Search Results For learners mindset | 70 Results

Going from hard pivot to seamless integration

Dwayne Harapnuik — April 8, 2021 — Leave a comment

If there is one significant lesson that educators can learn from the COVID pandemic it is that shifting to virtual teaching or remote teaching without a plan or preparation was hard at best and more chaotic for students, teachers, and families than anyone could have predicted.

With the dispersion of vaccines, we are now hearing about a potential resumption of school this coming fall of 2021. But, once schools return to traditional face-to-face attendance, will they revert to pre-COVID norms? Perhaps this past year of reactive remote learning will help school leaders to recognize that we need to be proactive and leverage technology to reshape their schools and transform student learning outcomes in the process.

The question we need to address is how do we go from hard pivot to seamless integration? The following are links to articles, blog posts, YouTube videos, TED Talks, and books that were used or referenced in my session for the School Leadership Progress & Innovation Series at Governors State University.

Workshop Slides, Resources & PDFs

Free COVA eBook

Context & Why

Lamar University Masters of Education in Digital Learning and Leading and Masters of Education in Applied Digital Learning
Vancouver Community College VCC Provincial Instructor Diploma Program
Steve Pinker Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress
John Hattie Visible Learning

No Quick Fix

How to Avoid EdTech Quickfix Traps
Are You Bolting a Jet Engine onto Your Horse Cart?
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. Access draft file from https://www.dropbox.com/s/bk0epb76sr3u27v/Learning%20All%20the%20Time%20and%20Everywhere-InPressDraft.pdf?dl=0

Technology – No Significant Difference

Learner’s Mindset & Assessment As Learning

Connecting the Dots vs Collecting the Dots

Change in Focus Part A

Links to Authentic Learning & CSLE+COVA posts:
I have been advocating authentic learning or project-based learning and creating significant learning environments for decades both professionally and personally. Talking the talk as an academic takes on a much more significant perspective when you walk the walk in your personal life.

Creating Significant Learning Environments

The CLSE+COVA section of this site is also a great starting place to see how to create a significant learning environment by giving your learners choice, ownership, and voice through authentic learning opportunities.

In Learning quick fix, quickfix, technology

Revealing the Hidden Competing Commitment that Resists Change

Dwayne Harapnuik — January 25, 2021 — Leave a comment

We need to consider that most people are not intentionally or logically resisting change, they simply have been conditioned by our educational system to accepting the way their world is and unconsciously have a hidden competing commitment that prevents them from even seeing the opportunities that are being presented. The following is an excerpt from the soon to be published book on the Learner’s Mindset (Harapnuik & Thibodeaux, 2021) that explains why people will have a hidden commitment that hinders their growth and progress:

…Garnder Campbell also laments that when he points to an opportunity that new media, technology, or other emerging resources offer, too many educators fail to see the potential in these opportunities, and he shares the following exchange to highlight the missed opportunities:

Gardner: I say well I have a bag of gold. Would you like a bag of gold?
People: Where do you find time for bags of gold…oh no another currency to master gold… is that sustainable?
Garnder: Like no you spend it.
People: Well, what would you spend it on?
Gardner: What would you like to spend it on?
People: I don’t have time for your philosophical questions Gardner.
Gardner: It’s a bag of gold what part of that do you not understand?

This resistance to change or more specifically resistance to recognizing an opportunity should not be attributed to these educators’ lack of commitment to change or doing what is best for their students. Harvard researchers Kegan and Lahey (2001) suggest that most people are not opposed to change they are just unwittingly holding a hidden competing commitment that prevents them from seeing the need for change. These commitments are often grounded in beliefs or mindsets that have been held very closely and many will be routed in their childhood experience.

Since most people in the west have spent 13 years in K-12 education and assuming 7 hours a day for 180 days a year we have spent 16,380 hours in a school-based on the information transfer model, we should not be surprised by our deep routed fixed mindset thinking and our aversion to seeing the world from any other perspective. When you factor in another 4 years for an undergraduate degree, most teachers have spent 21,420 hours in a passive educational environment of information transfer, main lecture points, rubrics, individual competition, and standardized testing. Considering the thousands of hours most teachers have spent in this environment, we should not be surprised by their deeply rooted hidden commitment to maintaining this status quo. Shifting from the fixed mindset to the growth mindset, to the innovator’s mindset, or ultimately a learner’s mindset may seem straightforward but as Kegan and Lahey (2001) have found this type of change challenges the very psychological foundations upon which people function.

