Brandi Schamber-PME 811: Innovation in Teaching and Learning

My blog reflects a good amount of consideration for existing knowledge. In each module that was assigned to the blog, I read through the assigned readings and made connections to my professional practice which helped me shape the way I think about existing topics. The modules on historical and philosophical foundations of teaching and learning were the areas I feel I interacted the most with existing knowledge by connecting the concepts to the definitions of innovation, creativity, teaching and learning. My big knowledge takeaway would be from the Falkenberg Article where he talks about teaching being a contemplative practice and how teaching, learning, creativity and innovation are so closely linked and connected with the idea of continuous growth.  The blog demonstrates my connections with course content and my growth during this course by showcasing the variety of sources I read and analyzed and also connected to my personal practice. Each post shows my ability to extrapolate in...

     The professional development course I chose was the AI 101 for Educators course, and it was an online course that you could access anytime. The approximate time to complete the course was 2 hours, which I completed over the span of 2 days. The course is marketed as an essential guide to AI for educators and is meant to help educators implement AI into their practice ethically and effectively to support student learning. The instructor, Amanda Bickerstaff, is the founder and CEO of AI for Education and she was a biology teacher and worked in EDTech for 20 years. The focus of the course was on ChatGPT and the ways it can benefit your teaching practice in a variety of ways  and help students engage with the lessons and material.  This course was valuable to me in many ways that gave me a deeper understanding of AI. The course modules included; Introduction to prompt engineering, strategies for using CHatGPT in your practice, the ethical implications of AI in t...

  In February Dr. Sharon Saline visited my school to speak about ADHD with teachers and the larger community of parents and guardians. She is a clinical psychologist who has written several books and speaks internationally to groups of educators and parents.  Her ADHD approach follows the 5 C's: Self-control Compassion Celebration Collaboration Consistency Some strategies that I took away from this session are posted below: Provide activities that are engaging to the students Use incentives to motivate students to do undesirable tasks Explicitly teach and review planning and prioritizing skills Tasks she have value and meaning for the student Provide choices for the student within the obligation to complete a task Brainstorm possible obstacles and creates plans to overcome them https://drsharonsaline.com/

Today I had the pleasure of learning from Peg Dawson, a renowned psychologist who works with youth and adults with learning and attention disorders. She has written several books in her Smart, but Scattered series as well as others on executive skills. Some of the take aways from the sessions we had with her are as follows: Mindfulness:  Students need to be taught to reset and re-engage. We should be teaching them to recognize when they are off task and bring themselves back. Some tools mentioned are: Headspace app Insight Timer Involving the students: Ask them how long they can work for before they need a break. Plan out their school day with them rather than for them help students find multiple pathways to avoid obstacles i-connect: self-monitoring app Other Strategies : Teach them to wait and stop-think time pair a visual with verbal instructions "name it to tame it" movement breaks music: screens out large more unpredictable distractions scaffolding and chunking assignme...

  Innovation: The process of adding to or altering an item, thought or process that already exists in order to create something new or unique. Innovation is often born from the necessity for a newer or more efficient product or way of doing something.  This definition is not much different then my original one, because the two pieces that stand firm for innovation are that it is based on a need for change and that it is a process. Innovation doesn’t happen overnight, especially in education.  As Falkenberg mentions, teaching is a “contemplative” practice and it is ongoing (adapting, altering and improving) to enhance the learning experience (2012, p. 30). One of the things I have learned over the course that I also connected with my professional practice is that Innovation ebbs and flows as the necessity for change increases and decreases. There are certain time periods in history,  especially the educational realm, where innovation and change were the main part of d...