Mallory Pickens's Coursework
This page of my online portfolio showcases the coursework I completed in the Master of Arts in Education program through Michigan State University with a concentration in Science and Mathematics Education. I began this journey in the Fall of 2008 with my yearlong, student teaching program and will finish in May of 2013. Below you will find a brief description of the courses I took during the program as well as work samples from each course.
TE 801: Professional Roles and Teaching Practice for Mathematics
Instructor: Laura Kueffner | Fall 2008 ​

This course was one of the four courses taken during my internship year. In this course, we focused on planning and teaching different mathematic lessons and assessing our students throughout the lessons. Specifically, we focused on different ways we can gather data from our students and the different ways students approach problem-solving in mathematics. We were able to share what we learned in our own internship experiences with our peers who were at other schools in the Metro Detroit Area and learned best practices for specific mathematic topics. Below you will find links to the math unit I had planned for this course, my own reflection of the unit, and my reflection of my internship placement from a mathematical perspective.
Master of Arts in Education
TE 802: Reflection & Inquiry in Teaching Practices I
Instructor: Dr. Renee Wohl | Fall 2008 ​

This course was another course that was taken during my internship year. In this course we focused on the importance of literacy and what it looks like in the classroom. We spent a majority of the semester focusing on the literacy experiences in our internship. Specifically, we discussed what our own idea of literacy was, how we can promote progress in literacy (both reading and writing), the importance of understanding what our students know and where we want them to be, and how we can help them reach their literacy goals. Below you will find a link to the Language Arts unit I created for this course that focused on one "I Can" statement that was implemented over the course of two weeks in the classroom.
TE 804: Reflection & Inquiry in Teaching Practices II
Instructor: Wayne Hewitt | Spring 2009 ​

This course was also taken during our internship year. In this course we focused on the Inquiry process in science. We discussed the importance of allowing our students the opportunity for as many hands-on, real life experiences as we can when it comes to learning science. We talked about the scientific process and how the students should constantly be asking questions and challenging their own (and their peers) thinking. Below you will find links to the science unit I created for this course and my own reflection of the unit.
CEP 883: Psychology of Classroom Management
Instructor: Vicky Mousouli | Summer 2011 ​

This course focused on different aspects of classroom management. Throughout this course we read different literary texts and had discussions with our peers about intrinsic and extrinsic motivation techniques, the importance of relationships within a classroom, being proactive with our classroom management, and behavior support and the importance of documentation. The final project for this course was to develop our own classroom management plan that showcases what we learned in the course and how we would implement that into our classroom in the fall. Below you will find the links to the presentation I created for this course that explained what I had learned about classroom management as well as how I would implement what I have learned in my own classroom. I have also included a link to my reflection for this course
TE 855: Teaching School Mathematics
Instructor: Kevin Simpson | Fall 2011 ​

The emphasis of TE 855 was placed on an understanding of what teaching and learning mathematics looks like in a classroom. We spent the semester discussing different methods for teaching mathematics in our own classrooms and worked together with our peers to develop a plan of how to implement mathematic lessons that aren't focused solely around route memorization and rules and procedures. Below you will find links to my Action Research Project for this course as well as the presentation I created to share my finding with my peers.
TE 846: Accommodating Differences in Literacy Learners
Instructor: Jen Knight | Spring 2012 ​

TE 846 focused on differentiating among literacy learners. We spent the beginning of the course discussing our own reading and writing curriculum with our peers and different things we do on our own to differentiate for different leveled readers and writers. The second portion of the class focused on creating different types of assessments for reading and writing. Finally, we discussed with our peers our different accommodations and modifications that we currently do and could do in the future to help differentiate with reading and writing. Below you will find a link to the main project from this course. We were asked to pick a student to focus on in our classroom and to create two separate, individualized lessons for the student and document what we did and our assessment results.
TE 831: Teaching School Subject Matter with Technology
Instructor: Akesha Horton | Summer 2012 ​

TE 831 focused on integrating technology into our everyday classroom curriculum. We spent the course exploring different technologies, many that were web-based, that could be implemented into any classroom. The importance of integrating technology with subject matter is making sure the technology matches the content knowledge and pedagogical knowledge of both the students and teachers. We worked together with our peers to create a resource of all of the technology materials we created throughout the course that could be adapted for any lesson or classroom. Below you will find a link to the digital story I created, the lesson plan and reflection for the lesson I created to integrate technology in the classroom, and the Glogster poster I created to go along with the lesson.
TE 870: Capstone Seminar
Instructor: Matthew Koehler | Fall 2012 ​

TE 870, our Capstone Seminar, focused on reflection and discussion of our experiences in the Master of Arts in Education program. We created a web-based portfolio to showcase what we have done throughout the course of the program as well as focused on things we learned in individual courses. The course was spent sharing ideas and learning from our classmates as well as critically reviewing other portfolios. Below is a link to the online portfolio I created for this course.
ED 800: Concepts of Educational Inquiry
Instructor: Steven Weiland | Summer 2012 ​

ED 800 was an introductory course for the Masters program. Its focus was educational inquiry and used different types of literature to explore questions in education. Throughout the course, we discussed the "foundations of education", classroom-based and teacher-based inquiry, the history of schooling, theories of intelligence and the importance of curriculum, different learning styles based on culture, and finally the importance of embracing new technologies in the classroom. Below you will find a link to my final reflection for this course that incorporated what I had learned throughout the course with my own beliefs on technology in the classroom.
This is a picture of a bulletin board I helped create during this course as a different way to integrate Mathematics into my classroom.
During this course, I implemented writing groups to individualize writing as well as explain the importance of literacy.
This is a picture of a hands-on science experiment during my internship year.
After taking this course, I decided to develop a new plan for classroom management.
This is a picture of two of my students during their math presentation on plane and solid figures.
This is a picture of one of our guest readers (my husband) during Reading Month. Throughout the month of March, we have a special guest reader come in and read to the students.
This is a picture of two of my students on our field trip at Cranbrook. This field trip creates a hands-on learning experience as part of our Dinosaur unit.
During this course, we used Wordle as a way to share our essays with our peers.
This is a screenshot of my website.
