Because we give our learners choice, ownership, and voice through authentic learning opportunities when you complete the DLL program you will not only have a M.Ed in Digital Learning and leading you will have a(an):
Innovation plan & implementation strategy
Organizational change strategy
Learning environment
Instructional design/backward design experience
Measurement strategy
Digital literacy strategy
Online/blended course
Paper/Article/Conference presentation
Professional development/learning strategy
ePortfolio
Personal learning networks (PLNs)
M. Ed. degree
We have created a significant learning environment in the DLL program in which we give the learner choice, ownership and voice through authentic learning opportunities. DLL learners will:
Adopt a self-directed approach to learning and utilizing technologies in digital learning environments.
Create an ePortfolio to organize, communicate and promote digital learning and leading.
Embrace technological innovations as an opportunity rather than challenges.
Proactively use technological innovation as catalysts to enhance learning environments.
Develop the leadership qualities necessary to foster learning innovation.
Develop appropriate strategies to lead organizational change.
Manage resistance to change and conflict that occurs when launching innovative digital learning initiatives in educational environments.
Engage in and manage crucial conversations
Create significant learning environments.
Assess, implement, and promote inquiry-based theories and methods to enhance digital learning and leading.
Distinguish learner-centered instructional methods from teacher-centered methods and identify technologies that support each method
Construct and align learning objectives, assessment items, and learning activities based on expected outcomes for digital learners.
Promote the learning and growth mindset within the learning environment and the organization.
Identify, investigate and assess contemporary issues relevant to digital learning in local and global contexts.
Measure the effectiveness of digital innovation strategies.
Design and create effective online or blended learning environments.
Promote digital citizenship and literacy as it relates to their professional practice.
Design and model authentic professional development activities that are active, have a significant duration and are specific to their discipline.
Synthesize the knowledge, skills, and values gained from the program and promote the use of choice, ownership, voice and authentic digital learning within their organizations.
The Master of Digital Learning and Leading (DLL) at Lamar University was a collaborative learner-centered program that embraces technological innovation through collaboration and active and authentic learning that will prepare learners to create meaningful change. The program ran from the fall of 2015 to the Spring 2022. The DLL was updated completely and now runs as the Applied Digital Learning program at Lamar University.
In creating significant learning environments (CSLE) by giving learners choice ownership and voice through authentic learning opportunities (COVA) we help our learners grow into digital leaders who can embrace the opportunities of the future. We refer to this as the CSLE+COVA framework or the COVA approach.
While technology is continually used to enhance the learning environment in the DLL, it isn’t just relegated to being another tool our learners put in their instructional toolboxes. Innovative technologies are used as catalysts to enhance learning and when effectively employed, the technology disappears into the learning environment. This online program is designed to develop both your digital knowledge and your leadership abilities and give you tools, skills, and knowledge to empower those in your educational community to step outside their comfort zone and into the digital future.
The DLL program is grounded in the learning approaches of Dewey, Bruner, Piaget, Papert, Jonassen and other constructivist theorists who advocate that learning is an active, dynamic, and social process in which learners construct new ideas or concepts based upon their current and past knowledge and experiences. The making of meaningful connections is key to the learning and knowing.
The educator and philosopher Mortimer Adler suggests that:
teaching is a very special art, sharing with only two other arts — agriculture and medicine — an exceptionally important characteristic. A doctor may do many things for his patient, but in the final analysis, it is the patient himself who must get well — grow in health. The farmer does many things for his plants or animals, but in the final analysis, it is they that must grow in size and excellence. Similarly, although the teacher may help his student in many ways, it is the student himself who must do the learning. Knowledge must grow in his mind if learning is to take place (p. 11).
In the DLL we create and model significant learning environments where the learner is given choice ownership and, voice through authentic learning opportunities (COVA).
DLL students learn how to purposefully assemble all the key components of effective learning and create their own significant learning environments that will then, in turn, help their learners to learn how to learn.
Research and experience confirm that we learn most deeply through effective collaboration and feedback from our peers. DLL collaborative activities are structured so that students can bring their ideas to their group, examine and test those ideas, and then apply those refined and strengthened ideas to their own projects.
