The COVA approach affects on me
I first realized that I genuinely had choice, ownership, and a voice when we learned that not everything is important in 5317. This made a huge impact on me because it showed me that it was okay to not be the perfect straight-A student. The ADL Program was never about being a straight-A student; it was about learning how to be lifelong learners through the Power of Perspective and how we could pass that on to others.
When I was first introduced to the freedom of COVA, I didn’t really know what to do with it. I kept my focus on what I needed to do for my class and what the instructor required of me. As the program continued, I started putting pieces together. If I was going to implement my project into my environment, I needed to make sure it would fit in. From then on, I started to consider who would be reading my work and how much time they would put into it. I stopped thinking about what my professor would want to see and instead took every prompt and question and answered it based on how it would affect my goal and my current learning environment.
This affected not only what I would do at work but also for my classes. I purposely wrote short discussion posts so that those in my class might take the time to read them because, just like me, they don’t have a lot of time to read anything extra. The details would happen in my collaborative group or with those who responded to my post.
Once I stopped separating my project for work and my project for school and started seeing them as one entity, I was able to take control of my voice and focus my attention on my organization as my audience. The ADL program pushed me to start fighting for a change that I had been seeing a need for constantly but was too slow to do so myself.
I saw all the tools and resources that we already had just sitting and going to waste. I always wanted to do something with them. Fabrication Fridays were something I had wanted to start for a long time. Since starting the program, I have had several conversations with different people, and those conversations sparked something in them. Some people took my Innovation plan and ran with it themselves, coming to me for support and clarification.
While my plans did not follow the outline I intended for them, they showed me how important it was to be flexible with everything. This flexibility gave me a hands-on experience of my own. In my Learning Philosophy, I talk about how children learn by getting their hands dirty. In my own way, being able to get into the thick of conversations with people was getting my hands dirty. I worked with my students and teachers to see what was going to work and what wouldn’t. Everything remained flexible so that I could grow from each new change.
The COVA approach also helped me understand my own growth mindset even more. I stopped looking for a grade and started looking for feedback. I constantly want to know where I can grow and what I can do to make something better. I even found myself getting frustrated if there was no feedback, even if the grade was perfect.
The COVA approach affects at work
I am not currently in a position to change how the classroom is structured in a public school setting. I am not a certified teacher, nor have I ever been, and with the way teachers are being treated and constrained, I have no desire to be. What I do want to do is create a significant learning environment in the areas that I can, when I can. I want to ensure that there are days set aside for my students to get away from their iPads and just create. I want them to take problems and use their hands to come up with solutions.
I plan to do just that in the LEGO Club and the Computer Lab, my two places of influence. While I have to follow standards and ensure that required work is completed, I can make tweaks here and there. I plan to use the COVA approach by giving my students Choice, Ownership, Voice, and Authentic learning during their time in the LEGO Club and the Computer Lab. I want to use subjects they are learning in the classroom and create task cards for the students to have a starting point. The learning and creating they do will be entirely up to them.
One of my favorite assignments has been having the students create their own hybrid animal and explain the life cycle to go with it. Another is creating a LEGO building that fits a certain area. These are things they will enjoy doing and will feel more like play than what they do in the classroom. These also give the students hands-on time when learning the two concepts.
LEGO Club has already been a great success. Students are getting more involved, and we have even invested in new kits for our 3rd-grade students! The largest challenge I face is getting others in leadership to see that these activities can and should be used regularly, not just for students who are doing well. Currently, LEGO Club is only offered to students with good behavior and completed classwork, and the Computer Lab has a designated program that students have to work on.
I have a little more flexibility with the Computer Lab because there are often days when students have to be in class for an hour. It is easy to justify splitting the time between the typing program and the hands-on portion. The same can be said for days when students need a break from the iPads. I firmly believe that on days when students are testing all day, they don’t need to be on iPads when they come into the computer lab. I am thankfully blessed with leadership who agrees with me. I have been highly impressed with the amount of support I have received from my leadership throughout this whole process and I look forward to what the future holds for our students.
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