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EDLD 5320 Course Goal & 3 Column Table

Dwayne Harapnuik — January 4, 2017

Course Goal
Learners will synthesize their knowledge, skills, beliefs, and values gained through their digital learning and leadership experiences and present a comprehensive plan on how they developed into digital learners and leaders that can identify and promote innovation, create significant digital learning environments, and lead organizational change.

Learning Outcomes
Aligning learning outcomes with activities and assessment:

Learning Outcomes

Assessment Activities

Learning Activities

Foundational/Application/Integration

Learners will explore and analyze how the COVA approach has aided them in their learning process and then apply the principles of the COVA approach to creating significant learning environments that provide their learners with choice, ownership, voice, and authentic learning opportunities.

Reflection

Analysis/Synthesis

Discussion

Reflection

Media

Readings Discussion

Integration/Human Dimensions/Caring

Learners will organize and analyze their innovation project by evaluating their learning process, assessing the lessons learned, and applying these insights to how they would lead innovation projects in the future.

Reflection

Analysis/Synthesis

Narrative

Discussion

Reflection

Media

Readings Discussion

Integration/Human Dimensions/Caring

Learners will communicate and promote their innovation plan/project, their analysis, the lessons learned, and how they will plan to complete and promote the project.

Reflection

Analysis

Presentation/Video

Discussion

Reflection

Media

Readings Discussion

Integration/Learning How to Learn

Learners will analyze and synthesize all key aspects and components of the DLL program and ePortfolio process that contributed to their development as a digital learner and leader and share this experience along with the comprehensive organization of their innovation project.

Learners will locate, evaluate and compile web-based resources, experts and communities that will help them in their continued growth and development as digital learners and leaders.

ePortfolio Blog

Organize and present all course work into cohesive site.

EDLD 5302 Course Goal & 3 Column Table

Dwayne Harapnuik — January 4, 2017

Course Goal
Learners will take ownership and agency over the learning process and incorporate learner choice and voice in designing authentic projects that use technology innovations as a catalyst for change in their organizational setting.

Learning Outcomes:
Aligning learning outcomes/goals with activities and assessment:

Course Outcomes

Assessment

Learning Activities

Foundational

Learners will discover how they can use choice and voice and develop authentic learning activities in the DLL program.

COVA Institute

Reflect on current use of teaching and learning practices using technology innovations.

Discussion

Instructor Lecture

Media Listings

Required and Supplemental Readings

Discussion

Application

Learners will discuss how technology tools can enhance collaboration and engagement within learning communities in which they are a part of.

Develop a static web page that reflects on the importance of engagement and collaboration in a learning community or network.

Discussion

Instructor Lecture

Media Listings

Required and Supplemental Readings

Discussion

Integration

Learners will assemble their experiences into a cohesive ePortfolio as a way to promote their ideas and share their digital identities.

Develop an eportfolio that shares personal philosophies, ideas, blogs, and authentic coursework that showcases one’s digital identity.

Discussion

Instructor Lecture

Media Listings

Required and Supplemental Readings

Discussion

Human Dimensions/Caring

Learners will analyze the role a growth mindset has on creating effective learning environments.

Reflective application of Dweck’s mindset theory to learner perceptions on how they learn

Discussion

Read Carol Dweck’s, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success

Discussion

Learning How to Learn

Learners will identify and articulate how they will use choice, ownership, voice, and authenticity in learning activities within their organization.

COVA Institute

Create a learning manifesto that analyzes the COVA model and describes the implications for current educational practices as the model relates to technology integration in the work setting.

Discussion

Instructor Lecture

Media Listings

Required and Supplemental Readings

Discussion

In pursuit of the better way – the learners mindset

Dwayne Harapnuik — October 7, 2016 — Leave a comment

When my boys were quite young I started to encourage them to continually and perpetually look for a better way to do anything and everything. I used to joke around with them saying: “your dad is the laziest guy they will ever meet because I am always looking for a better or easier way to do things so that I can finish up the stuff I don’t like doing and get onto the stuff like do like doing like riding our bikes, or playing games or just hanging out”. I also gave my boys permission to stop me when we were working on anything to offer a suggestion on how they thought we could do the task in a better or easier way.

