Harapnuik, D. K, Thibodeaux, T. N., & Cummings, C. D. (2018). Creating significant learning environments through choice, ownership, voice, and authenticity.
The COVA eBook is an open educational resource (OER) and can be downloaded for FREE at https://www.harapnuik.org/?page_id=7291
American Psychological Association. (2020). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed.). https://doi.org/10.1037/0000165-000
Please note: Only one of the following text is required — select the text appropriate to your current situation:
K-12 educators:
Horn, M. B., & Staker, H. (2014). Blended: Using disruptive innovation to improve schools. John Wiley & Sons.
Business focus:
Christensen, C. (2013). The innovator’s dilemma: when new technologies cause great firms to fail. Harvard Business Review Press.
Supplementary Text for Higher Education:
Christensen C. M., & H. J. Eyring. (2011). The innovative university: Changing the DNA of higher education from the inside out. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Other course resources include media and readings that can be accessed within the weekly folders in the Classroom/Modules in BB.
How to Succeed in the ADL
If you haven’t already reviewed this page and the related links you owe it to yourself to spend the 30 minutes that it will take to see how to really do well in the DLL.
New Culture of Learning
Creating Learning Significant Environment – EDLD 5313 Week 1 Assign Tips
Organic Learning – we need to create an environment in which the learner can do the learning, grow and flourish.
Opening Up Spaces for Answers – Why we run EDLD 5305 the course on innovation planning before we run EDLD 5313, the course on creating significant learning environments
Four keys to understanding learning theories – Regardless of where you land in your thinking about learning the fact that you are thinking about learning and how learning works means that your learners will benefit.
Foster Inquisitiveness Rather than Rebuild It – 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.
What are the best ways to study for the test? Read this review from Scientific American to see which techniques accelerate information retention and which techniques are just a waste of time. While the introduction to the article suggests that the focus is on learning the reality is this article focuses on how to improve information transfer and test achievement. Unfortunately, some folks equate this with learning–but it is not.
4 Keys to aligning outcomes activities & assessment – There is an easy way and a difficult way to work through Fink’s taxonomy and the 3 column table – please take my advice and use this post and use the easy way.
Mapping Your Learner’s Journey – It is our responsibility to guide our learners through their personal development journey and help them take ownership of their learning.
Why Create Significant Learning Environments – Are you looking at the bigger picture or have you intellectually stepped far enough back to see the full learning environment?
Why you need a BHAG to design learning environments – Use a Big Hairy Audacious Goal (BHAG) to help define a visionary type goal that is more strategic and emotionally compelling rather than being simply tactical.
COVA+CSLE Mindset vs Traditional – Comparison of the COVA+CSLE Mindset and Motivation with the Traditional Teacher-Centered Approach
Mindset – Overview of Dweck book, site, and related videos and resources
Fixed Vs Growth Mindset = Print Vs Digital Information Age – This notion of adapting to a constantly changing environment is also important when we consider our move from a static print information age to the dynamic digital information age.
I really struggled at first with how XYZ applied to me but I went back through it, it started to make more sense. It really helps that you have the videos from the discussions along with the class meeting. I needed all of those resources and input to wrap my brain around it…. It is also so helpful that I can talk to you about these ideas…thanks for your help and encouragement.
This is a cumulative paraphrase of many emails and discussion posts where learners have relayed their challenges and success in working through difficult ideas. There are two key ideas that we can glean from this collective experience.
Learning requires repetition and lots of input – most learners find looking at an idea or issue from a variety of perspectives useful. Reading and re-reading the book or article, watching a video, reading a blog post, reading an additional article, discussing the ideas with their classmates, friends, and the instructor all contribute to the learning process.
Learning takes time and effort – genuine learning requires effort and perseverance. Moving beyond knowing the name or label of something to actual knowledge takes a lot of effort and time. But once a learner takes ownership of an idea and makes it their own by applying that idea to their own context they can then apply this new knowledge in a variety of contexts.
Because we give our learners choice, ownership, and voice through authentic learning opportunities and we are not simply asking learners to regurgitate information on an exam, the significant learning environment that we provide must be extremely rich and point to a very wide assortment of learning opportunities and resources.
In addition to the, required readings, the videos, and related discussion I regularly point to additional ideas and resources in weekly announcements as the courses progress. I will occasionally add links to posts or other articles in the discussion forums. Rather than ask our learners to wait for these additional resources to be made available through course announcements the following pages will point to a variety of resources that can help you make those meaningful connections.