Collaboration is not used as a consensus driving process, rather it is part of the significant learning environment where learners are immersed and engage in productive thinking and problem solving and emerge with enhanced knowledge and skills that they can apply in their own classrooms and professional development.
In DLL the learner will not be asked to sit and get professional development but will be required to go and show what they have learned through the creation of their own authentic projects and learning ePortfolio. The DLL ePortfolio reinforces learner choice, ownership, and voice through authentic learning which the DLL students are then able to share with their learners and their learning communities.
Adler, M. J., & Van Doren, C. (1972). How to read a book: The classic guide to intelligent reading. New York, NY: Touchstone.
Bruner, J. S. (1960). The process of education. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Bruner, J. S. (1961). The act of discovery. Harvard Educational Review, 31(1), 21–32.
Dewey, J. (1916). Democracy and education: An introduction to the philosophy of education. New York, NY: Macmillan.
Papert, S. (1993). The children’s machine: Rethinking school in the age of the computer. New York, NY: Basic Books.
Papert, S. (1997). Why school reform is impossible (with commentary on O’Shea’s and Koschmann’s reviews of “The children’s machine”). The Journal of the Learning Sciences, 6(4), 417–427.
Piaget, J. (1964). Development and learning. In R.E. Ripple & V.N. Rockcastle (Eds.), Piaget Rediscovered: A Report on the Conference of Cognitive Studies and Curriculum Development (pp. 7–20). Ithaca, NY: Cornell University.
A Comparison of the COVA and the Traditional Teacher Centered Approach
Components
COVA
Traditional Approach
Choice
Learners are given the freedom to choose how they wish to organize, structure, and present their knowledge and learning experiences. The choice extends to the authentic project or learning experience.
Teachers dictate how students are to perform, organize, structure and present information and learning experiences. When teachers do provide a choice, it is often a selection from a predetermined list of options.
Ownership
Learners are given control and ownership over the entire learning process including the selection of projects, the ePortfolio process, and all their learning tools and resources.
Teachers have full control over the learning process, the selection of assignments, the tools, and resources.
Voice
Learners are given the opportunity to use their own voice to structure their work and ideas and share those insights and knowledge with their colleagues within their organizations.
Teachers require students to emulate and replicate predetermined structures and examples and expect that students will only share their work with them and on occasion allow them to share with classmates.
Authentic Learning
Learners are given the opportunity to select and engage in authentic or “real world” learning experiences that enable them to make a genuine difference in their own learning environments and their communities.
Teachers focus on the delivery of the curriculum and strive to cover the required material that students will be tested on. When projects are used, they are most often closely controlled by the teacher and seldom have an authentic or “real world” impact.
ePortfolio
The ePortfolio is a learning portfolio that the learner fully owns and controls and uses to share their new knowledge publicly with people other than the instructor. The ePortfolio is used to organize, manage, and share all aspects of the learner’s authentic learning experiences.
If ePortfolios are used, they are most often assessment focused and students are required to use tools assigned by the teacher to deposit student’s artifacts. The ePortfolio is used to store content and enable administrators to confirm that required content has been covered.
The ePortfolio has been included in the COVA table because it is a fundamental authentic learning tool that is used to give the learner control and voice over the representation of their learning experiences. The ePortfolio is also an example of collaborative technology tool that fades into the background as the learners use it to share their voice and collaborate and communicate with their peers in and out of their classrooms. It is also important to understand that for the ePortfolio to be used effectively and equally important as a life-long learning tool beyond a program of study all the elements of COVA approach must be in place. Recent research into ePortfolio persistence by Thibodeaux, Harapnuik, & Cummings (2017) has confirmed that 80% of learners will stop using an ePortfolio after a program of study unless they see the value in the ePortfolio, are given control over the selection and use of the ePortfolio tools and are able to work on authentic projects related to careers. We need to learn from the research and recognize that if you attempt to simply bolt an ePortfolio onto a course or program of study and ask students to add assignments as artifacts, the ePortfolio becomes an assessment portfolio and most of them will not use the tool beyond the program of study.
