When I began the Master of Arts in Educational Technology program, I was an experienced science teacher at Saltus Grammar School, and some colleagues regularly approached me when they needed help with technology. I was confident experimenting with digital tools and had already begun thinking about technology through the TPACK framework. I understood that technology should support strong pedagogy rather than simply replace an existing classroom practice. Even so, my thinking was still centred primarily on my own teaching. I wanted to choose better tools, design stronger learning experiences, and use technology more purposefully with my students.

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Starting with My Own Practice

One of the first courses to challenge that perspective was CEP 810. Our work on knowledge and expertise, including reading Chapter 2 of How People Learn by Bransford, Brown, and Cocking, pushed me to think more carefully about what teachers need in order to integrate technology well. Teachers are expected to develop expertise in content and pedagogy through education, experience, and reflection. Technological knowledge, however, is often treated as an add-on. A new device or platform is introduced, teachers are shown how to operate it, and they are then expected to use it meaningfully in their classrooms.

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CEP 810 helped me recognize that knowing how to use technology is not the same as knowing how to use it to support learning. A teacher may understand the basic features of a tool without knowing whether it is appropriate for a particular learning goal, how it connects to pedagogy and content, or what barriers it may create. Even experienced teachers can be novices when evaluating unfamiliar technologies.

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This was an important step in developing the critical lens described in the MAET goals. I began to question whether technology genuinely improved learning rather than assuming that digital approaches were automatically more innovative. It also changed how I thought about equity. Teachers enter professional learning with different levels of technological knowledge, confidence, experience, and support. Providing everyone with the same brief training may appear equal, but it does not necessarily give teachers equitable opportunities to develop expertise.

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This realization changed the audience I imagined for my learning. I was no longer thinking only about how I could apply new ideas in my science classroom. I began asking how the same ideas could help other teachers. Colleagues already knew me as someone who could help with technology, but I started to view those conversations differently. Rather than simply solving a technical problem, I could help a teacher think through the relationship among the tool, the learning goal, and the needs of the students.

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Stepping Beyond the Classroom

During my first year in MAET, an Educational Technology and Innovation Coach position became available at Saltus Grammar School. My professional experience had prepared me to support colleagues, but CEP 810, CEP 811, and CEP 812 gave me stronger language for explaining what meaningful technology integration required. They also gave me the confidence to see myself as someone who could contribute beyond my own classroom.

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I remember being asked in one interview which tools I would recommend to teachers. Rather than listing platforms, I explained that the starting point should be the intended learning, not the tool. That response reflected the shift already taking place in my thinking, and it was something the interview panel seemed interested in. In a second interview, I was asked how I would approach implementing digital literacy across the school. The early MAET courses helped me think beyond individual applications and respond in terms of teacher knowledge, intentional design, and school-wide learning.

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These experiences encouraged me to think in new ways about what it meant to work in educational technology. My role would not simply be to introduce teachers to tools. It would be to help them make informed decisions, connect technology to learning, and build the confidence and knowledge needed to adapt their practice. I was offered the position and began preparing to move into a role where I would support teachers across subjects and grade levels.

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Recognizing Leadership in Systems Thinking

Before I officially began the coaching role, CEP 815 helped me think more deeply about leadership. Until then, I had not necessarily described myself as a leader. I had coordinated initiatives, supported colleagues, and created systems within my classroom, but I tended to associate leadership with formal authority or administrative titles.

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Through reading Seven Transformations of Leadership by Rooke and Torbert, completing leadership self-assessments and reflection on my strengths, I began to recognize qualities I had not previously named as leadership. CEP 815 did not introduce me to systems thinking, but it helped me understand that the way I naturally approached problems could become a form of leadership beyond my classroom. I began to see leadership as influence, relationship building, capacity development, and the creation of conditions in which others can grow.​ This reflected the MAET goal of becoming a transformational leader. Rather than thinking about leadership as directing others, I began to see it as helping a community develop the knowledge and structures needed for sustainable change.

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The year-long professional learning plan I created for CEP 815 allowed me to apply that thinking. The problem I wanted to address was the fragmented nature of much school-based professional development. PD is often delivered through disconnected sessions: an hour on one topic, a half day on another, or a presentation from an outside consultant. Teachers are then expected to understand the content, adapt it to their context, and implement it with little follow-up.​ I had always believed that teachers, like students, need reinforcement, feedback, time to practise, and opportunities to revisit their learning. CEP 815 gave me the opportunity to turn that belief into a larger system. I designed a year-long model in which teachers could choose a topic connected to their interests and classroom needs, establish a personal goal, engage in self-paced learning, meet with colleagues throughout the year, and access coaching support. The plan also included reflection, classroom observation, and opportunities to adapt goals as teachers applied their learning.

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The design connected directly to my earlier thinking from CEP 810. If teachers’ difficulties with technology reflect gaps in knowledge rather than unwillingness to change, schools have a responsibility to provide meaningful opportunities to develop that knowledge. A one-hour technology session cannot be expected to produce expertise. Teachers need sustained and differentiated support that connects new technological knowledge to the strengths they already possess.

This was another example of promoting equity. The year-long model did not assume that every teacher needed the same topic, pace, or form of support. It allowed teachers to choose authentic problems from their own practice and build from their individual starting points. Technology was not treated as the final goal. It was one possible support for challenges involving assessment, differentiation, workload, classroom management, and competency-based learning.

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Although I did not implement the complete plan exactly as it was designed, its principles shaped how I approached professional learning once I began coaching. I later led the organization of our April 6th teacher-led professional learning in which teachers selected and facilitated sessions for colleagues. This was a smaller step toward a culture built on teacher expertise, collaboration, and shared ownership.

