2018 Capstone Projects
Our 2018 students are using their coursework to make a difference in their classrooms and the profession.
Ryan Wallace MAT’18: Using his degree to lead from the classroom
Wallace is 15 year veteran educator. He discusses how the M.A.T.L. program is helping renew his passion for education and build his leadership skills, impacting his classroom and beyond. Wallace pursued National Board Certification for his capstone project.
Katie Biggs MAT’18: Teacher Led Professional Learning
Biggs is a veteran kindergarten teacher for the Department of Defense Education Activities. She implemented her professional learning plan from her M.A.T.L. program, building a system of teacher led professional development. Biggs pursued National Board Certification for her capstone project.
Susan Michalski MAT’18: Capstone presentation
Susan Michalski completed her M.A.T.L. in 2018. She is currently a French teacher at the Williston Northampton School, an independent boarding school in Easthampton, MA. She currently teaches French 2, French 2H, French 3, French 3H, and AP French.
Melissa Schumacher: Flipped Mastery: A Practical Application
“I have noticed that a major source of stress in my students is that they don’t know how to use the feedback they receive on tests, homework, etc. I decided to try building regular reflection on feedback and focus on learning goals into the structure of my course.”
View the Flipped Mastery presentation
Gail Parris: The Impact of Micro-aggression on Teachers of Color
“I did this project to change my narrative from victim to change agent. I hope my story and toolkit will encourage myself and my teaching community to resist attitudes and micro-aggressions that make the teaching environment an intolerable place for Teachers of color.”
Amanda Rodgers: Data and Assessment Literacy
Teachers, parents, administrators, and stakeholders are all invested one way or another on the assessments and the data they provide. With this hyper-focus on testing, assessment literacy should be made priority for schools, to not only help students “do well” on what an assessment can measure, but more so to help teachers learn to improve their instruction and assessments, analyzing the data and using it to help student growth.
View the Data and Assessment Literacy website
Andrew Syfu: The Missing Piece: A Case for SEL
“Social and emotional learning and culturally responsive teaching were two themes that I found very prevalent in my coursework at Mount Holyoke, and I think both of these ideas are familiar to educators, maybe not by name but certainly by practice. The premise behind both I think is addressing the conditions for learning and the hidden factors that we implicitly know influence and affect learning in schools.”
