Growing My Mindset Through COVA

I have been putting off getting my masters degree for far too long, however, I am really excited that it worked out that I am going through this program now.  I was afraid of how much work it was going to be to go back to school, work full time, and start a family. Ten years ago, I never would have decided to get my degree in digital learning.  Throughout this program so far, I feel that I have gained a lot of insight about myself as a learner through learning and applying more about the growth mindset to both my learning life and my personal life.  I am finding new avenues to engage in my own learning process that I haven’t explored before.  I have missed being part of a learning community, and now I have a new one among the students in the courses that I am taking.  I have also now had the opportunity to research and join new personal learning networks and communities online.  I have had the chance to reflect on my own practice and create a plan to allow my students to start learning through a growth mindset and applying the COVA model into my ELA classroom through my blended writing workshop innovation plan.  I am also building a website!  I am still in awe at how much I have learned and created over the past ten weeks.

I am trying to incorporate the elements of COVA into my ePortfolio by creating it to reflect who I am.  I plan on using this tool not only to share my work with others, but to share with my students, their parents, as well as to build upon my own learning networks.  I am creating the entire portfolio in hopes that my choices and ownership of my learning will come through in my own voice.  I am excited to take part in an authentic learning process and have a place to keep track of everything that I have been learning, sharing, creating, and improving.

At this point, I plan on continuing to use my ePortfolio once I complete my coursework in this program.  I feel that it will be a wonderful tool that I can use in my daily practice.  I think that it will be a great way for me to continue to reflect on my own learning and teaching.  I also believe that it will be a good way to get my students interested in possibly creating their own at some point.  After reading the studies, I do feel that time will certainly play a role in the reality of being able to stay on top of it as much as I would like to, but it is up to me to make time for it if I want to continue using this tool. 

I think the most valuable thing that I have learned so far is that I am absolutely capable of achieving my goals if I work hard and put the time and effort into what I am trying to accomplish.  Failing forward is not an approach that I ever thought much about before, because I have always just tried to make sure that I get an "A" the first go around. This course has taught me that sometimes I am not looking deep enough into myself as a learner. I have already learned so much from the feedback that I have received from classmates and professors in this program. It has been eye opening to use this feedback in a growth mindset perspective in order to research and create a plan that I will actually be able to put in place within my own practice.  I am so excited to start sharing the growth mindset with, well to be honest, basically anyone that I talk to.  (I think that everyone needs to know about it.)  I can’t wait to see how much my students are going to benefit from all of the learning that I am doing right now.  It is truly exciting for me and I have needed this type of experience to get myself reconnected to who I am as a learner.