Over the years there have been countless times that my boys have offered suggestions or walked me through their ideas on doing some task that ended up in a me saying, “Yes, your right this is a better way, thanks let’s do it your way”. Many years of working with my boys have also helped me to realize that the better way isn’t aways the easier or faster way. We also learned that there are times the easier way may initially seem faster, but if you weren’t able to do things well enough and had to do something over again the better way could actually be the easier and faster way.

My boys aren’t really boys anymore; they are young men. The other day we were exploring how to design a braking and cornering drill that they could use in their Down Hill mountain bike training. They both want to move up the professional ranks in their sport and realize that they need to go faster which means that they have to learn to brake less or at the optimum moment and to corner better, so setting up drills that they can practice on a daily basis is really important. They use a variety of tools like GoPro cameras and Freelap timing equipment for feedback on their training so they are always discussing the best way to use the technology to enhance the learning or training environment.

My younger son Caleb is a stickler for doing things better so he was suggesting that he and his brother need to use two Freelap timing stations. One timing station at the beginning of the turn where you would start braking and one a few metres past the exit of the turn so that you can use a timing split to accurately gauge the improvement of braking at different times and places. Using a split would also control the differences in how fast one peddled up to the brake point and would give you are more accurate representation of the difference in breaking would make on your exit speed on the turn. You have to understand that the professional level of their sport the difference between 1st, 2nd or 3rd place in a race can be the difference of a few hundreds of second so gaining a half seconds on a few turns on a race course can make the difference between being on the podium or finishing out of the top 10.

His older brother Levi suggested that using one timing station would be good enough to give you an idea of where to brake and how much of a difference it would make so we all had a good discussion exploring if the level of accuracy the two timing stations and the timing split would be necessary. We came to the conclusion that it probably would be better to have the accuracy the two timing stations and the split would offer but we were not sure it would it be necessary. Since we have access to the equipment my boys are going to test it out.

If you don’t know, give it a go — is the approach my boys have always followed even before Ken Robinson referred to this idea in his Schools Kill Creativity TED Talk. I have always been careful to nurture and help them maintain that natural or intrinsic inquisitiveness all young children have and that they seem to lose within a few years entering into our formal education system. I have also looked for ways to help all learners, I am responsible for, regain or stimulate that natural inquisitiveness that is so important for learning.

It is exciting to think that the desire for, or the pursuit of, the better way may of had it roots in those early years when I encouraged my boys to maintain their natural inquisitiveness and to always look for a better way to do anything and everything. This attitude, or perhaps mindset, will enable them to improve their training and help them with their racing careers. I also think it will help them in many other aspects of life. By constantly looking for the better way they will constantly be asking question and looking for options that will help them solve life’s challenges. Hopefully they will never be satisfied with doing things the way they have always been done but will continually look for a better way.

The pursuit of the better way is what I like to refer to as the learner’s mindset and is something that I believe is central to our human nature. It is more foundational than Carol Dweck’s growth mindset in which people believe that their most basic abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work—brains and talent are just the starting point. Dweck argues that the growth mindset will stimulate a love of learning and foster a resilience necessary for great accomplishment and can simply be adopted by adding the notion of “not yet” to a negative belief about one’s ability or talent. The learner’s mindset is even more foundational to George Couros’ innovator’s mindset considering his assertion that the innovator’s mindset takes the growth mindset a step further by focusing on using one’s ability to learn and to create or the belief that our abilities, intelligence, and talents are developed so that they lead to the creation of new and better ideas.

The growth mindset is crucial to opening one up to learning and the innovators mindset is crucial to motivating one to create new and better ideas, but both require that natural or intrinsic inquisitiveness that we see in infants, toddlers and young children who haven’t yet had this spark of curiosity and creativity quenched by our educational systems. I am not alone in this assertion – that schools kill the natural desire to learn or as Ken Robinson states Schools Kill Creativity. We also see a similar fundamental belief that children are pre-adapted to learning and have a natural curiosity from learning theorists like Jerome Bruner. Carol Dweck’s lament of her elementary school teacher labeling her and starting her down the spiral of the fixed mindset is not an isolated story and it doesn’t take much for each of us to think back to a time when we were labeled or categorized and put into a position of believing that we just didn’t have what it takes.

