My response to Chapters 4-6 of COVA: Inspire learning through choice, ownership, voice, and authentic experiences by Dr. Harapnuik and Thibodeaux.
Photo Credit: Harapnuik, D. & Thibodeaux, T. (2023). COVA title page [Image].
The reading for EDLD 5303 focused on the concepts needed to improve students ability to discern credible versus not credible information and how to build an environment in my classroom in which students will learn through real world experiences for a lasting understanding and deep connections of the concepts that are taught within the classroom. By embracing each students unique passions and interests in the learning process deep connections will be made and students will learn far more than required of them. Everyone wants to feel that their effort is worthwhile and important and I think everyone despises "busy work" so authentic learning is the most valuable tool a middle school educator can have.
Chapter 4: Mapping Your Learners Journey
By comparing the learning process to the process of driving to a destination, the authors created a deeper connection for me that allowed me to more easily understand the essence of COVA (Harapnuik & Thibodeaux, 2023). This unlikely parallel made something click within my brain and I clearly could see the bigger picture when it came to lesson planning and implementation. The road map the authors speak of correlates to my lesson plan, the step by step directions the instruction given to the students, and the landmarks of the drive are previous knowledge or experiences that students are prompted to use as an anchor for the new knowledge they are learning to better orient themselves in the face of the new information (Harapnuik & Thibodeaux, 2023). Using this foundation, it is easy to see how the learning process should be mapped out in a way that learners can see and understand the big picture too. By having a view of the bigger picture at play students will be more successful at sorting through the new knowledge and skills they are exposed to and identifying the important overarching knowledge they will need as they progress through the learning process.
In fact, "If our learners are not fully engaged and aware of where they are going and why they are going there, they will not be engaged in recognizing the stages or landmarks along the way and will simply rely on step-by-step instruction to satisfy the assignment requirements without having to really think about the process" (Harapnuik & Thibodeaux, pg. 45, 2023).
This unlikely parallel made something click within my brain and I couldn't believe I had been presenting learning goals the way I had by just writing the TEKS on the board instead of clearly describing the learning standards to my learners. I can't be frustrated with my students for not taking a lesson or activity seriously if I didn't even explain why the information was important. I am a hypocrite because I abhor busy work for myself, but I have been presenting lessons in a way in which the learning appears to be busy work in my students' eyes and I am surprised when they aren't enthusiastic about learning. It just makes no sense.
Chapter 5: CSLE+COVA Synergy
"...learning is the responsibility of the learner and that teachers are not able to make a student learn" (Harapnuik &Thibodeaux, pp. 18, 2023). At the end of the day nothing I do as an educator will make the student learn if they are committed to not learning. That is why building relationships is one of the most important factors in effective teaching in the middle school classroom. Once a student has it in their head that they are not good at learning it can be difficult to reach them academically, but if you can win over their heart students are much more willing to do their best and put in effort. I do this naturally by asking them about their interests and passions like sports, hunting, fishing, make up, and anything else. I take a genuine interest in them and they reciprocate. Over time we develop a relationship in which all my students will try their best to learn and complete their work. I have captured the attention of 99% of my students and it has really paid off by the end of the year when I can show each student a report that tracks their individual growth over the year.
"We must consider the learner's world and circumstances as well. We just don't apply this at the course level; we need to purposefully design the learning environment for entire programs for this significant learning environment to be most effective" (Harapnuik & Thibodeaux, p. 57, 2023).
While building relationships goes a long way, it can only go so far in motivating students and engaging their deeper level of cognition of the knowledge and skills presented in the classroom. In order to create a significant learning environment that pushes students to thrive academically and increase their critical thinking abilities, the campus must be involved. Students need to have the opportunity to connect every topic they learn throughout the day in order to produce the most cohesive system of connection between what they are learning and their own experiences, feelings, passions, and previous knowledge. By creating a campus wide initiative students will be able to connect an especially interesting biology lesson on the immune system and factors that impact disease transmission to historical events dealing with disease or famine, which could lead to a much deeper knowledge of how these historical events could lead to a boom in immigration to the United States.
