Assignment 2: Part 2 – Law 30 Course Reflection

Overall, the course was a lot of work. Compiling three modules inside a unit of study, taking resources, and converting them into resources usable in a blended course was a daunting yet rewarding project. In this reflection, I look at how the course utilizes the First Peoples Principles of Learning and the ISTE standards and how AI was utilized in my course. 

Throughout the assignment, I aimed to keep the First Peoples Principles of Learning (FPPL) and the ISTE standards to guide my work. Throughout my project, I have purposefully embedded learning activities that involve the FPPL of: 

• Learning recognizes the role of Indigenous knowledge. Evident through the inclusion of learning about Indigenous worldview and traditional legal approaches through restorative justice practices. 
• Learning requires the exploration of one’s identity. All students must participate in a Padlet activity that encourages them to look at their worldview and share it on the class Padlet. 
• Learning is embedded in memory, history, and story. Students had the opportunity to look at history through case studies and begin to look at how law and society have changed and continue to change regarding law and policy. (e.g., Assessment 2: looking at the TRC, Indian Act, the calls to justice for MMIWG)
• Learning is holistic, reflexive, reflective, experiential, and relational (focused on connectedness, on reciprocal relationships, and a sense of place). Overall, the course enables relationship building through sharing learning experiences through discussion and assignments. 

The inclusion of the ISTE student standards, Knowledge Constructor, and Creative Communicator are evident in the summative assessments in the course. Students are involved in curating information from digital resources to create meaningful projects. This is evident in the Module 2 inquiry and Module 3 Charter Analysis assessments. Students must publish and share the content and medium for their chosen audiences.

One of the key learnings in designing a course was using ChatGPT to create some of the lesson materials. ChatGPT was used to assist in summarizing some of the teacher’s background information notes to be presented to students. ChatGPT quickly summarized these notes and created a PowerPoint outline that I used to record quick videos for my students. Without the use of ChatGPT, the process of making these videos would have been tremendously time-consuming. 

I also utilized ChatGPT to assist in creating the Module 3 Assessment. ChatGPT’s response enhanced the assessment because it found components of the assessment that I did not consider adding, such as “ethical requirements.” The previous version of the evaluation focused on the students finding ways to “gain power” by strategically dismantling the Charter. However, this assessment version felt unethical and contrary to promoting good citizenship, a vital component of the Saskatchewan Curriculum. ChatGPT assisted in framing the lesson around analyzing the consequences of modifying or rescinding pieces of the Charter. The ChatGPT response was then adapted to fit the need of the classroom.

Using AI to assist in creating courses will be an exciting development in the coming years. In reaching out to ensure that proper protocol was followed when utilizing AI for this purpose in the assignment, I was directed to look at the Perplexity AI tool, which identifies the resources it takes to generate the response. Future use of AI in course design would allow the creator to become more efficient in cross-referencing and ensure that the information is relevant and correct. 

References

FNESC (2015). The First Peoples Principles of Learning. Retrieved from https://www2.gov.bc.ca/assets/gov/education/kindergarten-to-grade-12/teach/teaching-tools/aboriginal-education/principles_of_learning.pdf

ISTE. (2021). ISTE Standards for Students. Iste.org. https://www.iste.org/standards/iste-standards-for-students

Assignment 1: Learning Environment Evaluation Rubric

The learning environment evaluation assignment allowed me to analyze an optimal delivery platform solution in-depth for a grade 8-12 school. After defining the needs within our high school, we looked at both the SECTIONS framework (Bates, 2014) and the MIT CITE and IIM framework (Osterweil et al., 2015). We identified what we deemed to be the most crucial components of the frameworks and created a rubric specific to the needs of our high school. The evaluative rubric drew upon the strengths of the SECTIONS framework’s security and privacy (Bates, 2014).  As a security and privacy section was an identified gap in the MIT CITE and IIM framework.  The MIT CITE and IIM framework categories; teachers, students, learning, sustainability, and community, social, political offered components that were expanded on within our personalized evaluation rubric(Osterweil et al., 2015).

Our group analyzed three learning environments to determine what would best fit the school’s needs. Our group has a range of expertise in the platforms and decided to divide it into three smaller sections looking more in-depth at a specific learning environment and ranking them against the learning environment rubric. Two looked at Microsoft Teams, one looked at Google Classroom, and two (myself included) looked at Edsby. Our group considered the successes that other school divisions/districts had with implementing the learning environments we evaluated. For example, in the chosen Edsby, LMS, we found recent articles, board minutes, and school division news that offered non-biased opinions about the implementation of Edsby within their schools and the broader school district. Having and hearing individual teacher, parent, and student voices as part of determining the selection process in the evaluation of Edsby contributed to the reason it was selected. In addition, our group drew upon the experiences of Greg and I, as we specifically work with teachers in the implementation of Edsby. Through these personal experiences, Greg and I were able to both agree on how Edsby would be placed within each criterion on the rubric and be able to provide a rationale in case of disagreement.  

One of the challenges I encountered within this assignment included the creation of the rubric. Having been through the process of working with a school division on implementing a new LMS, it was difficult to not create criteria within the rubric based on what I already knew that Edsby would excel at. It reinforced the importance of having a variety of stakeholders included in the creation of the evaluative rubric. We wanted to ensure that we attempted to make an evaluation rubric that was non-biased and based on the organizational context that we established before determining our chosen learning environment. 

Overall, the process of analyzing a learning environment was an informative experience. As a new principal, it provided essential learning and understanding of effectively analyzing and ranking technology programs.

References

Bates, T. (2014). Choosing and using media in education: The SECTIONS model. In Teaching in digital age. https://opentextbc.ca/teachinginadigitalage/part/9-pedagogical-differences-between-media/

Osterweil, S., Shah, P., Allen, S., Groff, J., & Sai Kodidala, P., & Schoenfeld, I. (2015). Summary report: A framework for evaluating appropriateness of educational technology use in global development programs. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts & The Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, India. https://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/115340/Summary%20Report_A%20Framework%20for%20Evaluating%20Appropriateness%20of%20Educational%20Technology%20Use%20in%20Global%20Development%20Programs.pdf?sequence=2&isAllowed=y

Curtis Bourassa’s ETEC 524 Flight Path

My name is Curtis Bourassa, for the past five years I have worked as an Instructional Coach for Technology, working on implementing best practices utilizing technology in the classroom. I have a previous master’s degree from the University of Regina focused on curriculum and instruction. ETEC 524 will be my sixth course in my MET journey.

My goal for this course will be mapped around the new position that I am taking next year as principal in a small rural town in southeastern Saskatchewan. Part of this position is teaching multiple grades and curricula at the same time. For example, grades 6, 7, 8, and 9 math simultaneously. Or History 10 and Law 30, both at the same time. Therefore, my goal is to create a course that will guide the students independently if needed, if I get pulled out of the classroom, or while I am working with students on another curriculum. All while still implementing the key principles identified within the ISTE standards (International Society for Technology in Education, 2017) and the First Peoples Principles of Learning (FPPL) (FNESC, 2015). As of right now, I want to focus this course on designing a Law 30 (Grade 12 Law) course.

Ideally, the skills that I gain out of this course I would like to apply to the other middle-year and high school courses that I will be teaching. This will help me stay organized throughout my year as I try to navigate the complexities of being a new principal while teaching in a multigrade classroom after working outside the classroom for a number of years. I hope that the skills that I learn will be easily transferable to the range of content that I will be teaching next school year.