Week 16 Project B Reflections

My Project B was meant to be an online version of training that provides an alternative to improve the learners’ participation and to enhance attendee’s job performance beside Project 1 for next school year (2011-2012) to fix the existed problems when a similar version of video training was executed this past semester. 

One of my biggest challenges for my project was time management. It took me a lot of time to figure out the right applications for my instructional design with zero budget concern. At some points, I was struggling to upload my website into this class server even I learned from one CECS course last semester. What I have learned from the process and what I would do differently next time would be plan ahead and manage my work schedule more wisely.

My client is pretty satisfactory with the e-Learning course as a part of Applied Behavior Analysis training series. Personally, I am also content with what I have finished this project as it is now.  As a first time instructional designed, I did learn a lot from these two assignment projects. 

Week 15 Feasible Time Frame

As my Project B plan, I pretty much finished my e-learning website infrastructure development. This course series contain 8 learning modules. I have completed 2 of them and posted online. The post-course survey is done and available on my web page.  It will take me a chuck of time to convert the training videos into streaming files of the 6 unfinished volumes for web uses. Regarding the feasibility in a reasonable time frame, I presume that it probably will take me about 10 working days to finish video conversion. Other than that, typing the 6 quizzes is painless and can be finished in a day. This online course is scheduled for next spring.  There is enough time for me to wrap up, test and adjust this project before implementation.

Week 14 About my project

My client is content with my project proposal. She agrees with me that it is necessary to extend our class-based training into online learning to fulfill the goals we set for our trainees and to offer them the schedule flexibility. Along with the original online training ideas, I made efforts of providing a variety of functions including chatting, discussion, and calendar to enhance the learning effectiveness besides video and written lectures and tests.  

There is still a week before the project dues. I definitely have to work hard to put everything together as I planned. I am happy with my concept and design.  I would be happier if I can carry all the ideas into reality and put them on my web site.  I wish I had more sophisticated skills and more time to devote to the last stage of my project – make it happen. 

Week 13 Group Work

Wikipedia defines group work as “a form of cooperative learning.  It aims to cater for individual differences, develop students’ knowledge, generic skills (e.g. communication skills, collaborative skills, critical thinking skills) and attitudes”.

The great thing about group work is that group experience and ideas are used as a means of individual and group growth and development.  Group work brings individuals with a variety of personality and skills work together to contribute each one’s strengths and efforts for a project.  

On the other hand, it is hard to accurately evaluate individual contribution of a team project. There was a discussion earlier in this class that some folks shared some friends’ negative team work experiences. It is not unusual that some team member (un)intentionally don’t their work, consequently the others without no choices have to carry the load.  In school setting, the project is usually assessed based on the whole project rather than individual efforts. It is not fair for those hard working members get the same grade as the lazy students in the same projects. 

Effective communication is a lifelong learning process to me. Working with people with different personalities demands different communication skills. Overall speaking, learn to listen, critical think, express yourself precisely and compromise is crucial for efficient and effective communication for group work. 

Week 12 Working on Project B

One of seven rules for good instructional design revealed in the textbook – rapid instructional design is that use whatever works for you to make instructional design easier, faster, and cheaper. That is exactly my ultimate principle for my Project B instructional design within a tight working schedule. I am still trying to find the right place to upload the e-learning classes and to put everything together in a logical flow and meet my target learners’ needs.  

Week 11 Self regulation / management and communication

The term self-regulated can be used to describe learning that is guided by meta-cognition (thinking about one's thinking), strategic action (planning, monitoring, and evaluating personal progress against a standard), and motivation to learn (Butler & Winne, 1995; Winne & Perry, 2000; Perry, Phillips, & Hutchinson, 2006; Zimmerman, 1990; Boekaerts & Corno, 2005). In particular, self-regulated learners are cognizant of their academic strengths and weaknesses, and they have a repertoire of strategies they appropriately apply to tackle the day-to-day challenges of academic tasks (Wikipedia). 

