The Digital Learning and Leadership program has been interesting, difficult, and very beneficial for me at another transition in my life. Immediately after completing the first semester of the Lamar University Digital Learning and Leadership Masters of Education program, three classes into creating my ePortfolio and my Disruptive Innovation, I was propelled from one whirlwind into another, having to find different job. The change has forced a disruption in my innovation plan and has led to some self-reflection.

 

My entire 20 year career has been in higher education, in the school of athletics. This program is also the fourth Masters of Education program that I have started and have not yet finished, but the first online. I mention this is because a lot of the concepts we are learning are not new to me, but the platform for the classes and the methods for assessment are completely different. Because the topics were likely going to be similar as what I have learned in the past, I thought this program was going to be easy. It’s not… but it has been a lot of fun building on and reconstructing in my head what learning means to me.

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In our current class EDLD 5313, we are not learning about teaching per se, but learning about learning, and the importance of creating a significant learning environment. In this linked post, I describe the differences of the learning environments between my last job and my current opportunity. I also discuss ways in which I am trying to build an atmosphere for learning at my new job.

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My Learning Philosophy is a blog post which talks about my thoughts on how we learn, which is different than my Learning Manifesto, which is more about what I think learning is and what it means to me. I am not often one to pick a side, more so, I am more likely to be somewhere in the middle of things. Am I a Republican or a Democrat? I am probably somewhere in between. Do I prefer city or country? I am more of a suburbs guy. I even like my coffee at room temperature; not iced or super hot. When you look at my learning thoughts in the two links above, I would say I lean towards constructivism, but I believe that there is a time and place for all different learning methods and study whether they be student-centered, teacher-centered, behaviorism, progressivism, or humanism.

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The next steps of 5313 was to work backwards to create lesson plans that align with the desired learning outcomes using Fink's (2003) 3-Column Table and Wiggins and McTighe's (2005) Understanding by Design. These were interesting exercise that I believe will transfer over to any type of goal setting, not just in education.

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Looking back at the first assignment of this program and my first ever blog post, eight months ago, my thoughts on the Growth Mindset have not changed that much, but the ways I have incorporated it into my life and in the graduate program is significantly different. 

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