COVA Reflection & Application

Being able to believe and own your dreams and ambition is a great lesson that is learned and achieved when it comes to the COVA principle. Over the last 16 months I have worked with classmates, professors, colleagues, professionals and other important figures to help bring a dream into reality.

What Has Happened?

During the first classes 5302 (Concepts of Educational Technology) and 5305 (Disruptive Innovation in Technology) of the Masters DLL program, we learned what the COVA model was and how to utilize it. It wasn’t until later in EDLD 5313 (Creating a Significant Learning Environment) when I completely understood the importance of being able to use the ownership and voice. In this course, working with classmates and the professor I was able to create an outline that would allow my innovation project to come into reality (no pun intended).

Having freedom to choose a topic or even a project isn’t a new thing. However, having the freedom to choose and follow through with the topics and functions I wanted to cover (not following a rubric or check list) is a newer learning experience for me. Freedom through COVA allowed me to not only research the basics of my topic, but also allowed a continuing expansion of the horizon of what my project started off as. This opened the doors of more creative and significant learning opportunities.

Is It Change?

Moving from VR to actually into a traditional history class of hockey in EDLD 5318 and then keeping up with SA moving into the Goalie Training programs. Under the typical non COVA approached I would have been boxed into to just focusing on the project and nothing else. COVA let me “own” what I was trying to accomplish without any sort of fear of ridicule from people. It ended up where there were just as many questions from them, as I have had on the projects myself.

Looking to make change in my own organization has been pretty easy. The hard part has been acquiring the funding for the change. The reason why the funding has been so difficult, I haven’t had time to start applying for grants to rent out a location, let alone purchasing a Sense Arena. However, discussing the idea with board members and clients, all are in favor of the idea and are continually asking questions about acquisition and when and where they can start training with it.

Learning to Learn

Learning from other students in the program who are involved with organizations that they don’t have control in, speaking up helps to get your idea going. What I mean by this is, if you don’t speak up, no one will know what you are working or what you think could be a problem that no one has addressed. Just recently in the school I teach at, I mentioned about how we didn’t have access to NASA Live. I pushed the question until I got the answer that I wanted. At this point we still don’t have access to it, but the science teachers now know that it is only a matter of time that they’ll be able to show SpaceX rocket launches live to their classrooms.

When starting off with the Innovation Project, my thoughts were to look into something that is a new tool in ice hockey training that could be ground breaking. The further along into the program I started learning more and more about the Sense Arena and how it is going to evolve over the next few years. It wasn’t until EDLD 5313 where Dr. H. gave me the understanding and vision to show how doable this whole project is. That was a game changer and got me focused on trying to make a dream into reality. While all the classes in the program have been extremely beneficial, 5313 remains the one the I remember the most.

And How to Learn in the Future

Allowing learners to have a choice in what they are looking to learn about, being able to own the ideas and have a voice are all options that create a significant learning environment. Forcing learners to learn something that they have no voice in, could defeat the purpose of having a significant learning environment. When learners are interested in what they are learning, it is possible that the learners will acquire a significant amount of information regarding and surrounding their chosen project. Throughout my ongoing careers, I will push for and utilize the COVA approach to help instill change in a beneficial way.