COVA has become one of the guiding acronyms in my life over the past several months. The idea of Choice has truly changed since beginning the ADL program. In the past, my idea of choice for my students was providing them a list of persuasive or literary analysis topics and telling them to choose one for the most recent essay assignment. My idea of Ownership was one in which students used the guidelines I gave them so they could make their essays their own in what stance and support they provided for their work. Their Voice was the expression of their chosen support and refutation for their chosen topic. The Authenticity of their work was dependent on the content of the previous elements. I since have learned that Choice, Ownership, and Voice through Authentic learning experiences is so much afield of what I believed it to be. I had to learn it myself, to understand how to have my students learn it for themselves. Just because I gave them the freedom to choice their topics, and decide within the parameters how they were going to present their finished products, I was giving them choice and ownership. I admit I still struggle with the giving up of the control in how students demonstrate their learning within the confines of curriculum and administration's expectations, but as I look to new methods of assessment and demonstration of mastery, I am seeing a world of possibilities that does not and even can not be based on the standard multiple-choice test to assess knowledge and understanding. My own learning has taken on a whole new view. As a student in other graduate level courses and programs, what we had to do was directed at my fellow students and I, and we were essentially collecting the dots in order to get the grade. I now find myself trying more to connect the dots not only within the concepts of a class but also those concepts between classes. It is something I have always asked my students to do while studying literature, and something I have dome in my own reading of literature, but to find a program that bridged the gaps the way the ADL program does has opened my eyes to an entirely different direction for my learning journey.
References:
Harapnuik, D., Thibodeaux, T. (2023 August 5). COVA: Inspire learning through choice, ownership, voice, and authentic
experiences. Learner's Mindset Publishing.
Add comment
Comments