Here we go again. Another semester of graduate school has begun and we all start the process of acclimating ourselves to our new learning environments.
I am really excited about the opportunity to create a significant learning environment since I still face daily struggles with students who do not review information. I keep thinking back to The Behavioral Science Guys and David Maxfield’s caution about how more information doesn’t create change or motivation (Crucial Learning, 2015). I have to find a way to help people change when they don’t want to. What are some influential questions I can incorporate into my ePortfolio? How do I create a significant learning environment that will allow them to “explore motivations they already have” as recommended by Joseph Grenny (Crucial Learning, 2015).
I have been reviewing the course content and announcements in preparation for our first big assignment for “Creating Significant Learning Environments” and what I have ascertained thus far is that we are going to be:
1) Creating a response to the New Culture of Learning
2) Outline how we will move toward creating a Significant Learning Environment
We will do this by
1) Creating an argument for how a shift to a CSLE can enhance learning
2) What problems the CSLE we create will address
3) What influence this CSLE will have on our innovation
What are some of your thoughts about how you will create a significant learning environment? What are some questions you might ask yourself?
Crucial Learning. (2015, January 5). How to Change People Who Don’t Want to Change | The Behavioral Science Guys [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ACi-D5DI6A
Unfortunately, much of higher education functions more reactively, like many of my students. My innovation plan intends to shift learning to foster more proactive, active engagement for my learners. As Harapnuik (2021) outlines in the Introduction Video, we are here to “facilitate learning” and “help our learners learn” by making “meaningful connections” (Harapnuik, 2021).
In the early stages of my innovation proposal and the accompanying portfolio development, content creation was due to student questions or lack of information. Those reactive additions have since evolved into proactive opportunities for new students by providing links and information in every correspondence.
Creating significant learning environments (CSLE) and The New Culture of Learning are guides for the struggle of inspiring students to take ownership of their education and learning journey by improving learners’ engagement. Thomas (2012) says it best when he says we can “help people connect their passions to the things they need to learn” (TEDx Talks, 2012). He further explains that we must rethink training and education systems to “make learning fun and easy,” just as it is “natural and effortless” throughout life outside these environments (TEDx Talks, 2012).
The New Culture of learning outlines that learning is no longer “taking place in a classroom” but instead “happening all around us, everywhere” through online information and freely available resources (Thomas & Brown, 2011, p. 17).
Thomas, D., & Brown, J. S. (2011). A New Culture of Learning: Cultivating the Imagination for a World of Constant Change (1st edition). CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform.
I came to the ADL Program hoping to understand better what my students experience in online graduate programs at LU. I assumed that I might pick up a few technology skills here and there, but my primary focus was on having a first-person experience so that I could better relate. I have been blown away by the relevance and value that just these first three classes have provided to my daily job duties as an advisor. The most valuable aspect of this program has been finding creative ways to meet my students’ needs 24/7 via my Portfolio. I have developed my Portfolio as questions arise or when different semester times come near (i.e., final grades, graduation, etc.). The ability to make my projects authentic and valuable has been an unexpected and highly appreciated aspect of the program. The shift from regurgitation to real-life projects was not one I expected when beginning this academic journey. The COVA model has been the educational experience I did not know I was missing, yet one I have longed for my whole life. The ownership that comes from this real-life need, the choice in how I will present my information and learning, and the incredible personal voice that is developing through the process of reflection are not things I expected to find while working on a graduate degree.
This program taught me more about collaboration and mentoring, in just these first three courses, than I ever expected (or honestly wanted) to learn. I am finding that by helping others, I can help myself. I am learning to stop being the stubborn silent student who only focuses on getting their work done to be a valuable member of a learning community and class cohort. I have thoroughly enjoyed this aspect of the program.
The most significant aspect of the COVA Model I hope to incorporate into my ePortfolio is the ownership and choice aspects that allow my advisees to have their authentic path to degree completion. I want to develop resources that give students a choice on their preferred delivery method and equip them with information to make informed decisions along their academic path.