References
Thibodeaux, T. N., Harapnuik, D. K, & Cummings, C. D. (In press). Factors that contribute to ePortfolio persistence. International Journal of ePortfolio.
Links to all the CSLE+COVA vs Traditional table comparisons:
A Comparison of the CSLE and the Traditional Teacher Centered Approach
Components
CSLE
Traditional Approach
Student’s role
The learner’s needs are the starting point. The learner is not only an active participant in the learning process; they are required to take control and ownership of their learning and work toward making meaningful connections.
Teachers start with the curriculum and determine what content that the student will be required to demonstrate that they have covered. The student’s responsibility is to regurgitate information and show that they are able to replicate assignment examples and processes.
Instructor’s role
The instructor functions as a presenter, facilitator, coach, and mentor and iresponsiblety for creating the significant learning environment that promotes learning. They are required to provide the guided discovery, scaffolding, and conceptual framework mapping to facilitate learning.
The teacher is the presenter of curriculum and content. The teacher will also demonstrate required procedures, process and standards and confirm that students can replicate those requirements. The teacher also functions as the gatekeeper of advancement through the use of standardized testing.
Social Networking
Humans are social beings and being part of, contributing to, and interacting with community and culture is a central part of the learning process. Social networking is leveraged to promote communication and collaboration
Teachers and schools system restrict students from using social networking in class and some settings require that phones and other connective and collaborative tools are turned off or are even confiscated.
Instructional delivery formats
To take advantage of our ubiquitous access and social networking and to respond to the learner’s needs, our learning delivery can be mobile, online, blended, and even when face2face, must be digitally enhanced.
Teachers primarily use the lecture to deliver content. The move toward the flipped classroom is generally a move to putting the lecture online and use the internet for content delivery. The delivery of content is the primary focus of instruction.
Instructional Design
Starts with the end in mind and focuses on how a course or program will change learners lives, how it makes them a better member of society, and contribute to solving a particular problem or “real world” need. Rather than be bound to a single theory or approach, learning theories and approaches can be interchanged. The key is that we design an environment that is learner-centered, engaging, motivational, contextual, experiential, and authentic.
Standardized tests, state standards, and district curriculum determine the instructional design. The priority is being able to demonstrate that content has been successfully delivered and that students are able to satisfactory complete standardized tests. Instructional design approaches that promote the decimation and regurgitation of information are used. The results are a teacher centered, passive, demotivating environment that lacks context and connection with the “real world”
Assessment & Evaluation
The focus is on feedback, mastery of knowledge, authentic learning, critical analysis and creative thinking which help the learner make meaningful connections
Summative assessments including tests, quizzes, standardized writing, and testing are used to show that the learner is able to replicate information and meet standards
Academic quality & standards
Future focus of preparing our learner to learn how to learn and how to adapt to opportunities and challenges that don’t even exist.
State standards, standardized testing, and college entrance requirements are the primary measure of quality and standards.
Technology & support
The focus is on using technology to help you do want you want and need to do. Learning technologies are just tools that we use to enhance and empower learning. The best technology empowers creation and ultimately disappears.
Technology is used for management and control of the delivery of content. Successful technology implementation means that the students has the technology and it is generally used to replace or enhance traditional information delivery and retrieval strategies.
Whether we are purposeful in its design or we just allow the circumstances to dictate its development, educators at all levels are providing some form of a learning environment. Rather than allow the environment to come together on its own and respond reactively to the learning dynamics that arise, we suggest that educators become proactive and create significant learning environments. If we start with a student-centered approach and purposefully assemble all the key components of effective learning into a significant learning environment, we can help our students to learn how to learn and grow into the people we all hope they will become.
The key to the CSLE is that it starts with the learner and focuses on their unique needs by giving the learner choice, ownership, and voice through authentic learning opportunities. The role of the teacher is diverse and spans a minimum of four different responsibilities ranging decreasing degrees of control from presenter to mentor (Priest, 2016). The benefits of the COVA approach are fully realized through the proactive implementation of CSLE. The purposeful and holistic design requirements of the COVA and CSLE approach require that teachers look beyond the temptation to use a mobile device or other technology tools as a quick fix and focus on how the learning environment can be structured and how the learner can use the technology to further the ownership of their learning.
