Running Head: PROJECT REPORT SILVER CREEK

Project Report
Silver Creek High School
Team Mistico
California State University Monterey Bay

IST626 Advanced Instructional Design

Professor Farrington
July 25, 2017
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Introduction

Our project was to create a module to teach presentation skills to high school seniors at

Silver Creek High School in San Jose, California. Many students lack the skills needed in order

properly communicate their ideas in a formal setting. Students taking AP classes are expected to

be exceptional and should already have these skills by the time they are a senior. However, many

students come into the class lacking the skills needed to engage in intellectual discourse on the

history of the United States.

Shelley Wessels, the current AP History/Government teacher, tasked our group with

creating something that would teach her students the proper presentation and public speaking

skills without wasting valuable class time. Our group decided to create an online Google Site that

consisted of six overall units to introduce and fine tune proper presentation skills to high school

seniors. The site and subsequent assignments walk the students through how to participate in the

online forums, how to present properly, how to dress, how to engage an audience, and how to

critique others and learn from their presentations. By the end of the experience, the students

should be able to give great presentations using the skills they learned and also be able to

interview well for real life employment opportunities. By allowing the students to move

through the site on their own time at home at a pace set by their teacher, they will be able to

confidently present themselves by the end of the school year.

Our team chose to create a Google site that would allow students to learn at home, while

also allowing collaboration and discussion with their classmates and teacher. In addition, this

solution exposes the students to the online learning forums they may experience as they continue

into higher education.

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Project Description

In order to prepare students for college and career, they must be provided with

opportunities to participate in a variety of structured conversational situationsas part of a

whole class, in small groups, and with a partnerin order to simulate as many possible real

world situations they may find themselves in such as college/job interviews, business

presentations, and legal/social debates. They must be able to contribute appropriately to these

conversations, to make comparisons and contrasts, and to analyze and synthesize a multitude of

ideas in accordance with the standards of evidence appropriate to a particular discipline.

Whatever their intended major or profession, high school graduates will depend heavily on their

ability to listen attentively to others so that they are able to build on others meritorious ideas

while expressing their own clearly and persuasively.

In order to facilitate the students exposure to these opportunities as well as their ability to

master these skills, our team created a Google site for a high school accelerated class:

Government in America. On this Google site, students will be able to access learning resources

and assignments provided by our team as well as the instructor, participate in group projects,

post videos of themselves, peer review and critique their classmates work, and submit

assignments.

The project meets the clients expressed need to provide an oral learning component for

each of the 6-10 units of study. The project will support organizational goals to educate and

motivate students to develop their oral presentation skills that will be needed for their future

college and career endeavors. The Google site will serve as a training resource site and forum to

interact with their instructor and peers in a group or one on one setting The expected outcomes

for the project are that learners will be able to deliver persuasive oral presentations in a group or
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in a one on one setting. Success for the project will be measured through assessments of the

students presentations by their instructor and peers as well as measures of engagement and

motivation among learners through analysis of learner interactions with the Google site and a

student/instructor satisfaction survey.

Design Decisions

As with most design projects, the final product is usually the result of at least minor

changes and revisions from the original design. Overall, our final product is very similar to our

original design. However, there were some changes that we implemented to provide maximum

flexibility for our client as well as to protect the privacy of the end users.

Originally, the content was labeled as weeks and consisted of 10 weeks. In order to

give our client the flexibility to choose which material to cover at a specific time period that she

felt appropriate, we changed the weeks to units and combined/consolidated them into six

units that grouped the material more appropriately by content. We also changed the access of the

materials from public to allow only those students in that particular school district to have

access in order to protect their privacy.

Evaluation

A usability test was conducted with the client. This meeting was done via video

conference and screen recorded. The session demonstrated how to navigate the website, both as a

student and as an instructor. It also included ways to edit pages, and manage student permissions.

The entire video session was recorded and a YouTube link was shared with our client for later

viewing. At the end of the meeting, our client stated that she was comfortable using and editing

the Google site and thought that the layout was simple enough for her and her students.
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In addition to the usability testing/instruction with our client, the following evaluation

plans will be implemented:

Level 1: Client/learner reaction will be evaluated by measuring levels of engagement and

motivation among learners through analysis of learner interactions with the Google site and a

student/instructor satisfaction survey.

Level 2: Learning will be evaluated through assessments of the students presentations

by their instructor and peers. Students will post an introductory video before being exposed to

any of the training material in order to establish a baseline comparison with videos they submit

after they participate in the training modules. A rubric will be used to grade all presentation

videos to ensure consistency of measurement.

Level 3 (Behavior - Application & Implementation): This level of evaluation is outside

the scope of this project.

Level 4 (Results - Business Impact): This level of evaluation is outside the scope of this

project.

Level 5 (Return on Investment): This level of evaluation is outside the scope of this

project.

Teamwork

Our team decided it was best to have fluidity in our roles, as we all helped and

contributed in our own ways to various aspects of the project. Carlotta was the overall manager

of the project and our main contact with our client. She also contributed to the project by creating

Unit 2A Basics of Public Speaking and Unit 2B: Practicing Public Speaking Skills as well

as creating the general rubric that the students and instructor would use to grade their work.

