In this module, you will create the second of three required essays. The ‘Future Learning Goals’ essay asks you to think about how you will continue to learn and grow after your master’s program is over.
WHAT TO DO
Make sure you do each of the following activities to successfully complete this module.
🔍 Before you write: See examples, and learn the criteria
This week you will create a Future Goals essay page that outlines some learning goals you can pursue after your formal learning (your master’s degree) is over.
Look at some example work from semesters past: Jarrod James, Stefanie McHorney-Enokian, and Kaylyn Wilke.
As you look at the examples, please notice that each future goals essay has these properties:
- Descriptive Title – Not just “Future Goals”
- Introduction – The introductory paragraph outlines future learning goals for you. Avoid career and professional goals, and instead focus on the learning you need to do to reach career, professional or personal goals.
- Organized – Is your essay effectively organized and in a logical order?
- Knowledge – For each goal, the knowledge and skills needed to reach the goals are articulated.
- Resources – Each goal has at least one linked resource that can help you reach that goal.
- Completeness – At least 3 goals are discussed.
- Word Length – Is your essay about 750 words? Remember, this is both an upper and lower limit! (try to be within 10% of the goal)
- Good Document and Web Design: There are a number of design criteria that apply to every page on your website. See your feedback notebook for details.
These same above points will be used to structure the feedback you receive in your Feedback notebook.
✍️ Create (as a webpage) your Future Learning Goals page
Create a webpage on your portfolio called something informative, and descriptive unique to the content of your essay. Keep in mind the following:
- Introduction – The introductory paragraph outlines future learning goals for you. Avoid career and professional goals, and instead focus on the learning you need to do to reach career, professional or personal goals.
- Identify Three Specific Topics for Future Study – In the main part of your essay, identify three specific topics or areas of focus that you want to learn about in the future. These topics could be technical skills, such as learning HTML and CSS. They could also be broader themes, such as leadership in education or integrating technology into a specific content area, such as mathematics.You should dedicate at least one paragraph to each of the three topics; that paragraph should introduce the topic, describe why you chose that topic, and identify (and link to!) at least one resource (a blog, a class, a video, etc.) that you plan to use to help you to learn about and master that topic.
- A Work in Progress – You do not have to finalize your essay now; the goal in this course is always to at least get a working draft and to continue to refine it based on feedback.
- Know the Rubric – The key points above summarize how we evaluation your work, but your Feedback Notebook has the full list of guidelines we will use. It’s a good idea to look at them as you develop your work.
💬 Give and Receive Feedback
NOTE: The direct link to the module 7 discussion in Teams is here.
There are three different ways you can give and receive feedback in this module. We will explain each in detail below.
- You can arrange your own zoom meeting with another student. You both can work out the details on how to meet online, and give each other feedback. The coffeehouse is an option for you to use.
- You can use our CAPPY Chatbot (an experimental AI bot) to get feedback. This is only an option for modules 4-7 currently, but we are looking to expand if there is positive interest from students to do so.
- You can use Teams as we did earlier in the semester
Regardless of the format you chose, please remember, that order to give good feedback to read (and use) the guidelines for feedback.
📅 Schedule your own meeting
You can meet with a classmate in the Capstone Coffeehouse. However, you schedule a meeting with someone else and figure out the meeting details together. The Sharetracker has email contact information for everyone in the course, feel free to reach out…
You can show your work via sharing your screen, or ask someone else to look on their browser if you give them a link in the chat. It can take as little as 5 minutes to get some productive feedback on your page.
💬 Using Cappy
To use Cappy, please do the following:
- Visit CAPPY, the Capstone Chatbot
- Login or Signup (it’s free)
- Replace XXX with the address of your page to be reviewed, and enter the one the following prompts depending on the module you are submitting:
- My module 4 essay : XXX”
- My module 5 resume : XXX”
- My module 6 showcase : XXX”
- My module 7 learning goals : XXX”
- Review the feedback the CAPPY is giving you, and consider making the revisions it suggests
- Feel free to ask it any followup questions or suggestions you would like, based upon what it is telling you
If you use CAPPY, please leave us some feedback letting us know how it did.
🎥 Using Teams
When posting your reflection, go to the correct teams channel:
Initial Post
- Make a post and address the prompts (“Designers – Discuss”) in the pinned post on the channel.
- Provide context – Type in your name and description of the post (e.g., Matthew Koehler’s website draft) to accompany your video.
- Provide a link – Give a link to the webpage you want others to review.
Leave feedback for two others
Then leave responses with feedback for two others in the same channel as follows:
- Prioritize providing feedback to those who do not have any feedback
- Watch their post
- View their webpage (click on the URL that should be posted with their video).
- In making your response, make sure to follow the prompts in the pinned post labeled “Reviewers – Discuss”
- Provide context – Type in your name and description of the post (e.g., Matthew Koehler’s response to Megan) to accompany your video.
📅 Reminder - Your 2nd Piece of Flair is due in Module 8
Your second piece of flair is due at the end of Module 8. You can check out the full requirements for each of our pre-approved Pieces of Flair and following the instructions.
As with your regular work, there you can give and receive feedback using one of the approved methods (your own meeting with another student, or teams). If you use Teams, use the flair #2 channel.
When you submit a piece of flair, please fill out the corresponding columns in the sharetracker which are on the far righthand side (you may have to scroll right quite a bit).
✔️ Update the ShareTracker
At the end of each module, you will update the Sharetracker to submit your work for this module, and let us know about any revisions to previous work.
OPTIONAL: DEEP DIVES AND QUESTIONS
❓ What is the bonuses and bummers policy?
When you contribute Teams feedback at the end of a module, you are usually expected to provide feedback to two of your classmates.
Our Bonuses and Bummers policy describes exceptions to this expectation as follows:
- Bonus – If you’re the first person to submit your work for an assignment on Teams, you do not have to provide any feedback to anyone.
- Bonus – If you’re the second person to submit your work for an assignment on Teams, you only have to provide feedback to one person (the person who submitted first).
- Bummer – If you’re the last person to submit your work for a task or Piece of Flair, you probably won’t receive any Teams feedback from anyone.
❓ Why a Future Learning Goals essay?
In this deliberately broad assignment, we ask you to look to your future as a lifelong learner and write a “projective” essay about how your experiences in this master’s program have influenced your approach to lifelong learning and how you envision yourself continuing to learn. Life and learning continue beyond the master’s program—in this time of rapid technological change and globalization, how will you keep learning and growing as an educator? Formal professional development workshops may very well be a part of your personal learning plan, but they may not be enough, so consider what other face-to-face and online resources you have at your disposal as you manage your professional development and lifelong learning.
One important requirement is to focus on specific future goals, plans, and associated resources for after the program. Please share with us some of the specifics that you have in mind—if there is a book you want to read, a topic you want to explore, or a class (formal or informal) you want to take, we want you to have an opportunity to express those here.
❓ Have a question not answered here?
If you have a question that isn’t answered here, check our our FAQ, or contact us
