During the spring semester of 2018 is when I challenged myself to get my master’s degree. The next thing I knew I applied to Lamar University and was accepted. What have I done? There was no turning back now. I really put myself out there as I remember saying I was never about to go back to school! What’s that saying “Never say Never”. I received my bachelor’s degree roughly 21 years earlier and took a few graduate courses as part of the alternative certification process about 16 years ago. Needless to say, I was very nervous with my decision of going back to school as I watched my husband get his MBA several years ago and he was knee-deep in reading articles and books and writing tons of papers. As a math teacher, it’s been a LONG time since I wrote a paper and the thought of all that reading was overwhelming. In reality, we were not expected to write a paper for every single assignment as we were given choice, but we did read A LOT as expected. What do I mean by we were given choice? We were able to express our learnings in any form we wanted whether it be a presentation with slides and voice over, using an online application (Powtoon, Adobe Spark, etc.), writing a paper, or whatever it is you choose to express yourself.
Let’s go back to my first course, EDLD 5302 – Concepts of Educational Technology, we learned about the growth mindset, the COVA (Choice, Ownership, Voice, and Authenticity) Learning Approach and ePortfolios. ePortfolios was the end goal of this course as were to create a digital presence by putting all our work online as this is the wave of the future. Here is where saw the COVA approach unfold. Now, I didn’t recognize it as such at the time as I was very anxious and frustrated. Throughout all of my education, I was told what and how to do something so as I was given choice for the first time made my assignments at first very difficult. I needed more direction and in-depth instructions as I’m a linear thinker and the need to stay within given parameters is important. Thankfully, Dr. Harapnuik has created his own ePortfolio where he shared more about the Digital Learning and Leading (DLL) program along with several examples of former student’s work. This was very beneficial for me as I was able to see all the various ways students did their assignments and how they created and organized their ePortfolio. Having the opportunity to see others work has helped me figure out my voice within my work and it also helped me conceptualize how the COVA approach makes a difference in one’s learning. The COVA learning approach was a great way for me to learn as it was like hands-on. I was able to take what I was learning right then and there and apply it to my life as an educator. The fact that I was able to choose everything I did in this program provided me with a more personalized learning experience. For instance, when I was working on my very first assignment growth mindset it took me a while (hours really) to figure out what I wanted to do. Providing me the choice to do it how I wanted where I would eventually take on ownership of my work taught me way more than any other method making this assignment very authentic just to me. This scenario took place assignment after assignment and course after course. I feel like I learn way better in a hands-on environment and this method is truly a hands-on method. I’m able to take what I’m learning and incorporate it into my daily life as an educator and really think about what it is I’m doing with my students. What an experience. Looking at how far I’ve come today, eleven courses later, I wouldn’t change a thing when it comes to learning using COVA. Yes, I may not have dwelled on the assignments as much as I did or researched how other students did it as sometimes that made the assignment ten times harder. However, to see how far I’ve come over these last 18 months is a breath of fresh air. I know I will carry this experience and knowledge that I’ve gained with me for a much longer time than I did with the courses I took getting my undergrad. Having the opportunity to really make a change in our organizations throughout this program was exhilarating, take a look at my leading organizational change. I was a little nervous at first as I had an idea, my innovation plan, but lacked some of the knowledge needed to really make the change in my organization. As each lesson in each course allowed me the tools to research more in-depth my innovative plan I become more and more confident and forthright with my organization to lead the way with this change. I have since started this program moved out of the classroom and moved into a position where I can impact not just one campus but several campuses within my district and I have not been shy about sharing my experience and my knowledge gained on flipped classrooms, my innovation plan. As I mentioned, I’m not in the classroom anymore, however, my new role is to help teachers be more innovative with technology usage in their classrooms. Since I’m still an educator I believe that the COVA learning approach is still a great method to use so my students will have a more authentic learning experience. To provide my teachers the opportunities to choose what they want my help with and how they want to incorporate it into their classroom is very important. My role will be to help facilitate their learning of the digital tools so they can create products that benefit them and their students. I will also be creating a few eCourses, similar to the one created in EDLD 5318, with the support of my team for teachers to take at their own time and work on at their own pace. This allows the teachers the opportunity for our teachers to choose which course they are interested in, and get professional development credit for, and they will have assignments they will need to do using the tool taught but to design a lesson that is authentic to them and their classes. This gives teachers the ownership of the lesson they build giving them the sense of completion. I want my teachers walking out of our in person session or an eCourse having a product they can use which is authentic and theirs. How exciting is that? References:
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Jill HobbsMatthew 6:34 'Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.' Archives
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