I find joy in arranging food so that it looks beautiful. It may not change the way the food tastes, but it does make a difference in your culinary experience! When I put these bowls together I was remembering the delicious acai bowls we had in Barcelona – food comes loaded with associations, good or bad, and this one was associated with a very privileged memory that I treasure.
One day I was at home and quickly made some grilled cheese with some leftover salad.
Wait…….. before you scroll down, what do you imagine that would look like?
Maybe this looks good to you – it’s not bad, but the recipe uses mayonnaise, which I really don’t like. But why not make it fun and feel like you’re going out for a fun lunch with a good friend even if you are working from home all day and eating by yourself? Here’s a picture I took of my lunch:
I felt special (my mom’s homemade bread helped) but the point I mean is how we arrange our food creates an experience that can add to our enjoyment of the simple pleasures (and necessities) of life. So, make it fancy; have fun; and enjoy whatever you create!
Thank you for reading my blog! It’s been a fun process. I learned that food planning is way more important for me that prepping; that new recipes light a fire of inspiration; batch cooking saves so much time and makes lunches healthier; and that presentation also brings me joy! My top recommendation is to have fun and find a grocer that you love – The Rootcellar and their weekly newsletter makes grocery shopping and food planning with new recipes that incorporate sale items fun! 🙂
The subject of my group’s presentation was JustSketchMe, however, I really liked the presentation on Classroom Screen. It is a tool that I didn’t know about before. It is a whiteboard that you can personalize! I think this will be handy as a new teacher. If I know which class I’ll be substituting for ahead of time (like even just the night before) I could make a classroom screen and it would be a really nice professional touch! Here’s a classroom screen that I just made to familiarize myself with the tool:
I think I’ll use this! There is a paid and free version. One must have the paid version in order to add photos to the whiteboard screen and to properly use the randomizer. I would really like to use both those features, so I would advocate for getting a school plan, or I might just pay the $29.90 to use it.
I really like the timer feature too- it is a great way to show the students how long they have left in the activity and could reduce the anxiety. I wonder if Google slides has a timer I could add to it. Using these tools could help accommodate all learners with various needs (having clear directions and a rough schedule is necessary for some learners, but helpful for all learners.
If you are curious about our group presentation on JustSketchMe, here’s is a link to our slides and a link to a video of our presentation (warning – it’s a big file). Honestly, I probably won’t ever use this, but it accomplished our goal of incorporating all our subject areas into one project. 🙂 Would you use it? Or would you use Classroomscreen, both, or neither? Let me know what you think!
It’s such a novelty! This has such positive connotations, yet when it comes to cooking, we often slide into a rut or a routine. So, I decided to try something novel! My partner’s sis sent pictures of this fabulous looking cornbread in a cast iron skillet. I couldn’t get it out of my mind, so I asked for the recipe!
I thought I really needed some chili to go with it so i searched for a 5-star vegetarian recipe and here we are!
And yes, of course, I made it a batch cooking project. The cornbread went quickly, but luckily veggie chili goes splendidly with corn tortillas too. It served as dinner X 2 nights and lunch X 3 servings!
Just to show you the nitty gritty, here’s a pic while it was still all on the stove:
And here’s the cornbread recipe by Jaclyn at Cooking Classy! Enjoy!!
I think that AI can be used in education to enhance learning. AI is here. It’s with us and if we don’t embrace it we will be left behind. Does it mean that we don’t need to teach students how to write? No, but we can now focus on the process more than the product for learning and assessment.
I use AI to help me create scenarios for lessons. AI can help create targeted lesson plans and help develop materials to teach the learning objectives. It is a powerful tool and can enhance professionalism. However, we do need core functional competencies. I haven’t researched it, but it seems that there are new and relevant skills that can be taught and focused on instead. When we do a research paper, our skills are in finding relevant sources and then applying them to our topic. I don’t know where things will go.
My stance is to embrace technology, and at the same time, ensure that students spend ample time outdoors and away from screens. I think we need to teach balance.
I popped in the last two reflection lessons into Chat GPT:
What do you think falls under the category of legitimate use for AI in schools? Where do you draw the line?
Here’s the answer (small, italicized words copied from Chat GPT):
The use of AI in schools can bring about several benefits, enhancing educational experiences and administrative processes. Here are some legitimate uses for AI in schools:
Personalized Learning: AI can analyze individual student performance data to tailor educational content to each student’s needs, providing personalized learning experiences and targeted interventions.
Automated Grading: AI can assist teachers by automating routine tasks, such as grading assignments and tests, allowing educators to focus more on providing qualitative feedback and interacting with students.
