Category: Innovation Plan

Action Research, ADL Program, Advising, ePortfolios, Evolution, Goals, Growth, Growth Mindset, Humor, Innovation Plan, Leadership, Learner's Mindset, Learning, Learning Manifesto, Personal, Professional, Professional Learning, Reflecting, Research, Why

Believe it

The Advisor That Cares

You have to believe it.

Leaning into the learners’ mindset, I have to ask myself daily to believe and trust it.

I have been entirely transparent about my writing struggles. I voiced in class that I need more confidence in my understanding of the subject matter to give my analysis and knowledge of other authors’ statements and research. This lack of confidence sends me back to the research reading and collecting more information, sources, and additional research. I can cite sources all day, but when I have to draw connections between material and express my understanding, I trigger memories of my K-12 educational experience and lose confidence. Research can become my distraction technique (an observation grad school has illuminated) to avoid the vulnerability that is academic writing.

Since I have reviewed hundreds of pieces of literature on my innovation topic formally over the last year and four months but professionally for the previous nine years and ten months, this topic is truly a passion project of the heart. Born out of desperation to help students, the advocate in me also desperately wants this tool for advisors. We are in tear-filled meetings over a crisis of self-issues. Advisors watch the battle young adults face with themselves over your disappointment if they decide whether or not they are pursuing their goals and dreams or yours.

I desperately want advising to be about the transformative development I read about in the literature. I felt disappointed after my first literature review as I recognized I was not meeting the goals and standards set by my profession. I now see that I am efficient at prescriptive advising. From a medical professional background, procedural information transfer, triaging issues, and answering questions came naturally. I know how to connect students to policy and procedures. I efficiently direct them to their departmental information on degree plans and course information. I am helpful and efficient at answering questions with source links (because advisors are only as good as the accuracy of the published information). I have always had an efficiency perspective. Therefore, I formalized my advising process, communications, and documentation for record keeping.

An advising course provides advisors and students a voice to illuminate problems faced by learners as expressed through cohort/meta-major discussions and assessments. Advisors could improve resources with an advising course, grade book, discussion boards, collaborative group sessions, and modules on common issues. Flipped advising would allow that effort to improve even further through media and collaboration with an advising team. I suspect turnover is both from burnout and demoralization. Advising is a passion profession. Many interview questions touch on helping people achieve their goals. Yet it can become a repetitive process of covering the same policies, procedures, and systems instead of all the things it could be if these items didn’t consume advising interactions. The ability to extend the advising sessions and depth beyond a 30-minute advising appointment twice a semester (optimistically). How can we help transform learners’ lives in 1 hour a term? Flipped advising would help us meet those needs while also relieving us of so many of the repetitive interactions we have day after day. Those fulfilling aspects of developmental advising forge a bond between advisor and advisee. Those connections are the ones that make commencement so special and a commitment to this profession so worth it.

Advisors consistently wonder if their efforts improved outcomes, but the cyclical and reactive nature of the industry can have us moving on to the next initiative with no feedback on the last one. Smiling faces that thank you for supporting them while wearing caps and gowns sure go a long way in motivating outcomes and innovations.

So now, I need to support all those beliefs with evidence from the existing literature.

By golly, I think I understand the point of a literature review finally.

Action Research, ADL Program, Advising, ePortfolios, Goals, Innovation Plan, Learner's Mindset, Learning, Personal, Professional, Professional Learning, Reflecting, Research

Educause Amazing!

The Advisor That Cares

They get me! They really get me.

Learner-Centered Advising for Student Success: Leveraging Backward Design, Collaboration, and the LMS

Reference

Mojeiko, L., Haskell, A., & Dunn, S. (2021, January 19). Learner-Centered advising for student success: Leveraging backward design, collaboration, and the LMS. EDUCAUSE. https://er.educause.edu/blogs/2021/1/learner-centered-advising-for-student-success-leveraging-backward-design-collaboration-and-the-lms

Action Research, ADL Program, Advising, ePortfolios, Evolution, Goals, Growth, Growth Mindset, Humor, Innovation Plan, Leadership, Learner's Mindset, Learning, Personal, Professional, Professional Learning, Reflecting, Research

Academic Writing & Mindset

The Advisor That Cares

I greatly appreciate Dr. Meeuwse holding office hours. This has rejuvenized the collaborative aspect of learning that I enjoy (and miss) so very much. I love that we have a facilitator who genuinely wants to help us be successful in our writing. I have picked up some great tips for approaching this literature review. I already feel more comfortable and familiar with the content of my research. I still really struggle to articulate how I believe my innovation plans are innovative and are the first of many steps toward a better experience for students and advisors.

