CSLE+COVA
**CSLE + COVA is a learning approach, not a method or model to be applied.
Why:
We believe that we must inspire and prepare our learners to lead organizational change using technology innovations as a catalyst for enhancing learning.
How:
To do this, we create a significant learning environment (CSLE) that gives our learners choice, ownership and voice through authentic (COVA) learning opportunities.
What:
We prepare leaders who can lead organizational change and drive innovation in a digitally connected world.
Learner’s Mindset Discussions (LMD) COVA Professional Learning Ep 18. In this episode, we discuss the the upcoming release of COVA Professional Learning and how educators can use this opportunity to learn how to create significant learning opportunities in which they give their learner choice, ownership, and voice through authentic learning opportunities. The COVA PL can equip educators to create an effective learning environments in which they prepare learners for life not just the test.
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Failing Forward by John C. Maxwell (2000)
“Realize there is one major difference between average people and achieving people.”
The difference between average people and achieving people is their perception of and response to failure.
| Failing Backward | Failing Forward |
| Blaming others | Taking responsibility |
| Repeating the same mistakes | Learning from each mistake |
| Expecting never to fail again | Knowing failure is a part of progress |
| Accepting tradition blindly | Maintaining a positive attitude |
| Being limited by past mistakes | Challenging outdated assumptions |
| Being limited by past mistakes | Taking new risks |
| Thinking I am a failure | Believing something didn’t work |
| Quitting | Persevering |
The Impossible Question
Don’t ask…”What would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail?” Instead, ask:
“If your perception of and response to failure was changed, what would you attempt to achieve?”
Failure is instructive. The person who really thinks learnings quite as much from his failures as from his successes. – John Dewey
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Teaching Minds: How Cognitive Science Can Change Our Schools
Roger Schank, a former Stanford and Yale University professor, wrote a book called Teaching Minds, published in 2016. He makes the argument that cognitive science has its place in the teaching world and if we utilize the cognitive sciences carefully, we can change the way our students approach and digest learning. Check out his website for a very brief description of the cognitive sciences: http://www.rogerschank.com/teaching-minds-how-cognitive-science-can-save-our-schools . Read through some of his thinking: https://educationfutures.com/blog/2011/09/roger-schank-on-invisible-learning-real-learning-real-memory/. Think about whether what you teach addresses some of these processes. Do we actually help kids learn how to predict, diagnose, and influence or do we tell them what we think we need to know? If you teaching to the state standards, you might be teaching subject matter than in no way applies to what the kids really care about.
Conceptual Processes
- Prediction, Modeling, Experimentation, Evaluation
Analytic Processes
- Diagnosis, Planning, Causing, Judgment
Social Processes
- Influence, Teamwork, Negotiation, Describing
Schank’s list debunks current teaching methods and practices that have dominated our educational system since the 1800’s. My commentary is included:
#1 Assuming that there is some kind of learning other than doing (such as telling the students what they need to know and expecting them to remember the information or regurgitate it).
#2 Believing that a teacher’s job is assessment.
#3 Thinking there is something that everyone must know in order to proceed (prior knowledge that we generate for students.
#4 Thinking that students are not worried about the purpose of what they are being taught.
#5 Thinking that studying can replace repeated practice as a key learning technique (deliberate practice and expert performance are related).
#6 Thinking that because students have chosen to take your class, they have an interest in learning what you plan to teach them.
#7 Correcting a student who is doing something by telling him what to do instead (remember, that learning is messy!)
#8 Thinking that a student remember what you just taught him (who is asking the questions here, you or the student? now ask yourself….who owns the learning in this situation?)
Schank, R. (2011). Teaching minds: How cognitive science can save our schools. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.