Adaptive Learning Platforms: AI-powered platforms can adapt to students’ progress, adjusting the difficulty and pace of lessons based on individual learning styles and performance.
Data Analysis: AI tools can process large volumes of data to identify trends and patterns, helping educators make informed decisions about curriculum development, resource allocation, and teaching strategies.
Virtual Assistants and Chatbots: AI-driven virtual assistants can provide instant support to students and teachers, answering common queries, offering guidance, and facilitating communication within the school community.
Administrative Automation: AI can streamline administrative tasks, such as scheduling, enrollment, and resource management, reducing the burden on school staff and improving overall efficiency.
Language Learning Apps: AI-powered language learning apps can provide personalized language instruction, assessing individual strengths and weaknesses and adapting lessons accordingly.
However, there are ethical and privacy considerations that should be taken into account, and it’s important to draw a line to ensure responsible and equitable use of AI in educational settings. Some considerations include:
Privacy Concerns: Safeguarding students’ privacy is crucial. AI systems should be designed with strong data protection measures to prevent unauthorized access or use of sensitive information.
Equity: There should be an effort to ensure that AI applications do not exacerbate existing educational inequalities. Schools need to consider issues related to access, affordability, and the potential for bias in AI algorithms.
Transparency: AI systems should be transparent, and users should have a clear understanding of how algorithms operate. Lack of transparency can lead to mistrust and concerns about the fairness of AI applications.
Teacher and Student Collaboration: AI should complement, not replace, human educators. It should be seen as a tool to support teachers and enhance the learning experience, fostering collaboration between teachers and students.
Bias and Fairness: Developers must actively work to identify and mitigate bias in AI algorithms to ensure fair and equitable outcomes for all students, regardless of background or demographics.
By addressing these considerations and establishing clear guidelines, schools can leverage AI responsibly to enhance educational outcomes while safeguarding the well-being and rights of students and educators.
In Education, it would be useful to follow up questions with the students – they could orally summarize their work on the next day so that they can’t just copy and paste without even reading or learning the content.
I grew up with my mom saying, “I’ll put a chicken in, it’s the easiest dinner!” There is a catch though – you have to be at home in time to put the oven on and put the chicken in! If the chicken is frozen, you need to have the forethought to thaw it.
So, chicken dinner is still my favourite, but it’s not the quickest think to make shortest cooking time. This night we had chicken dinner at 9pm. But oh, it was so good! This was a down home meal on regular dinnerware.
But why not give it a fancy feel of family dinners on my great-auntie Eileen’s Royal Albert China? (She would love this)
We did get cutlery on the table eventually – this was the really late dinner.
And VIOLA!!! Chicken dinners make chicken sandwiches and chicken soup when you boil those bones!! One little chicken can go a long ways, and somehow, it feels like the right thing to do – use it all and use it gratefully!
No recipe this time – just call your family, friends, or google. All the recipes are good – the ones with lemon and garlic in the cavity and squeezed on top just might be my favourite.
I think that gamification in learning can be a great way to extrinsically motivate young learners to learn something. However, it can also be demotivating. In class, someone mentioned using a gamified app, Duolingo, to learn a language – they had this incredible streak of learning – 600+ days if I remember correctly, but when they were travelling in a place where they couldn’t access Wi-Fi, they lost their streak and gave up learning the language altogether. In this case, gamification killed their intrinsic motivation to learn something by a failure in the reward conditioning. They were no longer learning the language because they wanted to, but because of the extrinsic reward. So, when they couldn’t receive ethe extrinsic reward of a points of their learning streak, they gave up learning the language altogether!
Gamification could be used where there is no intrinsic motivation; however, where there is intrinsic motivation, I would rather nurture the joy of intrinsic learning than implement reliance on gamification.
In a learning environment, I would use gamification to mix things up and help students have a fresh perspective on learning, but it’s important not to over rely on it.
Photo: Butter chicken, panner, rice, Syrian bread, arugula, and cilantro.
We eat everyday… 3 times. When the going is busy, we lean on habits and in this case eat the same thing often. Batch cooking is great and an efficient use of time, but sometimes we need to spice things up! Here’s an example of a couple of grocery items that helped me enjoy cooking and eating.
This week I found this amazing bread at The Root Cellar. It is the longest flatbread I’ve ever seen! It paired well with butter chicken and panner (you can see it in photo 1). We toasted it in the oven, so it was crispy but still tender!
Photo: Scrambled eggs with arugula, purple onions, avocado, babaganoush, and Syrian flatbread.
Here it is again for a 5 minute lunch! We also went to the Thursday night Esquimalt farmers market and picked up some babganoush made by Syriana. Read their story here. Having the arugula and bread on hand made it a quick and easy – and delicious – lunch on my marathon homework weekend!