Last week, Dr. Meeuwse shared a tip on her research approach during her doctoral experience.

She gave a beautiful nugget of knowledge when she suggested we approach paraphrasing by making bullet points of no more than two words (citing the source as we go) while reviewing relevant literature.

Tonight she gave additional details.

Read the article through, read it aloud, making bullet points with in-text citations, then put it away (the source material). Go and write sentences from memory (trying not to return to the source material so you aren’t tempted to reuse the authors’ words or meanings instead of expressing your learning).

This program’s craftsmanship never ceases to amaze me. I have a very specific visual image in my head of Dr. Harapnuik telling us how sneakily he manipulates us into learning.

Embarking on this course, I really had to give myself a pep talk. I dreaded whichever class had another one of those dang lit reviews. I forced myself to reflect as those old patterns of panic tried to creep in. Almost immediately, I recognized that I had to own whether or not I had embraced and accepted a learner’s mindset. Would I let research and academic writing scare me away from the authentic work I have been doing throughout this program to bring flipped advising to life?

Looking at the work I have completed up to this point in the program made me recognize that I am very familiar with my innovation plan. I am approaching my research efforts with much more specificity than my first attempt at a literature review. I definitely have a better understanding of the point of the darn thing. I am still struggling to explain what I hope to do with flipped advising and how students accurately identifying coursework for registration is the first significant step forward for our advisors and students.

Nonetheless, by standing on multiple means of support found in the literature, I will have a clearer picture of exactly how action research will guide the process toward revolutionizing advising.

Action Research, ADL Program, Advising, ePortfolios, Goals, Growth, Growth Mindset, Influencer, Innovation Plan, Leadership, Learner's Mindset, Learning, Personal, Professional, Professional Learning, Reflecting, Research

Relevant Research

The Advisor That Cares

So I really feel like I have been on a quest for precisely the type of information I just found.

Transformations in academic advising as a profession

For the first time, I have found a recent piece of literature that connects directly to the goals of my innovation plan. Let me see if I can explain this connection and my excitement at finding it.  

I struggle to accurately explain why an innovation involving blended learning (Horn & Staker, 2017) could revolutionize advising. An advising innovation will impact students and advisors at my institution for all reasons cited in this body of work.

My innovation plan seeks to create more time and comfortable space within advising appointments for meaningful interactions (Troxel et al., 2021). Until we find an effective way to get the course registration and degree plan requirements out of the way, advising will continually miss potentially life-altering opportunities. 

My action research study will utilize a quantitative design to narrowly focus on any correlation between study agency over accurate course registration and a blended learning advising module on the same topic. 

  • Variable one:
    • A blended learning advising module covering how and where to find degree plan requirements, degree progression plans, course registration procedures, and other registration-related tasks such as holds, balances, or action items needed for course registrations. 
  • Variable two: 
    • Student agency, as evidenced by the ability to outline course plans accurately and effectively before the advising session for the upcoming registration period. 

Methods:

  • Student pre-advising Likert and Likert-like questions regarding upcoming course registration, advising module information, and overall perceptions of readiness for next semester’s course registration
  • Advisor post-advising Likert and Likert-like questions regarding the accuracy of course selections made by the student, the quality of questions students ask during advising sessions and the advisor’s perceptions of the student’s preparedness for course registration. Advisors will rank the accuracy of registration plans and relevance to the student’s degree program. Finally, advisors will rate the overall advising interaction and depth of conversation. 

References

Horn, M. B., & Staker, H. (2017). Blended: Using disruptive innovation to improve schools. John Wiley & Sons.

