Monthly Archives: June 2011

Reflection 5/23/11-6/17/11

My intention for this year was to do a weekly reflection. But alas, there have been quite a few things happening recently that have prevented me from doing this for the past several weeks.

I guess the event that started things rolling was my acceptance of a position at the College of IST as an Instructional Designer with the Office of Infrastructure and Instructional Design. Since then, I’ve been trying to get the numerous projects with which I’ve been affiliated to a point of transition. Here are a few notes:

Master of Finance
This new program out of Greater Allegheny will be taken over by Kent Matsueda. So glad to have Kent on this project. He is a great problem solver and has already begun the process of looking over the courses to continue what has been started.

ACCTNG 512
The first four lessons that have been turned in are up and ready. The site still needs to be set with all of the appropriate files to see the course interface (homepage, etc.). Also, the syllabus needs to be updated with info from the instructor. It looks like the instructor may come to the Outreach Building on July 6 to record some audio. The idea is take the audio and overlay it powerpoint slides to make a learning object for students.

BUSAD 525
I met with Kent and John Buckwalter this week and shared my vision for the course. Kent, John, and I spent some time yesterday looking over the digital materials shared to get a better picture of what will need to be done to have this course ready by Spring ’12. In the materials, the instructor uses Excel, but it doesn’t look like this is the current version. Since this is an important tool in the course, we’ll need to determine what version will be used and or think about what other tools can be used to accomplish the skills required to learn in this course. There are a ton of prerequisite concepts leveraged in this course, and we’re thinking that there may be a need to scaffold these skills for students. The instructor uses Case Studies from time to time to teach concepts. For adult learners this will be key to learn the concepts. Kent also made a good point that tying concepts to a scenario may help students remember the concepts better. We also saw some derivation of formulas. We’re wonder how important this is for students. It might be more appropriate to provide students a high level view of why the formula is being used. That is unless deriving formulas is an important skill for students to apply in the course. It also looked like there were places in the course where practice and informal assessment with feedback would help to build students’ skills and confidence. To accomplish this, it is important to provide hints and allow for a few tries before intervention.

PHP
There haven’t been any courses in revision or development this semester, so Louise has been working on rolling over the courses for Fall ’12. I’m so glad to have someone with as much experience and great insights as Louise working with these courses for the past three years and moving forward.

I was able to contact all of the faculty either by phone or email to these courses to let them know that I won’t be supporting them in fall and that Louise would be their first contact.

Minor in Homeland Security
Over the last several semesters, I’ve been working on these courses. It has been a big learning and growing experience in which we have been trying new ideas like embedding audio, simulations, etc.

CRIMJ 435
This course was set except for audio pieces for content. I plan to look over the course with Louise on Monday to work out any things that may be missing in preparation for moving the course into the live space. I still need to let the faculty know that I’m transitioning but plan to have everything set before letting him know since we are so close to finishing.

PUBPL 201
Transitioned this to Joe Scott. We met early this week and made a plan to finish up the course. The gradebook, rubrics, and fixing some of the formatting for the course were some of our main objectives. Looks like things are well on their way to completion for the course to be ready for Fall. The faculty knows of my transition and is on board.

PUBPL 475
Joe will be handling this course. I was able to set the space in rollover, but it still needs to be updated with the syllabus and course content.
 
PUBPL 483
Updated the course with the lessons material and the syllabus. I will be meeting with Penny Ralston-Berg on Monday to discuss transition with her. She is an experienced designer with a background in simulations. It is great to be handing things off to her. I emailed the instructor but still need to talk to him about my transition.

PUBPL 306
Updated the whole course, including the homepage, syllabus, and course content. Kristin Bitner will be taking over this course. It is nice that she resides in Harrisburg where the faculty can meet with her face-to-face. Along with a phone call, I sent an email to the instructor along with the following video: 

IST

IST 210

Amanda Richards is in the process of editing this course.

IST 220

Amanda Richards completed editing this course and I was able to review. This course is done.

IST 250

During this week, John Buckwalter and I have been able to edit the course according to the plan. The only items left to complete are the course schedule and the Personal Web Site Project. I’ll be meeting with the instructor next Wed to get more insights into how this should look.

Committees

Business Literacy Development Group

I sent a note to the group about moving to IST. Best wishes to the group as they move forward.

A&LS Expanded Group

I ran into Heather Chakaris and let her know that I was leaving.

Social Media Club

I ran into Kate Elias and let her know that I’m moving to IST.