Perhaps if we focused on nurturing and supporting this 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. Fortunately, the human being is the most amazing and resilient learning entity on our planet so even if our schools do kill creativity and standards based assessment systems quench the natural natural or intrinsic inquisitiveness of the learners mindset it only takes a little bit of choice, ownership, and voice given through an authentic learning opportunities to kindle that spark of the learners mindset.

This is why Dweck’s notion of “yet” is so powerful. Not yet sparks our intrinsic inquisitiveness, flames the fires of our intrinsic desire to learn and stokes our learners mindset.

References

Bruner, J. S. (1960). The process of education. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.
Bruner, J. S. (1966). Toward a theory of instruction. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.
Couros, G. (2015). The Innovator’s Mindset: Empower Learning, Unleash Talent, and Lead a Culture of Creativity. San Diego, CA: Dave Burgess Consulting Inc.
Dweck, C. (2006). Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. Random House Publishing Group.
Robinson, K. (2016). Ken Robinson: Do Schools Kill Creativity? Retrieved from https://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity?utm_source=tedcomshare&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=tedspread

COVA Model

Dwayne Harapnuik — September 29, 2016

COVA Model

Why:

We believe that the Digital Learning and Leading program at Lamar University must prepare educators to lead organizational change using technology innovations as a catalyst for change.

How:

To do this, the Digital Learning and Leading program at Lamar University provides an innovative, collaborative learning environment which equips our learners with the necessary tools to effectively bring about change in their organizations.

What:

The Digital Learning and Leading program at Lamar University prepares leaders who can create significant learning environments, lead organizational change, and drive innovation in a digitally-advanced century.

What is the COVA Model?

C	The freedom to choose (C) how they wish to organize, structure and present their experiences and evidences of learning.
O	Ownership (O) over the entire ePortfolio process – including selection of projects and their portfolio tools.
V	The opportunity to use their own voice (V) to revise and restructure their work and ideas.
A	Authentic (A) learning experiences that enable students to make a difference in their own learning environments.

Digital Learning and Leading Principles

The Master of Digital Learning and Leading (DLL) is a collaborative learner-centered program that embraces technological innovation through collaboration, active and authentic learning, and the creation of significant learning environments.

While technology is continually used to enhance the learning environment in the DLL, it isn’t just relegated to being another tool that teachers put in their instructional tool boxes. Innovative technologies are used as catalysts to enhance learning and when effectively employed, the technology disappears into the learning environment.

The DLL program is grounded in the approaches of Dewey, Bruner, and Piaget 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.

Similarly, 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 program, we create and model significant learning environments where the learner takes control and ownership of their learning. Through authentic projects 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 confirms 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 student 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 learning ePortfolio. The DLL ePortfolio reinforces learner choice, ownership, voice and agency (COVA) which the DLL students are then able to share with their learners and their learning communities.

Why Good Ideas Too Often Go Bad

Dwayne Harapnuik — September 6, 2016 — Leave a comment

My boys are competitive Down Hill Mountain bike racers and they recently raced in several events at Whistler Crankworx. This meant that they had several practices, qualifiers, and final races that ran very close together and had to incorporate protein and energy bars into their nutritional plans to get them through their hectic schedule over the week of racing. High quality protein and complex carbohydrates packed into a portable bar are not just a convenience for my sons, they are a necessity if they wish to stay fully fuelled and competitive. Slipping a couple of these small energy packed bars into a jersey or shorts pocket means my boys can quickly and easily maintain their nutritional needs for the hectic training and/or racing session.

