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COVA vs Traditional

Dwayne Harapnuik — July 20, 2017

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:

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

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

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

CSLE vs Traditional

Dwayne Harapnuik — July 20, 2017

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:

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

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

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

Foster Inquisitiveness Rather than Rebuild It

Dwayne Harapnuik — July 18, 2017 — Leave a comment

In the Curiosity is the Cat post, Will Richardson makes the argument that curiosity is the only “C” that truly matters. Richardson alludes to the variety of authors who have pointed to 4, 7, or more Cs of 21st Century learning and suggests that without curiosity you wouldn’t have critical thinking, creativity, communication, and collaboration. He also points to the reality that our children are filled with curiosity prior to going to school and by the time they are in their teens they have little curiosity for anything to do with the curriculum. There appears to be a correlation between the ages that children lose their curiosity and a number of questions that they ask.

Santana & Rothstein of the Right Question Institute have compiled a graphic from NCES data that shows children’s peak questioning happens at age 4 and then significantly declines as they progress through school.

Warren Berger confirms this correlation in his book A More Beautiful Question and points to our education systems that reward rote answers over challenging inquiry as one of the primary causes of this decline. Our educational system focuses on giving the right answers as opposed to starting with the right questions. And yet the most innovative organizations in the world like Google, Netflix and IDEO and most innovative artists, teachers, and entrepreneurs look to change the world by starting with a “beautiful question.” Innovation requires starting with questions and our current educational system is not preparing learners who are equipped to ask questions and innovate.

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. In my research into how to get adults more comfortable with using technology, I learned that in order to stimulate the natural curiosity that is extinguished by our educational system I had to first help the adult learner get over their fear of doing something wrong or the fear of not knowing the right answer. Once steps were taken to help adult learners deal with this fear then we could start working on rebuilding that inquisitiveness that would help them to explore and see “what would this button do” as they learned how to use technology. While my approach to adult learning called Inquisuitivism proved to be effective, I couldn’t help wonder why we had to reactively help people rebuild a natural disposition or mindset that we all have as children.

Instead of attempting to reignite our learner’s inquisitiveness wouldn’t it be much more effective to nurture that natural ability they have in abundance before they start school? When we ask this question we need to be prepared to do something about what our inquiry reveals. There is no doubt that if we continue to do what we have always done in school our passive educational environment of main lecture points, content delivery, step by step rubrics, individual competition and standardized testing will continue to efficiently extinguish our children’s natural inquisitiveness.
It doesn’t have to be this way. Like Santana & Rothstein, Richardson, Burger, I also believe that we can help develop connected curious learners who will become the innovators of the future. While reigniting the questioning spark is extremely important this is only one part of a bigger process. If we focus on just this part of the problem we can easily fall into a quick fix mentality which is another perennial problem that we face in education. There are no quick fixes; we have to purposefully design our learning environments. We have to stop doing what we have always done and start creating significant learning environments by giving our learners choice, ownership, and voice through authentic learning opportunities (CSLE+COVA).

References
Berger, W. (2014). A more beautiful question: The power of inquiry to spark breakthrough ideas. New York, NY: Bloomsbury USA.
Richardson, W. (2017, February 11). Curiosity is the cat. Retrieved from https://willrichardson.com/curiosity-is-the-cat/
Santana, L., & Rothstein, D. (n.d.). Percentage of children asking questions. Retrieved from http://rightquestion.org/percentage-children-asking-questions/

In 21st century learning, Design, EDLD 5313, Learning CLSE, COVA, EDLD 5313, inquiry, inquisitive, inquisuitivism, questions

Why Authentic Learning Converts Into Lifelong Learning

Dwayne Harapnuik — June 5, 2017 — Leave a comment

This past Saturday morning when I walked into our living room I couldn’t help noticing the large sheet of black ABS plastic that Caleb, my 19-year-old son, had acquired for his latest project.

Ever since Caleb was a toddler he has enjoyed creating things that would change and enhance his world. For the most part, he was just like every other young kid who loved playing with Lego and other toys but Caleb and his older brother Levi would migrate away from typical play and look for ways to improve their toys and their environment. Both my boys would use Lego and Kinex and other constructables (what I like to call toys that you can build things with) to make things that they could use for other purposes. Their desires quickly moved beyond using Lego and Kinex to using authentic resources to change their environment. For example, when my older son Levi was three he wanted to be able to pull his wagon with his bike and rather than just use a rope he wanted my help to rig up a hitch system which we created and he used and then passed onto his younger brother. Caleb was equally industrious and I have so many fond memories of heading down to the hardware store to gather the items my boys needed for their latest projects.

So when I saw the big piece of plastic I reminisced about Caleb’s passion for making things. I also thought about how my wife and I carefully nurtured and helped him and his brother develop their interests and created the environment in which they could fully develop their creative abilities and learn how to learn. If there was just one thing that I can point to that really made the difference it would have to be the use of authentic projects. While we didn’t deny our boys models, Lego, Knex and other constructables we also encouraged them to explore working on authentic projects. My boys were always working on something that was real and that would make an authentic difference in their world.