Troxel, W. M., Bridgen, S., Hutt, C., & Sullivan‐Vance, K. A. (2021). Transformations in academic advising as a profession. New Directions for Higher Education, 2021(195–196), 23–33. https://doi.org/10.1002/he.20406

Action Research, ADL Program, Advising, ePortfolios, Goals, Growth Mindset, Innovation Plan, Learner's Mindset, Learning, Personal, Professional, Professional Learning, Reflecting

Topics for AR

The Advisor That Cares

Here we are on the due date of the first assignment for the Action Research course, and I am still refining and finessing my action research question. The book and my literature review have made it clear that pinpointing the action research topic is critical. Failure to do so effectively will make me evaluate the wrong data or jump to faulty conclusions. I am doing my best to remove bias from my topic question (which is difficult to do when considering your passion project). I am really narrowing in on the topic to isolate specific variables. The vital behaviors process keeps coming to mind as I identify precisely who, what, when, and how this action research process will unfold.

In reflection, as I finalize my action research question, I thought I would share some of my questions:

What might I be able to do differently with my advisees that could facilitate agency and preparedness for advising appointments/course registration?

What might I be able to do differently with my advisors that could facilitate their knowledge, accuracy, and confidence?

Is there a difference in advising effectiveness between traditional and flipped advising for freshman and sophomore university students?

To what degree does the use flipped advising tools and strategies impact student readiness for advising.

Does a flipped advising module on how to read your degree audit increase student agency in course selections?

To what degree do advising ePortfolio resources impact students’ progress through their degree plan requirements?

What are the attitudes of students toward the use of advising ePortfolios/Flipped advising tools/strategies? (Qualitative study option)

What is the nature of the relationship between college students’ academic course selections toward degree completion and their advising experience?

What is the effect of flipped advising techniques on incoming cohorts of college students on the development of student agency?

What advising practices are most closely associated with effective advising? (too broad)

How does a personally curated advising ePortfolio improve student preparation for course selections made during advising appointments? (rejected for bias)

How does using advising ePortfolios increase student agency over course selections during course registration advising sessions? (rejected since we don’t know if it will increase agency)

How will using an advising ePortfolio stimulate student agency for/over/in first-year course selections?

How does the use of flipped advising (blended learning) increase student agency in course selections made by first-year college students?

In what ways is student agency impacted by a flipped advising module on degree requirements as evidenced by accurate curricular choices?

In what ways does a flipped advising module on degree planning impact student agency in making curricular choices?

In what ways does a flipped advising module on degree planning facilitate student agency in making curricular choices during the first year of college?

Action Research, ADL Program, Advising, ePortfolios, Goals, Growth, Growth Mindset, Humor, Innovation Plan, Learner's Mindset, Learning, Personal, Professional, Reflecting

ADL and AR

The Advisor That Cares

Reading Action Research: Improving Schools and Empowering Educators by Craig Mertler has me reflecting upon the ADL program up to this point. We have poured blood, sweat, and tears into our innovation project. Now we are asked to research the validity of some aspect of our innovation or the innovation itself. I don’t know about everyone else, but I am freaking out at the possibility that I could determine my innovation is garbage!

I am wrapping my head around evaluative validity concerning qualitative research and am honest enough to acknowledge that remaining “unbiased” while reporting data is a tall order (Mertler, 2019, p. 142). I will keep reading in hopes that through this process, I will learn to be objective and see the greater good of refining my innovation, but in the middle of this book, I will honestly report that I am a little freaked out.

Reference

Mertler, C. A. (2019). Action research: Improving schools and empowering educators (6th ed.). SAGE Publications, Incorporated.

ADL Program, Contributions, Growth, Growth Mindset, Innovation Plan, Learner's Mindset, Learning, Learning Community, Professional Learning, Reflecting

Contributions, 5389

The Advisor That Cares

Professional Learning Course

  • Spring 2023
  • Course Number: EDLD 5389
  • Course Title: Developing Effective Professional Learning

Contributions to learning and learning community.

I am giving myself a score of 96 out of 100

Crediting Core Group Members: Adrianne Ortiz, Annababette Diemecke, Ashleigh Carter, Kristin Winzer, Patrick Rodriguez, and Valary Patterson

Crediting Collective Members: https://advising.blog/collaborations/

Key and Supporting Contributions

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.

Reflection

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.