In order to create a significant learning environment, students must be able to allow their own interests and experiences to lead the way. It can be very disorienting to go from a traditional style classroom where information is seemingly random and fixed to another classroom that embraces COVA and project-based learning. This will lead to students shutting down because they will perceive the freedom as too daunting and will struggle to figure out how to narrow the broad scope of their passion and all the possible applications to the science lesson into one smaller easily researched idea or solution to the problem.
When I am building my rotational blended learning chemistry unit I will need to keep this possible challenge in mind and build in extra supports and small-group opportunities on the capstone unit project. The students will still have freedom to choose any food that they enjoy and given a voice in how they present their food brand they create, however, I think I will need to pair the students up more frequently during the research process as well so they could help each other and receive guidance from me as they work through their research to create their atoms recipe. The ownership comes naturally as my eight graders are always excited about snacks and candy and they will get to research their favorite snack and tell me all about it. The authentic learning piece comes from their ability to apply their knowledge of atoms and their chemical bonding through reactions to the food they eat daily. Then, they will take it one step further to apply that knowledge to the new marketing knowledge they are presented with to market their own food brand. This will not only make them more knowledgeable about atoms that make up their favorite food, they will know how marketing teams convince them to buy or eat certain products, which could result in a much more discerning young adult when they decide what to eat (even if they don't care until later in life when the consequences of their actions start catching up to them - we see you eating all those hot chips without heartburn; enjoy it while you can guys).
Chapter 6: Passion Begins with Why
"A learner's development and self-efficacy is connected directly to authentic activities that are meaningful to the learner. Knowing why something is meaningful is essential to learning" (Harapnuik & Thibodeaux, pg. 62, 2023).
As humans, everything we do is driven by a type of survival instinct or in response to our feelings and passions. When all our basic needs are met, we are naturally driven to pursue our interests. Why would that nature or tendency in adults be any different than those in kids and adolescents? I would argue that it is no different and we need to embrace these tendencies in our classrooms in order to eliminate the fight for student attention and produce the best learning environment. If we can use their passion and interests to boost their grit in the classroom we will see much more growth in their academic performance. Grit must be built and there is no force greater than a pre-teen determined to seek out their interests and passions. We could spend our time harnessing and guiding it for the betterment of all instead of fighting their natural curiosity and causing frustration to all the players involved from the students all the way up the chain to administrators.
"We have adapted the use of the BHAG as the overarching learning goals that set the direction for the entire course. We repeat the BHAG before we state the module outcome or goals in the course syllabi and online course management system and remind students of these goals" (Harapnuik & Thibodeaux, pg. 68, 2023)
Seeking out passion and interest will only get our students so far, in fact, losing sight of the end goal will end terribly as students will quickly engage in passive technology and information retention and will stop making meaningful connections between their interests and the formal learning they should be doing. By repeating the overarching goal and reminding students of the end in sight we are able to guide their learning and focus their efforts to create very meaningful learning and discussions within the classroom. We keep the goal for learning at the center of all we do, but allow students choice and ownership of what that learning will look like. I have felt what this feels like first hand and I can honestly say that it is a very effective way to ground my thinking and anchor it to personal experiences and knowledge I have learned throughout the program at times I would have felt lost and stranded in an abundance of knowledge. Keeping the goal fresh in the learners mind is the key to avoid overwhelm in the face of overwhelming freedom and choice.
Conclusion
Like I mentioned previously, our educational system is not uselessly broken. It is only outdated in the practices and implementation of learning activities. If we allow the shift in focus to guide us to create students that are able to discern between credible and not credible information, we will start to see a shift in the responsiveness to the learning process of our learners. We don't need huge government level changes in the education system, we need a change in how we teach and service our students. The good our system is doing should be kept and protected and we should only seek to enhance the opportunities of our learners by continually tweaking our teaching practices to suit our learners needs to become successful people later in life.
"Perhaps all the pieces to the educational puzzle have been in front of us all along and all we need to do is step back far enough to see the whole picture" (Harapnuik & Thibodeaux, pg. 58, 2023).
Learn more about COVA in COVA Chapters 1-3 Response and COVA Chapters 7-9 Responses.
Resources:
Harapnuik, D., & Thibodeaux T. (2023). COVA: Inspire learning through choice, ownership, voice, and authentic experiences (2nd ed.). Learner's Mindset Publishing.
Harapnuik, D. & Thibodeaux, T. (2023). COVA title page [Image].
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