COVA is REAL

 

          So much in my life has changed both personally and professionally since I began this graduate program (Digital Learning and Leading) last July.  I believe the COVA concepts of choice, ownership, and voice through authentic learning (Harapnuik, Thibodeaux, & Cummings, 2018) have helped shape some big decisions I have made in multiple areas of my life, not just my career path.  When I entered the DLL program, I realized very quickly how open-ended everything was going to be...and frankly, it was terrifying. Where were the step by step directions? The examples? The prescriptive digital tools I was supposed to use? 

 

          It was the second course, our e-portfolio course, when I settled on an e-portfolio platform with confidence.  In fact, I was looking back at my blog posts and it was around the beginning of September when I started to really embrace and own my e-portfolio as well as my learning journey.  Initially, one e-portfolio platform over all others was highly encouraged and I just couldn't connect with it. In fact, I probably have about 5 different e-portfolios started on various platforms while I was doing, experimenting, and learning how they worked and what I liked and disliked about each.  When I finally landed on a platform (I chose Wix), and really started to customize it, organize it, and change it up as needed, I also become more transparent about sharing it with my co-workers who are definitely a part of my professional learning network. My work on my e-portfolio even inspired one of my children to start one of her own.   

 

Looking Back

 

          If I could go back in time and give my 2018 self some words of wisdom, I'd suggest a deeper focus on the organization before jumping in and trying to make things pretty.  Look at the course program map and at least have a preliminary idea about flow and connections. I'd also remind myself that the example e-portfolios I was looking at were the products of completing the DLL program and more.  As I looked at examples, I was completely overwhelmed with the thought that I might ever be able to put together anything so robust and comprehensive. My work seemed so tiny in classes one and two, but look at our e-portfolios now!  Wow! They are packed with thoughts, ideas, connections, evidence of growth, and they are all ours. Not a single one follows a recipe or looks like anyone else's.  

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Innovation Detours

 

          Once I wrapped my head around the idea that I could tackle assignments and projects virtually any way I wanted, landing on an idea for a project that I would mold, shape, and grow over the next year was a scary idea.  Would anyone in my local professional community really have any interest in what I had to say? Or ideas I wanted to share? Or change I want to inspire? Would I really be allowed to implement my plans and ideas? With help and encouragement from some colleagues and my boss, I planned to work with our pre-service teacher program in the area of blended learning (Horn & Staker, 2015).  

         

          I began to visit with the teacher of the pre-service teacher program to lay the groundwork for establishing a relationship.  We began brainstorming ideas about how to establish personal connections with her students and the various district staff we hoped to be coaches and guides along the way.  Our district also had a bond election in the works that would have provided increased access to mobile devices more equitably across the district, among many other projects.  As the end of the school year approached, the bond did not pass and my teacher partner retired. I was crushed thinking my ideas were headed down the drain. I never tackled my innovation project as something I’d “sort of” implement in hopes that I could just finish my degree plan and then forget about it.  As I waited to see who would take over the pre-service teacher program, we also got a new CTE director and my boss was promoted to another area of the district. It took quite some time for my boss’s position to be filled and some other projects in my whirlwind have taken priority in light of the new leadership.

 

          Although there have been several hiccups in my plans, my work has not completely gone by the wayside.  Just have to shift direction and focus. I'm still looking at blended learning, but my target audience has changed due to some district initiatives.  Instead of focusing on our future teacher training program, I'm working a lot more with the handful of campuses that have seen a significant increase in the availability of devices.  The increased number of mobile devices on these campuses allows for dependable and regular access to a device, but we have to help support teachers and students so they don't become digital worksheets and expensive paperweights.  What a disservice we would be doing with our learners if we never pushed them beyond filling the blank on a google doc. It’s never been about the device specifically, but rather about what you can do when you have access to a tool that knocks down the walls of the classroom and allows students opportunities that might not otherwise be available.  

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          My department also launched the professional learning course that I created this summer with some of our content coordinators.  When the line between what you are doing for school and work becomes blurred, you know that your professors have laid all the groundwork to create a significant learning environment, or CSLE (Harapnuik, 2015), without ever actually meeting me in person.  This has been one of the most exciting aspects of the online DLL program. What I am doing and learning in the program has immediate application to my career and project/ideas from my career get some fine-tuning and reflection as I view them in light of my coursework.    

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Don’t Stop

 

          I have grown so much in the last 18 months.  I am more confident and open to sharing my voice.  Instead of just doing what someone asks of me in a step by step format, I am becoming more “comfortable being uncomfortable (McWilliams).”  Just because I can't do something now, doesn't mean I'll never be able to do it. I just can't do it yet. There's more to learn or more obstacles to address (like when a key player in your innovation plan retires...yikes!) before the time is right.  I’ve even tried my hand at some technical skills (coding) I never thought I was truly capable of. There have been some frustrating failures that eventually led to small victories!  

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Philosophy

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          Having the opportunity to look back at our work over the course of the last 18 months has been fascinating.  One of my works I was anxious to revisit was my learning philosophy. Have my thoughts and ideas changed over time?  There’s been some shift. I have realized that intentional behaviorism reserved for the stuff that isn’t really “fun” might not be the necessity I initially considered.  Memorization has a place, but the reality is most of the things I have ever truly memorized are the things I actually use. So, is that learning really part of behaviorism (Bates, 2014)?  Do students really learn and understand letters before they start reading and writing words? As opposed to spending time engaged in rote practice, maybe we should focus on helping students use the resources around them to solve problems.  Ultimately, the things that stick will be the things they needed to construct some kind of meaning or solution to a problem as well as reflecting on the process.

