Reflections about the COVA-Book

To start this blog accurately, I need to let you know that I just started a Master’s program at Lamar University (Digital Learning and Leading). When I started this program, the only problem I had was that I did not know what to expect as I have never done school online as a student, but everybody in education is teaching online, as you know with the pandemic. How ironic, right?

From the beginning, I was overwhelmed with all the information regarding the courses, and I felt that my classmates had the same feeling. During our initial journey, we were introduced to the COVA-book. The primary message is to create opportunities for students to become long-life-learners (understand HOW to learn), learn to be flexible, and adapt to new learning environments (Harapnuik, Thibodeaux, & Cummings, 2018).  I did not know then, but all of this was part of a master plan (Dr. Harapunik’s plan). We would apply the COVA book’s message in our course/masters as an Innovation Proposal, and guess what? It was going to be whatever we want it to be. That sounded crazy. We were given choice, ownership, and voice on what we will develop over the next months. Initially, I thought it doesn’t matter because this is just for a grade, but then I realized you could not fake the work, especially when it is something that you wanted to do. Therefore, I started putting in more time than the initial schedule for this course, but I was doing it with a unique satisfaction. This process of choice, ownership, and voice started turning this work into authentic learning. There is a lot of new information for me, and there are many aspects of the course that are giving me a hard time but regardless of these conditions, I feel empowered because I choose to do it.   

Harapnuik, D., Thibodeaux, T., & Cummings, C. (2018). COVA: Choice, Ownership, and Voice through Authentic Learning (Version 0.9 ed.) [PDF]. Creative Commons License.