I can see that creating a Portfolio sheerly to meet this program’s requirements would lead to a lack of persistence. Reading the studies on Portfolio persistence makes me strive to keep this an authentic part of my personal and professional life so that my Portfolio can continue to grow and evolve to serve those I serve. I am lucky that our program allows us to use real-world learning situations to create a Portfolio that will help us for years to come, should we embrace it.
I think the most valuable personal lesson that I am carrying with me is the one of a growth mindset. I can learn to do anything I put my mind to if I remember that I don’t need to be perfect or know everything. There are so many opportunities that become available once the message of yet is accepted.
I look forward to my continued evolution as a learner, and I’m excited to see how that will impact my advisees.
Harapnuik, D., Thibodeaux, T., & Cummings, C. (2018). Choice, ownership, and voice through authentic learning. Creative Common License.
What an exciting time to be reflecting. I welcome this opportunity to dig deep and to think about my learning, as I just celebrated a birthday. What better time to think about why I am the way I am and why I do what I do.
If you would have asked me at age five, “Dawn, what do you want to be when you grow up,” advising would not have been my response. I did not consider myself intelligent. I only knew I would go to college because that was a message my mother instilled in me throughout my upbringing. When I went to community college, I remember having to jump through hoops and needing someone to sign some forms for registration, but I cannot remember advising per se. University life was much the same. Advising time would come around, and there would be a meeting with whichever faculty member pulled your file at your appointment time. It was not until my last few semesters that I was able to get advised by faculty members I had come to know during my studies. One day I was driving home, and I received a call from Dr. Espinosa, whom I had asked to advise me that semester, saying that if I added a science course to my upcoming semester, I could graduate at the end of that term. I was extremely excited about the prospect of graduating sooner than anticipated.
Passions, Beliefs, & Values
Fast forward a few years to my current profession, and I am happy to say I found a calling and passion as an advisor. I work hard to teach students how to navigate the systems used in higher education, to understand the policies and procedures they will encounter along the way, and connect them with resources for information as needed. I work to answer questions that students would not even know they needed to ask. Helping students find their way through university jargon to make well-informed decisions about their paths and futures is paramount to me. I want to ensure that everything I do helps move them toward their educational goals. My own experience receiving the call about my graduation reminds me that the advice I provide impacts students’ lives. I believe that I must conduct myself with the utmost integrity and generally live by the golden rule of treating others as I want to be treated.
My passion is people. I genuinely enjoy building relationships. I believe in being as helpful as possible to those around me. Loving people is not always easy. Humans are complicated creatures, and our responses to stressful situations can bring out the worst. Therefore, I work hard to win the trust and to hear my students’ and colleagues’ frustrations. Then I seek out information or solutions to problems. I work to resolve issues and prevent others from facing them. It is important to me that I keep that fresh perspective to help in the fight against the status quo. I try to remember what it was like when I was going along, trusting that someone would tell me if I needed to know something. I must advocate for my students and colleagues until they learn enough to advocate for themselves. I aim to provide a clear path through the maze of higher education terminology and policies while providing support. I believe that even if I can only make a slight difference in a student’s academic journey, I can significantly impact the world. I believe that I have an opportunity to make a difference in the lives of those around me. I have the privilege of being a very personal part of people’s lives for a season. I have been honored to celebrate success and provide comfort through losing dreams, friends, homes, and loved ones.
Guiding Principles
While preparing for this reflection, I surveyed a few of my colleagues in hopes of getting objective assessments of myself professionally.
One of my colleagues describes me as a seeker of truth, a collector of knowledge for empowerment. They say I have a heart that wants the best for those around me and that I love my family, friends, colleagues, and students. That, I love.
Another confirms this assessment, saying that I seek knowledge and love to share it. I care and embrace qualities that make those around me feel seen and heard.
A third colleague describes me as patient, kind, understanding, knowledgeable, and able to explain things without making a person feel dumb. This person says I have a gift for encouraging, uplifting, loving, and always trying to make people see the best in themselves and their situation.
