Contributions, 5389

Key Contributions

This, my sixth ADL program course marks over the halfway point in my graduate school journey. Several of us have been taking classes together for the last few semesters by this point in the program. We have maintained our collaborative group through a Google Drive and a GroupMe chat.

Our learning community members are always ready and willing to support one another. The ADL Collective GroupMe chat allows members to reach out for feed-forward almost anytime, day or night. I, too, always ensure that I provide helpful feedback to my core collaboration group and all the members of that collective.

As I progress through the program and my professional role continues to evolve, I am revisiting and revising all assignments throughout this course and this program. The more I live and work with my innovation, the more it grows and gains momentum for success.

I always complete all assigned course readings and follow links from those materials to enhance and deepen my learning. The ADL program is structured, so I wonder how someone can be successful without embracing the self-directed learning opportunity we are given here. Our experience as learners is meant to shape the learning experience we create for our learners.

I always met the course activity deadlines outlined in the course content and syllabus. As well as posting discussions promptly so that my classmates and I could engage in a dialog about the professional learning opportunities we have been creating in this course.

Supporting Contributions

I have taken an active role in my and my classmates’ learning by participating in every opportunity to learn.

When the session began, I again created a course calendar I shared with the ADL Collective. This was a format I adopted from Dr. Grogan in 5313 that I modified slightly for 5304. It kept me accountable for those reading-intensive classes, so I continue to utilize a modified class calendar for accountability.

I contribute to class call discussions, add commentary on all discussion prompts, and provide feedback to my classmates and groupmates near critical deadlines.

I cite source material in my blog postings and class discussions whenever possible and relevant. Additionally, I seek additional sources of information to further my understanding.

I constantly reflect on my learning process and embrace the learners’ mindset. I accept challenges and try new things readily. For example, this semester is the first time I have utilized Google Classrooms or created a Google Form. However, I embraced the opportunity to teach myself how to do these things as the most effective way to structure my Professional Learning opportunity.

I am so excited to have the extraordinary learning experiences provided by this program. Seeing my innovation plan coming to life as I work through this program is truly unique. I am learning and doing things I never dreamed I could do.

What Worked?

The ADL Cohort Collective GroupMe chat is still the thing that is working best regarding my learning. I created this group chat when my learning community from the first course fizzled out, and I was desperately trying to fulfill the learning community part of the program. Once I learned about the New Culture of Learning, I updated the group to reflect the nature of a collective. Not everyone is active all of the time, but there is always someone engaged in the group. It has been a beautiful support system for all of us. When we felt stressed out and overwhelmed, someone in the group was ready to support us. When we have successes to celebrate or professional challenges to overcome, the group is there for each other. I continue to help create a welcoming and supportive environment for others to participate. Many have joined, saying, “finally, an active group!” which makes me happy.

Actively blogging through is another factor that is working. I have seen less blogging participation in my learning cohort when there are no specific requirements for blogging. Still, I have elected to continue the practice based on Dr. Harapnuik’s recommendation that it helps you solidify your thoughts and work through the metacognition we are doing throughout this program.

What could be better?

As learners, we seek and await our instructors’ approval of our work. I waited to begin on some projects hoping to receive instructor feedback. I found myself in fear of moving forward if I was heading in the wrong direction. I had to stop and give myself a pep-talk about halfway through the session because the amount of work needed to create the Professional Learning Outline was not conducive to waiting on final grades for the Call to Action – Alternative PL. Similarly, the workload required for the final PL strategy/plan was not conducive to beginning after receiving feedback on the outline.

It took me a while to remind myself that I am a self-directed learner. While feed-forward from my peers and coach is helpful, my work is my own, and I must be true to that process. I even shared my blog post on the topic with the ADL Collective group chat in case others in our cohort needed that same gentle reminder.

I am recording this as something that could be better because coming to this realization from the get-go would have spared me a lot of stress and worry during those waiting periods.