How to Succeed in the DLL
If you haven’t already reviewed this page and the related links you owe it to yourself to spend the 30 minutes that it will take to see how to really do well in the DLL.

New Culture of Learning
Creating Learning Significant Environment – EDLD 5313 Week 1 Assign Tips

Significant Learning Environments – exploring the power of an authentic learning environment.

Organic Learning – we need to create the environment in which the learner can do the learning, grow and flourish.

Opening Up Spaces for Answers – Why we run EDLD 5305 the course on innovation planning before we run EDLD 5313, the course on creating significant learning environments

The Power of Constraints – When combined with choice, constraints can be very powerful tools.

Learning Philosophy
Learning Philosophy – EDLD 5313 Week 2 Assign Tips

Four keys to understanding learning theories – Regardless of where you land in your thinking about learning the fact that you are thinking about learning and how learning works means that your learners will benefit.

Are you preparing them for real life or just the test – the power of authentic learning opportunities

Piaget’s Key Implications for Learning – Excerpts from one of the original constructivists that support the CSLE+COVA approach

Foster Inquisitiveness Rather than Rebuild It – When we focus on the right answers instead of starting with questions we not only extinguish our learner’s ability to question, inquire and innovate we create an environment of rewards and punishment that fosters fear in the learner when they aren’t able to regurgitate the right answer.

What are the best ways to study for the test? Read this review from Scientific American to see which techniques accelerate information retention and which techniques are just a waste of time. While the introduction to the article suggests that the focus is on learning the reality is this article focuses on how to improve information transfer and test achievement. Unfortunately, some folks equate this with learning–but it is not.

This Will Make You Rethink Learning Styles Research shows that learning styles DO NOT exist yet many too educators are wrongly inclined to believe that they do.

CSLE & UbD
Aligning Outcomes Activities & Assessment – EDLD 5313 Week 3 Assign Tips

EDLD 5313 Week 4 UbD Assignment Tips Mar 2019

4 Keys to aligning outcomes activities & assessment – There is an easy way and a difficult way to work through Fink’s taxonomy and the 3 column table – please take my advice and use this post and use the easy way.

Mapping Your Learner’s Journey – It is our responsibility to guide our learners through their personal development journey and help them take ownership of their learning.

Why Create Significant Learning Environments – Are you looking at the bigger picture or have you intellectually stepped far enough back to see the full learning environment?

Why you need a BHAG to design learning environments – Use a Big Hairy Audacious Goal (BHAG) to help define a visionary type goal that is more strategic and emotionally compelling rather than being simply tactical.

Why You Need to Rethink Your Role as an Educator – If you really don’t want to be replaced by an inspirational robot then you need to not only talk the talk of Dewey but walk the walk.

Difference Between “Doing Projects” and “Project Based Learning” – Project-based learning is very powerful but we tend to limit its impact by focusing on just doing projects.

DLL Program Map – How we have created a significant learning environment in the DLL program and in your courses.

Review the CLSE+COVA Resources on this site:
CSLE+COVA
CSLE

Mindset

How to Grow a Growth Mindset – You need more than just belief and action you need to change the environment

COVA+CSLE Mindset vs Traditional – Comparison of the COVA+CSLE Mindset and Motivation with the Traditional Teacher-Centered Approach

Mindset – Overview of Dweck book, site, and related videos and resources

Fixed Vs Growth Mindset = Print Vs Digital Information Age – This notion of adapting to a constantly changing environment is also important when we consider our move from a static print information age to the dynamic digital information age.

How to Succeed in the DLL
If you haven’t already reviewed this page and the related links you owe it to yourself to spend the 30 minutes that it will take to see how to really do well in the DLL.

Collaboration

The key to improving student achievement – Hattie argues examining, thinking and talking with other teachers about the learning environments that we have created and are creating and the impact that we can have on learners is the most important thing we can do to improve our learner’s achievement.

Who Do You Trust Enough to Learn From? – The evidence is clear; if you want to learn more effectively online you need to collaborate with your classmates.

Learner’s Mindset

Why Authentic Learning Converts Into Lifelong Learning – We need to allow our learners to choose and work on authentic projects that will inspire their intrinsic passions for learning and help them grow their learner’s mindset.

In pursuit of the better way – the learner’s mindset – Perhaps, if we focused on nurturing and supporting our learner’s natural inquisitiveness and predisposition toward learning we would be much further ahead and wouldn’t then have to attempt to restore or rebuild what we have torn down in the first place.

Innovation Planning

How to Avoid EdTech Quickfix Traps – If you are considering a 1 to 1 initiative or using a software system for drilling in Math or Language/English then I want you to recognize that these are only a small part of a bigger picture and you need to shift your focus from technology to learning. Something along the lines of blended learning or project-based learning would be a very logical focus where these technologies would be used effectively.

Innovation Proposal & Planning Tips – An overview of who you should focus on, what should go into your innovation proposal, and how to pull all your planning pieces together.

Examples mentioned in video
Brooke Josephs
https://bjosephs6.wixsite.com/teachingincolor/project07

Mike Yakubovsky
https://stemtoolkit.weebly.com/project-proposal.html

Kaman Hung
http://www.professorhung.com/innovation-proposal/

Carl Mohn
https://carlmohn.wordpress.com/2017/09/24/innovation-is-the-key/

Caleigh Heenan
https://onedisruptiveeducator.com/innovation-plan/

More 5305 Proposal Examples https://www.harapnuik.org/?page_id=6556

Are You Bolting a Jet Engine onto Your Horse Cart? – If you really want to get the most out of any learning opportunity you have to fight through the cognitive dissonance and experiment with the new ideas and processes to see if they really can make a difference.

