The other night my two sons and their former youth pastor and his wife got together for their annual GingerBread build off and the results this year have surpassed all previous years. When you combine active imaginations and creativity with 5 Ginger Bread kits, a hot glue gun and lots of good conversation and laughter you get the following:
GingerBread Pirate Ship
GingerBread Pirate Ship Close-up
All the builders agreed that this year’s creation will be difficult to beat but they also agreed that they are up to the challenge for next year.
While the building of a GingerBread pirate ship may be viewed by some as an expression of creativity and artist voice, I see this as a benefit or result of a life filled with creativity and expression that comes with authentic learning opportunities. For my two boys, this is the norm; they spend most days, designing, creating, building, problem-solving, and working toward big dreams and goals. Both my boys are aspiring professional downhill mountain bike racers so they also significant portions of each day preparing for the race season.
In addition to being athletes, they are also entrepreneurs who are building their personal and business brands on the road to establishing themselves as leaders in their respective fields through their websites, Instagram and Facebook.
Caleb Instagram Story Pic
Whether it is my older son’s writing sponsorship proposals and creating a new promotional blog/vlog and podcast to promote his place in the biking industry or my younger son’s Instagram and Facebook promotions of his latest build as part of his new auto styling business, they have both learned to share their passions and their voice with their audience.
Levi Wish I Knew Series
That creativity, passion, and voice were nurtured through years of their taking ownership of their learning that comes from authentic learning opportunities. As my boys strive to improve their world they are improving the world around them and are having a very positive impact on their communities and spheres of influence.
If we consistently create a significant learning environment in which we give our learners choice, ownership, and voice through authentic learning opportunities (CSLE+COVA) then we can honestly say that we have done our part to change and improve the world one learner at a time. Are you doing your part?
Whether you choose to acknowledge it or not, your organization is riding the waves of change. You have a choice to make. Are you going to go along for the ride and respond reactively to change, or are you going to take charge and be in the driver’s seat, utilizing the change as an opportunity to enhance your institution’s learning environment?
Course Outcome/Goal
Learners will identify technology innovations and embrace them as opportunities rather than challenges, recognizing that they can proactively use those changes as catalysts to enhance their organizations.
Module Outcome/Goal
After completing this module, you should be able to:
Apply the principles of disruptive innovation.
Use technological innovation and change as a proactive catalyst enhance your learning environment.
Video Resources
The Ride You’re on
https://youtu.be/fUej3I2HXeE
Readings
Please read one of the following titles that best aligns with your situation or area of interest:
Discussion grading is based on the quality and level of collaboration with your classmates. We monitor the discussion forums on a weekly basis to get a sense of the quality of your contributions. We check to see if you are really entering into discussions with your classmates or are you just giving limited or “token” contributions. What is “quality” participation? In the words of Supreme Court Justice Stewart ““I know it when I see it”. There will always be a certain amount of subjectivity when we are considering the quality of discussions and dialogue. To help alleviate this subjectivity somewhat consider the following points. We will take into account whether or not you are responding to or entering into a dialogue with your classmates who may have taken the time to respond to your posts or comments. We will be looking to see if you are you trying to be helpful and share insights. We will also be looking see if you are asking questions that lead to deeper discussions and deeper learning. The right answers are often not nearly as important as the right questions.
At the end of the term we run a statistical analysis to see the distribution of the discussions. We then assign a grade based on the level and quality of participation. To get a higher grade you need to collaborate at a high level with more people. The more helpful you are the better you will do.
We don’t use a discussion checklist because research reveals that when we use this type of a checklist or rubric in online discussions students will simply follow the formula (i.e. make one post and respond to two others or whatever the formula dictates) and do not really enter into authentic collaboration. Collaboration is very important in digital learning and you don’t get effective collaboration using a discussion checklist. How much collaboration is enough—enough to be authentic and helpful.
Disruptive Innovation Discussions
In this assignment, you to consider your reading and are to view the following videos then participate in a discussion with your colleagues. This discussion will give you the opportunity to get a better understanding of Disruptive Innovation and how it applies to education and will enable you to verify the ideas that you plan to use in your first written assignment.
Part 6 — Technology as a Disruptive Force in Education
Disrupting Class – Part 3: Disruptive Innovation in Education
Disrupting Class – Part 4: Blended Learning
Instructions
Participate in a class discussion in which you begin by addressing the following issues/questions.
What is disruptive innovation and why is it so important?
How can innovation be a catalyst for change in education or your industry and organization?
If blended learning is not about the technology but about the learning then why do we overemphasize the technology aspect of this change?
What models of blended learning can you see working in your organization?
What are some opportunities for innovation in your organization? How will this impact your innovation proposal?
