“Perseverance is not a long race; it is many short races one after the other.” – Walter Elliot.

I have spent many, many, hours within this program wondering if I was good enough to be here. As mentioned many times in this ePortfolio, I have suffered with imposter syndrome as I am surrounded by educators that came to teaching via the more traditional channels. I knew nothing about learning theory or pedagogy. I started as a radiologic technologist and now I teach radiologic technology as I have for over 20 years. The interesting part about my journey is many people would argue that I am in the best program around. We bragged about having a 100% pass rate for 19 of those 20 years. The statistics tell you that either I am a great teacher or the students are successful despite having me. What I have come to appreciate in this program is not about the 100% pass rate of those students at the end but the 86% attrition of our program. That is a sobering percentage to think about. It is about those students that were not able to make it to the end of our very fast-paced, intense program. What about those lost? Could I have made a difference to those students? That is the number that keeps me up at night. Those 14% had their dreams crushed and I likely had the power to make a difference for a least a good percentage of those learners. This program has been transformative in my thinking and approach to how we facilitate learning to our students, how we create self-directed learners and how we ensure that our learners are considered in the method of presentation, facilitation, and collaboration. I have come to the conclusion that since I have had ubiquitous access to the course material, countless resources, and a strong group of collaborators above and beyond my professors and most importantly a topic that was relevant to me and my learning, that I was able to persevere despite my reservations. Any time I felt unsure or confused, I had the opportunity to circle back over and over. The significance of this cannot be understated. This is the first time in my 51 years that I had ownership over my learning and the content that I produced. This experience of taking ownership of my learning has been a metamorphic for my understanding of how to be a more effective educator. As I come to the end of this journey, I have never been more confident in what I can do for my students. Although I am finishing here, I am really just beginning. I will not only change the way that I approach learning for the sake of my students, I will also advocate to my fellow educators to consider this same methodology.