Kegan and Lahey (2001) suggest that you deal with or mitigate the limits of the hidden commitment to the status quo in the following steps:

Diagnose the competing commitment
Identify the big assumption
Testing and replacing the big assumption

It is possible to diagnose the competing commitment and identify the dominant assumption simultaneously by getting teachers to step back far enough to see how an authentic learning opportunity can create the context for the standards, curriculum, and assessment they are required to use. This change in focus is the first step, but it will be difficult because it is asking people to look at things from a different perspective while their hidden commitment to maintaining the system of education that they know is preventing them from seeing the opportunity. Replacing the big assumption happens when you equip teachers to create a significant environment where they can give their learners choice, ownership, and voice through authentic learning opportunities. This will start them down the path of embracing or adopting a learner’s mindset.

Moving to or adopting a learner’s mindset requires that one change their thinking about learning, their approach to helping learners learn how to learn, and changing the learning environment. One of the most significant challenges to adopting and living the learner’s mindset is that these three changes in our behavior need to happen cumulatively and in close proximity.

This change in mindset is not easy and there are several systemic, psychological, and practical challenges that must be overcome. Consider the following resources as you explore how to reinvigorate your learner’s mindset:

References

Campbell, G. (2010, May 3). No digital facelifts: Thinking the unthinkable about open educational experiences. [Video] Retrieved from https://youtu.be/lelmXaSibrc

Harapnuik, D. K., & Thibodeaux, T. N. (2021). Learner’s Mindset. Book in progress.

Kegan, R., & Lahey, L. L. (2001). The real reason people won’t change. HBR’s 10 Must Reads on Change, 77.

In Learning Bags of gold, Change, change in focus, commitment, COVA, CSLE, CSLE+COVA, hidden, learners mindset

Collecting dots vs connecting dots

Dwayne Harapnuik — January 18, 2021 — Leave a comment

In a TED talk and blog post Connecting dots (or collecting dots) Seth Godin argues:

Without a doubt, the ability to connect the dots is rare, prized, and valuable. Connecting dots, solving the problem that hasn’t been solved before, seeing the pattern before it is made obvious, is more essential than ever before.

Godin also asks why then do we spend so much time collecting dots. We overwhelm our learners with so much data, ask them to regurgitate this content in tests, and simply focus on the delivery of content instead of helping our learners make meaningful connections. While Godin has coined the notion of connecting the dots rather than collecting the dots, the idea of developing connections within a conceptual framework was first introduced to me by my colleague Robert McKelvain, Ph.D. at Abilene Christian University in 2010. McKelvain suggested that the difference between an expert and a novice is that an expert has a fully developed conceptual framework.

In the diagram, the main concepts are represented by the larger blue dots and the dotted lines between the concepts represent the connections that the expert has developed as they have expanded their conceptual framework. The expert not only relies upon their full conceptual framework, but they are also able to enter into this framework from many different perspectives. They can see all the pieces and understand all the connections and when dealing with new information they have a much broader base in which to understand and encode that new information—which makes them a more adaptable, efficient, and effective learner and problem solver in their areas of expertise.

In contrast to the expert, the novice may not only have a minimally developed conceptual framework, but they may also even have some of the concepts wrong, miss the connections, and not fully understand all the connections that they do see. If we understand that learning is the making of meaningful connections then the role of the expert teacher is to:

Provide the context for learning which includes introducing the fundamental conceptual framework components.
Create an environment where the learner can start to make meaningful connections between those concepts.
Model the learning process needed to: make those connections, add new concepts, and see the patterns that lead to solving problems.
Mentor the novice in building and expanding their conceptual framework.

In a nutshell, the expert models what it takes to become an expert learner and take ownership in the development of one’s own expertise.

One of the biggest challenges in this process is the expert’s bias, which is the inability of an expert to see the challenges that a novice or beginner faces. This can have significant ramifications in areas where subject matter experts with limited teaching knowledge and experience are tasked with teaching. Subject matter experts have often forgotten more than a novice even knows and unless they are also expert teachers and have developed the conceptual framework of an expert teacher, they can have difficulty understanding the challenges that the novice is experiencing. Therefore, teacher training and professional development will be crucial if we hope to move from the notion of collecting dots to connecting dots.