Photo: Apples, red pepper, broccoli, carrots, and lime with arugula, purple onions, avocado, babaganoush, and Syrian flatbread.
And here it is again!! I love making a quick dish that feels so gourmet and it takes less than 5 minutes. This one has fresh basil and I love it!
So, just a few different ingredients really changed the game this week. So even if you get the same old staples, it’s a fun twist to throw a few game-changers in and it adds some inspiration and deliciousness!
Q1. What strategies can we employ as educators to teach the ethical and productive use of AI?
Use AI for jumping off points. Sometimes it’s really hard for students to get started on a project. I’ve witnessed this in EAL classrooms, English classes, and computer science. Choice is an important factor in motivation, but when the scope of choice is so wide, many students struggle. You could write: My areas of interest are 1._____________, 2.______________, and 3._______________. What would be a good inquiry topic for me?
I used ChatGPT and it gave me error messages, but Microsoft Bing generated these suggestions after I typed in “My areas of interest are 1. Outdoor Education, 2.Neuroscience, and 3.English Language Learning. What would be a good inquiry topic for me?”
Microsoft Bing’s answer: That’s great that you have such diverse and interesting areas of interest. A good inquiry topic for you would be one that combines these three domains in a meaningful and relevant way. Here are some possible inquiry topics that you could explore:
I like the second suggestion, so if I was starting a new inquiry project, I could use it!
Q2. What strategies can we employ to minimize the risk of plagiarism?
Another way to use AI ethically and productively is to require the responses or reflections to be personalized or based on the student’s experiences, and then add a photo of their experience.
Q3. How can we prepare for instances of suspected plagiarism in our classrooms?
It is important to have your own rules for AI in the classroom and to post them visibly in the class. If something comes up, you will have the rules to fall back on. Get students to co-construct the rules in the first week of class.
Pasta salad for the win!! I made a huge batch of curly pasta on Monday night, knowing that I would be on the road for lunch and supper Tuesday. We were both pleased with our dinner on the road – pasta salad! It was fresh, filling and tasty. I definitely recommend it if you need a good to-go supper. As you can see, there are so many veggies that you can’t even see the pasta – that’s the way I like it, and it aligns with the Canada food guide. Except for protein. chickpeas, cheese, or chicken would have been a good addition!
Pasta lunch for Wednesday was excellent, but by Thursday it was a little old. I didn’t try variations, but totally should have. That’s a glitch in my planning! A totally different kind of dressing, adding proteins, using different veggies would have really helped. The next blog will be about variety – I need it!
This is the first time that I’m using a speech to text device – it’s amazing.
In the lecture today I really appreciated the sharing of my cohort I didn’t realize the extensive effort that it takes for students who have disabilities to need to advocate for themselves so much and that exhaustion factor really makes me want to try to implement the UDL framework in my lessons.
Even though UDL has been talked about in many of our other classes it was good to hear about it again because I haven’t actually taken a deep dive into it, and I do feel like it’s really important so I’m glad that we learned about it again today.
In my undergrad I took a neuroscience class, it was called motor learning, but it really addressed the neuroscience of learning in general. In that class my professor how to Swatch 3 short videos -no more than two minutes each, and at the beginning of every 8:30 AM lecture we had a test on the content of the video. Many of my classmates hated that because they didn’t watch the videos, but I loved it because I did watch the videos and I got a mark every single time and it was incredible scaffolding for learning. I think that I would like to do that for some of my PHE classes. In many of the classes that I observe and teach there are a lot of international students. It’s quite clear that they don’t understand the directions even when the directions are clear and concise. So I think making short videos prior to the class for the students to watch where they can use closed captions and replay the video if they want to they could learn the skill of the sport if that’s what we’re doing that day and come to class knowing what’s going on and feel a lot more confident.
I also appreciated what was shared in class by one of my cohort members about thecurb-cut effect. This means that when you use the universal design for learning for a certain population of students, to help them learn, you actually also help a large population of students that you didn’t necessarily target with those accommodations. So in a PHE setting I think that if I use the UDL framework for the purpose of helping international students, I think it would actually help a lot of people who aren’t confident with their sports skills.
I’m getting excited about this. I’m glad that I learned today about the universal design for learning and had firsthand impact input from my classmates that made the learning so real. I was also grateful for another classmate’s input on how important it is to access the help that’s available as a teacher and to know that the school counselors actually nerd out on learning accommodations, so they are super happy to help. So, that sums up my takeaways from the lecture today and I’m feeling grateful for that lesson and all my classmates that shared!
