Mindee
Ricks

Educational technologist

Welcome!

This site compiles selected work from my
Master of Arts in Educational Technology (MAET)
at Michigan State University.

It's a repository built for the benefit of
friends, family, future employers, and my future self.

Thanks for visiting!

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Portfolio

My graduate portfolio consists of four parts.
Stay a while and enjoy!

Intro | 2018 | 2019 | 2020-22

Annotated transcript

The following transcript presents a timeline of all ten Counseling and Educational Psychology (CEP) courses I took to complete the Master of Arts in Educational Technology (MAET). They are accompanied by a brief summary to highlight key takeaways and accomplishments in each course. (Click the class titles to view official course descriptions.)

Intro | 2018 | 2019 | 2020-22

2018

Intro | 2018 | 2019 | 2020-22

2019

Intro | 2018 | 2019 | 2020-22

2020-22

Essays

At the culmination of my graduate studies, I've written three reflections to describe how I've grown.

Note: You can progress through each essay using the lower arrow buttons, or jump to a specific page using the upper navigation bar.

Two Birds | Learn | Teach | One Stone

Two Birds with One MAET

How and Why My Goals Changed

In the summer of 2018, I began my master’s degree with two major goals:

Continue my education and
Prepare to teach in the future.

Four years later, at the completion of the program, the first goal’s connotation has changed and the second goal’s timeline has shifted. Both have expanded in scope.

Two Birds | Learn | Teach | One Stone

Continue my education

Fresh out of undergrad, I had my eyes on obtaining the next degree. In my mind, continuing my education meant another fancy paper proclaiming program completion. Now I’m weeks away from said degree and my goal to keep learning continues in full force. However, that no longer means moving on to the next degree. MAET has shown me multiple ways I can keep learning, in any domain, following my own curriculum.

For example, I can’t wait to master new hobbies with the help of YouTube and online forums. I see myself learning to code through Khan academy or exploring and adapting new apps on my phone to help our family function more efficiently. I could virtually attend education conferences while I batch prep freezer meals, or curate my Twitter feed to follow the greatest thinkers in educational technology. Overall, continuing my education looks significantly broader than it did before.

Two Birds | Learn | Teach | One Stone

prepare to teach in the future

Four years ago I wanted this master’s degree to prepare me to teach . . . later. For example, as a stay-at-home mom I thought I might work as a teacher in the (distant) future. I also assumed I would teach my own children to be 21st century learners once they became teenagers. Little did I know, MAET would help me prepare for these things, and it would advance my timetable: Now, my goal is to teach … Now!

Professionally, I’ve moved from wanting to teach in the future to wanting to teach now because I feel empowered to do so. Five years ago, student-teaching was exciting, but disciplining and directing so many thirteen-year-olds was terribly difficult. I didn’t want to return to a classroom until after raising a family had trained me to help preteens do as they’re told. Thankfully, this degree has prepared me for positions better suited to my introverted personality—for example, I would feel confident teaching where quarter-time in a virtual high school or as an adjunct professor at a community college.

In my personal life, I’ve realized that the time to start teaching tech to my kids is not when they’re teenagers, but toddlers. Four years ago, my definition of technology portrayed phones and social media, so of course those things wouldn’t be relevant to my children until they were older. However, MAET taught me that technology really encompasses so much more. Learning this and seeing how my peers applied class concepts in their elementary schools proved to me that my little ones could begin early to be wise users of technology and media. This is why I’ve begun teaching them how and why I use my phone and laptop, I’ve set up a Maker Space in our basement where they can tinker, and we incorporate multimedia into our Spanish and scripture study at home.

Two Birds | Learn | Teach | One Stone

Conclusion

Two of my original goals have been expanded, intensified, and made more urgent, all because of one masters program. Because of one masters program, I will move forward reaching for two goals:

Continue to learn and
Teach now.

Find a detailed plan for accomplishing these in the essay “A Personal Curriculum” within this portfolio.

Intro | Home | Church | Online | Conclusion

A Personal Curriculum

Plans for the Future

Today is the end of an era: After four years of syllabi and checklists, my completed degree marks my movement to a world without pre-specified learning outcomes. Yesterday’s discoveries about educational technology now set the stage for my pursuit of professional excellence in the years to come.

