I can't believe I'm at the midpoint of my ID2ID experience already! At this point in the process, I wanted to take a minute to reflect on my experiences thus far and identify what my partner and I are doing well and what we need to work on as we move forward.
As described in a previous post, I was accepted into a professional development program for instructional designers through Penn State University - the ID2ID Program. According to their website:
"The ID2ID program provides a structure for instructional designers to share their areas of expertise with one another and allows them to focus on improving areas where they are less knowledgeable. The program is designed to increase communication among instructional designers outside of their reporting unit, and create opportunities to learn about location and unit-specific instructional design roles. The program also provides an opportunity for participants to grow professionally by cultivating their professional network, broaden perspectives within the PSU Learning Design Community (PSULDC), and grow their expertise in the instructional design field."
How well is the program working for you so far?
The program is interesting because they take the time to pair you with an individual with similar interests. As such, my partner and I are both interested in the same topics and have narrowed down our goals together. Originally, I was a bit worried because my partner had been through this process before and was paired with an individual who is now on the board (if I remember correctly). Although I started off a bit intimidated by the requirements and my partner's expectations, we really sat down and worked through these feelings by creating and working together to create goals that we are both proud of.
What have you accomplished so far?
Interestingly enough, we have accomplished quite a bit in our first half of the program. My partner and I decided to focus on the use of audio feedback tools for our ID2ID experience. We hold bi-weekly meetings and work on Google Drive between our sessions. We have held ourselves accountable and looked at outside PD to grow and develop our own skills. We have completed the following tasks:
Created a shared Google Folder
Created our goals for the program
Compiled a list of audio feedback tools
Reviewed (2) audio feedback tools each
Met with our respective librarians on how to effectively research our projects
Reported back to each other on best practices after our respective meetings
Submitted a proposal for an interactive session at the ELI Conference
Started to compile a list of audio feedback articles
Created a listing of criteria to evaluate our audio feedback articles
While this list seems extensive, I'm sure there are additional items we have completed that I'm missing.
What else do you need to do? Describe the progress you have made toward meeting your program goals.
We had three main goals for our time in the ID2ID Program (listed out below). We have a few items that we are still working on and that need to be completed prior to the end of the program:
Objective 1 - Analyze feedback tools for delivering audio and video feedback in online courses
This objective is almost complete. We have two items to still be completed 1) Acquire faculty review of audio feedback tools and 2) Analyze feedback we have received.
Objective 2 - Write a literature review of existing research on feedback and submit a conference proposal based on our review
While have narrowed down our topic, created our list of research criteria, submitted for a conference, we are still in the beginning stages of writing the actual literature review (just starting to collect articles).
Objective 3 (If time allows) - Create a job aid for faculty to teach them about accessibility
No plans have been made for this objective yet.
What obstacles have you faced that you did not anticipate? What are your plans for working through them?
There were a few weeks where we had to rearrange our dates (so some weeks we had meetings back to back and others where we waiting three weeks before meeting). but otherwise I do no consider this a big obstacle as we were still able to complete tasks via Google tools. The main obstacle we are facing now (and will be) is obtaining IRB approval for our research across different universities. We are in the beginning stages of how this can be done and if it is even needed for our projects. Our plans for working through them are reaching out to others more familiar with the IRB process and explore different options if this cannot be obtained.
What are your plans for the rest of the program? Many of you may have chosen to focus on one or more of the ELI Key Issues. If so, briefly summarize and reflect upon your discussions of these key issues.
At this point, I believe we really need to buckle down and start writing up our literature review. We tried to focus our projects on items we are kind of familiar with but wanted to learn more. Therefore, for us, we want to wrap up our second objective. I'm not sure if we will be able to create a job aid about accessibility. It may be more in our realm to develop a job aid on audio feedback tools since this is where the majority of our focus has been.