Please remember the list of questions are for your benefit and are intended to help you focus your thinking. We are not asking nor expect you to answer each question in your discussion–rather you should use these questions to help focus on how the insights gained through this discussion will help you to add another component to your innovation plan.
This assignment will be assessed as part of your course participation grade.
The Need for Change Discussions
In Bring on the learning revolution! Sir Ken Robinson makes an entertaining and profoundly moving case for a revolution to our educational systems. Robinson makes the argument that we need to use the advances in the Internet and technology to create a model of education that is organic and that is personalized to a learners unique talents and needs. This discussion will give you the opportunity to get a better understanding of why change is so important and to enable you to verify the ideas that you plan to use in your your first written assignment.
Sir Ken Robinson: Bring on the learning revolution!
Instructions
Participate in a group discussion, which you begin by addressing the following issues/questions.
Do you agree or disagree with Robinson’s argument?
What does this say about our learning environments?
What can we do to change our educational system?
What technologies exist today that personalize your computing and learning experiences (hint: Amazon…)?
Please remember the list of questions are for your benefit and are intended to help you focus your thinking. We are not asking nor expect you to answer each question in your discussion–rather you should use these questions to help focus on how the insights gained through this discussion will help you to add another component to your innovation plan.
This assignment will be assessed as part of your course participation grade.
The Effect of Disruptive Innovation in My Organization
Assignment Value: 75 points
In this assignment, you are to articulate your understanding of how a disruptive innovation can be used to impact and change your organization. As you develop your argument for your innovation proposal take into account the ideas that you have explored in the literature, media and discussions.
Instructions
Create/develop an argument for change in your organization that you plan to implement–this argument for change will be referred to as your innovation proposal. Consider all the points that you discussed with your colleagues in the two Collaborative Discussions when you are making your innovation proposal. Your innovation proposal will provide the foundational background for the literature review, the implementation outline, the promotional video and the final presentation of your innovation plan that you will be developing in the rest of this course.
The innovation proposal can be submitted in any format but keep in mind that it will also be used in your ePortfolio as a part of the final blog post where you present your final plan that you will share with your organization.
Two Step Submission
An accurate understanding of how innovation can be used as a catalyst for change in your organization is so fundamental to your innovation proposal and to all other assignments within this course that we need to confirm that you are on the right track and have a solid foundation for which to base the rest of your course work. Therefore, we will be using the following two step submission process:
Step 1
You will submit your completed proposal by 11:59 PM CST on the first Sunday of the course. This assignment will be reviewed but not graded and feedback will be provided to confirm that you are on the right track. You must submit this assignment directly via email to your instructor.
Step 2
You will then take into account your literature review in week two and case study examinations in week three to the help revise and update your ideas and then submit a final version of your innovation proposal by 11:59 PM CST on the Friday night of Week 3. This submission will be graded and must follow the following submission details.
Submission Details:
This assignment is unique to you, your circumstances, and your organization so you need to determine who your audience is, why and how they will use this information, and what impact you are looking to make. Since you own this assignment, and more importantly the ideas within the assignment, you need to choose how you will format and present this information. Refer to Who Owns the Eportfolio – https://www.harapnuik.org/?page_id=6050 for a more detailed explanation of idea ownership.
Even though your evidence of learning for this assignment may take the form of a Google document, video, presentation ( SlideShare), blog post or other digital format, to submit the assignment URL you are required to download and use the provided assignment document template Assignment1-EDLD5305-Submission.docx Click for more options
Download the document template (above)
Past the URL into the space at the top of the document template,
Add your name to the document,
Rename the file with your name and assignment identifier,
Upload the file to Blackboard by or before the deadline.
If your evidence of learning does take the form of a Word document then you can simply paste the content into the document template and complete the assignment submission as outlined above.
The School of Education is using this submission process in its online courses for two reasons:
We wish to provide you an offline copy of the assignment instructions that you can refer to.
We want to ensure there is a consistent and permanent record of assignment submissions that can efficiently be converted to hard copy.
Formats:
You can use a document, google doc, presentation (SlideShare), video, infographic, blog post or any other format to present your ideas to your audience.
Use the APA format to cite your sources.
Use the assignment name, your last name and first initial (assignment name + last name + first initial) to label your assignment submission.
Add to ePortfolio:
Since this assignment is part of the course outcome of identifying technology innovations, embracing them as opportunities rather than challenges, and recognizing that they can proactively be used as catalysts to enhance your learning environment and organization you will also need to add this to your ePortfolio. In the final module you will be required to consolidate all the course assignments into a cohesive section on your ePortfolio, so we recommend that you add this to your ePortfolio as you go along rather than wait until the end.
Average companies give their people something to work on. The most innovative organizations give their people something to work toward. – Sinek, 2014
I recently saw this Simon Sinek quote recycled and turned into Mime or inspirational image and I knew I had seen this before. I did a quick search in my “write about” notebook and saw that back in June of 2014 I clipped this Sinek quote and had planned to write about it in some way. As many good intentions go I got busy and put off writing about this until now.