A quality protein and energy bar has little or no sugar, uses natural ingredients, and has a balance of protein and complex carbohydrate to help an athlete maintain their energy when they are unable to access whole foods. Bars that are nutritionally high quality often don’t taste the greatest because the manufacturers stay true to the purpose of helping to fuel a competitive athlete. Unfortunately, as protein and energy bars get more and more popular quality bars are getting harder and harder to find because too many manufacturers are willing to move away from the fundamental purpose of the bars and focus primarily on the taste of the bars at the expense of the nutritional quality.

When you focus on the taste and not the nutritional needs of an athlete you end up with something that sounds like it would be a good thing, but when you look at the details you find it’s not the case. The list of ingredients on the following popular protein and energy bar reveals that taste and not nutrition is their priority:

Evaporated cane juice syrup and corn maltodextrin are the first and third listed ingredients which also indicates their quantities. While neither of these ingredients are listed as sugar they are essentially the same as sugar hiding behind a more natural name. The more diligent athlete who is aware of the sugar synonyms won’t be tricked by the manufacturer and will look for a better bar, but for the average person who isn’t as informed this fake protein and energy bar is really not much better then a typical candy bar. At least in the candy bar the manufacturers don’t try to hide the actual ingredients behind more natural sounding names:

What makes this really serious is that the majority of protein and energy bars are really not much better or different then candy bars when you look at the first three ingredients:

Protein bar – Evaporated cane juice syrup oat bran, corn maltodextrin and soy protein isolate
Candy bar – Sugar, peanuts, and corn syrup

Yes the protein bar does have a few better ingredients, it does have soy isolate protein powder, but for the most part it is just a candy bar with added protein. This is very alarming and in the display pictured below there are a couple of dozen different types of bars and there were only two that were actually healthy enough to be used by a competitive athlete:

How does such a good idea, a portable highly nutritious bar that a competitive athlete can use to stay energized, go from good to bad. Simply shift the primary purpose from a portable highly nutritious bar used by competitive athletes for fuel to a good tasting convenience snack used by anyone. Most competitive athletes are willing to deal with the lack of flavour and even a chalky texture in their bars because they know that it isn’t about the taste it is about the fuel that they need to stay competitive.

This shift in purpose from fuel to taste has as a dramatic effect on an individuals results as a shift from a focus on learning to technology has on the learner.

We can run into a similar problem in education when we shift our focus from the learning to the technology. In his post How to Fake a 21st Century Classroom Terry Heick satirically posits how to:

“fake 21st century thinking and learning environment to make the right kind of impression with the right people, and give the appearance of forward-thinking.”

Useful ideas like Project-Based learning, 1 to 1, and blended learning can all too easily loose 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. Heick points to ten good learning ideas that can easily go bad for the learner if we shift our focus from the learning to the technology or to what appears to be a trendy 21st Century activity. His post How to Fake a 21st Century Classroom Terry Heick is worth the read but I must caution you that you may be bothered or convicted by a few convenient or fake activities that you may have fallen into. I know I am taking a hard look at several of my activities as a result of reading his post.

As educators, our responsibility is to know better, to know that you can’t fake Project-Based learning by doing make work or fake projects. You have to give the learner the control, ownership and voice over an authentic project that will make some sort of difference in the learner’s personal life or community. You can’t just fake 1 to 1 by making students do digital worksheets on their iPads. You have to give the learner the opportunity to use their devices for creation, collaboration and communication and enable them to learn all the time and everywhere with everyone. You can’t just fake blended learning by focusing on the content. The emphasis on creation, collaboration and communication in your blended learning environment will also enable your learners to go much deeper then they would if you were to focus on the delivery of content.

As educators we should know better but just like the average person who is swayed by the appearance, convenience and taste of the fake protein bars we too often can be swayed by wanting to give the right kind of impression and the appearance of forward-thinking.

We can also be swayed by the fact that we may be faking it until we make it; meaning that we may move toward our learning goals by implementing changes incrementally and may use that worksheet on the iPad as a transition activity until we can focus on more genuine activities. This is understandable and as long as the transition happens this will be fine. But just like the fake protein bars that will work when you don’t have anything else available, temporary or transition use of technology can also work, but also like the fake protein bars long term use would not be heathy for the athlete or the learner.