Do You Care Enough to Let Them Take Ownership of Their Learning? – When we let our learners take control of their learning the experiences they can embrace, the meaningful connections they create, and the knowledge that they gain will be life-changing.

Literature Review – What does the Data Say

To Get the Real Story You Need to Go to Primary Sources – Because we live in an age when so much information is available we must not only be prepared but be willing to take the time that it takes to critically and analytically assess all the information we are taking in.

What are you learning today? – We need to continually ask – what are you learning today? This question leads to the next most important question – What do you want to learn next?

Case Studies

Why Good Ideas Too Often Go Bad – Useful ideas like Project-Based learning, 1 to 1, and blended learning can all too easily lose their benefit when we shift the focus from learning and just do projects, just focus on the devices, and just focus on the content delivery part of the blended learning.

The Gift of Intrinsic Motivation – Letting your learner experience the consequences of their actions (as long as they aren’t life-threatening) will be much more valuable to them in the long run than your intervening.

Opening Up Spaces for Answers – Why we run EDLD 5305 the course on innovation planning before we run EDLD 5313, the course on creating significant learning environments

Computers in Schools – Not Working…Yet – If focusing on the technology doesn’t improve learning then what does? the research is overwhelming…Focusing on the learning first then finding ways to enhance that experience with technology will improve learning.

My Video & Media Tools

How to Use The Power of Video – Make sure your videos are targeting the hearts before you target the minds of your audience.

Dwayne’s DIY Video Creation Toolbox & My Video & Media Tools – Video examples, the tools, and resources I used to create, edit and publish those videos and the full list of hardware, software and videos resources that I use on a regular basis to create the videos for your learning environments.

Innovation Plan Google Docs Option

Sample Google Doc used in video

Putting it all together

The Power of Vision – Transformative Scenario Planning
Telling stories about what might happen. Not stories about what will happen, not forecasts; not stories about what should happen; not proposals or visions or positions but stories about what MIGHT happen–relevant, challenging plausible clear stories about what might happen.

Professional Learning Plan – a commitment to a lifelong passion for learning.

Revised on September 15, 2020

The roots of the CSLE can be traced back to the ’90s in the work and research on Inquisitivism. While the fundamental ideas for the CSLE began to take shape in the early 2000s, the formal name Creating Significant Learning Environments (CSLE) was first used in a series of workshops in 2009 in the context of adding and expanding the notion of the learning environment in Dee Fink’s Creating Significant Learning Experiences. Fink’s approach and book focused on his experiences as a classroom teacher in the late 1990’s and then as the Director of a Center for Teaching and Learning. Adding significant experiences to the traditional classroom through Fink’s Taxonomy and 3 column table approach was an effective way to introduce backward design and constructivist learning principles to the classroom experience. While Fink did allow for some aspects of a broader perspective in his situational factors assessment of the classroom we found it was necessary to expand the situational factors to the more encompassing environmental factors because of the shift to online learning that began in the mid-1990s. With the explosive growth of the internet and the subsequent growth of online learning and then the addition of mobile and blended learning the importance of creating a significant learning environment that takes into account all the factors of the learning environment beyond the confines of the classroom is even more important today.

We believe that it is important to more than talk the constructivist talk and actually walk the constructivist walk. This notion of walking that talk has been a priority in the earliest learning environments and online courses that were created back in the mid-1990s. As a result, creating learning environments in which the learners are given choice, ownership, and voice through authentic learning opportunities has been a consistent focus since that first online course was created in 1995. Since this first online course, elements of what we now refer to as the CSLE+COVA approach has found its way into all the face2face, online, mobile, and blended courses a well as workshops and related professional development activities that we have been involved in over the past two decades. The Digital Learning and Leading program at Lamar University is simply the most recent instance where we have moved beyond the constructivist rhetoric by a creating significant learning environment in which we give learners choice, ownership, and voice through authentic learning opportunities.

To better understand the CSLE+COVA vs Traditional table comparisons in the video please take a few moments to review the full tables and explanations found at:

CSLE vs Traditional
COVA vs Traditional
CSLE+COVA Mindset vs Traditional

Links to all the components of the CSLE+COVA framework:

Change in Focus
Why CSLE+COVA
CSLE
COVA
CSLE+COVA vs Traditional
Digital Learning & Leading
Research

Revised Oct 23, 2017

Before you examine what you get from the DLL program it is important to understand that the DLL is designed with and uses constructivist principles that make it different from traditional programs. We believe that it is important to more than talk the constructivist talk and actually walk the constructivist walk? The Digital Learning and Leading program at Lamar University is not only based on constructivist principles we model these principles. In the DLL program, we have moved beyond the rhetoric by a creating significant learning environment in which we give learners choice, ownership, and voice through authentic learning opportunities.

To better understand the CSLE+COVA vs Traditional table comparisons in the video please take a few moments to review the full tables and explanations found at:

CSLE vs Traditional
COVA vs Traditional
CSLE+COVA Mindset vs Traditional