The timing is actually better than when I first made note of Sinek’s insight because I now have a better context and can make a more meaningful connection to the CSLE+COVA framework. When you create significant learning environments where you give learners choice, ownership and, voice through authentic learning opportunities you are also giving your learner the opportunity to work toward something rather than just work on something. We all know what it is like to work on a meaningless assignment and there is a tendency to put in just enough work to get that A or B and check this off the list.
In contrast, when you own an authentic learning opportunity you shift to the mode of working toward the realization of a bigger goal, purpose or solution to a genuine problem or issue. Purpose and meaning will intrinsically motivate a learner to work toward something and make their own meaningful connections…which is at the heart of genuine learning and development.
Are you asking your learners to just work on make work assignments or are you giving them the choice and ownership to work toward making a difference in the world around them?
References
Sinek. S. (2014, June 14). Average Companies… [Quote]. Retrieved from href=”http://startwithwhy.cmail2.com/t/ViewEmail/r/3791C3AEE6A2A7A62540EF23F30FEDED/8B0470DEB97941AE4BD7C9066BE4161D”>
Seth Godin (2018) is pointing to the bad deal that industry has offered the worker:
Here’s a job. We’ll pay you as little as we can get away with while still being able to fill the job. We’ll make sure it’s easy to find people for this job, because we don’t want you to have much in the way of power or influence. We’ll use software to read the resumes, and we’ll do it in huge batches.
In return, you’ll work as little as you can get away with. That’s the only sane way to respond to the role of being a cog. If the system is going to squeeze you, no need to volunteer.
Godin warns us that the most cog-like jobs are will eventually be done by machines and that cog-like work doesn’t create nearly as much value as truly human work. He is looking to his community and to employers to take the risk and move from compliance and cog based jobs to jobs that require the employee to use their unique talents and abilities to contribute in ways that only they can.
If this is going to work I think educators also have make a shift in the way that we prepare our learners to become contributing members of society rather then just compliant cogs. We need to move away from the information transfer model of education that uses the industrial age and standards testing approach which simply asks students to regurgitate information and fall into compliance. In contrast we need to embrace the learner and create significant learning environments that give the learner choice, ownership and voice through authentic leaning opportunities if we really want to empower our learners to do the work that only a few humans can really do and to contribute to a better humanity and society.
Are we preparing our students to be compliant cogs or creative contributors?
There was a time that I would simply repost this infographic, point to the source, and quiet those voices in my head screaming “this is not about learning this is just about information retrieval and retention”. But this is a different time.
Ebbinghaus’ classic forgetting curve shows how quickly we forget information and unless we utilize one of the many tips or tricks to repeat our exposure to information we are hoping to retain then we will indeed forget the information. In several places in the infographic the authors incorrectly equate the notion of information transfer to learning in statements like:
First conceived in by the 19th-century psychologist Hermann Ebbeinghaus, the forgetting curve models the exponential rate at which humans forget the information we’ve learned.
Students forget the most right after they have learned something, with the rate of forgetting declining as time goes on.
In other places the authors more accurately convey that what is happening is information transfer and not learning:
How can teachers equip their students to retain more of the information they are given?
The more students are asked to recall information, the more they strengthen their memory.
What makes these types of infograhpics so frustrating and perhaps even dangerous is that they often embed elements of truth within the misinformation. The five factors that affect our ability to retain information: relevance, difficulty, context, stress, and sleep are accurate but the first three also hold the key to a more accurate way in which we actually learn. Before I go any further, I need to clarify that I am using the constructivist definition of learning which can be summarized as the learner coming to know by making meaningful connections rather than the behaviorist or information transfer definition of learning which can be summarized as the process of acquiring new knowledge, skills or behaviors. If you hold to the information transfer understanding of learning then you need to continually repeat the information input, test the retrieval, use visual or other mnemonic tricks, and use a host of other methods detailed in the infographic to improve the information retention and retrieval.
Or, you can simply use authentic learning opportunities to provide the relevance and context for the learner to take ownership of what they are learning and make those meaningful connections that will not be forgotten. When a learner is exposed to new information or values within the context of working on real-world problems they will be able to develop useful skills and modify existing understanding which ultimately leads to the making of meaningful connections. When you add the significance that comes from a solving and ultimately owning a real challenging problem, the learner will not only retain what they have learned they will have a foundation to make additional meaningful connections and apply their understanding to new situations. This is learning.
We have a choice.
Continue to give students information and then equip them to use a wide assortment of information retention methods or tricks to effectively regurgitate the information.
OR
Create a significant learning environment in which we give our learners choice, ownership, and voice through authentic learning opportunities and help them to learn how to learn.
