PME 811: Blog Assignment

  Revisiting Innovation in the Classroom  Throughout the duration of the course, my thoughts on how to be innovative in the classroom has slightly changed. When reading my first blog post, I had thought that innovation in education meant implementing new ways of teaching that were never done before. Now after completing most of the course, I feel that innovation in teaching is having the ability to recognize a problem and find a new solution to solve it. These solutions can be new to you, solutions that have been done by co workers, or have been done in research but you have not seen in a classroom. I believe this view on innovation makes innovative classrooms easier to accomplish and something that teachers can actually try to strive for. When reviewing the resources that I had reflected on, I would keep the academic article written by DeLuca et al (2024). In their research, they found that most teachers do not think of themselves as innovative educators because they have use...

  Personal Learning Plan  Part One: Reflection  Currently, I learn about new developments and opportunities through our ACT (Ambassador for Curriculum Transformation) teacher. In this role, the teacher is responsible for sending out a monthly newsletter for professional training and sharing discussions that we can sign up for. I can sign up for whichever topic we find interesting, which allows for great flexibility. My district also pays for our substitute teachers so I can attend these professional development opportunities.  Furthermore, for every professional development day, we can choose from a long list of sessions to attend. There I can meet teachers with similar interests, share our concerns and challenges, and come up with solutions with facilitator support. Our local union usually sends out a survey for student needs and then plans sessions for those that we are interested in. I also have a professional development coordinator teacher at our school who shar...

Event Overview      The professional development event, Integrating AI into the Creative Classroom: Exploring Ethics, Critical Thinking and Creation, took place on February 14th from 1:15- 2:30 pm in a hybrid conference.  In this event, we explored various AI machines that we currently use, the need to be critical of AI outputs, our worries about using AI in the classroom, and we explored practical classroom applications. There were dedicated times for educators to connect with each other and also have a chance to try out these AI tools first hand. At the start, the facilitator took a poll to see what grade range most of us teach to then tailor the session to our needs. Most of the educators were middle and secondary school teachers. The facilitator then tailored the session and AI tools for this grade range while we had a breakout session discussing what we know about AI, how students are using AI, and how educators are using AI. After the facilitator introduced the...

  In the chapter “AI in Education: Prioritizing Transparency and Trustworthiness” by Kastania (2024), she explores how classes need to start incorporating AI into their courses, but also highlighting the dangers surrounding AI. The article explores how classes need to utilize the tools that are becoming more available to students in order to set them up for success (Kastania, 2024). However, Kastania (2024), highlights the dangers of blinding using AI as it could lead to a gap in critical thinking skills, and not criticizing the bias that is embedded in AI programing. By using AI as a tool in teaching, it developed my understanding of innovation in teaching as it is a reminder of the flexible nature of education. AI is a tool that all students will use at some point in their lives, and as an educator, there is a need to support students to become digitally literate. AI is the next tool that educators need to teach students, and it has not been done before. To help adapt classrooms ...

  In the article “As if Indigenous Knowledge and Communities Mattered” by Ball (2004), the author explores how to inclusively incorporate and give space to Indigenous voices in post-secondary settings. Many Indigenous communities learn through community-based knowledge and learn from shared knowledge from Elders and knowledge keepers in the community (Ball, 2004). This is in contrast to Euro-western learning as it typically involves learning from books and from one person. When including community members in the class, it allows for “lived learning,” and gives Indigenous students the ability to use their voice and to hear and learn from each other (Ball, 2004). The article relates to innovation in teaching as it transforms our view of higher education to address a problem. The issue in post-secondary is that it is not a space that Indigenous peoples are reflected in, nor is their culture reflected in the teaching. Thus, taking an approach and mixing Euro-Western teaching and Indige...