Reflections from IEC 2025
January 28, 2026
By Katarzyna Kochany, Multimedia & Module Production Specialist, CTSI
When I registered for the MacPherson Institute’s Innovations in Education Conference 2025, I was looking for something beyond the usual conversations about technology in education. Yes, AI is here to stay. But I wanted to find the human element in all this rapid technological change. What are the insights that will help us navigate this era thoughtfully?
I found the deeper pedagogical conversations I was seeking, through discussions about transformative learning, slow pedagogy, and the space for genuine reflection that pushes experienced practitioners to examine their methods.
Beyond Efficiency: Transactional and Relational Learning
Erin Aspenlieder, Director of the Office of Teaching and Learning (OTL) at the University of Guelph, delivered the opening keynote: “Beyond Hope: Preserving, Reimagining and Building for Teaching and Learning in the Age of AI.” This presentation highlighted a tension that I have been navigating in my practice, by drawing a distinction between two types of learning: transactional learning (task-driven, grade-focused work that AI can optimize) and relational learning (the vulnerable, transformative experiences that happen through human connection).
Coming from a workplace Learning & Development background, I’m familiar with ROI-driven, task-oriented design. That efficiency mindset has served me well: clear objectives and well-scaffolded activities are important. But Aspenlieder’s discussion of Mezirow’s transformative learning framework brought into focus the opportunity we have in academia to make space for deeper reflection that invites learners to think about why we do things, not just how.
Transformative learning begins with a “disorienting dilemma”—a catalyst that makes us question our assumptions through human connection and others’ perspectives. This presents an opportunity for the design process. The next time I build a module, I can apply a “plus one” to my own design process: where can I add one activity, one example, or one reflective question that would encourage learners to grapple with a disorienting dilemma? What scenarios, examples, and perspectives can I include that haven’t been on my radar?
Slow Pedagogy in a Fast World
The keynote also touched on another concept that hit close to home. Aspenlieder discussed slow pedagogy, drawing on Maggie Berg and Barbara K. Seeber’s book The Slow Professor. She described building intentional pauses into class discussions and designing assignments that prioritize iterative reflection over rapid completion.
What resonated most was how she connected this to Indigenous epistemologies. Drawing on Shawn Wilson’s Research is Ceremony, she contrasted Western academic time (linear, output-focused) with Indigenous approaches that work with cyclical, relational time, where you return to ideas across years and generations.
The concept of slow pedagogy resonated at two levels: the learning experiences I design, and my own approach. I’m efficient, moving quickly through tasks under tight deadlines. But this session reminded me that efficiency shouldn’t eclipse other values. There is merit in pausing and sitting with design challenges rather than jumping to solutions. This isn’t always feasible when timelines are compressed and project parameters are fixed, but when I have the space, I want to practice that pause more intentionally.
Reflective Practice Across Contexts
Building on the theme of taking a pause, the third session that resonated was Samuel M. Clevenger and Jaime DeLuca’s presentation on “Instructor Identity and Reflective Journaling as Inclusive, Contemplative Pedagogical Practice.” They shared their work using reflective practice in sports management education to challenge students to rethink assumptions about athletes and who belongs in the world of sports.
This connected directly to my own recent experience. Our CTSI team participated in a workshop presented by Indigenous at U of T that centered reflection and dialogue. One question from that workshop has stayed with me: “How will I know what I think until I hear myself say it?” The conference presentation about sports management education showed me that this question captures what transformational learning requires: the space to speak, listen, and be changed.
I have been looking for genuine opportunities to incorporate Indigenous pedagogies and perspectives in my practice. What this session and the broader conference reinforced is that this work requires reconsidering my own way of thinking and the design process itself, not simply finding the right place to “add” content. I plan to engage with resources like 52 Ways to Reconcile and CTSI’s Reconciliation in Practice sessions, making space for ambiguity rather than treating this as another checklist item.
What This Means for My Work
So, what am I taking from all this? I’m thinking more intentionally about transactional versus relational learning. Here’s my own disorienting dilemma: my comfort zone is efficiency (checklists, milestones, clearly defined goals), but I need to slow down and make space for reflection. Which is, after all, what I ask learners to do. Taking that pause to reflect before building—that will be my own personal application of slow pedagogy.
The broader question I’m sitting with: How do I design learning experiences that make room for innovation without losing human connections? The real work is knowing where AI belongs and where we need to protect space for the messy, transformative work that requires actual humans.
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Note: Can AI support authentic reflection? As an experiment in practice, this text was developed through dialogue with Claude AI, for the purpose of testing whether technology can assist, rather than replace, the reflective process that is central to transformative learning.