Milestone #3: Interim Deliverables

What I Have Done:

The first step that I needed to complete was to survey current MAPS participants to see if they thought the reinforcement points were a good idea.  I created a 15 question survey in Qualtrics and sent it out to 426 past participants on February 1st, 2018.  The results of the survey can be found below:

166 people completed the survey over two weeks.  The results of the survey told me a couple of things.  One, people saw value in the idea of reinforcement points. So, that told me I was on the right track.  Two, students were most interested in reminders about the key take-a-ways and additional articles or videos around the topic area of the course. This helped me understand how the reinforcement points should look. Finally, participants stated that they would be willing to log into an account to access these reinforcements.  This helped me to understand that I could provide the points in something like another instance of Carmen vs. a simple e-mail.

What Still Needs Done:

Next steps in this project include, report out survey results and findings to the project contact. I believe the project contact will be happy to hear that students are interested in this product.  After reporting out I will need to create some criteria for picking what MAPS courses the reinforcement points should be created for. Some questions to answer includes: what will work with the project timeline?  What instructors will be most interested in implementing reinforcement point into the class?  The criteria for which classes will also drive the timeline for when the reinforcement points should go out.  I will also have to choose which system the reinforcement point should be sent out with. This will require that I gauge stakeholders opinions with what students have reported they are interested in.

Changes from Original Project Plan:

At this point, no changes have been made from the original project plan.  But, something to watch out for is what students reported as the biggest constraint in their interested in the reinforcement points.   Overwhelmingly, students reported that time would be the biggest constraint to any interests in these points.  The reporting of time was not something that I anticipated as a constraint.  But, this tells me that students don’t want to spend a lot of time on something like this. Therefore, the reinforcement points need to be simple and easy to access.   Understanding this helps me think through which system to use when creating and implementing the points.

 

What I Have Done:

When selecting the courses to design the reinforcement points for, I had a few criteria.  First, I wanted to know that the course was going to be offered in the next season.  I didn’t see value in creating the points for courses that would happen once and be gone forever.  This meant that I had to pick courses that had more than 30 students enrolled.

Second,  I wanted the reinforcement point to be sent out two weeks after the course was offered.  This would give the students ample time to return to work and try to apply some of the things that they learned in the training.  Plus, it would fit into my timeline for completion of the project.

This left me with two courses.  The courses that were selected and the dates they were offered are listed below:

From Manager to Coach on March 7th, 2018

Creativity: Shifting your Mind, Finding your Possibilities on March 14th, 2018

 

What Still Needs Done:

I still need to think through the best mode of delivery for the reinforcement points and how they should be structured.  Not having this completed throws my timeline off a bit, but I can complete some reinforcement points without having to have the structure fully thought out.  Next steps include reaching out to instructors to understand the content and learning objectives.  I am interested in getting instructors onboard with this project so that we can start to increasingly use technology in the classroom.  As of today, little technology is use in these seminars outside of a PowerPoint presentation.  Additionally, I plan on attending all of the courses chosen so that I can fully understand what students should be taking away.  Plus, I can alert students to the project and gauge their interest in participation. Finally, in chapter 8 of  the book titled Human Learning Ormrod discusses the spacing effect. This is a psychology phenomenon where spacing out learning is typically more effective.  I need to think through the spacing effect in terms of what is a good timeline for delivery of the reinforcement points. Is two weeks the right timeline for sending these out?

Changes from Original Project Plan:

As stated above, in the original project timeline the delivery method and structure of the reinforcement points was to be completed by now.  But, I realized that I needed to have a better understanding of the course content before I could determine what the points should look like and how to get them out to students. I think having the structure first would have been nice, but understanding what students are learning will help me think through the best possibly structure. This delays my project only slightly.   It simply means that I will have a little less time to create the content.  But, this is time is minimal because it should not take a ton of time to think through both items.

 

What I Have Done:

During the creation phase, I had to start to think about what the reinforcement points should look like and how to deliver them.  After thinking through delivery options, I came up with two options: e-mail or a second instance of Carmen.  To evaluate each delivery option I create a pros and cons lists.   Below are the pros and cons I came up with for both delivery options:

E-Mail Delivery:

Pros

  1. Easy to Access
  2. Simple to create

Cons

  1. Points would have to be really simple
  2. Junk mail because e-mail might be so big
  3. Easy to delete
  4. No networking

Second Instance of Carmen

Pros:

  1. Points could be more in dept
  2. Networking
  3. Points could include pictures, sound, video, etc.
  4. Can clarify navigation
  5. Can be both an e-mail with log in information and additional information in Carmen

Cons:

  1. People would have to log in
  2. People might not know how to navigate the system
  3. People might not take the step to log in

After a discussion with the project client and stakeholders within the organization, we believed that the second instance of Carmen would be a better fit for these points.  A second instance of Carmen would allow the points to be more robust.

The second decision to make about the reinforcement points was deciding what they should they look like.  Each of the courses has content and materials that are created by the instructor.  The instructor thinks through what information will get their point across.  My challenge was to think through how to format the information provided in the classroom while providing students with additional information and thought points.

