When Quinn Dyrli and her family moved, she felt like it would be a good time to start her Master in Education. “I wanted to learn more about the education field, while also improving my practice. We had just moved to Pennsylvania,” she said. “I thought it was wise to add to my expertise as I was looking for a job in a new state.”
Even though she was new to the area, Quinn had attended Messiah as an undergraduate. Because of the university’s faith integration and her positive undergrad experience, she knew Messiah would be a good fit.
In addition to being new to Pennsylvania, Quinn was raising five children. “When I began the program, my youngest son was three and my oldest was in high school,” she said. “The online courses made it possible to continue to raise my five sons, while still attending to their needs.”
Online courses offered a great fit for her busy family life, but she didn’t think she would build relationships online. “One of the things that I did not expect to experience, but really enjoyed, about online classes was the feeling of connection and building of friendships with classmates that were all going through the same content at the same time.” She also said that having online discussion postings requiring substantive responses really encouraged her to think deeply about what she wanted to say. “It was impossible to sit back and let others do the talking, as might happen in a traditional classroom setting, and the online interactions really strengthened my understanding of the content,” said Quinn.
Quinn currently works in the higher education setting as an adjunct instructor teaching English learners from other countries and, at Messiah, teaching the TESOL Internship course and overseeing the capstone project.