In recent months, it has become clear to me that I need to shift focus for my innovation plan, so I wanted to take a moment here to explain that shift and how it came about.

What’s Not Changing

I became interested in developmental education because it’s one of the most clear, well-documented problems affecting higher education, and community colleges in particular. However, as clearly understood a problem as it is, the solutions are anything but clear. To my mind, this is a perfect place to perform research and try experiments. Everyone is hungry for a solution and actually willing to try things (even if that means failing miserably).

After I started digging into it, I became passionate about developmental education. There is so much squandered potential there, and, most importantly, I could see myself and my kids in those students being slowly rejected by a higher education system that’s trying desperately to help them (and I believe they REALLY ARE trying their best to help).

What is Changing

I have slowly come to the realization that my plan to develop these online, self-directed bridge courses was just not going to work. The main reason it wouldn’t work is that I simply wouldn’t be able to make it happen. I’m not a teacher. I’m not developing courses. I don’t have connections into the high schools to get buy-in from that side. Another reason is that, as I started paying closer attention to these issues, I started noticing that a lot more people are working on similar things. Unlike me, they are in the trenches and able to make things happen.

As I was developing a professional development plan, though, I focused on one section of my plan—academic advising—and things started to get easier and ideas started to flow. This, once again, is the COVA model in action. Because I had a choice, I developed increased ownership in the learning process, so I was able to find my voice and my learning was more authentic.

The “Discussion” section of my literature review strongly hints at the direction I’ll be heading. I’ve decided to focus on the academic advising process, making sure that advisors have the data they need to be able to identify students who will need extra assistance but giving them the ability to apply COVA in their own area of expertise–helping students. It’s exciting and more importantly, it’s something I can actually accomplish.