A final colleague explains that I am collegial, always there, and volunteer to do extra to help others. This colleague says I pay attention to detail by always looking out for my students, seeking opportunities, and ensuring they stay on track with meeting guidelines and benchmarks. They say I am always willing to expand my knowledge base, pushing my comfort level when working with others. This colleague’s final assessment is that I am a model and trainer for other advisors across campus.
I am honored by these summaries of my professional and personal passions and beliefs. These are my guiding principles. I became proficient at explaining things from multiple perspectives through my early education learning challenges. I am a patient teacher to my advisees and colleagues. I have an instinct for when someone looks confused and an ability to explain things differently. I seek to explain systems and policies to the teams I have served since I believe anyone willing to learn can do so. I believe in hiring dedicated, hardworking, caring people who can learn to do a job over people with glowing resumes who lack those traits. You can teach people a job; it is much harder to teach people to care. I believe that we each have an opportunity to play a valuable role in our students’ journey.
I learn everything I can about the interconnectivity in higher education to best assist students and colleagues. I schedule tours of departments and express sincere interest in understanding the inner workings of departments, systems, and processes. I seek relationships with people across campus, and through these relationship-building efforts, I gain a big-picture understanding of campus. I strive to point out the unintended impacts of decisions made in one area to another. Through my natural inclination for information seeking, I have become a reliable contact for friends and colleagues across campus.
I take Drew Dudley’s call to action to heart, as he declares, “if you change one person’s understanding … of what they’re capable of, one person’s understanding of how much people care about them, one person’s understanding of how powerful an agent for change they can be in this world you’ve changed [the whole world]” (TEDxToronto, 2010, 5:44).
As an advisor, I have the privilege of encouraging students, supporting my colleagues, and trying to make a difference to my fellow human. I remain in the advising profession despite the challenges of dealing with people because I value my role in others’ lives.
One of the most significant challenges I face in assisting students along their academic path is the lack of ownership some take over their Education. As I began my current advising role, this entire portfolio was born out of a desire to resolve student complaints, issues, and perceptions of a lack of information. In addition, I am finding that some students still are not reading the presented information. I must seek engaging multimedia solutions to this problem. I take decentralized information from various resources and break it down into smaller sections on a single advising tips page to prevent information overload. I struggle with how to guide students to accept ownership of their learning and program requirements.
I remain in advising and seek ways (like this program) to improve each person’s experience at the institution. I am an efficiency expert at heart, so I continually evaluate processes to see where they can be improved. I revise and refine my message with the hopes of providing clarity. I remain an advisor so that I can make a difference. I believe my learning can lead to contributions to the advising community through professional learning networks and organizations.
Learning
Through the ADL Program, I am reconnecting with a passion for learning. I believe any day when I learn something new is a good day. I believe everyone can reignite a love of learning regardless of past educational experiences. I believe a hunger for learning can make for a more enriched life. We are all presented with an opportunity, should we embrace it, to reevaluate everything we currently think about learning. Through this program’s content, I can see how the current model of Education leaves students behind (myself included). For the first time in my academic history, I can see how claiming ownership of learning revolutionizes the entire process. Learning solely for the outcome of a grade prohibits deeper learning.
Unlike any prior education, now I have choices. My projects and assignments are my own. This authentic learning environment allows me to voice what is important to me. I seek to be open to the learning opportunities presented through the resources and content shared and the projects I create. I seek to be a catalyst for change through each of these projects. I intend to embrace each opportunity to the fullest, knowing I can and will return to previous content with new perspectives.
The Future of Education
I believe that Education needs to redefine success. Standardized testing has killed creative content development and delivery for the instructors, and the students have lost their love of learning.
To fix Education, we must spark the inquisitive mind in learners again, at all levels. Students must learn to adopt a growth mindset as they approach their education. To embrace learning, students at every level need the opportunity to fail, revise, and fail again. Education currently penalizes a student when they do not understand concepts or content. As explained by Sir Ken Robinson (2016), Education has “become preoccupied with the yield and output … with data-driven outcomes, and along the way, we have lost sight of the natural processes of teaching and learning” (ARC, 2016, 8:17). A shift in education that affords multiple attempts, multiple delivery options, and multiple supports will help encourage students to continue to try and try again until they succeed.