The bike hitch, bike ramps, countless other smaller projects, and the major fort project were just the starting point for exposing my boys to authentic learning. When I purchased and renovated a rental property the boys who were just 8 and 10 worked alongside me at every stage from cleaning up the junk in the yard to demolishing the basement rooms, to building new rooms and doing all the work that was necessary to bring the house into a state where it could be rented and then sold. Later that spring when the boys were still just 8 and 10 they planned out all the details of our month-long summer bike trip which included everything from getting the maps from the AMA, planning the route, to identifying what we could do along the trip to, where we would stay, and what we could do when we got to the interior of British Columbia. They put together a detailed binder that had all the information we would need. That first major biking holiday is still one of the most talked about trips that my boys will reminisce about. As professional DownHill Mountain bike racers and extreme athletes Levi and Caleb travel continuously so this early experience has served them well. The have spent the majority of their short lives working on authentic projects that not only enhance their lives but lives around them.

Authentic projects work because they not only give the learner choice and ownership over the world that they live in but they also give the learner the ability to find and use their voice and show the world what they have created. Caleb’s projects are getting very sophisticated and while the air splitter he created for his high-end sports car is not a project you would ask a novice to undertake Caleb is able to create a professional quality enhancement and add significant value to his car because he has lived a life filled with authentic projects.

The cognitive and analytic processes of prediction, modeling, experimentation, diagnosis, and problem-solving that Caleb experiences through his countless authentic projects has also contributed to his desire to take on in bigger and bigger challenges. I enjoy helping Caleb with his projects because his passion for learning and creation are contagious.

In our typical education rhetoric we talk about engagement, individualized instruction, and life-long learning but the reality of standardized testing or, if our learners are lucky, the occasional analysis of case-based studies offers our learners very little motivation for learning in the present, so how can we expect them to be excited about learning in the future. We can change this. But that means we have to give back control of the learning to the learner. 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. When we do this for our learners the possibilities of what they will be able to do are virtually limitless.

Additional thoughts on Authentic Learning:

In Pursuit of the Better Way: The Learners Mindset
Why Good Ideas Too Often Go Bad
Mapping Your Learner’s Journey
Ed Tech Projects Fail When the Focus is Technology rather than Learning
Difference Between “Doing Projects” and “Project-Based Learning”
Learning by playing, tinkering and making (The Learner’s Way blog of Nigel Coutts)

In Learning authentic, authentic learning, choice, COVA, ownership, project-based learning, projects, Voice

Science Of Persuasion – We Aren’t as Rational As We Think We Are

Dwayne Harapnuik — January 24, 2017 — Leave a comment

Spock was my favourite Star Trek character because he was so logical and rational. As a young man I sought out the facts and tried to emulate that calm, logical and rational perspective that I saw in my Vulcan role model. For many years I really believed I was making all my decision based on purely cognitive calculations. I took this to the next level and majored in Philosophy as an undergraduate and even started a Masters in Philosophy. Despite my desire to be logical and rational I struggled with aspects of my life that couldn’t be so easily explained by logic and continually strived to develop my reason to a high enough level where I would be able to control my passions and desires. As the years progressed my studies shifted to include a bit of Psychology but I still tried to explain away everything from a purely logical or rational perspective.

In the past 10 years, I have shifted my thinking based on sound research to recognize that the head won’t go where the heart hasn’t been and now I recognize that we aren’t a logical and rational as we hope to be. I really wished I would have come across the following research-based ideas that confirm that we are motivated and perhaps even controlled by intangibles or the affective domain much more than tangibles and the cognitive domain:

Are we in control of our decisions? | Dan Ariely –

Ariely, D. (2016). Payoff: The hidden logic that shapes our motivations. Simon & Schuster/TED.

Science Of Persuasion | Robert Cialdini

Cialdini, R. B. (2008). Influence: Science and practice (5th ed.). Needham Heights, MA: Allyn & Bacon.

How to Use Pre-suasive Tactics on Others – and Yourself | Robert Cialdini

Cialdini, R. B. (2016). Pre-Suasion: A revolutionary way to influence and persuade. New York NY: Simon and Schuster.

While we are on the topic of motivations I don’t think I can leave off Daniel Pink’s seminal works:

RSA ANIMATE: Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us

Pink, D. H. (2011). Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us. New York, NY: Penguin.

The article Rethinking How Students Succeed in The Standford Social Innovation Review points a wave of noncognitive skill initiatives (affective domain) that holds promise for making teachers more effective and students more successful. The article also points to research shows that students who develop social and emotional learning (SEL) skills and academic mindsets (for example, a belief that one’s abilities can improve with effort) do better in school.

Whenever you mention the growth mindset it is imperative to point to Carol Dweck’s work Growth Mindset: New Psychology for Success

In Motivation drive, persuasion, Pink, pre-suasion