The whole notion of connecting dots involves analyzing, evaluating, synthesizing, and creating that leads to deeper learning and Learner’s Mindset. Connecting dots is a foundational or fundamental idea that we need to consider when we look at creating significant learning environments. The other key foundational concepts include:
Applied Learning,
Assessment Of/For/As Learning,
Change of Focus,
CLSE,
COVA,
and the Learner’s Mindset.
It is also essential to consider the role of analyzing, evaluating, synthesizing, and creating that leads to deeper learning which is expanded upon in the post How to Change the World One Learner at a Time

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Revised February 22, 2021

In Learning, Meaningful Connections collecting, conceptual framework, connecting, connecting the dots, connections, dots, expert, Learning, meaning, meaningful connections, novice

ADL/EDLD 5313 Goal & 3 Column Table

Dwayne Harapnuik — January 12, 2021

Course Goal
Learners will identify and incorporate constructivist theories to create and implement significant digital learning environments.

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

Learning Goals	Assessment Activities	Learning Activities
Foundational Learners will analyze how a shift to a more holistic view of learning can bring about a change in our learning environments.	Reflection on New Culture of Learning Discussion	Review & discuss the Creating Significant Learning Environment Resources. Read New Culture of Learning
Application Learners will analyze and evaluate student-centered digital learning environments, theories and approaches and will develop a personal learning philosophy.	Annotated Bibliography Learning Philosophy Discussion	Review, articles, videos and other resources on student-centered and digital learning. We can add additional videos and articles to the resources site.
Integration Stage 1 Learners will analyze their learning environments and determine situational factors that will impact learning and develop an outcome-based course design that aligns outcomes, activities, and assessment.	Learning environment and situational factors outline Learning goals outline Discussion	Read Fink’s, Self-Directed Guide to Designing Courses for Significant Learning and complete the related planning documents.
Integration Stage 2 Learners will develop a competency-based course design for a student-centered significant digital learning environment.	Course/program plan Discussion	Develop a plan for creating a student-centered significant digital learning environment. This can be a course/program plan, a term plan or other authentic project.
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 significant learning environments. Discussion	Read Carol Dweck’s, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success
Learning How to Learn Learners will locate, evaluate and compile web-based resources, and point to experts and communities that will help them to develop and grow their significant digital learning environment.	Portfolio Blog	Develop a Blog that will enable you to compile the resources that you need to identify significant digital learning environment opportunities and also where you can reflectively blog about these resources.

ADL/EDLD 5313 Assignment Examples

Dwayne Harapnuik — January 12, 2021

Please Note: The DLL Program has evolved into the ADL program which starts with EDLD 5305 in Spring of 2021. Many courses like EDLD 5305 are very similar so we will be using student examples from the DLL program and will be adding new ADL student examples as the program progresses.

New Culture of Learning
Daniel Elizondo
https://sites.google.com/view/delizondoportfolio/dll-program/cova-csle/significant-learning-environments/csle

AnnaLeigh Herrin
https://annaleighherrin.com/significant-learning-environments/

Jessica Hudnall
https://respiratorytherapisteducator.com/creating-significant-learning-environments/

Michael Yakubovsky
https://stemtoolkit.weebly.com/creating-significant-learning-environments/creating-a-significant-learning-environment

Jerry Yamashita
http://jerryyamashita.com/a-new-culture-of-learning.html

Caleigh Heenan
https://onedisruptiveeducator.com/2018/08/29/creating-a-significant-learning-environment/

Brooke Josephs
https://bjosephs6.wixsite.com/teachingincolor/project08

Peggy Cayton
https://www.smore.com/bf2zt

Carl Mohn
https://carlmohn.wordpress.com/2017/11/26/significant-learning-environments/

Casey Davis
https://sonoeducator.wordpress.com/2017/09/09/creating-significant-learning-environments/

Jamie Pope
https://learninganewway.wordpress.com/category/creating-significant-learning-environments/

Bridget Gallagher
http://www.bridgetsgallagher.com/significant-learning-environments.html