In CEP841, I got feedback from my professor that made me realize how important

this is to me and why I should spend time giving feedback to students, even if that means grading

less assignments. “Teachers possess tremendous power to have far-reaching influence on their

students. They can be sources of humiliation or inspiration. They can hurt or heal. They can

destroy or build” (Larrivee, 2009, p. 8). My feedback helps to build positive relationships with

my students and shows understanding of MATC program standard one – being committed to my

students. Realizing the power that feedback has in my classroom has been game changing. I can

have conservations with students about what skills they need to improve in to raise their grade or

the exact part of an assignment that made me proud of their work.

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Grading is a part of teaching that will never go away, but time can be invested by

providing feedback. Feedback is essential to student growth and positive relationships.

Therefore, time should not be simply spent marking correct or incorrect responses.

Conclusion

My time in the MATC program at Michigan State is coming to an end, but my work

towards improving my teaching practice and investing my time in curriculum will continue

throughout my career as an educator. This program has given me the confidence to develop

meaningful curriculum changes within my school and district. I now know what needs to be done

to improve my teaching and effectively reach more students. Time should be invested in

curriculum development and design by continually adjusting what and how curriculum is being

taught to students. My work in the MATC program has prepared me to use classroom time

wisely and drawn my attention to areas where time should be invested to improve teaching.
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References

Covey, S. (2016). The seven habits of highly effective people: Powerful lessons in personal

change. Mango.

Larrivee, B. (2009). Authentic classroom management: Creating a learning community and

building reflective practice. Pearson Education.