Treasure Hunt

In many education circles, March closes out the third quarter of the fiscal year. Coffers are tight and budget discussions and calculations haunt the dreams of administrators.

Last week, when meeting with supervisor to discuss direction and next steps for the personal development program, he left me with a sense that he felt my work was done. I was confused by what I thought was lack of understanding of the curriculum design process. How could this former educator not realize I was only half-way toward the finish line?

This week, my supervisor shared that “next steps” on this project isn’t further authoring of the curriculum. Rather, I have been tasked with creating materials that our fund development team can use to go out and seek funding.

So, in addition to the creation of metacognition tools, introductory lessons, and teacher training outlines, I also created a marketing infographic and a “one-pager” for potential funders.

Next week I will meet with the fund development team to create a strategic plan. I will also meet with the administrator of our teaching staff to discuss ways to incorporate my work into next year’s instructional plan. Such is life outside the classroom - meetings, meetings, meetings.

The View From the Top

Lance Trumbull - EverestPeaceProject.org
CC BY-SA 3.0
via Wikimedia Commons

Did you know that 75% of all mountaineering injuries happen on the climb down from the peak?

I met with my boss on Thursday. I needed final decisions for the platform I would use to author. I needed final decisions about which content provider support tools we would use. I needed to know if the beta would be in May or in August. Surprisingly I left with answers. All answers aside, my boss left feeling like this project was complete. I left standing on top of a mountain, knowing that I still had to navigate the climb down.

I spent the majority of the week gathering data and prices to make the presentation. Luckily, that set me up for having a great idea about how the purchased curriculum would best integrate with the personal development program I have been creating. I created a project plan to guide the authoring process. As authoring is only one piece of the "Develop" phase of ADDIE, as I develop the lessons, I will be tracking information relevant to teacher training. I have a lot of work to do, so I’ll leave you with a vision of the information I’ll be searching for to create training:

1. How should students pace themselves in order to complete a certificate (one level of training) in a semester?
2. How should data from formative assessments be used to coach students?
3. How can the curriculum flex for use in various blended models?
4. How is student agency realized in the design?
5. How should work-experience supervisors be engaged to maximize the relevance of data and to support student growth?

Caution! Detour Ahead!

Imagine being handed the keys to an amazing sports car, given the freedom to drive as fast as you can, and then uncovering that every road is impeded by construction and detours.

Route 1 - Awkward TimingBudgeting for a new fiscal year, end-of-quarter activity, board meetings, and organizational strategic planning all bloomed like new spring flowers this month. On one hand, this is great timing. There has been a lot of discussion about what differentiates GPS from any other co-op, internship, apprenticeship in our strategic planning sessions. Every trait listed in my personal character program has been called out in organic conversations. The drive and interest in to create a GPS certificate are real. And, I’m told, the finances exist to support the development of this program.

On the other hand, all key decision makers in the organization are tied up in meetings, board retreats, preparation for the new fiscal year, etc. Getting an audience for program approval has become a real challenge.

Route 2 - Internal GrowthIn the last year, GPS has become an industry name in youth apprenticeship. Organizations as small as locally run workforce development offices and as large as the Boys and Girls Club of America have come to us for program development. The creative design and curriculum of these new programs lands

on my plate. The communication, fiscal agreements, and project management lie on my bosses plate. So, as important as the personal character development program is to our organization, it is an activity stream that will ultimately cost us money, whereas this past week, I pitched a program design that made my organization a significant amount of income.

Route 3 - Curriculum and Instruction RE-DesignAs the Curriculum and Instructional Design Manager, managing the content, instructional design and delivery, and data-driven decisions are all my responsibilities. For the last three years, I have been burdened with a learning management system (LMS) unfit for our competency-based, project-based curriculum design. Inspired by my work in the LRU course “Emerging Web and Mobile Technologies”, I have recently embarked on a search for an LMS more in line with our needs. This work has been slow to the point that it is unlikely we will have anything but a beta ready for fall. And, it has led to a huge question in my personal character development program - what platform do I use for the final development of this product? I am at the point where I could start doing actual authoring, but I am stymied by the prospect of building this in our LMS only to turn around in two months and have to re-do the design in new a system.

By Orionman (Own work)
[Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

It isn’t just an issue of not wanting to do work and re-work. It is an issue of true design. Our current LMS delivers content in a linear, course-structured design. New LMS’s that I am looking at deliver content in modules, allow for student navigation and choice that isn’t necessarily linear, and manage assessment and data in entirely different manners.

Route PlanningDespite the roadblocks, detours, and construction barrels, indecision is not in my internal makeup. I have two final elements to pull together for my program: development of assessment tools and alignment of content to program design. This will be my focus for this upcoming week. The following week, I get a meeting with administration on the calendar and then spend my time creating specific proposals that identify internal decisions - write all of our own content, partner with Pairin, author within our existing platform, delay authoring until new system is in place, deliver a beta prior to seeking funding, credentialing through external badging sources (like Credly), etc. - and put the decision making in the hands of administration.

Full speed ahead! After more than a decade of living in a state where orange construction barrels are considered the state flower, I’m not intimidated by detours.

Stargazing

By NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/Axel Mellinger
 (NASA's Swift Sizes Up Comet ISON (03.29.13))
[Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

In the days when constellations dictated scientific prediction, the term “stars align” referenced an omen or a sign. This week has been surreal as I have felt as an observer more than a designer. Perhaps it is anxiety over the “realness” of this work-project disguised as a grad-class-project, or perhaps it is just the cynic in me, but the stars seemed to align this week and that makes me nervous. 

Is it all too good to be true?

If you check out my webpage documenting this design journey, you’ll see that I have spent time comparing available curriculum resources to my desired traits. Prior to Tuesday, this chart didn’t include the work of the company Pairin. While I will be writing my own curriculum and designing my own projects and activities to support the personal development program, having outside curriculum as a resource is vital to ensure depth and breadth for consumers in a competency-based program. In my initial survey, I felt pretty dejected at the large gaps left by the identified content providers.

This work, however, led me to a search for alternatives. The supply of soft skill curriculum providers is fairly deep and I was confident that I had to have missed a viable option. Sure enough, this extended research led me to discover Pairin. Now, this is not a product spot. I have no prior experience with this company. I can only attest to my initial inspection. As you can see from my comparison chart, the alignment between Pairin and my soft skill design is incredibly tight. I was delighted.

In addition to this research, I continue to storyboard traits in order to pre-design curriculum. This work led to the identification of prerequisite skills within my continuum. I realized that I am going to have to complete this storyboarding to verify the prerequisites and solidify the design of the skill progression. Also on my website this week, I added a flowchart to help me visualize the process of interaction and assessment for a student. When I have the prerequisites identified, I will be able to test this process and define a timeline for probably student achievement.

So where does that leave me?
I have two major goals for the next week. First, I need to storyboard at least 3 more traits in order to stay on track for completion. Second, I need to continue to research the materials and products offered by Pairin to flesh out specifics on how my program and Pairin resources would blend.

I suppose there is one more goal - stay positive. It is possible that this week’s progress is a result of diligence and hard work and not just a fluke in the system.