Based on those needs and the answers students provided in question 7 of the survey, I came up with three areas that content would fall under for the reinforcement points.  These three areas are: Don’t Forget, Reflection, and Additional Information.   Don’t Forget includes the information that was included in the course. This is the main reminder area for the course.  Reflection included questions that would have been discussed throughout the course during the teaching of that content and any additional questions that could help students reflect on the information provided.  Additional information includes any articles, research, videos, books or audio that provide students with additional information in a specific content area.

Below is an example of the three areas being used in the creation of the points:

       Don’t Forget

Think back to the discussion on best qualities and worst qualities in a boss. Here is the summary what you discussed in class:

 

 

Reflection.png Reflection:

  • On a scale from 1 to 10 (with 1 being low & 10 being high) where did you rate yourself as a boss?
  • What have you implented, since the class, to change that number?
  • What best quliaties are you exhibiting?
  • What worst qualities are you exhibiting?
  • Focus on actionable steps you can take to change your worst qualities and focus on your best qualities.

 Additional Information

Google conducted an internal study on the habits of the most effective managers.  The results are discussed in the article titled Google Employees Weighed In on What Makes a Highly Effective Manager (Technical Expertise Came in Last) by Michael Schneider.

The article is avalible here: https://www.inc.com/michael-schneider/google-did-an-internal-study-that-will-forever-change-how-they-hire-and-promote-.html

In a working paper titled The Value of Bosses, authors Edward P. Lazear, Kathryn L. Shaw, Christopher T. Stanton quantifed how much a good boss affects employee’s productivity.

The working paper is avalible here: http://www.nber.org/digest/dec12/w18317.html

 

What Still Needs Done:

Right now I am in the middle of creation.  I am going through each item and thinking through the structure of the content and how best to display it.  This includes reading over the course materials and my notes.  Reviewing learning tools and evaluating the ease of use.   I still have a lot of content to create, but I will need to have all of it finalized by March 21st.  Additionally, I will need to get students enrolled into the carmen courses. To do this, I will need to work with our instructional designer who holds access to creating user names in the second instance of carmen.  Ideally, I will also need to get feedback on the created content from some key stakeholders.  The key stakeholders include the MAPS program manager, Tim Bailey, and some co-workers who have taken MAPS courses before.  These co-workers relate closely to our target audience.  Finally, I need to create the survey questions that will be sent out with the reinforcement points. This will help me gauge if students liked the reinforcement points and how well they believe they helped them remember the learning.

 

Changes from Original Project Plan:

At this point, a few items have been added to the project plan. This includes, creating user names in the second instance of carmen and obtaining informal feedback from co-workers. I do not anticipate that adding these items on to my list of things to do will affect the timeline.   I simply need to e-mail the users to the instructional designer.  Asking for informal feedback from colleagues will likely be a bit more time consuming, but I can stress the need for feedback quickly.  This can be accomplished by simply stop by their office and asking them for verbal feedback.

 

What I Have Done:


As stated earlier, the first course was delivered on March 7th, 2018.  During the in-person portion of the course, I presented the project to students enrolled and alerted them that they would be receiving an e-mail with additional information on March 21st, 2018 (two weeks from the day the course was delivered).  The timeline of two weeks was established due to the timeframe of the delivery of the project and so students would have spent some time away from the class content.

I completed all of the reinforcement points for the first course (From Manager to Coach) on March 20th, 2018.   The first e-mail to students went out on March 21st, 2018 at 3:56 pm.   An example of the e-mail delivered to students is available below:

The e-mail above included students log in information and a link to complete an evalation of the reinforcement points.  A reminder e-mail was sent on Monday, March 26, 2018 at 9:54 AM.

The same process was done for the second class with the initial e-mail going out on Wednesday, March 28, 2018  at 3:38 PM and a reminder e-mail going out on Friday, April 6, 2018 at 10:47.  Additional Information

What Still Needs Done:

Getting the students user names took me a bit more time than I anticipated.  I had to send several reminders to the instructional designer about my timeline for completion and how the process should work.  Typically, the instructional designer sends out log in information to students.   But, in this case, I wanted to be the one to e-mail these items out.  This was a simple but time consuming discussion.  Because of this, I focused on getting the students enrolled and not the instructors of the  MAPS courses and my first and second chair at the university.  So, I still need to enroll the MAPS instructors and my advisor and second reader into the courses to allow them to review the items.  Next steps include, compiling the data received from the survey and the time students spent in the system.  I will also need to identify any additional data points that I believe can be reported out on.   Additionally, I will need to report out all of the data and findings to the project contact.

Changes from Original Project Plan:

No major changes to the project plan at this point.  Again, some items took me more time than I had anticipated.  But, ultimately I send out the reinforcement points on the dates that I had identified at the start.  Additionally, I obtained feedback from the project contact on the survey and the reinforcement points before they were sent out.  I believe this helped me create the best project I possible could.