Justin was the Google site creator/manager and uploaded all of the content submitted from the
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rest of the team members in order to maintain a uniform appearance. He also created the content

for Unit 5A: Prepare for a Multimedia Presentation and Unit 5B: Multimedia Presentation.

Wendy created the content for Unit 1: Course Introduction and Unit 6:

Negotiation/Mediation. Bassel created the content for Unit 3A: Prepare for an Interview and

Unit 3B: Interview a Subject. Edgar created the content for Unit 4A: Prepare a Persuasive

Speech and Unit 4B: Give a Persuasive Speech. We all kept each other on task and ensured

that all pieces and assignments were completed on time. Our entire team met with our client via

video conference and shared ideas and information during those meetings.

Team Mistico consists of team members with excellent work ethic. As a team, all

members supported one another in any way they could. One thing that we did particularly well

was starting our project right away. We met with our client and got an idea of what she wanted

as soon as the semester started. We then met as a team to come up with the best solution for our

client and promptly began to work on each piece and assigned task to each team member.

Another thing that we did particularly well was checking in with each other prior to every

meeting with our client. We would meet about 20 minutes prior to connecting with our client in

order to go over what we would present to her. This allowed our meetings with her to run

smoothly and efficiently, providing her all the information she needed in a timely manner.

Everyone worked as a cohesive unit in order to create an end product that would give our client

what she needed, in order to get her students to the level they needed to be at on their graduation

day.

Challenges

Throughout our process, we faced several challenges. Our team addressed challenges by

communicating the challenge to the entire group. If one of our five team members didnt have an
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immediate solution, we would conference to discuss the challenge, and identify possible

solutions. Below, we have identified several challenges, and the methods used to solve them.

Developing for Access and Equity

Since our target learner population is public high school students, there are ethical and

legal factors that must be considered in regards to access and equity of our product. Before

meeting with out client, our group had proposed several design decisions. Although aspects to

our module, like hosting it on a Google Site, and using video submissions as assignments,

enhanced the learning acquisition portion of our product, it constrained the parameters of who

could access the material. Since our client desired that the speaking and listening learning

objectives happen mostly outside of her classroom, we understood that many of the learners

would be accessing the material from home. Not every student has access to a computer, internet,

or a video recording device. We discussed this challenge with our client, and proposed a

solution. Our client agreed to altering the assignments for students who did not have access to a

video recording device. These students would be able to prepare for their presentations, and be

able to perform and reflect in class. Our client stated that most of her students had smartphones

with internet access. We developed the course and assignments so that both could be accessed,

and completed entirely from a smartphones. To further assist students in this area, we developed

smartphone specific job aids, including how to upload and share a video from an iPhone/Android

device.

Consolidation of Course Materials

Our product includes lectures, quizzes, video tutorials, assignment descriptions, rubrics,

and many other different materials. Since our group has five members, we established who was

producing what before our development started. Instead of having multiple users logged on to
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the Google Site, and uploading materials intermittently, we decided to use a different technology

available to us. We linked different materials to appropriate columns on a shared Google Sheet.

We then designated our technology specialist to upload the individual documents from this sheet

to the appropriate place on the website. This allowed for uniformity and saved valuable time that

group members would have spent learning to edit the site.

Instructor Support

Our client will be administering the product to her learners after the course is already

developed. The course is also a synchronous instructional model, requiring a variety of tasks to

be completed by the instructor while the course is active. Creating a plan to support our client

included several different elements. The first step included developing job aids for her students

that also reflected what the instructor would see. This included screen capturing the forum pages

and sample posting.

We also held an instructional lecture followed by a question and answer session. This

meeting was done via video chat and screen recorded. The session demonstrated how to navigate

the website, both as a student and as an instructor. It also included ways to edit pages, and

manage student permissions. This allows our client to use this product in subsequent years. The

entire video session was recorded and a YouTube link was shared with our client for later

viewing.

Advice for Future Students

Our advice for future students would be to start promptly on the project. One of the best

things we did was meet with our client as soon as she could in order to get the project started.

After we met with our client, we immediately met as a team to draft ideas for what we thought

would be the best solution for the client. Once we came up with a solutions we delegated who
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would create what portion and then presented our ideas to the client. Once given the approval

from the client, we were able to move forward in creating the actual project. Delegating tasks

also ensures that everyone knows their role and what they need to complete to ensure the project

is completed on time.

Our suggestion is to create a Google Sheet that everyone can access with the tasks clearly

labeled as to who will create them. In our Google Sheets we also included links to what we had

created for content so that the whole team could see the documents we were working on in real

time and also the links we would be using. It also allowed us to contribute to our other team

members if we found something that would be useful for their portion. Its a great way to ensure

that everyone is on track and on the same page.

Our last recommendation would be to meet as a team on a regular basis and also chat

with each other about topics other than school. Having open communication and knowing what

everyone is going through in their own life helps you bond as a team and lend support when it is

needed. Having a group chat text message allows you to stay in contact and bond as a team.

Being open and honest with each other is the best thing you can do to ensure you are successful

in this class and throughout MIST.