Why not just include these resources in the supplemental reading section of the course or add them to the existing course structure. More isn’t always better and not everyone may need or even want these additional resources. The ADL program and courses have been very well designed and we do have enough information and resources. The additional information and tips that I will be pointing to will help those learners who just want another perspective to help them “really get their head around the ideas” or as I would prefer to state – take full ownership. For the most part, I won’t be adding new information but will simply be pointing to the same information that will be presented from a different perspective. I will also be pointing to many of my personal struggles or insights that I have gained over the years which may also help learners to identify with the fact that their professor also has struggled with “getting his head around” many of the same ideas.
Please note that this is a work in progress and the first perspective pages that will be added will be the courses that I teach most often. Since the ADL program is an evolution of the DLL program and most of the course will be very similar, I will be using the DLL Tips & Perspectives pages as a starting point so you will be hearing me refer to the DLL program. I will be working with the instructors of the remaining courses to build out perspective pages.
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.
Walking the Talk
Changing or improving the world one learner at a time is not an end but a process. Once you start this process it requires continual effort. Fortunately, it has a compounding effect, and small but consistent efforts will maintain and grow its impact.
I have been endeavoring to walk the talk in all aspects of my life for many decades. Whether it was the technology-related courses I developed in the early ’90s, my move into online learning at the University of Alberta in 1995, my related research into web-based instruction that went into my doctoral dissertation, or the dozens of online and blended learning courses that I have developed since then, I have always strived to apply all the theories, approaches and principles that I advocate in my own practice. A continual and iterative process of analysis and evaluation that leads to synthesis and creation is simply part of the learner’s mindset and is what I have been using in the development of courses for the new Applied Digital Learning (ADL) Master which is an update or revision of the Masters of Digital Learning and Leading (DLL) which I co-developed at Lamar University in 2014-2015. One of my goals for revising the DLL courses and converting them to ADL courses has been to strip away unnecessary information, activities, processes, or anything else that will impede the learner’s choice, ownership, and voice as they create their innovation plans and then create significant learning environment where their plans can be realized. Another goal is to point to how key foundational concepts like Applied Learning, Assessment Of/For/As Learning, Connecting the Dots Vs Collecting, the Dots, Change of Focus, CLSE, COVA, and the Learner’s Mindset will play a role in their growth and development.
Desiring the Quick Fix
Over the past several years my colleagues and I have observed and analyzed the tendency for many educators who come into the DLL program to look for a quick fix to innovation. They generally see technology as a tool that has a hyped potential for a quick fix so they often expect to be told what procedure, process, or product they should implement as part of their innovation plan. While the application or applying of a model or simulation may initially appear to be what they want when they try to apply these products or processes to their circumstance, they quickly find that this often doesn’t work. The educational technology (Edtech) literature for the past several decades is filled with examples of how the application of technology in a learning setting makes no significant difference and has little impact on learning outcomes and that the focus needs to be the learning, not the technology if we want to make a difference (Reich, 2020; Cuban, 2001; Russel, 1999; Wenglinsky, 1998). The research is clear. Edtech is not a quick fix or silver bullet (Thibodeaux, Harapnuik, Cummings, & Wooten, 2017) and the naive notion that one can implement it better than the last group that failed is continually repeated in all levels of classrooms across the nation. This is why the SAMR model or other quick fixes do not work (Harapnuik, 2017). Why does this thinking continually persist?
Start with a Change in Thinking about your Thinking
In analyzing this situation I looked at what type of thinking or level of thinking that was being used. According to the revised Bloom’s taxonomy when people are attempting to carry out a procedure or implement a process or apply an existing model to a new but similar situation they are using lower ordering thinking in their hopes of applying existing information to their situation. The category of Applying is at the top of the lower order thinking within Bloom’s taxonomy but it is still considered lower-order thinking and only facilitates information transfer because there is no analysis, evaluation, or creation which are at the higher-order and are essential to deeper learning.
The inverted Bloom’s taxonomy is one of my favorite perspectives because it combines the higher-order thinking into a continuum and reveals that analyzing, evaluating, and creating must be conducted in conjunction. In the Applying section, the notion of using information in a new but similar situation seems to fit what I was seeing in many of my students in the DLL program.
Because I practice what I preach, I continued to analyze and evaluate my ideas further before I created this post. I also went to the original or primary sources of the Bloom taxonomy (Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001) to make sure I wasn’t missing any key information in the dozens of abbreviated versions of Bloom’s taxonomy that a quick Google search revealed. While the summary in the inverted Bloom taxonomy was useful and it was compatible with many other summaries of Bloom’s taxonomy, you will find online the original perspective from Anderson and Krathwohl (2001) was much more effective in addressing my concerns.
Applying: Carrying out or using a procedure through executing or implementing. Applying is related and refers to situations where learned material is used through products like models, presentation, interviews, and simulations.