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Applying a Wider Lens

By the time I began CEP 813 and CEP 818, I was working as the Educational Technology and Innovation Coach at Saltus and approaching the coursework through a different lens. I was no longer asking only how an idea might apply to my science classroom. I was considering how it might affect teachers across departments and what support or systems the school would need.

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This became especially important during CEP 813 as we examined assessment in the context of generative AI. Before the course, I mainly saw AI as a tool that could save teachers time through planning, adapting resources, and generating examples. When thinking about student use, I was more likely to frame it as an academic-integrity concern. I was asking whether students should use AI and how teachers could prevent them from submitting work that was not their own.

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The Monash University reading AI and Assessment pushed me to think in new ways. Instead of asking only whether students had used AI, I began asking whether the assessment still provided valid evidence of learning when AI was available. If AI could produce a polished response within seconds, what was the task actually measuring?

That question shifted my focus from detecting AI use to examining assessment design. I began thinking about what students needed to demonstrate independently, where AI might appropriately support learning, and how teachers could make student thinking visible. The challenge was not simply to create assignments that AI could not complete. It was to design assessments that remained meaningful when AI was part of the learning environment.

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My science background gave me one perspective. In practical science work, I can observe students collecting data, ask questions as they work, and listen to them explain their reasoning. Teachers in subjects that rely more heavily on written products may have fewer opportunities to see the learning process directly. Working as a coach made me consider these disciplinary differences rather than treating AI as a problem with one universal solution.

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This also raised questions of equity. Students and teachers enter AI-supported learning with different levels of knowledge, access, and confidence. Simply allowing or prohibiting AI would not ensure equitable learning. Teachers needed support in deciding what counted as credible evidence within their subjects, and students needed guidance in how to use AI responsibly without allowing it to replace their thinking.

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CEP 818 allowed me to connect these assessment questions with creativity and professional learning. We examined creativity as a collection of thinking practices rather than simply the production of an original-looking final product. When asked to design professional development related to creativity, I created AI-Resilient Assessment Design, a three-session professional learning program.​ The PD brought together ideas from several points in my MAET learning. CEP 810 had helped me recognize the need to build teacher knowledge. CEP 815 had encouraged me to think about sustained professional learning. CEP 813 had raised questions about valid assessment in an AI-rich environment. CEP 818 gave me creative-thinking tools and purposeful constraints that could help teachers redesign their tasks.

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The program was organized around four pillars: visible thinking, local context, creative pathways, and evidence of process. Teachers considered how students could justify decisions, connect tasks to personal or local experiences, make less predictable choices, and provide evidence through brainstorms, drafts, sketches, screenshots, or conferences. The emphasis moved from the polished final product toward the thinking and development behind it.​ The structure of the PD reflected my growing understanding of teacher learning. Participants began by using AI to complete an assessment from another department. They then examined what AI handled well, what thinking was lost, and how student engagement might change. Teachers used those insights to redesign one of their own assessments, clarify the role AI could play, and identify what evidence students would need to provide. The sessions included application, peer feedback, reflection, and a commitment to one manageable change.

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Creating this PD helped me continue thinking in new ways about AI. I no longer saw student AI use only as something to prevent. Students can use AI while still engaging in creativity, judgment, critical thinking, and reflection, but that use needs direction and clear expectations. Teachers must decide where AI can add value, where students must take over, and how students will make their own thinking visible.​ This work later informed my coaching practice as I helped develop the Saltus AI policy and AI Use Scale (developed based on Leon Furze's AI Assessment Scale), and supported teachers in conversations about AI and assessment. Rather than beginning with a list of tools or rules, I could begin with the learning goals, the evidence teachers needed, and the support required for students and staff to use AI responsibly.

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From Classroom Integration to Systems Thinking

When I began MAET, I was focused mainly on improving the way I used technology in my own classroom. Across the program, readings, assignments, interviews, and new professional responsibilities gradually widened that lens. I began to think more critically about whether technology improved learning, more equitably about the different support teachers and students need, and more creatively about assessment, AI, and professional learning. I also came to recognize my existing systems thinking as a form of transformational leadership.

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Through these experiences, I developed the critical lens, commitment to promote equity, willingness to think in new ways, and capacity to become a transformational leader described in the MAET program goals. These goals did not develop as separate outcomes. They became interconnected ways of approaching my work with teachers, students, technology, and change.

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The MAET program describes its graduates as thought leaders with deep theoretical understandings of how, when, and why to integrate technology to support learning. I now understand that this requires more than confidence with tools. It involves examining the learning need, the people involved, and the wider systems that make meaningful implementation possible. My journey through MAET has shifted me from concentrating on technology use within my own classroom to helping design the knowledge, support, policies, and professional learning that allow teachers across a school to use technology well.

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References

Bransford, J. D., Brown, A. L., & Cocking, R. R. (Eds.). (2000). How people learn: Brain, mind, experience, and school. National Academy Press. https://nap.nationalacademies.org/read/9853/chapter/1

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Michigan State University. (n.d.). Master of Arts in Educational Technology. https://education.msu.edu/cepse/maet

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Monash University. (n.d.). AI and assessment. Monash Education. https://www.monash.edu/learning-teaching/teachhq/Teaching-practices/artificial-intelligence/ai-and-assessment

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Perkins, M., Furze, L., Roe, J., & MacVaugh, J. (2025). The AI Assessment Scale. https://aiassessmentscale.com/

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Images of MAET Goals were created using ChatGPT. OpenAI. (2025). ChatGPT [Large language model]. https://chatgpt.com/