ADL Program, Advising, ePortfolios, Growth, Growth Mindset, Growth Mindset Plan, Influencer, Innovation Plan, Leadership, Learner's Mindset, Learning, Personal, Professional, Professional Learning, Reflecting, Why

Advisors as Learners

The Advisor That Cares

I am well into my graduate program, and I see with clarity how well-designed this program has been crafted. We are living-learning opportunities that we can apply to our specific situation (Principle 5, by the way). Throughout every step of the program, I have reflected that I feel torn between two audience options (students and colleagues).

My innovation was selfishly born out of my desperate need to meet the needs of my learners (students/advisees). Feeling worn out, abused, disrespected, and undervalued as a knowledgeable resource to many frustrated students and as a professional – I desperately wanted to increase student motivation to seek information for themselves. Acknowledging the often complicated and multi-sourced ways to process information and situations, my ePortofolio sought to provide an easy-to-locate resource that consolidated all those sources by topic and included personal tips and advice that I would give during an advising appointment on the subject. I found myself so inspired (and challenged) by the UbD Template. Building understanding and intrinsic motivation into my advisees/learners through the design of every interaction opportunity. Creating a resource that is available when common questions arise to create a ubiquitous resource available anytime (i.e., peak advising season when I could have slower response times or in the middle of the night on a drop deadline).

As much as I advocate for students, I also have an advocate’s heart for my fellow advisors. I cannot even begin to describe the amount of information advisors relay. The unfortunate reality is that sometimes these professionals are underprepared and uninformed, thereby affecting students in their learning journey. I want advisors to be knowledgeable, and I want them to have connections across the institution so that we can guide students in their academic journey. As I begin to plan how to utilize going training and continual support to truly innovate advising through this first of many professional learning opportunities.

I have tried to describe my innovation to others and wondered if it is innovative. However, as I approach this professional learning task, I am seeing exactly what I had in mind for my innovation idea. As advisors experience choice, ownership, and voice through an authentic learning environment, they will have a greater opportunity to provide that for their learners/advisees. I see now that my learners are a team of advisors who have a wonderful opportunity to impact the lives of their learners. They can change the world one learner at a time.

ADL Program, Advising, ePortfolios, Goals, Growth, Innovation Plan, Learner's Mindset, Learning, Personal, Professional, Professional Learning, Reflecting, Why

Gentle Reminder

The Advisor That Cares

This weekend has been a productive weekend of reminding myself that I am a self-directed learner. You see, I have gotten myself into a stagnant rut waiting for a piece of feedback, thinking that the outcome of that decision determined whether or not I could move on to the next. You see, I had shifted my learning focus to look for the sage on the stage.

I stopped to think back on my learning process. I remember that when I encounter new material in the ADL program, I typically go to YouTube and search for videos on the topic. I typically start with the Learners Mindset or Dwayne Harapnuik channel and then branch out on tangents. In my searching and video watching on the topic of Professional Learning, I found my way to a playlist LMPL (Learners Mindset Professional Learning). This was a bit like watching a clip show because I recognized so many conversations, but it was exactly what I needed to get my head straight again.

While the guide on the side would be a welcome addition to my learning journey, it is not how I learn. Learning is up to me. I accomplish my goals by focusing on my audience, why, and innovation. Going through this playlist allowed me to think about my professional learning opportunity and really translate how I can utilize COVA+CSLE and everything I have learned and created up to this point to put together a cohesive Professional Learning Plan.

This is an overwhelmingly huge task because of the scope of my innovation project and my department’s current restructuring. There are many unknown factors, an entire culture to help build, and so much trust to win. Nonetheless, what better way to make this a truly authentic task. Not to mention having an immediate impact on my organization. Moving forward in this endeavor, I am keeping Dr. Thibodeaux’s advice in my mind. Hearing her reassurance that I “don’t have to have everything planned out perfectly” and her confirmation that I will “make adjustments as [I] go” as I identify “what works [and] what doesn’t work” finding my way as I learn “how to work with other people” (Learners Mindset, 2020, 8:40). This is something that we get to create together. It will evolve as we go, but I do not need to wait for confirmation and feedback to move forward with creating my outline and looking ahead to my professional learning plan.

Reference

Learners Mindset. (2020, May 25). LMD EP18 COVA professional learning [Video]. YouTube. Retrieved February 11, 2023, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpBIGWgMfLY