COVA Reflection

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COVA referes to giving students Choice, Ownership and Voice through Authentic Learning experiences.

Choice- Giving students choice over how they might learn, meaning the modality. Giving students choice over how they want to present their learning. By allowing students to have this choice in their learning, we are also personalizing their learning.

Ownership- Students are given ownership over their learning, meaning they control their projects and the tools they use with some instructor guidance. An excellent example of this is our ePortfolios in the ADL program. We had little instructor guidance on what exactly we needed to do. This resulted in a variety of ePortfolios all with different looks, content and ideas making them our own.

Voice- This also goes hand in hand with choice and ownership, by allowing the learner to have their own voice in expressing their ideas and structure their work. Students have unique voices, yet are not always free to use them. COVA aims to allow students to find and use their voice to express their innovative ideas.

Authentic Learning- Through authentic learning experiences, students have the opportunity to learn in a meaningful way that may be different than their fellow classmate. Another example in the ADL program would be both our innovation project and ePortfolios. By allowing us to create an innovation plan that is unique to our environment, we are learning to problem solve through real world problems.

Not all learners are the same, the COVA approach allows for personalized learning that can be modified for every student. As Professor Harapnuik states, students could not be suited for "school" or traditional learning environments but they are definetly suited for learning. It is up to the educator to facilitate this learning knowing that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to learning.

References

Harapnuik, D., & Thibodeaux, T. (2023). COVA: Inspire learning through choice, ownership, voice, and authentic experiences. Learner's Mindset Publishing.