It’s time to make my own curriculum.

In so doing, this essay outlines plans and resources to meet my new goals to continue to learn and to teach now in my professional life. But first, a definition: A trio of types of teaching constitute my “professional life”— teaching life skills at home, teaching family history at church, and teaching English Language Arts online.

Intro | Home | Church | Online | Conclusion

Role 1: teach at home

Out of everything I do, I think my most prestigious job title is Mom. Parenting entails constant instruction, and there’s a lot I hope to model and teach my kids (not limited to kindness, compassion, gymnastics, washing their dishes, and media literacy). One of these goals—teaching Spanish in our home—is the first focus of my new professional curriculum.

As described in my showcase piece “Es Posible? Teaching Bilingualism at Home,” my husband and I (both non-native Spanish speakers) want our kids to benefit from bilingualism. I am excited to apply the technological pedagogical and content knowledge (TPACK) framework as we do, and I’ve gathered a few resources to aid me along the way:

Intro | Home | Church | Online | Conclusion

Role 2: teach at church

As a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I volunteer to teach family history in my local congregation. The fact that the church has a lay ministry provides unique high-impact opportunities for improving instruction and curriculum. My goal is to hone my content knowledge and pedagogy to expand the scope of what family history entails while teaching skills that others can use on their own on a daily basis.

My showcase piece “The Michigan Census Project” provides an example of how I envision technology bolstering pedagogy to reach more learners and facilitate rewarding learning experiences. As I set my professional curriculum, I hope to continue to use technology to overcome traditional barriers of regular, even daily, family history involvement, and I’ve found these resources to help:

Intro | Home | Church | Online | Conclusion

Role 3: Teach Online

I enjoyed my time teaching eighth-grade language arts, but my experiences in the MAET program have changed my professional goals about how and where I’d like to teach. Rather than return to teaching full-time, in-person at a middle school or high school as I had once imagined, my goal is to try teaching part-time, online at a college or university. Not only would this fit my personality and family life much better, but it is also more likely to allow me to directly apply what I learned while earning my online teaching certificate.

Three resources in my professional curriculum for this goal are actually work opportunities:

Intro | Home | Church | Online | Conclusion

Conclusion

These three points in my new professional curriculum (teaching life skills at home, teaching family history at church, and teaching English Language Arts online) directly support my two major goals: to continue to learn and to teach now. Each requires deeper content knowledge and improved teaching and learning as I work with various age groups in various settings. This curriculum, though not defined by an external syllabus, defines the good I want to accomplish in the world and reflects how I can best bless those within my family, local, and academic circles of influence.

Hello!

I'm a wife and mother from Salt Lake City, Utah,
now living in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

I graduated from Brigham Young University in 2017
with a bachelor's degree in English Teaching.
After a year student-teaching in an 8th grade English Language Arts grade classroom, I chose to stay at home with my first daughter.

Inspired by my husband's journey towards a PhD, I started working towards a master's degree online in 2018 (one course per semester . . . with lots of maternity-leaves in between. . .) Now in 2022, at the culmination of both of our degrees, we welcomed our fourth baby and we're moving to Lincoln, Nebraska.

When I'm not cooking, working on school, or playing trains on the floor with the kids, I can be found organizing our closets, listening to Brandon Sanderson audiobooks, doing family history and genealogy, or participating in various church activities.

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Summary | Education | Experience | pdf

Resume Summary

Twelve years of experience professionally and voluntarily teaching all age groups in various settings. Four years as a children's gymnastics coach at local community centers; two years as a full-time proselyting missionary in Santiago, Chile; two years as an instructor of retirees going on missions; three years as a volunteer Sunday School and genealogy teacher; one year as an English Language Arts student-teacher in an 8th grade classroom. Four years studying educational technology online through Michigan State University. Six years as a mother and stay-at-homemaker.

Summary | Education | Experience | pdf

Experience

Summary | Education | Experience | pdf

For a printable version of my resume, click the button below.