This summary confirms what I have seen with many students who just want to be told what procedure or model they need to execute or implement and believe that all they have to present an existing model to their colleagues, simulate the new approach, and their innovation process is complete. To be fair to many of these students, this is what they know and simply what their administrators, schools, districts, or other organizations ask them to do. This ongoing process of identifying a standard to be met, finding the approved or accepted procedure or process being used in the organization to meet this standard, and finally applying a standardized test or other information transfer confirmation tools to confirm that the standard has been met by the students is the norm. For rudimentary knowledge, simple situations, and information transfer this application process does work well and our education system has been relying on this model for over a century. As we move further into the digital information age we are realizing that our challenges are much more complex and require much more than doing what we have done in the past. To address these more significant challenges we need to move beyond applying existing information or processes in a new but similar fashion.
Moving to Higher Order Thinking
We need to move into analyzing, evaluating, and creating new solutions to ever-increasing challenges that we and our learners will face in the future. We also need to look beyond convenient summaries, quick fixes, or “Coles Notes” solutions and go back to primary sources to get the full picture. If we want to address the ever-increasing complexities in the challenges we face in the 21st Century then we must use higher-order thinking. We must continually analyze and evaluate what we are doing as we begin creating innovations that will enhance learning. Anderson and Krathwohl (2001) explanation of the following three higher thinking levels offers the best starting point for our own analysis, evaluation, and creation of a novel way of integrating these ideas.
Analyzing: Breaking material or concepts into parts, determining how the parts relate or interrelate to one another or to an overall structure or purpose. Mental actions include differentiating, organizing, and attributing as well as being able to distinguish between components.
Evaluating: Making judgments based on criteria and standards through checking and critiquing.
Creating – Putting elements together to form a novel coherent whole or make an original product.
Analyzing, Evaluating, and Creating Lead to Deeper Learning and Learner’s Mindset
While the inverted Bloom’s taxonomy is useful for helping us to see the linear relationship between analyzing, evaluating, and creating and also see how the higher-order thinking is separated from lower-order thinking, it doesn’t convey the interrelatedness between analyzing, evaluating, and creating. It also doesn’t show how the interrelation between analyzing, evaluating, and creating contributes to deeper learning.
The Venn diagram (Harapnuik, 2021) reveals how analyzing, evaluating, and creating come together and at that convergence point is where the learner engages in deeper learning and has then moved into the Learner’s Mindset.
This deeper learning and the adoption of a Learner’s Mindset is realized when you create a significant learning environment in which you give your learner’s choice, ownership, and voice through authentic learning opportunities (CSLE+COVA). I have been applying this approach in all the learning environments that I have created and most recently have applied this to the DLL and ADL programs as well as in the Provincial Instructor Diploma Program (PIDP).
In my grandiose goal of changing the world one learner at a time, I am sharing this approach with as many people that I can. It is my hope that you too will begin the ongoing process of analysis, evaluation, and creation. Through a continual and iterative process of analysis of your learning environment, the new concepts, theories, and ideas you are exploring combined with your goal of bringing learning innovation to your organization, you too can begin to explore and evaluate how best to synthesis your findings and ideas into an innovation plan which will create the changes you desire and prepare your learners for life.
Please remember that this is only one part of a bigger picture so explore the following:
Anderson, L. W., Krathwohl, D., & Bloom, B. S. (2001). A taxonomy for learning, teaching, and assessing: A revision of Bloom’s taxonomy of educational objectives. Longman.
Anderson, L. W., & Krathwohl, D. R. (2001). A taxonomy for learning, teaching and assessing: A Revision of bloom’s taxonomy of educational objectives (Abridge Edition). Addison.
Cuban, L. (2001). Oversold and underused: Computers in the classroom. Harvard university press.
Harapnuik, D.K. (2017). Reconsider the use of the SAMR model. [Blog]. Retrieved from https://www.harapnuik.org/?p=7235
Reich, J. (2020). Failure to disrupt: Why technology alone can’t transform education. Harvard University Press.
Russell, T. L. (1999). The no significant difference phenomenon: A comparative research annotated bibliography on technology for distance education: As reported in 355 research reports, summaries and papers. North Carolina State University.
Thibodeaux, T. N., Harapnuik, D. K., Cummings, C. D., & Wooten, R. (2017). Learning all the time and everywhere: Moving beyond the hype of the mobile learning quick fix. In Keengwe, J. S. (Eds.). Handbook of research on mobile technology, constructivism, and meaningful learning. Hershey, PA: IGI Global.
Wenglinsky, H. (1998). Does it compute? The relationship between educational technology and student achievement in mathematics. ETS Policy Information Center. https://www.ets.org/Media/Research/pdf/PICTECHNOLOG.pdf
