SYNTHESIS: DIGITAL LEARNING AND LEADING
TERMINOLOGY
CSLE - CREATING SIGNIFICANT LEARNING ENVIRONMENT
COVA - CHOICE OWNERSHIP & VOICE THROUGH AUTHENTIC LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES
COMING OF AGE
Let me preface by saying I absolutely loathe acronyms, especially in education. There are just so many and tend to populate my mind's dustbin of, "What the heck does that stand for again?" But I will have to admit that CSLE and COVA stand out to me because it reflects upon strategies that I have built up over the years as a teacher.
When I first began my career in education I was cocky and arrogant and very much a "Sage on the Stage" direct-teach of what I thought was masterful lecture and superb PPT skills (I mean, like, I could really put a Powerpoint together). Over the years I have (thankfully) grown as an educator and increasing have become more of a student-centered facilitator of knowledge than anything else. I stopped teaching FACTS and started teaching SKILLS. I hate to put labels on what strategies I use or what I call my method of teaching, but CSLE and COVA are suitable. Creating significant learning environments is my speciality. Walk into my room and you're automatically transported into something completely different than the rest of the campus. I've created a bubble of creativity through how my classroom functions, and it's all based on student voice and ownership. I wish my cocky self from 2007 could transport to today to see what true 21st century education is supposed to look like.
ITERATING ON THE INNOVATION PLAN
When I first began writing my campus's Innovation Plan, it was definitely done as something I had to do, as opposed to something I was passionate about. These were the early days of my participation in the DLL program, and it began as nothing more than a necessity; a byproduct of having joined the Apple-Lamar Cohort. So I pumped it out in eloquent efficiency, not really putting much thought into it. It is hard for me to admit this because I pride myself on doing things the "right" way, and my initial proposal was not conducted in the "right" frame of mind.
As the program went on things started coming together more and more. Situations that had once appeared to be a nuisance now presented themselves as being an opportunity. I was adding my coursework to my ePortfolio with pride. Before long, I had a link in my email signature directing folk to check out all the progress that not only I was making, but how it was impacting my teaching as a whole.
And with that my Innovation Plan, which began in haste two years ago, was woefully outdated. In fact, it has become an embarrassment to even look at - that's how far my thought-processes have evolved during my time in the DLL program. It now seems that my last course of action in the program will be to revise the beginnings of what started me out on this course in the first place.
COVA and CSLE IN THE HYBRID PHASE OF LEARNING
The DLL program has had two different fronts by which I classify what I have learned: 1) Learning and leading in the digital space, and 2) Creating significant learning environments through authentic student voice and choice. The difficulty is combining both, especially in an increasingly challenging hybrid-learning environment.
As we are today, in the early days of Spring 2021, my district has transitioned to a hybrid-learning system where a limited number of special needs students attend in-person, while the rest learn virtually from home. Currently the ratio is about 1:5 in-person versus distance learning.
For those learning at school, the latter of my two observations above (significant learning environments) has come with relative ease. The courses I teach are hands-on engineering classes, and being in-person with the requisite materials, in an environment that advocates creativity, is of upmost importance.
For my students at home, creating these significant learning environments based on choice and voice has become difficult (even with the myriad of technology my district has at its disposal). The school I teach at is 99% economically disadvantaged, with a 95% ethnic minority student population. Many students do not show up virtually, and those that do are lacking in participation and involvement. Much of this is not their fault; many are taking care of younger siblings in lieu of their parents being at work, or having difficulty learning in an environment not conducive to education (one bedroom apartments with as many as eight or nine children trying to learn virtually at once). How is COVA or CSLE possible in such a situation? Much of this is out of the educator's control, but with this new disruption in education it is up to us to begin a whole new area of academic research into solving these problems. Is COVA and CSLE viable in distance-learning, TITLE I schools with bilingual and low socioeconomic status? These are still questions that need to be answered.
