Learning Community Contributions

This journey has just begun for many of us in the Applied Digital Learning and Leading program. Some of us have taken the accelerated route being enrolled in both EDLD 5305 and EDLD 5302. Others had a little more sense about them and enrolled in EDLD 5305 only. Either way, we have made connections, contributions, collaborated, and started forming our learning community. The learning community that I have had the privilege being a part of included the following people: EDLD 5305 - Anna Akuretiya, Eboni Mitchell, Jessie Dannin, Kary Garnica, Jennifer, and Maria Carraso. In EDLD 5302- Anna Akuretiya, Eboni Mitchell, Jessie Dannin, Christopher Aebig, and Claudia Rios. What is working is the collaboration of ideas with my learning community. I know that I can do better regarding paying closer attention to details and researching a little deeper to find the best answers for myself and my group.

Reflecting on the contributions to my learning and the learning community I was a part of, forces me to be accountable. A self-assessment is not something many people look forward to because people can tend to be a little hard on themselves. Utilizing a marking guide provided to rate my contributions, I feel that I must rate myself at a 79. This is not a grade I give myself lightly and in fact it is hard to grade to swallow. I am not one to make excuses for why I was not able to meet all the key contributions listed. Unfortunately, during the last three weeks of the program I encountered some health issues that affected my cognitive and physical function and I failed to meet all the key and supporting contributions.

At the beginning of the program, I was extremely excited about the opportunities that lay ahead and the authentic learning that was about to challenge everyone of us. Early on in both courses, Eboni and Jesse were leaders in initiating the blended learning groups with a post in the Student/Faculty Lounge. Quickly, I joined, and we added more and more people to the groups. EDLD 5305 group ended up with seven people and EDLD 5302 had six. The groups were busting at the seams and members were from all over the United States. The logistics of attempting to sync a time to meet was a bit of a challenge but we were all able to agree on a time to meet. Time was not wasted as we met the first week and got to work. I eventually suggested that we could divide our group into smaller groups that would allow more similar time zones to meet as a group because we were meeting very late for the EDLD 5302 group every Thursday at 9 PM EST. This was taken into consideration but never implemented.

Eboni is a natural leader, and she is one that likes to get things done and always be ahead of the game. I feel that all of us looked up to her drive, tenacity, and discipline. She started our Group Me for each course and posted reminders. Anna, Jessie, Kary, Chris, Claudia, and I, all contributed to brainstorming as we would attempt to decipher the assignments. I was very active in contributing to our group and sharing examples found that I felt like the group could benefit from. In the EDLD 5305 group, Jennifer attended one meeting at the very end and had missed out on all the collaboration efforts. Since, I offered to meet with her separately afterwards and I caught her up on what was discussed. She missed the next group meeting as well, sending a message that she missed it and that was the last we heard from her. Maria Carraso attended one meeting and I do not recall her attending any more. Jesse has earned a masters degree and had great insight, especially for the literature review. When the 5305 group began to discuss the outline, I realized that the majority of our group were all K-12 educators and Kary and I were the only ones that were both in higher education and in the healthcare field. I quickly requested that Kary and I work together to complete our outline as a subgroup.

I made myself readily available to all community members and would answer questions in Group Me or via text messaging. In EDLD 5302 I posted a video in the Student/Faculty Lounge called UDL At A Glance to help further explain Universal Design for Learning (UDL). I also posted in the discussion boards in a timely manner and responded to and provided feedback to other posts. I failed to include any cited sources because I was speaking from my knowledge and understanding of the subject. Additionally, I provided my learning community with ideas for the Growth Mindset Plan assignment that included links to websites where infographics templates could help us with a more professional submission. Unfortunately, many of us misunderstood the assignment and what was wanted and did not receive a grade expected. I felt responsible because it was my idea. I am not sure what I could have done to make that better. The group felt confident in the decision and felt like we understood what was being asked of us. I do feel that our group started to struggle due to time zone issues, but we could still count on each other for guidance.

EDLD 5305 and 5302 compliment each other very well and our groups were able to tie in what we learned about a growth mindset, the COVA learning approach in 5302 and implement it into the innovation proposal, timeline, and plan. We would recognize the connections between the two courses and discuss how it related to an assignment in 5305. There were many times we would have to discuss some aspects of the ePortfolio that was confusing to group members that were not in both courses.

Where I did not meet key contributions is that I did not revise my assignments to reflect on them in this contribution. I did have full intentions to revise, however, my body had other plans and I started experiencing health related issues. I was not able to participate in the last two weeks of meeting with my learning community, I failed to make deadlines for course activities in EDLD 5305. I did not complete all the course reading, videos, and supporting resources. More so, I did not participate in ALL activities due to my health. Therefore, I cannot in good conscience give myself a rating above a 79. Dr. Harapnuik stated at the beginning of the program that if you have a busy life and a great deal of responsibility, it is advisable to only take one class at a time. I know I could have done better if it were not for my circumstances. Regardless, I feel that is fair to say that he is correct and that taking one class at a time would be beneficial to be able to focus the learning that is taking place.