Reflecting on the Journey
As I reflect on the ADL principles and the course’s goals in the ADL program, I realized that I have evolved as a digital learner and leader, and have accomplished so much on my ADL program journey with a fully developed innovation plan. When I first started the program, I was excited, overwhelmed, and a bit intimidated by freedom I had as a learner to choose my own pathway. It soon turned to passion work that I couldn’t stop thinking about and I am proud to have made it through to this point. This is just the beginning, as I hope to continue on to earn my doctorate degree from Lamar, while continuing to learn, grow, reflect, and refine the work I do. Honestly, this program has reignited my passion and energy to keep pushing for more and better for our kids. Learning how to deepen my growth mindset and evolve into a learners mindset, has been a huge growth for me during this program. Getting feedforward from peers and other experts is so helpful, and something I have come to value very much.
The ADL program has instilled self-directed learning through CSLE + COVA learning approach, allowing me to design my own innovation plan based on my passion, interests, community, and perspective. Understanding my “WHY” and figuring the “HOW” to implement through thoughtful planning and tugging at heartstrings, laid the foundation for my innovation plan. I was able to work at my own pace and on my own path at times that worked for me best for me as a mother of three young children and full time district central office administrator in the Cleveland Metropolitan School District. The ADL program was often a challenge with time, but because the work was so meaningful to me, I was able to stay the course and develop some pretty amazing plans, utilizing the 4DX model, the 3 Column Table, and other tools to move my innovation plan forward in my district. The reflection and constant improvement to update my innovation plan was vital to my development of a learners mindset and overall success with the ADL program.
My innovation plan started as an idea of how we can get blended learning up and running in my district of almost 40,000 students, and it is truly becoming a reality with the help of my ePortfolio that houses my work, plans, research, and work products to support my endeavors. Everything has really come together to give me clearer organizational change strategy to actually impact change and measure it!
The ADL Program intentionally walked us through Learning Theory Foundation, which helped me to focus on my learning philosophy This is an integral part of the development of my professional learning plan to implement my innovation plan.
Learning about significant learning environments was a vital course in the program for me. Understanding that planning has to zoom in and out to make sure all basis are covered and intentionally considered in the planning process was a very helpful to learn about and the resources and tools shared in this course will continue to be referenced as I continue my journey. Learning more about instructional design and backward design really helped me to consider my learners and keep focused on desired learner outcomes to align learning resources, activities, and assessments.
One of my favorite courses in the ADL program was the Assessing Digital Learning and Instruction, where we learned about and developed a measurement strategy of an action research design outline, plan, to measure impact, implications, and help the refinement process. I look forward to conducting my first action research plan this fall in three of my district schools. This local data source will hopefully help catapult my innovation plan with momentum.
In the Facilitation of Innovation course, I had the opportunity to build out a Blended learning course to help launch my innovation plan. I was able to build this in our district’s LMS, Schoology, and have some of my district educators join and provide my feedforward on the course. I loved how relevant this work was, and look forward to launching it district wide for educators who are ready to start their blended learning journey with me!
In the Resources Digital Environments course, I was able to develop an article and video to share my story and hopefully get published one day. This course gave me an opportunity to be creative and share a little about my personal story of success with blended learning in my previous kindergarten classroom. I really enjoyed the variation this course provided and it was refreshing to dig into my passion work and create way to share it with the rest of the world.
My ePortfolio has developed to be more than I dreamed. At the beginning of the program, this was not something I had ever thought of doing, but I realize now that it a beautiful place that organizes and holds all of my thoughts, plans, literature review, research, and creativity in one place to refer back to or even influence change with district leaders and educators who are blown away when they visit the website. The compilation of all the work I have done in the ADL program is actually quite impressive, and I am thankful that the program had us create an ePortfolio, something that can stay with me and evolve with me as I continue to learn and grow.
I came into the program with pretty strong personal learning networks, including my ADE community, district colleagues, the Ohio Innovative leaders, and friends from Apple, but definitely gained a few more buddies in this program that I plan to stay connected to in the future. I am thankful for Shannon B., Tonya L., Kelly S., and Valerie P., for their unwavering support over the past 12 months. I have definitely learned to value collaboration and learning networks even more over the course of my ADL journey.
Earning my M. Ed. Applied Digital Learning means the world to me. After reflecting, analyzing, and synthesizing my ADL journey, I do believe the learning outcomes of the ADL program have been accomplished. I recognize and embrace that I have a valuable weird and crazy brain, and I do feel well equipped to lead organization change with technology as the catalyst for enhancing learner outcomes. I desire to have greater impact on the children in my home city, and this program has given me opportunities to grow, reflect, develop plans, and build my credibility. I look forward to continuing my education in hopes of attaining a doctorate degree from Lamar, but am thrilled to have made it though this program!
Resources:
Dweck, C. (2017). Mindset-updated edition: Changing the way you think to fulfill
your potential. Hachette UK.
Harapnuik, D. (2018, July 14). COVA. Its’ about learning. retrieved July 22, 2023, from
https://www.harapnuik.org/?page_id=6991
Harapnuik, D. (2021, August 16). ADL course goals. It’s about learning. retrieved July 22, 2023,
from https://www.harapnuik.org/?page_id=8534
Mertler, C.A. (2019). Action Research: Improving schools and empowering educators. SAGE