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On November 29, 2017 at 12:00 PM EST – I successfully defended my practicum project entitled “Revitalizing a Course Roadmap” and completed my MLT degree requirements! This was EHE’s first MLT virtual presentation and defense. Thanks to Dr. Kui Xie and Dr. Ana-Paula Correia for serving on my committee.
To see the full presentation and questions, please click on this link: http://carmenconnect.osu.edu/p4o0p1gv0eb/
Final Reflection
The practicum experience was very beneficial to my academic growth. I was able to work independently on a project. I gathered resources despite having to reframe my research question a couple times. I was able to put a reasonable time line together. Lastly, I gained invaluable experience synthesizing the information and presenting it online. I have gained confidence in my abilities to be a leader in the learning development world. During the practicum, there were two main topics that I discovered I want and need to grow further in: data for learning design and realizing the principles and theories that I incorporate.
When designing the practicum timeline, I made assumption about available data in Canvas. I assumed that I would be able to explore down to the modular level, when students were active or how long it took for them to complete a component. I was grossly mistaken on what is available. My big take away from this is that I understand simple data analysis. I believe that xAPI can be a great benefit to my future learning design efforts as well as other learning designers. My next step is to participate in the Torrance xAPI cohort. I met Ms. Torrance last June and she invited me to participate. Also, I will be working with Ms. Kristin Anthony to create a data component to her instructional design app that should be released early next year.
Finally, the practicum advisor and second-reader presentation was an excellent experience. I had never had an oral exam before. I drew several blanks and tripped over my words during questioning. Next time, I will be better prepared. From this process, I realized that through the practicum experience, I drew many ideas from my courses from the year before and current semester. Here are a few:
- I used Mayer’s principles of multimedia learning when considering the visuals, text, and pictures of the roadmap and video
- For the roadmap, I drew a sketch and wireframe, just like I was taught in the summer course on websites for education.
- I recalled the discussion of Information Processing Theory: Encoding and Storage from a course called Learning, Culture and Technology that I took Autumn 2016. I was sure to restate module one’s information in a schema and careful to organize the information in module two so that it was easier to learn and recall.
What I wish I would have done is mentioned these principles, theories, and practices in my reflections and presentations. In hind sight, I approached this practicum in a very procedural and practical way, as if this were a project for work. For this program, it is an ok approach, but I would highly recommend that future participants share what they used from the program curriculum while reflecting and presenting.