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Intro | Online Units | Research | Lifelong Learning

Showcase

A brief exhibition of my best work from the Master of Arts in Educational Technology, the following showcase is organized into three sections that explain the major skills I've gained, especially in relation to my goals to continue learning and to teach now.
I consider those major skills to be:

Online Unit Development
Academic Research
Lifelong Learning

Within the three sections, I briefly explain the artifacts I've selected and the skills they are meant to demonstrate. To view the artifacts themselves, click the bold links.

Personal Theory of Learning
Just as the research about learning has evolved over time, I know my understanding of it will, too. In this essay, I outline what I've come to understand about how people learn, and various factors that affect learning. What I present here improves my metacognition as a learner, enhancing not only my teaching practice but also my own pursuit of lifelong learning.

Move1 | Think | Theorize | Lead | Move2

Of moving vans
and mission statements

How My MAET Experience has Changed Me

“What’s next for me?” I wondered as I drove a moving van across the country. My husband would be starting a five-year PhD program at the University of Michigan, but what about me? What would I do to keep learning? A month ago I had received my bachelor’s degree in language arts education and had decided I wanted to be a full-time mom to our one year old daughter: Technically, I had plenty to keep me busy.

Still, something inside of me yearned to stay in school. So as we steered 700 cubic feet of moving truck towards the midwest, I googled online Masters programs. After more ‘meh’s than I could count, my husband read aloud a summary of the Master of Arts in Educational Technology (MAET) at Michigan State University. Immediately, I knew what was next for me.

This is the story of my MAET experience as a stay-at-home mom: how I did it and how I changed as a result of what I learned.

Although articulating every change would be impossible, definitive memories stand out as testaments to major differences in how I think, learn, and teach. Reviewing the past four years and my portfolio, I’ve seen how I’ve developed three aspects of the MAET mission statement: graduates of the MAET will “think in new ways;” “be built upon a strong foundation of psychological theories of learning;” and become “innovative educational leaders.”

Move1 | Think | Theorize | Lead | Move2

think in new ways

In order to really excel in this new scholastic journey (and—I discovered—to overcome depression) I needed to unlearn patterns of perfectionism and replace them with the "failure as a learning mode" mindset. Thankfully, two of the first three MAET classes I took set me on the path to doing just that. These classes were part of the Graduate Certificate in Ed Tech, which I pursued as a sort of practice round before tackling the full masters program.

By confession, I am one of the students who sir Ken Robinson declares was robbed of her creativity by the modern school system. My beloved label as the “perfect” student kept me from taking risks, exploring, or experimenting, and I never felt it was admirable to ask for help or admit I had made a mistake. My desire to live up to that “perfect” label led to a feeling of creative ineptitude.

I want to illustrate my MAET-induced transformation with two contrasting stories about yarn. Eighteen years ago, my grandmother taught me to knit and crochet, but my perfectionism impeded the completion of every project I undertook. At the first sign of a dropped stitch or uneven edge, I’d quit, hiding the swatch deep under my mother’s craft table, never to revisit it. In college after imprudently promising a knitted scarf to a friend, I hid the work-in-progress under my mattress along with my fear that it wouldn’t turn out perfectly. (It didn’t. But my friend was moving and I needed to clear my conscience.) And it wasn’t just yarn: For years I shied away from any creative pursuit for fear of making mistakes.

In contrast, just two months ago, I crocheted a baby blanket for our fourth child. Me. Choosing to make … something! Lessons learned from MAET influenced every step of the creation process. CEP 811 showed me that my creativity can be a remix of others’ ideas, so I didn’t follow instructions exactly. The ungrading policy convinced me to take risks, so I risked the imperfection. And when a mistaken stitch count left the blanket far too wide, or when skipped stitches left the edges uneven, I started over, again (and again), learning from my mistakes as CEP 812 had taught me.

When I finally finished, I realized I was a new person: Not a perfect pretender, but instead a creative creator.

Thanks to MAET (and, I’ll admit, a well-trained therapist), my life-long fear of failure has been replaced with confidence in iteration and creativity. Perfection no longer paralyzes; I have witnessed and experienced the joy of making, failing, learning, and trying again and again until I achieve my purpose.