By embracing more blended learning methods of learning and changing our ideas of instruction, we have the opportunity to enhance education. We can meet our learners where they are at but refuse to leave them that way. By openly sharing research and transformative successes, every Education system worldwide can improve learning outcomes for primary, secondary, post-secondary, and post-graduate students. Education worldwide must embrace the opportunities for digital innovation afforded through the reliance on distance learning caused by the 2020 global pandemic. We must move away from the current Industrial model of education toward a New Model in Education. By reevaluating the status quo, education has an opportunity to advance through digital learning.
Digital Learning
I believe that digital learning allows 24-hour access to resources. Digital learning provides students choice on how best to approach learning by utilizing multiple content delivery formats. This shift in ownership allows students to seek alternative paths on their journey to understanding. Students become empowered to make meaningful connections and deeper learning through active engagement. Support resources such as YouTube, Khan Academy, TED Talks, and many others allow digital learners a limitless library of content.
Emerging digital learning issues, from an advising perspective, involve meeting the on-demand needs of digital learners. Often asynchronous learners select online programs due to their need for alternative options and approaches. To promote their learning, we must find ways to deliver information in engaging ways. We must research and employ advising styles that allow connection and engagement despite asynchronous digital interactions. Many complete course requirements and make inquiries during non-business hours.
As we work to revolutionize education, we must also work to revolutionize advising. Through technology, we can now have unlimited access to resources via our digital devices. The primary goal of this portfolio is to provide 24/7 access to an advisor’s knowledge and information.
I believe digital learning can:
Revolutionize education and my advising relationships
Tap into unmet potential and innovative ideas
Meet the needs of learners worldwide
Ignite a passion for lifelong learning
Provide learners equal access through a universal learning design
I hope to impact the advising profession and my organization by collaborating through professional organizations and learning networks. I intend to share best practices, experience, and research to advance the advising profession.
Furthermore, I intend to impact my organization by improving the student experience by increasing their access to information. I also hope to impact the lives of my colleagues by inviting them to join me in innovating advising.
As I continue to invest in my Growth Mindset with a goal toward developing a Learner’s Mindset, I will continue to share my experience, reflections, and challenges.
This read-along undoubtedly meant for grade school children, can help those of us working on developing our growth mindset.
A – Ability
B – Brain
C – Challenges
D – Determined
E – Effort
F – Feedback
G – Growth Spurt
H – Help
I – Imagination
J – Journey
K – Knowledge
L – Learn
M – Mindset
N – Notice
O – Optimism
P – Progress
Q – Questions
R – Resilient
S – Setting Goals
T – Trying
U – Until
V – Visualize
W – Work
X – eXtra
Y – Yet
Z – Zany
Children’s Read Alouds by Brittany. (2021, September 27). Y IS FOR YET, A Growth Mindset Alphabet – Read Aloud [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XekYdto3JNA
I am very excited to begin the third course of the ADL Program on the Growth mindset and look forward to the personal benefits of this pursuit.
I faced many learning challenges in early elementary, and as a result, I developed a fixed mindset about my intelligence and abilities. As I read chapters 1-4 of Carol Dweck’s Mindset book I could not help but wish that I was familiar with this concept back in my own grade school experience. The internal voice in my head matched all of the fixed mindset examples provided by Carol Dweck in her Mindset book and youtube video on The Power of Yet.
If only someone had instilled the power of yet in my learning, I could have saved myself years of low self-esteem and negative self-talk. Even as I did well in pursuing my undergraduate degree, I felt like a fraud who was just one step away from being the “dumb kid” again. I so readily accepted that identity as a result of early labels.
I wasted the first part of my life feeling slow, dumb, and below average. I surely was not going to be the first one raising my hand or offering to go to the board to complete a problem with excitement and enthusiasm, as described by Dr. Dweck when describing children equipped with a growth mindset.
