I really enjoyed the first two workshops and they were great introduction to the course and of course meeting all my peers.
We started talking about equal participation and what it means. Through the conversations we started seeing that there are a few themes that were coming up like inclusivity and engagement. I realise that a lot of us were dealing with similar changes and one of the main one was engagement and how to support your students for a better learning experience; creating a safe space for them to express their creativity which led really well to another discussion around social justice.
What is social justice and how does it become part of teaching and learning? It was a really interesting conversation trying to define social justice and purpose and what it means to each one of us; we’re talking about equity, accessibility, active listening and creating safe spaces. We came into conclusion that this is not something that you can read about it and then move on; it’s lifelong journey that needs to be part of our teaching practice and students learning experience that it will then becoming part of their practice and mindset.
Creating safe spaces are really important for me; an environment where students can freely express themselves without fear of being judged or discriminated against for who they are. This is something that I would like to explore and learn more in order to expand my knowledge around it as part of this lifelong journey mentioned above; but also to be able to pass it on to the students and become their own journey.