This course has provided many opportunities for personal and professional growth. The experience best demonstrating this growth is the resulting 21 Century Learning Design (CLD) Constructed Learning Activity. Throughout the 21CLD course, a previously developed unit was used. The course and reflection enabled me to find deficits in my unit planning and identify areas for continued development and growth. In the 21 CLD Constructed Learning Activity, I created a new unit. To develop the unit, I used the rubrics and decision trees from the 21 CLD course to help determine learning activities in relation to student opportunities to develop 21st-century skills. The final unit plan provides students with optimal experiences to develop the following skills: collaboration, skilled communication, knowledge construction, self-regulation, real-world problem-solving, and use of informational and communication technologies (ICT) for learning. While the course provided me with the tools to understand these concepts, the unit plan afforded me the opportunity to use the tools and strengthen my understanding of the application of them. This was the best learning experience as it provided practical application of information.
One surprising element of this course was the enjoyment I found in blogging. While I consider myself a fairly competent writer, the freedom of expression, content, and format for the blogging platform was exciting and fun. I found myself saving these assignments for last because I looked forward to completing them, researching resources for the essential question and providing a personalized, yet informationally accurate, interpretation. This type of free writing, for a purpose, was very fulfilling and is something I think I would like to continue.
One of the hardest parts of the course was working through the 21CLD modules. After watching lengthy videos, sometimes more than an hours worth, several questions for each quiz required tedious and methodical segment by segment review for semantically accurate and specific responses. These items are akin to being required to select exact quotes from chapters in a text. While I found value in the overall concepts, rubrics and decision trees that were part of this course, the quizzes required to pass were far more time consuming and minutiae oriented than beneficial. Several questions actually provided examples for the antithesis of quality assessment. Had there been more questions requiring the application of the tools provided, my views would be very different.
I would advise another student in this course to map out assignments and due dates in advance to create a plan of completion. Setting a calendar and self-assigning specific tasks for daily completion, particularly for weeks with multiple assignments due on Saturday, was necessary. Completing the readings and focus of learning tasks early each week provide a foundation for later work. Lack of other major work during the group presentation 
preparation was very beneficial to collaborating and coordinating work across time zones and state lines. While thoughtful planning was required, the overall group project experience was one of the most valuable in the course. As previously stated, the 21CLD course was far more time consuming than anticipated. Taking screenshots of correct and incorrect answers for the quizzes, retaking them became easier as the greater focus on the specific items of need resulted in a little less stress., especially since two incorrect answers would mean failure. I would also recommend other students buy the Couros text used for this course. There are very few required books that provide the insights and motivation this book does.
While I found the rubrics and decision trees from the 21 CLD Course beneficial tools, the videos and quizzes were very time-consuming. I am not saying this because I found it a difficult part of the course, but because I found more value in the accompanying OneNote resources than the videos or quizzes. These were the tools I referred to for developing the unit and considering next steps for students. I felt the videos, in addition to the readings and other assignments were a bit overwhelming.
Portfolio Evidence Links
Course Personalized Learning Action Plan with supporting evidence of learning
21 CLD Constructed Learning Activity
Group PD Learning Activity and reflection
INTASC Standard 7 Narrative
School Technology Integration Strategic Plan
Links to EQ blog posts:
Effective (and Desirable) Professional Development
Moving the Power in Teaching and Learning
21 CLD Course Badge