Move1 | Think | Theorize | Lead | Move2

foundation of psychological theories of learning

Five years ago I don’t think I could have really explained what learning is or how it happens. My undergraduate degree gave me best practices to apply, and my experience teaching trained me to copy effective strategies, but I never knew exactly why some approaches worked or how to adapt them to fit my own needs. Why not? My practice was theoretically unfounded.

Enter: MAET.

The MAET online program trained me to think critically about learning while simultaneously walking the walk of effective teaching. This combination changed how I view learning. Now, I could analyze any teaching strategy in terms of TPACK, cognitive load, behaviorism, schema theory, constructivism, situated learning, collaborative problem solving, play, transfer, assessment, expert strategies, Maker education, 21st century learning, and much much more. That analysis isn’t the purpose of this essay, (but you will see each of those themes in my portfolio!), but my new ability to analyze is: My understanding of learning is now theoretically founded.

Perhaps nothing reflects my need for this foundation better than my 2017 capstone project and its execution. The capstone was supposed to demonstrate my ability to explain pedagogical decisions behind a unit plan, but, looking back, I feel it only demonstrates my ignorance instead. My pedagogical rationale included almost no theory beyond vague references to ‘prior knowledge’ and ‘scaffolding.’ And my application of the principles was even sloppier. For example I stopped assessing students during the last month of my student teaching because I was tired of grading assignments—a mistake I would never dream of making again (CEP 813 turned me into an assessment aficionado.)

Now I let my understanding of learning shape how I teach. For example, the cognitive theory of multimedia learning I discovered in CEP 816 changed how I substitute-taught a Sunday School class in fall 2022. I integrated technology (Padlet) so that everyone in the large room and those joining virtually could share thoughts and questions. I kept my slides focused on only the most relevant material, to reduce cognitive load. And I made sure to formatively assess learners’ understanding as we discussed the scriptures. What a difference from my teaching in 2017!

I'm grateful that the MAET provided me with a “deep understanding of how, when, and why to integrate technology to support learning processes” that I can take into any teaching situation.

Move1 | Think | Theorize | Lead | Move2

Innovative Educational Leader

MAET radically altered the way I approach problem solving and has given me confidence to lead out in educational pursuits.

Traditionally my approach to problem solving was to run with the first idea that came to mind, hoping it would work out. I still remember my very first day as a student teacher. It was the first day of a new school year, and my collaborating teacher was out of town. Planning the lesson on my own was a challenging if exciting problem to solve, so with high hopes I followed the first idea that I came up with: inviting students to write Tweets about their summer to get to know one another. This flimsy incorporation of technology into the lesson didn’t teach anything and ended up excluding students more than connecting them. It fell flat, in part because it was not a well-developed solution to my problem as a brand-new teacher on her own.

My experience with the Census Project for CEP 817 shows how my problem solving skills and leadership as an educational technologist have evolved through engaging in the MAET.

In this project I confronted a much more wicked problem related to family history instruction—something far more complex than what to teach on the first day of school. For three months I surveyed learners and searched for design-based solutions. Rather than running with my first idea, I ideated fifty possible solutions, then I prototyped, tested, sought feedback, and iterated, working towards a viable, effective solution. The class requirements taught me an entirely new way of problem-solving.

Then after the class was over, I flexed my fledgling leadership muscles and actually implemented the proposed solution. I launched the website and administered the Census Project for an entire year. The ongoing project has successfully strengthened more than one hundred learners’ family history skills and was recently shared with church leaders who oversee the program globally. For one who had never considered herself an educational or technological leader, designing, implementing, and sharing the Census Project was a huge evolution for my character and skill set.

Move1 | Think | Theorize | Lead | Move2

Conclusion

Five years ago, a cross-country move got me asking “What’s next?” The answer transformed me from a new, timid teacher into a confident educational technologist. As this masters program comes to a close (and my husband's doctorate as well), our family will be moving once again. And I can't wait to see what revelation the moving van inspires this time as I again explore the question: “What’s next?”