Student Teaching Reflection

Throughout my 4 months at Midland High School, I have had my perspective broadened considerably regarding how digital technologies affect students and teachers.

Emerging digital technologies are nowadays integrated into the youth's media (e.g., Instagram, Facebook, TikTok) as well as their pop culture (e.g., music on streaming services, celebrity drama reported by media outlets). This results in many individuals having strong connections between their own personal identities and the technologies they utilize. As a new educator, I was able to utilize technology in order to appeal to the current interests/trends amongst my students to make lessons and assignments more engaging.

While these emerging and evolving technologies serve as amazing tools for faculty and students alike, as teachers, administrators, and other role models in the education setting, we have a responsibility to promote both strong digital and AI literacy skills. I have practiced these skills with my students by showing them how to find reputable sources, and then had them find their own sources and apply them to our content. I have also demonstrated to students the potential inaccuracies of AI by providing an AI a problem multiple times and receiving different solutions (for the same problem). I have also shown students how to responsibly use AI by having them use it to try to find reliable sources for their project. Once they found sources related to their project, they then had to use their digital literacy skills to make sure the sources the AI provided were truly valid.