Educational technology is an ever evolving world, yet at its core, the concepts are steady. One must have a clear “why” to drive the passion of the work., a solid plan, and the ability to make hard decisions or have crucial conversations. My learning manifesto describes my vision and passion to bring personalized and joyful blended learning opportunities to the children of Cleveland.
The ADL program has grown my understanding and perspective of intentional planning when implementing an innovation plan through understanding and embracing a growth mindset and the COVA learning approach.
Mindset is vital to the human work we do in schools. Being conscious of mindset in ourselves and others and intentionally interrupting fixed mindsets while scaffolding them to growth mindset habits is very important to shift so we can reach our goals. There is great power in the word “yet”, and I have adopted this as a new addition to any fixed mindset phrase I hear. I have developed a growth mindset plan that structures how to shift the mindset of our educators, to embrace change and productive struggle toward a common goal.
An important aspect of shifting to a growth mindset is collaboration with peers to give and receive feedforward and the ability to reflect to grow from the perspective and knowledge of others. Active involvement in professional learning communities helps us embrace peer feedforward and self-reflection to improve. I belong to numerous professional learning communities to stay current, share and learn with colleagues around educational technology and innovative instructional practices. Social media and texting have made connecting nationally and globally with amazing educators an easy task.
As I reflect on the past two months of learning, I realize how intentionally every course has been planned out utilizing the COVA learning approach to give choice, ownership, voice and authentic learning opportunities that I chose, completely own the process and products, have voice in, and are authentic and relevant to me. I appreciate the learning resources provided and the nudge for contributing to the learning community. Reflecting is a great exercise for growing or strengthening a growth mindset, and I am enjoying the reflection built into the expectations of the courses work for ADL.