Emma's Blog

This week’s big idea was focused on artificial intelligence and its presence in education. Artificial intelligence is a fascinating topic for me, as I am still unsure of its place in my life as a professional and how I would handle it in a classroom setting. AI is on the rise in schools and is not going to go away; therefore, a way to find out how we can develop a balance between AI-generated products and authentic work must be produced.

It was interesting to me at the beginning of the class when the word cloud from the Mentimeter was shown, and the words were contradicting; for example, both ‘helpful’ and ‘scary’ were shown. I think that this goes to show that many other people are still trying to figure out how AI belongs in their roles as professionals. While AI can be both scary and helpful, I think that it is something we can learn to use as a tool while still maintaining authenticity in our own work. There are so many different ways that AI can be used in education from generating text to pictures. Below is an image that I asked AI to generate, the prompt I gave was “generate an image that represents artificial intelligence”.

Artificial intelligence is rapidly growing, and there is still a lot that is still being learned. Something that was brought up in class about artificial intelligence was the environmental impact of it. I think that this is an important impact of artificial intelligence to consider watching out for, especially when we are trying to work towards decreasing climate change. I believe that teaching students to be aware of the impact that new technological advancements like artificial intelligence may have on the environment is important, especially as a social studies teacher candidate. In conclusion, there is still so much learning to be done to be able to support students through this exciting time of new technological innovations.

This week, we had the privilege of having guest speakers from BCEdAccess, Kaori Lau and Tracy Humphreys, come to our class. The discussion for the day’s class was about technology and inclusion. This class was very interesting for me as someone who would like to one day complete a program for inclusive education. In the opening activity, depending on which colour of sticky note you got, you were told you had to leave the class or you were allowed to stay with no information on why. This activity had me thinking right away about why some people had to leave and why some were able to stay. The first thing that came to my mind was inclusivity and what the group being sent outside was going to learn. 

As a future teacher, one goal that I strive for is being able to provide a safe and welcoming environment for all students, and this class helped me build toward that goal. One of the ways that I can provide a safe and welcoming environment in my class is through technology. This lecture discussed the different ways you can implement technology in your classroom to assist students, for example, by turning on closed captions. This is a simple, easy-to-learn way that you can support students when playing videos in class. 

This class lecture made me connect back to learning about the universal design for learning framework. Many of the different ways a teacher can implement technology to assist students are seen in lessons that encompass the UDL framework. Moving forward, this lecture has helped me understand all the ways that technology can be of support to a student. I will continue to develop my own skills with technology so that I can better support my future students through technology.

This week in class we participated in an EDCamp style conference. This style of conference fosters and encourages the participation of all attendees. An EDCamp conference style allows the attendees to present topics they would like to learn more about. Attendees then select a few of the topics to discuss and share information about. As a class we came up with three different EDCamp topics that we could choose from. In my EDCamp group, our topic was “How can we incorporate outdoor learning into all classroom subjects?”. 

It was very beneficial for me to hear perspectives from a variety of teacher candidates with different teachable subjects. As a physical and health teacher candidate, most of our content can be taught outdoors, making this topic very achievable. Therefore, hearing from math, English, science, etc., teacher candidates was interesting in how they might go about incorporating outdoor education into their lessons. Some of the ideas that were developed in our session were as simple as just taking the class to a location outside and delivering the lesson outside. Other ideas involved incorporating aspects of nature into the lesson, for example, creating a poem about nature.

First Peoples Principles of Learning

In BC, it is required that teachers incorporate Indigenous ways of learning into their lessons. Our EDCamp topic is important as it supports the learning of the land, which is one of the first peoples principles of learning. This EDCamp experience has helped me professionally develop, as I will use the ideas my colleagues and I came up with by incorporating outdoor education into any subject I teach. I would also like to try this EDCamp-style conference in the future for a professional development workshop. I believe that people can learn a lot from each other and their experiences, and an EDCamp style conference allows for that.

In week 7, the founder and co-principal of the Pacific School of Innovation and Inquiry (PSII), Jeff Hopkins, came to class as a guest speaker. This was a very interesting and inspiring class, as PSII is not your typical school. Jeff explained that PSII is a school that operates to expand students’ knowledge by reaching the zone of proximal development. I learned from this class that the zone of proximal development requires three components: each student is different, students will learn and progress at different times, and students need a variety of learning environments and methods. At PSII all of these components are recognized and valued as students are free to learn at their own pace and learn in a variety of different environments. 

