Identify your career goals and what led you to begin your graduate program.

Identify your career goals and what led you to begin your graduate program.

MAECEL Virtual Toolbox – Tool #2 Practical Application of My Graduate Program

An important overarching theme of the content for this week of class has been what it takes to become an early childhood professional. In your reading and discussion on professional standards you had to defend standard 6d: Integrating knowledgeable, reflective, and critical perspectives on early education (NAEYC, 2011). In your discussion on ethics in early childhood education you acknowledged the importance of engaging in an “ongoing process of self-reflection…” (Bredekamp, 2017, figure 16.3). As you can see, an important aspect of becoming a professional is reflection.

In the article, Fostering Reflection (Links to an external site.), Danielson (2009) states that “Great teachers know when to make decisions quickly and when to step back and reflect” (para. 1). As part of your reflection as both an educator and a student, it is important that you understand how the learning you are engaged in right now will not only benefit your future career, but has important practical application. The purpose of this assignment is to guide you in this reflection process in the hopes that as you progress through your program you will continue to reflect on what you learn in each course.

Content Expectations:
For this assignment you will create a presentation for your future self. This presentation should be created as a 5-6 slide power point or Google Slides presentation.

Your presentation audience is your future self upon completion of your program capstone course. Your presentation must include the following:

Goal(s) upon Entering this Program

Identify your career goals and what led you to begin your graduate program.

Defend why these goals are important to you and the impact they will have on the field of early childhood education.

Program Learning Outcomes (PLO’s)

Summarize each of the 7 program learning outcomes (please refer to the instructor guidance for a complete list of the program learning outcomes). In your summary, include examples how each PLO is specifically aligned with the NAEYC Standards for Early Childhood Professional Preparation and its practical application to the field of early childhood education. Support this portion of your presentation by directly citing the NAEYC standards.

Tying it Together

Explain specifically how each program learning outcome supports your individual career goals.

Defend to your future self how mastering each of the program learning outcomes has practical application to not only the field of early childhood education, but also to your specific career goals. Support this portion of your presentation with at least two scholarly resources.

Research and Resource Expectations:

Source Requirement:

At least two scholarly peer-reviewed or credible sources. Please use the MAECEL Source Guide if you need assistance with how to locate scholarly peer-reviewed or credible sources.

Writing and Formatting Expectations:

Title Slide: Must include a separate title page with the following:

Title of presentation

Student’s name

Organization: Demonstrates logical progression of ideas.

Syntax and Mechanics: Writing displays meticulous comprehension and organization of syntax and mechanics, such as spelling, grammar, and punctuation.

APA Formatting: Papers are formatted properly and all sources are cited and referenced in APA style as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center (Links to an external site.).

Suggested Assignment Length: This assignment should be a 5-6 slide power point or Google Slides presentation (not including title and reference pages).

Next Steps: Review and Submit the Assignment

Review your assignment with the Grading Rubric to ensure you have achieved the distinguished levels of performance for each criterion. Next, submit the assignment for evaluation no later than Day 7.

Carefully review the Grading Rubric (Links to an external site.) for the criteria that will be used to evaluate your assignment.

1. Identify your own strengths and develop areas for personal growth.

What it REALLY means: When you leave your comfort zone, you learn things about yourself. For example, when you organized the fundraiser for Bhutan, were you patient with other people? If not, why not? Maybe you could try to improve this area of personal growth. When you saw those homeless people in Prague, were you shocked? If yes, why? Could this help you improve your perception of the world and help you become a more open-minded individual?

2. Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills in the process.

What it REALLY means: What have you done to push yourself? What was unfamiliar about it? What skills do you think you developed? For example, have you run a marathon? Set yourself a goal before embarking to Prague and develop new skills to achieve your goal.

3. Demonstrate how to initiate and plan a CAS experience.

What it REALLY means: This one’s easy! When you are organizing your CAS events or activities, just make sure you keep notes on how you organized them, who you contacted and what the organizational process was like.

4. Show commitment to and perseverance in CAS experiences.

What it REALLY means: All IB diploma students are thinking the same thing – why do we have to do this when we have so much to do already? You are not alone. We know this sounds unbelievable now, but you will benefit from it so much in the future. Whatever happens, keep going! Take one step at a time and you will reach your end goal.

5. Demonstrate the skills and recognize the benefits of working collaboratively.

What it REALLY means: Participate in team activities. Simple. One of the best and most fun parts of CAS Trips is the team work. This can range from learning a new collaborative activity such as Salsa in Colombia to being involved in a volunteer group. You are stronger when you work in a team. Think of Cristiano Ronaldo or Lionel Messi – they are soccer stars but without their teammates they wouldn’t have accomplished what they have today.

6. Demonstrate engagement with issues of global significance.

What it REALLY means: There are so many global issues right now it’s hard to know which one to support most. Global warming, the refugee crisis, homelessness, cancer research? CAS Trips advice – pick one per year and think what you can do to help that cause from where you are. Plan it. Initiate it. Do it. That’s CAS, folks! You can also have a look at the UN Sustainable Development goals and see which issue you are interested in and can tackle.

7. Recognize and consider the ethics of choices and actions.

What it REALLY means: Your parents have been telling you this for as long as you can remember and your teachers joined in a little later: The things you do and the choices you make have consequences. Think about the CAS activities you are doing and how they affect others. Is what you are doing right or wrong? How?

maecel_virtual_toolbox__1___1_ fostering_reflection

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Identify your career goals and what led you to begin your graduate program.
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