Evaluation of Successes: What is Working Well?

As both a student and a teacher, I always strive for continuous improvement in my professional practice. I believe one of my greatest strengths lies in my receptiveness to new ideas and constructive feedback. This type of open-mindedness approach has enabled me to refine my work throughout the course and adapt my work per peer and instructor reviews. I always want to improve my work. I guess you can say I’m still “In my Learning Era” and have improved myself with an open mind concerning growth in my finished product. 

 

Area of Growth or Improvement: What can I improve?

While maintaining a growth mindset has served me well, I recognize several specific areas requiring continued development. Academic citation is my most significant challenge; I frequently struggle with properly integrating sources according to standard formatting guidelines. I believe my area of refinement is in the technical aspects of citation, like concerning the placement of in-text citations, formatting reference lists, and distinguishing between different source types. 

 

Publication Outline

Our first assignment involved creating an outline intended for publication. I knew there was a process for publishing, but I never knew what all goes into the process for the author. I struggled with the publication outline because I had moments of writer's block. However, after much consideration, I changed up my outline from what I had originally after having several group discussions. 

 

Rough Draft and Final Draft Publication

The next assignment was our Rough Draft Publication. The Rough Draft Publication was one assignment I had a difficult time writing. I sat in writer’s block for a while, but it wasn’t until I changed some parts of my outline that my ideas came to fruition. The Rough Draft Publication leads into the Final Draft, which is where the suggested feedforward is utilized. 

 

Article Media Project

One of my absolute favorite assignments was the Media Publication Article. The Media Publication Article demonstrated the use of COVA while we were given a variety of options to choose how our article would be presented in a media format. I chose to go down the route of utilizing Google LM Notebook to record an AI-generated podcast. I was amazed and couldn’t believe my podcast is still AI-generated. 

 

Reflection of Collaborative Discussion Group

My collaborative group for 5317 consisted of Katelyn O’Quin, Ayla Rightenour, Cristy Silkin, and me, Ann Zastryzny. We selected Padlet as our primary discussion platform, supplemented by a group text message thread for immediate questions about assignments and directions. Throughout this collaboration, I developed proficiency with Padlet—a platform I previously struggled to navigate effectively in the past. Our group utilized this tool for peer review, sharing work for feedback, and posting assignment drafts. The platform proved more efficient than sending email or sharing through Google Docs, thus streamlining our collaborative process. 

 

Our group had many other discussions other than our class assignments and the program, we also discussed our opinions, and what we see wrong or right, in education, along with our own concerns and issues in our districts. We often compared what our districts do differently, which was very interesting concerning how districts function, whether big or small. My group was very shocked by how many students I had in my classroom, on my campus, and in my district. 

 

ADL Track

Other than being enrolled in 5317, I was enrolled in 5304, Leading Organizational Changes with Dr. Padovan, throughout the last eight weeks. This complementary coursework illuminated crucial aspects of organizational change management. Thus, this generated a conceptual overlap between these courses, a compelling insight: the potential to develop articles and blog content addressing resistance to change within educational institutions. In my article for 5317, I addressed the reluctance of educators to embrace new methodologies, directly applying concepts from 5304. This realization inspired me for my article in 5317 and even made me want to blog about this topic as well. 

 

As for my collaborative group discussion for 5304, the members comprised Kelsie Adams, Leslie Gutierrez, Ayla Rightenour, Angela Speck, and, of course, me, Ann Zastryzny. We consistently utilize GroupMe as a source of communication to share ideas, our websites, feedforward, and open discussion about our current state of education. I’m very grateful to have another group I can count on. 

 

Summary: Conclusion of course, and my Learning

This course has transformed my understanding of academic publishing, revealing it as a rigorous yet rewarding process. Such a structured approach goes into developing publications–from the outline to the final media adaptation–this type of preparation has provided me with valuable insight for potential doctoral studies and scholarly opportunities. That said, I also believe this course strengthened my capacity for collaborative learning, digital tool utilization, and academic discourse, which serve me well for my current teaching role and future academic pursuits.

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References

Dweck, C. S. (2006). Mindset: The new psychology of success. random house.

 

Harapnuik, D. (2023). Who owns the ePortfolio? It’s About Learning. https://www.harapnuik.org/?page_id=6050.

 

Harapnuik, D. & Thibodeaux, T. (2023). COVA: inspire learning through choice, ownership, voice, and authentic experiences. Learner's Mindset Publishing

 

Harapnuik, D. (2021, February 9). Learners mindset explained. harapnuik.org. https://www.harapnuik.org/?p=8705