Paola Phillips, Lead Spanish Teacher for 3 Frisco Independent School District campuses, explains how the M.S. Learning Technologies program (2020) prepared her for her current role.

Paola Phillips received her teacher education with a major in Spanish from the University of North Texas in 2018, and she had been teaching Spanish in the public schools when she decided that she wanted to go for higher education. She had always thought that she would study an MA in Spanish, but she started to realize that as a teacher, there was something else she needed to improve learning outcomes for her students. That’s when she decided to go for the M.S. in Learning Technologies. Paola says, “I wanted to learn to leverage technology to keep the kids engaged in their language studies, and I wanted to learn how to differentiate instruction. I saw the M.S. in Learning technologies as a way to get ahead of the curve in technology used for second language acquisition.”

These days, as Lead Spanish Teacher, Paola is also supporting new teachers through training and mentoring. She visits the different campuses to provide support for the technology being used and helps new hires personalize learning. She says that what she learned in the program helped her in her personal growth as well as professional growth. She recognizes that not only students but also new teachers can take ownership of their learning when it is personalized because adults learn differently, too.

While in the program, she especially enjoyed working with Dr. Regina Kaplan-Rakowski since they had a lot of the same research interests. She says, “Because both Dr. Kaplan Rakowski and I have an interest in how technology can be applied to language acquisition, we connected on many levels, and I was able to benefit from her guidance in my own work.” Due to the program track of “Teaching and Learning” that Paola completed, she feels that she has the ability to craft truly engaging and purposeful online lessons for students. Additionally, she can provide resources and training through her knowledge to help other language teachers, too.