Final Reflections
Today I present to my Practicum Committee. The culmination of 2 years’ worth of classes, projects, presentations and student and research work will be reflected in less than 20 minutes. Additional artifacts, documenting some items I had put into the presentation and then rejected, will be available in addition to the culled presentation. Various versions had run as long as 27 minutes. Today’s should be much shorter. I feel that offering the “extras” will give an optional, additional glimpse into what I have done this semester.
The Project, an evaluation of the 2018 OHI/O Hackathon, was an evaluation in the sense of its worth or merit to the Client, while documenting relevant and useful insights for her and her team. The first question she asked when I began my client presentation to her was, “Well, how did we do?”. The Exit Survey results showed that over 85% ofparticipants were “extremely” or “moderately” satisfied with the event. That was a helpful snapshot.
I feel that I met my part of the agreement in the MOU, and my performance review in the form of a survey, reflected that overall the Client was satisfied with the evaluative tools (instruments) I used, the usefulness of my insights and the ocmfort level of working with me.
There were twists and turns in the journey – the week before the event I was worried that the survey launches would not take place as planned so I took extra steps to increase the response rate, but it remained about the same.
The ways I will work differently with the Client are many: I will now assume the role of a helper and volunteer instead of professional evaluator. This new role will free me to make judgements and suggestions as the key stakeholder Danny has done. I am looking forward to having the freedom to more fully engage in the OHI/O organization under Julia’s leadership.