Both Carol Dweck and Eduardo Briceno share knowledge and facts about our abilities to improve through repetition and practice. Grit and determination are the messages we need to share with our students and children and embrace that hard work obtains results.
I have started working process-related praise into how I tell my 19-year-old daughter that I am proud of her as she moves through early adulthood. I can see the fixed mindset in her and hope that as I understand more, I will be able to equip her with a growth mindset at her age instead of at mine. As Eduardo Briceno described praise through the mindset lens, I wished I learned what I’m learning now when she was just a little kid.
Taking the leap of faith to begin a graduate program was filled with self-doubt and an internal voice that worried I would embarrass myself. Hence my duplicitous excitement about the potentially painful process that may come from continuing to reshape my mindset.
I admit that I may have come to this program with a fixed mindset. I am done with the people-pleasing and approval-seeking ways of the past and instead move forward reprogramming myself to a growth mindset. The first two courses have already opened my mind to a different perspective on learning. Now I am trying to fully embrace a growth mindset so that I can work to instill that in others.
I always do my best to shine a little light, encouragement, and love with those willing to connect. Tonight, I stopped at the local drug store. The employee was having a rough night, and I asked how much longer her shift was (10:30 pm with 7 am return).
My husband picked up chocolate peanut butter ice cream, and she said she would come over to cry and help me eat it. She said something about being a hug person, and I lamented how much I also miss hugs.
As I was preparing to leave, I asked, “can I give you a hug?” She accepted and met me at the end of the counter for a genuine hug.
My favorite days are the days I get to hug strangers. I’ve missed it so much.
As I said goodbye to my classmates Tuesday night (our last class meeting), I had to say out loud that I would miss seeing many of them next semester (accelerated post coming soon). Some will be graduating by December, and our classes no longer overlap. Tonight, I reflected on our one-two sessions together, our growth and vulnerabilities.
Then I realized that some of them will walk at the commencement ceremonies. I volunteer at those events and hug strangers at those events. Surely, I will get to meet some classmates at graduation! I started to imagine the next two years! Three ceremonies a year, potentially meeting the people with whom I will undoubtedly grow so much.
Who will we be after completing another class? What about two classes from now? Four?
Can you imagine looking at our final projects, reflections, innovation plans, and these digital babies (our ePortfolios)?
How much will they/we change through the evolution of this program?
How are you feeling?
Have you taken a good deep breath lately?
Have you hugged a stranger? (Okay, I know that the last one’s not for everyone)
Reflecting on this training, I realize that everything now passes through this new learning lens. In the training there was a section on the need to unlearn. I could not help but think about all of us in the ADL Program. Aren’t we unlearning everything we previously thought about learning? Aren’t we unlearning previous expectations and measures of our learning and our students?
How is your unlearning journey going? I struggle with myself as I try to figure out the goal, objective, or expectation of a given assignment when I’m just supposed to be observing my my learning process.
I’m learning to reconnect with my inquisitive andcreative mind and recognize that it takes time to break those old established learning ideas.
Harapnuik, D. (2010, January 12). Innovation Starts with a Focus on Creativity. Harapnuik.org. Retrieved April 9, 2022, from https://www.harapnuik.org/?p=474
Harapnuik, D. (2020, December 12). Want To Change the World – Tell a Good Story. Harapnuik.org. Retrieved April 9, 2022, from https://www.harapnuik.org/?p=8441
I put out a post at the start of this session asking for mentorship and offering mentoring. I have had a few correspondences with classmates but little ongoing collaboration outside weekly module discussions.
However, through my learning communities, I am finding a mentorship role. I really appreciate that I can share findings and tips from my own experience with the Innovation course. I don’t understand why (yet), but I can guide my group mates in finding their assertive voices. I can only assume because I struggle with writing in a passive voice. Even when I recognize my error, I can get stuck trying to reword the sentences or clarify the meaning.
I am very grateful that I have found an opportunity to glean the benefit of this program component.
The Advisor That Cares 