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Doing as Learning

         

          In my current role, I have the privilege of helping teachers use and implement instructional technology tools in their classrooms.  A coaching role, a guide on the side. Although I wouldn’t say that I am an expert coach just yet, I am learning more and more every day that when I work with teachers, I really have to focus on my questions to help teachers figure out what their own end goals are.  There have been countless times that a vague email has come in requesting help, but once I was able to get to the core of the teacher’s goals for their students, their request was actually for something completely different than what was in that first email. Listening, questioning, and reflecting are powerful tools.  

 

          I’ve also learned that in order for a teacher to use the tool or strategy that they are interested in, they have to be in the driver’s seat.  They have to do the work. I can be there for support, but ultimately the mouse has to be in their hand and they have to be logged in. Someone once told me that our job as guides is to coach ourselves right out of a job.  This made me think of my job as a mother. I will never be able to expose my children to every situation or problem they may encounter in their lives prior to venturing out into the world. My job is to prepare them to be their own problem-solvers instead of relying on mom’s interventions and solutions.  

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Creating Significant Learning Environments

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          CSLE  has tugged at my heartstrings for quite a while now.  I miss being in the classroom. I loved forging relationships with students and helping them connect content to real life.  I now realize that was only part of the equation. I’d change so many things if I were to return to the classroom. Instead of simply helping students make content to real-life connections, why not start with real-life and solve a real problem?  Put the learners in a real scenario and have them do, try, design, solve, or create something. When I think about my own children, I didn’t sit and teach them lessons on fractions prior to putting on an apron to make cookies. My eleven year old will tell me “I’m not good at math” but then I see the wheels spin in her head as she tries to double or even halve a recipe.  Real fractions, real failures, and real successes!  

 

          As we work with teachers, my team and I try to involve the teachers in the learning.  If we are going to learn about ways to use our learning management system to differentiate for students, then a “sit and get” presentation will be boring!  Instead, our goal is always to model what we are sharing in an environment that allows the teachers to participate in and envision how that tool or strategy can be used in their own classroom and then actually do some design and creation.  

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          I’ve also learned to value reflection as a requirement for learning.  “Why was the sauce I made for the fish so runny, Mom?” Let’s look at the recipe and think about the steps kiddo.  She can almost always pinpoint the mistake, but even better, she doesn’t do it again and/or comes up with a solution on the spot to help thicken the sauce.  If a teacher is struggling with our LMS and wants to know why something didn’t work, we reflect together and come up with possible solutions. I have also been deliberately trying to model my own thinking and reflection out loud.  “I wonder if I click this” or “I worked through steps one and two, but step three is where I got stuck. Where can I look to try to get unstuck?” I share my best-kept secret to learning about our district’s LMS all the time. Their online community.  But not just that, the online community coupled with trying things out in my test course and also again in real life. Did it go well? Great! Not so much? Let me try to fix it. Can it be better? Let me try.

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Evolving Mindsets

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          One of the biggest obstacles I see these days, both personally and professionally, involves a mindset that focuses on limitations.  “I can’t do x because of y” or “that will never work” or “I don’t have the tools I need.” I credit this degree plan with setting the stage for exactly what I needed right off the bat.  By embracing a growth mindset (Dweck, 2006), instead of focussing on limitations, I can choose to focus on what I can do, what I can learn, and how I can make the tools I do have work for me.  Instead of focussing on how one idea won’t work, what ideas will work?  What are the other options? What can’t we do...yet? How can we make yet happen? 

 

          The fixed mindset easily couples with negative energy. A shift in mindset would do a world of wonder to knock down roadblocks and/or find amazing detours.  Do I get stuck in a fixed mindset sometimes still? Of course I do, but I’m much more aware of when it is happening and resetting my thoughts. Awareness and recognition are some of the first steps needed for this shift.  If a teacher, student, colleague, peer, child, etc don’t recognize when and where their mindsets are getting in their own way, they won’t be able to consciously ask themselves the positive “what if” or “what can I try next” questions.  This journey has been like none other and it has inspired me to keep moving my ideas forward even after the program is over. I don’t think I’ve ever been more ready to welcome closing one chapter so that I can open the next.

 

References

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Bates, T. (2014, July 14). Learning theories and online learning. Retrieved from https://www.tonybates.ca/2014/07/29/learning-theories-and-online-learning/

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Dweck, C. S. (2006). Mindset: The new psychology of success. New York: Random House

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Harapnuik, D. K., Thibodeaux, T. N., & Cummings, C. D. (2018). Choice, ownership, and voice through authentic learning opportunities. Retrieved from  http://www.harapnuik.org/?page_id=7291

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Harapnuik, D. (2015, May 8).  Creating significant learning environments (CSLE) [Video file]. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/eZ-c7rz7eT4

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Horn, M. B. & Staker, H. (2015). Blended: Using disruptive innovation to improve schools. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

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Peter McWilliams Quotes. (n.d.). BrainyQuote.com. Retrieved December 8, 2019, from BrainyQuote.com Web site: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/peter_mcwilliams_393223