As I began my journey into Digital Learning and Leading, I didn’t know what to expect. I searched the internet several times to find a glimpse of content that I could sink my teeth into to give me an idea of what the courses would look like. The only thing I ever found was this page by Nancy Watson titled “My Journey in Digital Learning and Leading“and I must say, I looked at this site excessively.
I put myself into Nancy’s shoes and asked a lot of questions every time I visited the site. I was excited at seeing all the new opportunities and learning experiences she had and I just imagined myself looking as happy as she does in her photos. She has done so much since graduating from the DLL program. She has worked with Click, becoming a certified innovator for Google, attended Digital Citizenship summits, and worked with ISTE, and I’m sure that is just a small sample size. All of this made me eager to begin my journey in the Digital Learning and Leading program.
Being back in school is something I told myself I wouldn’t do, but here I am in my first course and I must say it has been different but great! In 5302, I learned about the first step towards success in the program by researching and developing a plan based on well-renowned psychologist Dr. Carol Dweck’s growth-mindset. Like Dweck, I believed qualities were carved in stone, fixed mindset (Dweck, 2016) until I read her book “Mindset” and was introduced to the growth mindset where the hand your dealt with is just the starting point for development (Dweck, 2016). For our first assignment, we were to come up with a plan to implement our own growth mindset similarly following Dweck’s outline. When presented with the assignment, I found it difficult wrapping my head around the idea and how I was to come up with this plan. Was I supposed to directly copy her ideas? Was I to make up my own set of ideas? So I just dove in head first, attempting to put together something and see how it turned out. What I received was fair, although I feel that it wasn’t my best work. I even had it looked at after receiving feedback to see what else is missing, but understand it is still a work in progress.
Our next assignment was writing our own learning manifesto where we had to come up with a manifesto explaining how we believe learning happens. I thought it as simple enough, but when I thought I was finished, I had a set of eyes look at it and that feedback saved me. Being a teacher for the past four years had my mindset on the idea that learning only manifested in the educational setting, so all of my manifesto focused on experiences in the classroom. I spend pages pouring out ideas, concepts, and experiences I had in the classroom, completely losing focus on the learning aspect that should have been my manifesto. Because of the help I received, I made it truly about how I feel when it comes to learning which is something I believe happens all the time, which led to an epiphany of what true digital learning is.
While working on the learning manifesto, we were introduced to the COVA model of learning. This style gives the learner choice in how we get to do our assignment, be it a Google Doc, Sway, Prezi, iMovie, audio clip, Powerpoint, or any other type of platform for our assignment. Next it provides the learner ownership by not implementing strict, detailed instructions, but rather giving us the assignment and allowing us to own how we proceed with the assignment which in turn gives us our own unique voice, while allowing us to learn in an authentic manner. I felt much more empowered through this assignment and feel much more confident in my approach.
Research for our next assignment was to integrate ourselves into different learning communities and I wondered how we were going to do that in such a short time frame. As I started planning, and looked back at my previous experience, I realized that I am already part of a few learning communities at my school. On my campus I work within our Professional Learning Community, PLC for short, I was also selected to be a part of my district’s Professional Learning and Leadership Cadre, PLLC, and we also held monthly department and faculty meetings, so this was a good starting point for ways to help me learn to be successful. Another part of this lesson was to go out and find communities throughout the internet, and after reaching out to several of my teammates, I was able to find a handful of communities I believe would help benefit me.
The first one is ISTE which focuses on helping teachers educate through technology. After researching other eportfolios, many of those members also became part of the ISTE community and I can see why. The next community I joined was The Teaching Channel because I feel like I made a connection on a personal level with the stories and information I read on their site. It helped me believe that I was a fabric of the community and an integral part in the field of education. Lastly, I joined the We Are Teachers community because I see the vision through their message. They have plenty of resources available, provide opportunities to better improve your classroom, DIY projects, and other stuff teachers can relate to besides just teaching. While I’ve only selected these three sites, I know I will find more later and continue to use my personal mentors as well.
As I continue through the program, I do have some questions that keep coming to mind. In looking back at the growth mindset assignment, I wonder if I am truly making steps towards it or am I utilizing “false mindset” ideas that aren’t helping me towards the right direction. I definitely see the growth mindset as an opportunity to not only better myself, but also share this idea among my family, my teammates, and my students because I believe that Dweck’s message is important in helping many realize that they can succeed.
Another idea that keeps me up at night is experiencing failure throughout this program, and not so much failure but what would I do if it happened? Going through those first two weeks and waiting on that first major grade allowed many negative thoughts to fill my brain. “If the grade isn’t good enough, would I continue in the program? Can I really do this? Do I have the “smarts” to make it in this program? A few of the strategies I want to implement based on John C. Maxwell’s “Failing Foward” are find the benefit in every bad experience and get up, get over it, and get going.(Maxwell, 2000). While I am still nervous in this program and feel like I could fail at any moment, my profess has instilled the confidence in me to be successful because he states that the nervousness is a part of the learning, and it’s a good thing.
Lastly, the COVA learning approach, to me, can play both a positive and negative role in this program. I’m one of those learners who needs specific detail when it comes to assignments. I’ve also expressed the idea of needing examples to get an idea of how the assignment should look, and moving away from that has allowed me to focus more on the content. I myself expect my students to shift towards a more focused choice/ownership mindset, but now see how this can impact them.
I recently realized that Nancy Watson and I share a common goal. When going through this last phase of 5302, a video of Nancy popped up in our weekly readings and I made a much deeper connection through her message. She is the future me I am trying to achieve, in my own sense. She has allowed me to believe I can learn from this, I can grow from this, and be successful in this program.
References
Dweck. C (2016) Mindset The New Psychology of Success Updated Edition Ballantine Books
Maxwell. J (2000) Failing Forward Turning Mistakes into Stepping Stones for Success
Harapnuik. D (2018) COVA Approach Choice, Ownership, and Voice through Authentic learning experiences retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Ft__0LE3qQ
Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton
Let Them Learn 