Students who attend PSII are able to practice autonomy, which is something I think is very important for students engagement and participation. I know from experience that when I get to pick a topic that I want to learn about, I tend to engage a lot more, and in turn, I learn a lot more than if I were to be assigned a topic that I’m not as interested in. 

I would like to take some aspects of this school, such as the idea that students are able to learn at their own pace and practice autonomy in relation to content, into my future practice. As a future educator, I hope to deliver content to my students in a variety of ways so that I can cater to the different needs of my students. One way that I could give my future students autonomy is when assigning assignments; I could allow them to choose a topic that relates to the content and choose a way to complete their assignment; for example, they could write an essay, make a poster, or make a slideshow. In conclusion, this week’s class was very inspirational, and I can apply some aspects of the school to my future practice.

In week three, Jesse Miller came to the class as a guest speaker and discussed social media. This topic is important as the presence of social media is rapidly growing and continues to do so. In class, we discussed the use and viewing of social media in two ways, one as an educator and the other as a student. 

For teachers, their social media platforms should be kept from having a negative view in order to protect their job. Another important aspect that was discussed in class was setting social media boundaries with students and not allowing them to follow your accounts. For students using social media, they can often misuse it, and outcomes can be an increase in bullying or leaks in their data privacy. In a previous class, we discussed the importance of teachers providing information to students on how they can protect themselves and be smart online. I think that it is our responsibility as teachers to educate students on how to use social media safely.

In conclusion, social media is not something that is going to disappear; in fact, it is rapidly growing; therefore, as educators, we need to acknowledge its presence and help our students navigate through these times. I think that for the best interest of future generations, there should be more education provided and mandated within the curriculum on social media use and safety.

This week we learned a lot about copyright and how, as teachers, we can use resources to create content for students without committing plagiarism or copyright. Before this lesson, I did not know about Bill C-11, open education resources, or creative commons. In this lecture, we discussed the fact that teachers are content creators. When thinking through that kind of lens, having Bill C-11 protect teachers from copyright is essential. 

As teachers, we have to create many different components to complement our lectures and ensure students engagement, for example, slideshows, assessments, worksheets, etc. In class, we discussed the many different websites and resources that teachers can use to help plan their lessons but noted that citing sources is still essential. Even though Bill C-11 is to protect teachers from copyright and plagiarism, it is still important for teachers to acknowledge and give credit when it is due. It is important to always display professionalism as a teacher, and part of that is respecting other people’s work and acknowledging when you use others work. 

In order for me to display professionalism and further my knowledge, I have learned how to search for creative commons images on Google. Below I have attached an image to this post that I searched for on Google under Creative Commons licenses. In the future, when I am creating lessons for my teaching practice, I will try to use creative commons resources and cite my sources.

In week four, we had Trevor McKenzie as a guest speaker, and he talked about inquiry-based learning and the importance of curiosity in the classroom. Inquiry-based learning interests me as it strays away from traditional learning, where content is delivered and students must regurgitate the content through assessment. Instead, incorporating inquiry-based learning involves critical thinking, being active when learning, problem solving, and exploring many possible outcomes to a problem, which can all have positive impacts on learning. Inquiry-based learning also allows students to explore different ways of learning, which in turn can spark interest and curiosity within the classroom.

Trevor talked about the importance of curiosity within the classroom and how it can effectively decrease behavioral challenges; for example, students will be less likely to skip a class that sparks their curiosity. Before this lecture, I had never thought about the positive relationship that curiosity and classroom management have. Thinking back to my experience with school, I can see the connection as the more curious I was about a concept, the more effort I put in and paid more attention.

As a future educator, I hope to create curiosity within students in my physical health education classes by incorporating inquiry-based learning to increase participation. The example that Trevor had of inquiry-based learning in a PHE class inspired me, as it can be used as a tool to create cohesion with students by asking guiding questions about teamwork and having them come up with answers together. This lecture has motivated me to work hard in order to spark curiosity in every student by incorporating inquiry-based learning.

Below is a youtube viedo that I found helpful when thinking about how I would apply inquiry-based learning into PHE classes. This video provides ideas and suggestions for incoperating inquiry in PHE, and also shows what inquiry learning can look like in PHE.