From Learner to Learning Designer: What I’m Taking With Me From ADL

Reflecting on COVA, CSLE, the Learner’s Mindset, and what they mean for my professional practice

Where I Started

My experience with digital learning began long before I entered the Applied Digital Learning (ADL) program. In 2014, I had the opportunity to teach in a 1:1 classroom around the same time Google Classroom was beginning to change how teachers and students could interact with technology. That experience taught me early that simply putting a device in front of a student does not automatically make learning better.

Technology had to serve a purpose.

Even then, I understood the importance of making time with technology valuable and memorable. I saw what happened when students were given opportunities to create, explore, and develop their own understanding. I also saw technology used in ways that added very little to the learning experience.

When I entered ADL, I already believed there was value in student autonomy and creating opportunities for students to take ownership of their learning. I had also been fortunate throughout my career to learn from strong educators and mentors who modeled good teaching for me.

ADL did not completely change what I believed good teaching looked like. Instead, it gave me the language and frameworks to better explain why many of the practices I had valued throughout my career were successful.

ADL did not redefine good teaching for me. It gave me the language to explain why good teaching works.

Learning Through Choice, Ownership, and Authentic Work

One of the greatest values of the ADL program was the autonomy I had over my learning. Through COVA, I was able to make choices, take ownership of my work, develop my own voice, and create authentic products connected to my professional environment. I never felt that everyone's work needed to look the same in order to demonstrate learning.

The OECD Future of Education and Skills 2030/2040 framework helped me extend my understanding of choice by considering the broader idea of learner agency. Looking back, the value of COVA was not simply being allowed to choose what I wanted to create. The greater value was having responsibility for my decisions and connecting my learning to work that mattered to me (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development [OECD], n.d.).

My ePortfolio and innovation work are examples of that ownership. My Station Rotation Blended Learning Model began with an authentic need in correctional education and continued to develop through research, implementation planning, action research, professional learning, and communication.

At some point, it stopped feeling like a collection of assignments. It became my work.

Choice Does Not Mean Learning Alone

My ADL experience reinforced my belief that autonomy does not mean removing structure. Creating a significant learning environment means being intentional about both the opportunities learners are given and the support available to them.

CAST's Universal Design for Learning framework extends this thinking by asking educators to consider learner variability and barriers within the learning environment from the beginning (CAST, n.d.). Giving learners autonomy is important, but autonomy alone does not guarantee access or success. Some learners may need examples, modeling, feedback, or additional support before they are ready for greater independence.

Learner choice is powerful, but choice becomes more meaningful when learners also have the structure and support they need to succeed.

From My Learning to My Professional Practice

Ownership does not mean learning in isolation. Throughout ADL, my classmates and peer groups provided accountability, feedback, and different perspectives while we each maintained ownership of our individual work. The OECD's concept of co-agency helped me better understand the value of those relationships (OECD, n.d.).

I now see this reflected in my professional practice. As an education specialist, I do not want professional learning to be something I simply deliver to teachers. I want teachers to have a voice in what their support looks like. One way I do this is through surveys at the end of my professional learning sessions. Their feedback helps me understand what was useful, what they still need, and what should come next.

I want to continue building professional learning with teachers rather than only for them.

Technology Is the Tool, Not the Learning

A better question is not, “What technology can we use?” but “What are we trying to accomplish for the learner, and does this technology help us accomplish it?”

Working in correctional education continually reminds me that technology itself is not the goal. Access, security, connectivity, teacher readiness, student needs, and institutional limitations all influence what is possible.

My work with blended learning, station rotation, and now student devices has reinforced that successful technology implementation requires more than access to a tool. It requires preparation, appropriate content, support, and time to determine what works and what needs to change.

The OECD's work on preparing learners for an uncertain future also reminds me that being an instructional technology leader does not mean knowing every new platform (OECD, n.d.). For me, it means knowing how to evaluate whether a platform adds value to the learning experience.

What I Will Carry Forward

As I complete the ADL program, there are parts of my experience that I want to intentionally keep, adapt, extend, and continue to reconsider.

Keep: Authenticity, Voice, and Meaningful Choice

I will continue creating opportunities for learners and educators to have meaningful choices, take ownership, and develop their voice. Authentic work was one of the strongest parts of my ADL experience because I could connect what I was learning to work that mattered beyond a grade.

Adapt: Autonomy With Support

I believe strongly in learner autonomy, but I will pair autonomy with appropriate structure. Examples, expectations, feedback, modeling, and continued support do not take away learner ownership. When used intentionally, they can help learners become more confident in taking ownership.

Extend: Co-Agency Into Professional Learning

I want to continue building professional learning with teachers rather than only for teachers. Surveys, conversations, follow-up support, collaboration, and teacher feedback can help me create learning experiences based on authentic needs rather than assumptions.

Reconsider: What Digital Learning Needs to Become

This may be the area I continue thinking about the most.

Technology changes. Education changes. Our learners change. My own thinking should be allowed to change as well.

Reconsidering my practice does not mean that what I believed before was wrong. It means allowing my thinking to continue developing as technology, education, and the needs of learners change.

That leaves me with an important question as I finish ADL: How do I continue growing after the program ends?

Where Do I Go From Here?

Completing a master's program can feel like reaching a finish line, but I do not want to view this experience that way. My larger question is what all of this will look like three, five, or ten years from now.

Technology will change. Our learners will change. Education will continue to change. I cannot predict which technology will be important ten years from now or exactly what future learners will need. What I can carry forward is a way of thinking about those changes.

I can continue asking whether learning is authentic, whether learners have meaningful choices, what barriers may exist, whose voice needs to be heard, and whether technology actually contributes to learning.

ADL has not given me a finished answer to what digital learning should look like in the future. Instead, it has given me a stronger way to ask the questions that will matter as learning continues to change.

Maybe that is the most important part of maintaining a Learner's Mindset: completing the program does not mean I am finished learning.

References

CAST. (n.d.). Universal Design for Learning. https://www.cast.org/what-we-do/universal-design-for-learning/

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. (n.d.). Future of education and skills 2030/2040. https://www.oecd.org/en/about/projects/future-of-education-and-skills-2030.html