Because we give our learners choice, ownership, and voice through authentic learning opportunities when you complete the ADL program you will not only have an M.Ed in Applied Digital Learning you will have a(an):

• Innovation plan & implementation strategy
• Organizational change strategy
• Learning environment
• Instructional design/backward design experience
• Measurement strategy
• Online/blended course
• Paper/Article/Conference presentation
• Professional development/learning strategy
• ePortfolio
• Expanded and new personal learning networks (PLNs)
• M. Ed. degree
• Change in thinking about learning, a change in your learning approach, and a change in your learning environment that leads to a reignited Learner’s Mindset

We have created a significant learning environment in the ADL program in which we give the learner choice, ownership, and voice through authentic learning opportunities. ADL 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.
• 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.

ADL links:
Applied Digital Learning
DLL Evolves to ADL
CSLE+COVA
ADL Why & Principles
Assessment OF/FOR/AS Learning
ADL Program Map
What You Get From the ADL
How to Succeed in the ADL
ADL Course Goals
ADL Tips & Perspectives

Revised on August 16, 2021

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

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

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

ADL links:
Applied Digital Learning
DLL Evolves to ADL
CSLE+COVA
ADL Why & Principles
Assessment OF/FOR/AS Learning
ADL Program Map
What You Get From the ADL
How to Succeed in the ADL
ADL Course Goals
ADL Tips & Perspectives

Revised on Dec 12, 2022

The Master of Applied Digital Learning (ADL) at Lamar University is a collaborative learner-centered program that embraces technological innovation through collaboration, active and authentic learning, and the creation of significant learning environments. The fundamental principles of the ADL include:

Why: We believe that we must inspire and prepare our learners to lead organizational change using technology innovations as a catalyst for enhancing learning.

How: To do this, we create significant learning environments (CSLE) which give our learners choice, ownership and voice through authentic (COVA) learning opportunities.

What: We prepare leaders who can lead organizational change and drive innovation in a digitally connected world.

While technology is continually used to enhance the learning environment in the ADL, it isn’t just relegated to being another tool that teachers 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.

The ADL program is grounded in the approaches of Dewey, Bruner, Papert, 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.

In the ADL program, we create and model significant learning environments (CSLE) where the learner takes control and ownership of their learning. Through authentic projects, ADL 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. ADL 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. Discussion forums are used in the ADL to foster collaboration and to provide a forum for students to help each other with their innovation projects. Evaluation of collaboration shifts from the instructor to the student. Self-evaluations are based on an assessment as learning model where students self-assess their contribution to their own learning and to that of their core learning community.

In ADL 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 ADL ePortfolio reinforces learner choice, ownership, voice through authentic learning (COVA) which the ADL students are then able to share with their learners and their learning communities.

What is the COVA?

See the COVA page on this site for more information.

As the primary developer of the ADL program Dr. Harapnuik will be continuing research into the ADL and the CSLE+COVA approach that will explore student perceptions on how choice, ownership, voice, and authentic projects impact their ePortfolios, learning, and learning environments. The findings of this ongoing research will add to the growing body of research into how the CSLE+COVA learning approach will contribute to the continued use ePortfolios as learning tools beyond the program of study, how the CSLE+COVA approach can be used to impact student learning, and how this experience transfers to students’ learning environments.

Sinek, S. (2009, September 28). Start with why — how great leaders inspire action. [Youtube]. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/u4ZoJKF_VuA

ADL links:
Applied Digital Learning
DLL Evolves to ADL
CSLE+COVA
ADL Why & Principles
Assessment OF/FOR/AS Learning
ADL Program Map
What You Get From the ADL
How to Succeed in the ADL
ADL Course Goals
ADL Tips & Perspectives

Revised on August 16, 2021

Applied Digital Learning (ADL)

The Master of Applied Digital Learning (ADL) at Lamar University is a collaborative learner-centered program that embraces technological innovation through collaboration and active and authentic learning that will prepare learners to create meaningful change. 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 ADL, 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 ADL 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 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 ADL we create and model significant learning environments where the learner is given choice ownership and, voice through authentic learning opportunities (COVA).

ADL 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. ADL 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. Discussion forums are used in the ADL to foster collaboration and to provide a forum for students to help each other with their innovation projects. Evaluation of collaboration shifts from the instructor to the student. Self-evaluations are based on an assessment as learning model where students self-assess their contribution to their own learning and to that of their core learning community.

In the ADL program, the learner will not be asked to just learn the theory or 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 that they will create in their own learning environment. Because the projects need to be authentic in the ADL program we require that ADL students are currently employed in PK-12, higher education, not-for-profits, or corporate settings where they are able to implement their authentic ADL projects.

The ADL program also reinforces learner choice, ownership, and voice through authentic learning through the development and use of a personal/professional ePorfolio. ADL students document and share all aspects of their authentic projects with their learners and their learning communities through their ePortfolio.

References

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.

ADL links:
Applied Digital Learning
DLL Evolves to ADL
CSLE+COVA
ADL Why & Principles
ADL Program Map
What You Get From the ADL
How to Succeed in the ADL
ADL Course Goals
ADL Tips & Perspectives

Revised on Dec 12, 2022