GOAL REFLECTION ESSAY
Pursue the Unknown
As I near the end of my graduate studies at Michigan State University, It has created a chance to look back to the beginning and assess the process and path that I have laid before myself. The first and ever-present goal I determined was to continue my professional learning as an educator to better my craft and eventual support of student learning. I approached education in my undergraduate studies as the foundation of my meaningful learning with intent to pursue knowledge and new information throughout my teaching career. Perhaps a somewhat standard goal among educators, but it became important to me to not lose sight of my decision to enter a graduate program with a focused goal. Additionally, I was seeking information within each class to advance my ability to effectively achieve success in a new column of my education career. Athletics became a new opportunity professionally and the program offered by MSU aligned with the outcomes I was searching for as an athletic director. The initial goals presented a challenge for which I pursued with each class and kept sight of my evaluation at each turn. I simply did not expect to experience so many turns in the past two years.
My focus has always maintained formulating a depth of understanding in coaching and athletics as my concentration area within the graduate program. I am not surprised there is consistency with this goal. I have been fortunate to take some coursework outside of kinesiology to appreciate the greater goal of continued growth in my profession. Classes highlighting curriculum and multicultural education shifted my approach to each of these goals. I have been minimizing a truth my students experience daily in their capturing of new information as an exchange of ideas and perspectives. Driven to understand my course content has resulted in expansion of my experiences as a fellow student among peers. Through the graduate program and with my teaching peers, I have developed a refined goal to allow my knowledge to be built without boundaries and prerequisites. This program has taught me achievement is displayed in myriad ways and the unknown could lead to my depth of continual learning in support of my students.
The end of the path has a familiar feeling with my goal of professional learning well intact. The pursuit of information in athletics has only grown and become a personal goal to parallel my professional goals. I have adapted to learning through a wider lens and my goals in exchange have become more authentic. There is not a singular construction in any program which will serve a foundation of knowledge as well as collaborative building of information among peers. This change is my goals are a direct result of the engaging experience MSU provided in the graduate program. Knowledge will always passionately receive my focus and can be accessed through informal and seemingly unstructured form. My hope is passing this belief forward to my students to challenge their assumptions and be open to the chance knowledge is always possible and usually available.
