This was a fun week as we got to see what the different groups are planning to research for their final project.
My group’s presentation went well. The topic we are doing is “Enhancing Engagement and Differentiation through AI Chatbots in Secondary Classrooms.” We introduced a basic overview of our website with a definition of what AI Chatbots are and provided some background as to why we chose this topic. We introduced the pedagogical approaches that we explored for this first section of the assignment, specifically Universal Design for Learning (UDL), Personalized Learning, Socratic Questioning with AI, and Blended Learning Models (i.e. Station rotation, flipped classrooms, or self-paced structures with chatbot supports). Finally, we concluded with discussing some innovative digital tools that could be used when it comes to AI Chatbots with, for this presentation, a focus on ChatGPT. We covered a lot of information in a short period of time but the points we brought up were very important to our research and the overall project.
This topic that my group chose is important to the education world as AI is becoming more prominent and teachers are struggling to figure out how they can best use it rather than ban it from being used by students.
One group that really stood out to me was group 7, which is focusing on the idea of mental health and wellness through digital pedagogy. The concept is so interesting and so applicable to current research that I was drawn into the presentation and the points they were bringing up.
My research assignment for my class semester which was the digital wellness course made me connect to this group’s topic because I looked at Youth and AI and the need for digital wellness through that lens. Reading through their website I found some really helpful resources that I think are really helpful when it comes to this specific topic.
The parts of the presentation and the resource that stood out to me was when they were discussing technology’s impact on mental health especially the piece of research they mention about how excessive screen time is connected to and increase in stress and disengagement (Rideout & Robb, 2018). This came up a lot in my personal research around the connection between Youth and AI and digital wellness because part of what I was looking at was how if youth do not use AI in a productive way it can become dangerous due to an overdependence they could develop.
The different pedagogies that they mention are interesting and I am excited to learn more about them. They include Social Emotional Learning (SEL), Trauma-Informed Pedaogy, Culturally Repsonsive Pedagogy (CRRP), and Flipped Classrooms and Breaks (Broyt & D’Ugo, 2025). I have heard basic information about each of these approaches, so I am excited to see how they draw on them throughout their project. I look forward to learning more about their project and hearing about their findings and ideas for how this topic can be implemented in classrooms.
This week was a great introduction to learn about our peers research interests and has provided some great insight into some very interesting topics that we can all connect to in some capacity.
References:
Broyt, F. & D’Ugo, G. Mental Health and Wellness Through Digital Pedagogy. https://mentalhealththroughdigitalpedagogy.my.canva.site/
Rideout, V., & Robb, M. B. (2018). The Common Sense Census: Media use by tweens and teens. Common Sense Media. https://www.commonsensemedia.org