In contrast, the traditional approach is simply an information delivery model of instruction that is best managed with a high degree of teacher control. Since it is relatively simple to determine to what extent the information has been delivered successfully through quizzes and standardized testing, the traditional approach tends to use technology to control and manage the delivery of content. Paper-based worksheets and tests are replaced with digital worksheets and tests which confirm the claim of November’s (2013) one thousand dollar pencil.
References
November, A. (2013). Who owns the learning? Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree Press
Priest, S. (2016). Learning & teaching [Web log post]. Retrieved from http://simonpriest.altervista.org/LT.html#ES
Links to all the CSLE+COVA vs Traditional table comparisons:
COVA — is a learner centered active learning approach that gives the learner choice (C), ownership (O), and voice (V) through authentic (A) learning opportunities.
While the acronym COVA is somewhat authentic, the elements of the COVA approach to learning which include choice, ownership, and voice through authentic activities or assignments are based on well-established and widely accepted active learning principles. Similarly, the elements of Creating Significant Learning Environments (CSLE) are not new and neither is the idea of looking at learning from a holistic or broader learning environment perspective. So, when the COVA approach is combined with CSLE, you get a significant learning environment which takes into account all the key elements essential to effective active learning. Additionally, the learner has the opportunity to choose and take ownership of their own authentic learning experiences. All the variables are in place to help your learner make the meaningful connections which are so fundamental to learning. When you factor in a genuine digital learning portfolio, which we prefer to call an ePortfolio, you also give your learner the opportunity to find their voice, reflect on their experiences, express their insights, connect, and collaborate with a broader learning community. Research has shown that the assembly of existing or well-established ideas into new combinations is the foundation of most innovative work and knowledge advancement (Wuchty, Jones, & Uzzi, 2007; Duhigg, 2016).
COVA Components
Choice – Learners are given the freedom to choose (C) how they wish to organize, structure and present their learning experiences and evidence of learning. Choice also extends to the authentic project or learning experience. Choice promotes personalized learning (Bolliger & Sheperd, 2010) which includes adapting or developing learning goals and choosing learning tools that support the learning process (Buchem, Tur, & Hölterhof, 2014). It is crucial to acknowledge that the learner’s choice is guided by the context of the learning opportunity and by the instructor who aids the learner in making effective choices.
It is extremely important that this learning process is understood as guided discovery and not confused with pure discovery learning (Bruner, 1961, 1960). The research over the past 40 years confirms guided discovery provides the appropriate freedom to engage in authentic learning opportunities while at the same time providing the necessary guidance, modeling, and direction to lessen the cognitive overload (Mayer, 2004). In addition to instructor guidance, the creation of a significant learning environment will also provide guidance and structure to help direct the learner. The academic literature is rich with examples of choice which can often be referred to as learner agency, autonomy, empowerment, self-efficacy. Choice has a very long history as we can see from Dewey’s (1916) perspective from Democracy and Education:
The essence of the demand for freedom is the need of conditions which will enable an individual to make his own special contribution to a group interest, and to partake of its activities in such ways that social guidance shall be a matter of his own mental attitude and not a mere authoritative dictation of his acts. (p.352)
Ownership – Learners are given control and ownership (O) over the entire learning process including the selection of projects, the ePortfolio process, and all their learning tools. Once again we must reiterate that this ownership process is within the context of instructor guidance. The same benefits of guided discovery discussed above apply to this context as well. Constructivists, like Jonassen (1999), argue that ownership of the problem is key to learning because it increases learner engagement and motivation to seek out solutions. Ownership of learning is also directly tied to agency when learners make choices and “impose those choices on the world” (Buchem et al., 2014, p. 20; Buchem, Attwell, & Torres, 2011). Clark (2001) points to a learner’s own personal agency and ownership of belief systems as one major factor contributing to the willingness and persistence in sharing their learning. These belief systems must be understood prior to sharing their belief systems. Clark (2001) also claimed that media is not solely responsible for learner motivation.