To me, being self-regulated first requires the understanding of subjects, self strengths and weaknesses. Accordingly, develop appropriate strategies to achieve goals. Being able to manage and regulate yourself is the preliminary of managing and regulating others. Communication is the bridge of collaborative management and regulation. There is a Chinese saying, the water that bears the boat is the same that swallows it up which depicts the role of communication in group projects. Only efficient and effective communication will give the teamwork rise to success. 

Project 1 Implementation and Evaluation

This project initially was designed for next school year (2011-2012) to fix the existed problems when a similar version of video training was executed this past semester. Since I am not able to implement my project and collect the assessment and evaluation data until next school year. This outcome on the effectiveness of my intervention is based on my client’s perception and prediction, and the interviews I conducted with the former training participants. 

The main problems occurred in previous implementation were the format of video training hardly got the trainees engaged, long period of time commitment for participants, and the post quizzes weren’t implemented correctly to reflect the learning results precisely.

Considering a steady decline in education funding, Denton ISD decided to implement this Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) video training in order to save on some regular training by keeping staff in the classroom and no need to budget for qualified substitutes and travel expenses for relevant seminars. Therefore, the format of the core instruction is non-changeable. The previous experience from the ABA video training also addressed the problems that the videos were information dump and led the trainees’ difficult digestion during the instruction. The first learning activity in my project design, session instruction that the training facilitator will brief the ideas of the session, is meant to get the learners prepared for the intensive video instruction. The panel discussion after the video will also help clarify the confusing information or technique and further enhance the trainees’ knowledge mastery and retention and transfer learned skills to improve their job performance. The former training participants particularly appreciate the discussion activity, they believe it will get the future trainees more personal connection and stay engaged in the instruction.  

Due to the budget consideration as well, the training needs to break into session and carried on within a two-month period. It is challenging to schedule large blocks of time for both my client and the trainees due to different class schedules. I came up with the idea of full attendance rewards besides the full-participated certification issued by Denton School District to encourage the trainees’ full commitment.   

My client and I both think we need to modify the way how we employed the quizzes. In previous training, the quizzes were given to the trainees, which is fine to carry on for next term. In order to generate more accurate learning results, discussion for the answers to the quizzes won’t be allowed anymore. Although the interviewees are not too happy with this change, they agree with our points. The analysis of the participant reaction sheets is a good reference for reflections on learning effectiveness and an important indication for next training since this ABA series is a district-plan and supposed to be delivered over and over in the near future.

Regarding the goals and objectives set corresponding to the timeline, there is no doubt that the phase 1 expectations will be accomplished by week 2 since Objective 1.1 (Help participants be familiar with what Autism is, what causes Autism, and how Autism is treated.) and 2.1(Help participants understand what ABA is and what is the theory behind it) are theories involved which will be mainly introduced in week 1.  The potential participants for this training each of them has more or less related special education prerequisite, they are expected to extend their knowledge into Autism area easily. My client and I are quite confident that phase 2 objectives can be achieved by week 4 without too many problems through the learning activities. (Objective 1.2: Help participants be aware of children with Autism with respect to behavior at school. Objective 1.3: Help participants be prepared what to expect for Autistic children possible learning progress. Objective 2.2: Help participants be aware of ABA’s types of prompts and reinforcers, appropriate timing to apply and assessment). As far as my client and I concern is that it could be challenging to reach Goal 3.0 for each of trainers. (Learners acquire useful techniques that can be utilized throughout the day, effectively teach autistic students new skills and lead more independent lives.) First of all, there are various types of Autism with a huge number of different characteristics. Applied Behavior Analysis may or may not suit for certain autistic students. Moreover, it requires tremendous patient and passion besides knowledge and techniques to work with children with autism. The trainee’s personality will play a role on if they are capable to utilize the acquired information and skills into their job performance. My client and I are optimistic for the phase 3 goals and objectives based on our acquaintance with the staff at Ann Windle.    

Again, this project evaluation is based on my client and my perception and the experience from the previous simpler version of training. We have worked hard to find some solution to fixe the problems and enhance the learning effectiveness. Although without real implementation, my client and I strongly believe the training will do it as what we expect.