COVA & CSLE

COVA & CSLE

When looking for graduate programs, I initially thought the only programs out there would be in administration, and becoming an AP or a principal has never interested me. When one of my undergrad professors, Dr. Cullen, suggested looking at Lamar, I was excited to find a program in the edtech field and how to become a digital leader. When I first started the program, I was nervous, but I was excited to get back into school-mode after three years. This program focuses on the COVA model, which stands for Choice, Ownership, and Voice through Authentic Learning (Harapnuik, 2018). The amount of freedom we got for assignments at first was overwhelming. The assignments seemed vague, and I needed to know exactly what to do for the grade. I have always been a checklist type of person in school, asking myself and my teachers what I need to do to get the A.

I was not focusing on the learning (which I preach to my students), but how to get the grade. When I present to teachers, I always stress giving students a choice and ownership, but I struggled to practice this for my learning. After the first couple of courses, it became easier to practice COVA. I was able to be creative and choose how to show my learning and understanding. Before this course, I had never heard of COVA explicitly, but I had practiced the components in my teaching. The DLL program helped me expand upon my learning philosophy in more detail including the COVA model. COVA fits perfectly into my teaching/learning philosophy with my students. Check out this blog post to read about my current learning philosophy.

Implementation of COVA

I have implemented components of the COVA model in my classroom without knowing of the COVA model specifically. As a teacher, I strive to give my learners choice, ownership, and voice through authentic learning. Throughout the program, through practice and modeling, I was put on the side my students see. Being on the other side, I was able to see things I needed to change to make sure I was creating true authentic learning experiences. I realized I needed to change my mindset of what a classroom looks like and feels like even more than I had. I need to create a culture of learning, sharing, and questioning. Humans geek out. We explore, we question, and we are naturally curious beings. I need to mimic how humans learn outside of school and bring it into the classroom. The goal is to create a learning environment that harnesses our students' intelligence and eagerness to create life-long questioners.  

One problem I can see myself facing is buy-in from other teachers. I can see other teachers complaining about the COVA method creating more work for them. My favorite course in the DLL program was EDLD 5304, Leading Organizational Change. In this course, I learned how to become an effective change leader. In the book Influencer: The New Science of Leading Change, the authors talk about starting with the heart in mind. How can you target the heart of the people you are trying to influence(Grenny, Patterson, et al, 2013)? Using the Influencer model, I will effectively share my innovation plan and, hopefully, influence and create change in my organization. 

Using all of the knowledge gained throughout this program, I hope to create and implement my innovation plan based on COVA and CSLE models. I know there will be pushback from others at all levels, but change needs to happen. Our K12 system needs to have a makeover on how we teach our students, and we need to change our roles to a facilitator of knowledge, not the gate-keeper. Instead of staying on track with the industrial sit and get model, we need to create experiential learning that calls for creativity, problem-solving and help expand their world view. I can't change every teacher's outlook, but I can start at my school/district level and create change there using the COVA model to create significant learning environments for our learners.