EDLD 5304 – 97/100

EDLD 5317 – 97/100

 

I strongly believe that human beings have the power to do amazing things; the only limit is the endless sky.  We have in our hands the keys to help others develop their abilities, keeping the experiences that we have to design plans or strategies that can contribute to the learner to be better and reach their goals, but people are not born with experiences; it takes time through life. When I think about the contributions that these courses have given me and how it has contributed to my life, my professional career, and my community, I can only say they changed the way I live my life every day because I am still discovering abilities that I have and that I have never thought were in me.

 

As I wrap up yet another two courses in the ADL program, I can honestly say that these courses had a huge impact on my learning journey in regards to understanding how to utilize the tools needed to be a self-differentiated leader who can address the inevitable resistance to change that will occur when launching innovative digital learning initiatives such as my innovation plan on blended learning in my organization. In the course, EDLD 5304, I began by creating a response to the fundamental questions as I made my WHY, WHAT, and HOW statements; a critical component was learning how to capture the hearts and minds of my organization's leaders to help drive the change I am after. By targeting the affective domain, such as values, motivation, attitude, and feelings, I can enhance and increase the effectiveness of significant change in my organization. 

 

I then began reading the book Influencer by Joseph Greeny and Kerry Patterson. This book presented six sources of influence that leaders can use to implement change in their organizations. The six sources of influence are personal motivation, personal ability, social motivation, social ability, structural motivation, and structural ability. I used these six sources to create my influencer strategy to influence change in my organization. The following tool that I learned about was using The 4 Disciplines of Execution: Achieving Your Wildly Important Goals by Chris McChesney, Jim Huling, and Sean Covey to get my goal and change efforts executed successfully. 

 

As I reflected on the book, I considered how it could help my organization prioritize and achieve desired results as I implement my innovation plan of blended learning. This book is about effectively executing your organization's most important goals. Executing a well-defined plan and strategy requires precise rules to install and apply to bring about sustainable change in people’s behavior. The 4 Disciplines of Execution (4DX) are the rules to move strategy into action in an organization. They are designed to create a winnable game and empower leaders to execute their most important goals in an organization. The execution principles are focus, leverage, engagement, and accountability (McChesney et al., 2022, 24). Every discipline has its value, but how they work together and set the stage for the next discipline is the real power of the 4DX. I also created a 4DX strategy to implement my intended goals in my organization using the 4DX model. 

 

The final assignment, self-differentiated leader, and bringing the organization change process together, was to read and reflect on the book Crucial Conversations by Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan, and Al Switzler. This book focuses on the importance of having crucial conversations that create a pool of shared meaning and synergy between individuals with skilled dialogue when stakes are high, opinions vary, and emotions run very strong. I also viewed the video, Friedman’s Theory of Differentiated Leadership Made Simple, where Dr. Jonathan Camp discusses the book A Failure of Nerve by Edwin Friedman. The video describes effective leadership as the “emotional process of regulating one’s emotional anxiety” (Camp 2010). Friedman refers to this as self-differentiation. To effectively implement my proposed change strategy, I feel that it is necessary to be a self-differentiated leader to promote effective organizational change. 

 

Friedman also states that being a differentiated leader is a direction in life. It is a maturity level where staying well-grounded can diffuse the anxiety in an organization and influence others to take responsibility for themselves. This, combined with crucial conversations, can help get the results that the organization is striving for and move the change strategy forward effectively. We also reflected on the characteristics of crucial conversations and how being a self-differentiated leader will help drive the change we intend. 

 

In the course, EDLD 5317, we were tasked to explore and evaluate various digital media resources to assess the most effective way to share and communicate information, ideas, and resources. We evaluated current and future trends in educational technology to determine how to effectively enhance learning in a digital learning environment. Throughout my learning journey in the ADL program, I have experienced using a wealth of digital tools and resources that have influenced my digital presence and leadership role as an educator. The focus has not necessarily been on the actual digital tools but on how they can be utilized to enhance collaboration, and communication, and to develop productive learning environments. 

 

In this course, I had the opportunity to put into practice the values learned in other courses as a choice, ownership, and voice through authentic learning opportunities. Furthermore, another relevant point is that research has demonstrated that incorporating feedforward or educative formative assessment will also help to continue that shift toward the learner mindset. The power of a growth mindset is powerful and impressive and needs to be shared with everyone. 

The definition of experience could vary for each one. At the beginning of this course I noticed the importance of participating in the discussion about the topics for every assessment. It was a valuable time when we could express our opinions, add some comments to the blogs, or simply read other colleagues' discussions about a topic. This brought to my attention a reflection on how important it is to share our background with others because it is not sufficient to have skills to learn. Without reflecting on these experiences, they may quickly be forgotten, or their learning potential may be lost.

 

As a thought leader in digital learning and leading, I have had the opportunity to share my experiences with other educators through a Publication Article by my colleagues Yunuen Malagon and Siary Rodriguez; we also collaborated and created our Media project about creating blended learning environments. We chose this topic as it aligns with our innovation plan and our publication article. We made an outline that we used to plan our podcast. In our podcast, we discussed the benefits of blended learning for both teachers and students. We shared things to consider when planning and designing digital learning stations and discussed tips for meaningful and interactive station rotations. In addition to the podcast, we created a media pitch video to showcase the content of our article.

 

In reflecting over the past 8 weeks, I have learned about tools to be a self-differentiated leader who can address the inevitable resistance to change when launching innovative digital learning initiatives. I have learned how to analyze and evaluate various digital resources and digital learning environments and share how those digital resources and environments can be effectively used to enhance learning. Both of these courses were highly beneficial as I am approaching the end of this program. I love how all of the courses come together cohesively, and all the content learned is easily applied to the current coursework. 

 

I feel that I have put forth much effort and application as I have been developing my skills as a self-directed learner in these courses and throughout the ADL program. It has taken extensive self-discipline to stay on task and up to date with the assignments, readings, and coursework. I have improved my blog post, lending organization change and resources to digital environments topics, and have created posts that not only document my learning but can help others implement some of the strategies that I am learning. Regarding my Learning Community, I am confident I contribute to their learning experiences by providing my help and support when needed. I posted my completed assignments for feedback and feedforward in our shared Google Drive, our Group Me Chat, and the group text. We provided regular constructive feedback to one another on assignments, and I was available to assist when someone needed my help. 

 

I have been part of groups and consistently communicate with my team members Yunuen Malagon, and Siary Rodriguez we met on Zoom Meetings, discussed assignments, and provided encouragement and support for each other weekly. I created a weekly contribution to our learning form to help me document my contributions to my learning. This form helped me keep track of the documentation for this assignment. If I completed this form every week, my documentation would be in a single location when it came time to write my rationale. All the members I connected with worked well throughout these 8 weeks.

 

The following are people to whom I regularly responded on the discussion board. Regarding my assignments and blog posts, I took my team members’ feedback and suggestions seriously. I revised all of the assignments and reflected on the revisions with a growth mindset. Making the revisions that they suggested helped me create the strategies I intend to use in my organization and the article for publication that I intend to submit. I have completed all course readings, videos, and supporting resources promptly and have turned in all assignments on or before the due dates. I posted active contributions in the various course forums in a timely fashion so that others could respond to my postings. I posted responses with a depth of thinking. I added additional postings meant to contribute to my classmates’ learning.

 

I have attended some Zoom meetings, with the exception of watching the recording the day after. One thing that I would like to improve on is adding more blog posts on my reading and assignments, which will enhance my learning and sharing through my reflections.

After evaluating my reflections, I feel that it is fair to give myself scores of EDLD 5304 – 97/100 and EDLD 5317 – 97/100.