In the Pines: It’s a Wilderness out There.

In preparation for the Module 2 assignment defining the terms innovation, creativity, teaching, and learning I have been wandering the internet, reading articles, and watching Youtube clips on various topics. After emerging from an off topic tangent inside Youtube (which happens often, given the amount of fun content on the internet these days), it made me ponder something. The world of teaching and learning has become a much more complex one. When I think about the access to information we now currently have, and the task we have to keep the attention of the students in our classrooms, we need to think about our teaching practices and how we provide information to students. When I was researching the definition of teaching it made me reflect on what teaching looked like for a very long time and how it has had to become more student centered. Some teachers pine for the good old days when students were a passive audience that were given chunks of information to memorize and reproduce on exams. That same teacher laments the loss of parent support for them and their jobs, a lack of respect for the teaching profession and a litany of other issues. When the social studies curriculum in Alberta changed in 2006 this change was evident. Gone were knowledge questions from the diploma exam, changed out with a new style of questioning. This new style demanded the analysis and synthesis of information. Remembering dates for your exam became a thing of the past. As a teacher during the change over I remember my dissatisfaction with the new curriculum. But now almost 14 years later writing about innovation and learning, I am reminded as to why that change had to occur. And I have to say the journey was at times difficult as a teacher to change with the times but as I currently sit here reflecting on this topic, I can not help but think that these are exciting days. The rate of change in the world around us is exponential at times. The creation and more importantly the innovation (more on this in the next module) of these new ideas is giving us limitless possibilities for teaching and learning. Governments and administrations are willing to explore new creative ways to teach and learn. High School Redesign is an example of this potential and I am excited to be a part of it and see where we go next.