Voice – Learners are given the opportunity to use their own voice (V) to structure their work and ideas and share those insights and knowledge with their colleagues within their organizations. The opportunity to share this new knowledge publicly with people other than the instructors helps the learner to deepen their understanding, demonstrate flexibility of knowledge, find their unique voice, establish a sense of purpose, and develop a greater sense of personal significance (Bass, 2014).
Authentic learning – Learners are given the opportunity to select and engage in authentic (A) learning opportunities that enable them to make a genuine difference in their own learning environments. The selection and engagement in real-world problems that are relevant to the learner furthers their ability to make meaningful connections (Donovan et al., 2000) and provide them with career preparedness not available in more traditional didactic forms of education (Windham, 2007). Research confirms that authenticity is only developed through engagement with these sorts of real-world tasks and that this type of authentic learning can deepen knowledge creation and ultimately help the learner transfer this knowledge beyond the classroom (Driscoll, 2005; Nikitina, 2011). It is also important to recognize that authenticity is not an independent or isolated feature of the learning environment but it is the result of the continual interaction between the learner, the real-world activity, and the learning environment (Barab, Squire, & Dueber, 2000). This is also why we stress that in the COVA model choice, ownership, and voice are realized through authentic learning and without this dynamic and interactive authenticity, there would be no genuine choice, ownership, and voice.
References
Barab, S. A., Squire, K. D., & Dueber, W. (2000). A co-evolutionary model for supporting the emergence of authenticity. Educational Technology Research and Development, 48(2), 37-62.
Bass, R. (2014). Social pedagogies in ePortfolio practices: Principles for design and impact. Retrieved from http://c2l.mcnrc.org/pedagogy/ped-analysis/
Bolliger, D. U., & Sheperd, C. E. (2010). Student perceptions of ePortfolio integration in Online courses. Distance Education, 31(3), 295-314.
Bruner, J. S. (1960). The process of education. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Bruner, J. S. (1961). The act of discovery. Harvard Educational Review, 31(1), 21–32.
Buchem, I., Attwell, G., & Torres, R. (2011). Understanding personal learning environments: Literature review and synthesis through the activity theory lens. Proceedings of the PLE Conference, 1-33. Retrieved from http://journal.webscience.org/658/
Buchem, I., Tur, G., & Hölterhof, T. (2014). Learner control in personal learning environments: cross-cultural study. Journal of Literacy and Technology, 15(2), 14-53. Retrieved from http://www.literacyandtechnology.org/volume-15-number-2-june-2014.html
Clark, R. (2001). Learning from media: Arguments, analysis, and evidence. Greenwich, CT: Information Age Publishing.
Dewey, J. (1916). Democracy and education: An introduction to philosophy of education. New York, NY: Macmillan.
Donovan, S. M., Bransford, J. D., & Pellegrino, J. W. (2000). How People Learn: Bridging research and practice. Washington D. C.: National Academy Press.
Driscoll, M. P. (2005) Psychology of Learning for Instruction. Toronto, ON: Pearson.
Duhigg, C. (2016). Smarter faster better: The secrets of being productive. New York, NY: Random House.
Jonassen, D. H. (1999). Designing constructivist learning environments. In C. M. Reigeluth, Instructional-design theories and models: A new paradigm of instructional theory (pp. 215-240). New York, NY: Routledge.
Mayer, R. E. (2004). Should there be a three-strikes rule against pure discovery learning? American Psychologist, 59(1), 14–19. http://dx.doi.org.libproxy.lamar.edu/10.1037/0003-066X.59.1.14
Nikitina, L. (2011). Creating an authentic learning environment in the foreign language classroom. International Journal of Instruction, (4)1, 33-36. Retrieved from http://www.e-iji.net/dosyalar/iji_2011_1_3.pdf
Windham, C. (2007). Why today’s students value authentic learning. Educause Learning ELI Paper 9. Retrieved from http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ELI3017.pdf
Wuchty, S., Jones, B. F., & Uzzi, B. (2007). The increasing dominance of teams in production of knowledge. Science, 316(5827), 1036–1039.
Links to the all the components of the CSLE+COVA framework:
