Choice Ownership Voice Authentic

Jesus and COVA+CSLE

Posted on April 4, 2021April 4, 2021 by ColbyClifford

Most can agree that Jesus was one of the greatest teachers of all time. He started with 12 pupils, and his words are to this day still quoted in red.

But Jesus didn’t live in fanfare. He didn’t walk around telling people what to do, or announcing himself at the door. He was all about invitation, and collaboration, and telling stories.

I’m attempting to read the Bible in one year (because let’s just do all the things this year), and today’s reading in the book of Mark is a peek at yet another challenge Jesus received from some priests who felt their power structure was being threatened. They want to know by WHOSE authority Jesus was healing people and issuing forgiveness and other such radical proclamations.

Why didn’t Jesus just tell them who he was? He never comes out and says “I AM THE SON OF THE CREATOR OF THE UNIVERSE YOU NINCOMPOOP.” He was never the sage on a stage.

In this portion of Mark, he answers the priests’ challenges by telling them a story about the owner of the vineyard sending a servant to the farmers of his vineyard. The farmers kill the servant. And the next servant. So the owner of the vineyard sent his own son.

Jesus was into creating significant learning environments from The Beginning. He knew then that we all need to make a choice. We can’t own what we are learning without speaking it. Maybe that’s why he kept asking “Who do you say that I am?” He wanted us to have a voice.

Who do you say that I am?

And who is more authentic than Christ?

CSLE+COVA and Growth Mindset

Posted on March 27, 2021March 27, 2021 by ColbyClifford

Of course it isn’t all about just ‘working harder’. My first rebuttal of the “False Growth Mindset” and most of Kohn’s article would be that if the educator creates a significant learning environment (CSLE) where a growth mindset is modeled, the students will be much more likely to change their own.

Creating an environment where students have authentic choices, can take ownership of their work, and are encouraged to find and use their voice (COVA) is an environment where the growth mindset can flourish.

Each student is invested in their own learning, their own project, and all conversation surrounding that work will be easier to encourage and learn from. Because the very next student is also invested in their learning and their own project.

An example of that is 5305/5303 where we have built our ePortfolios, we have been encouraged to make our own choices in how we build them. In so making those choices and investing in our site we have taken ownership of it. While we blog and produce work and add pages, we are ‘completing assignments’, but we are also finding our voice in this digital universe.

Is this authentic? That is more abstract, and by definition will look different for each of us, because of our original choice. So as in most successful processes, the success is in the process, not the outcome. Not the grade.

The process of CSLE+COVA = Growth Mindset

CSLE+COVA and Digital Lineage

Posted on February 3, 2021March 10, 2021 by ColbyClifford

I re-read my professor’s COVA book yesterday, about Creating Significant Learning Environments for learners where they have Choice, Ownership, and Voice in an Authentic way.

One part that stood out to me in his writing was the day the brakes locked up on his son’s truck. He was already running behind on a project of his own, so it would have been easier to call a mechanic and get the problem solved. Move on, no risk. But he didn’t do that. He served as a sounding board and a guide, leading his sons through the solution that they provided.

As I was reading about that authentic learning experience he allowed his sons to have and grow from, I tried to think about how that could work for my 5th graders.

This morning I was preparing to teach Session 7: Textual Lineage. The title of the prescribed lesson alone was heavy for a 10 year old.

Maybe because Dr. H’s story was fresh on my mind, I decided to slow down a bit on my lecture. I took some time to let the kids figure out what that title might mean. They came up with “books in your past that mean something to you”.

The assignment dictated that they write a response about their textual lineage.

Instead, I asked them if they would rather tell me about their textual lineage with a slideshow. The answer was a resounding yes! I gave them a few parameters: one book per slide, include an image of the book and a few images that represented something meaningful to you from the book, a quote from the book, and maybe why you picked it.

I gave almost no instruction on HOW to build a slideshow. But they flew. Maybe this generation intuits toolbar language? It seemed they could find everything. Not only were their fonts varied and colorful, their slides moved and sang and some were even animated.

They suddenly cared about spelling. They cared about punctuation and capitalization! They were each others audience, they were their own audience, and they didn’t care about a grade.

The Book became even more meaningful to them because they were creating in a significant learning environment with choice, one where they owned their learning, they used their own voice, and created something completely authentic. They understood their textual lineage and were creating a digital one.

Thibodeaux, T., & Harapnuik, D., Cummings, C. (2018). Choice, Ownership, and Voice through Authentic Learning (pp. 20-22). Creative Commons License.