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skills for her high school students. Team 2, The Wolfpack, has been tasked with creating
asynchronous learning modules, which will be assigned through a Google Site and will
link to a variety of online instructional media and materials. Wessels is a high school
Social Science teacher working mostly with eleventh-grade and twelfth-grade students.
She has identified a gap in her students’ ability to use appropriate writing practices when
completing both formal and informal writing assignments. Ms. Wessels has indicated that
many teachers of core classes other than English Language Arts, math, science, etc., have
assignments due to their students’ lack of basic writing skills and teachers’ lack of
instructional time to remedy stated skill deficits. Training is necessary to address the
identified gaps, and it is important that this training does not get in the way of the already
The goal of this project is to create learning activities that can be assigned to
students for completion outside of the classroom, thus minimizing lost instructional time.
In addition, the asynchronous design of the training will limit the need for teacher
involvement in remedial writing instruction. The Common Core State Standards (CCSS)
mandate that formal writing be addressed in all content areas. To meet these mandated
standards, Wessels’s students must possess appropriate grade-level writing skills. The
desired outcome of this training is for the students in Wessels’s classes to successfully
use the writing skills presented in the instructional materials to write at or above their
will not be administered. Wessels will have the opportunity to evaluate the learning
This training is necessary for students in our client’s classes to be able to master
the Social Science content. Her students are expected to have a solid understanding of
English-related skills when they come to her Social Science class. Since their mastery is
assumed, Wessels does not take the time out of her curriculum plan to include writing
skills review. The client goal of this training will be for students to learn and review
writing skills independently so that this remediation does not disrupt Wessels’s lesson
design. Based on a conversation with our client, students at Silver Creek High School are
mostly English-Language Learners, and they suffer from a lack of academic writing
skills. As these students are both in her regular Social Science and Advanced Placement
Social Science classes, it is important that they are writing at or above grade-level. Some
of those academic writing issues were defined as grammar, spelling, and formatting
errors. This training will work to address most of the issues outlined above.
In creating this training program, Team 2 will be considering the Santa Clara
Santa Clara County has lofty goals for its students and teachers. A simple summary of
their five LCAP goals reads as follows: all students will be engaged in rigorous learning
in a safe/responsive environment where the needs of the whole child are in the forefront
so that Santa Clara County students are prepared for a future of their choice (Santa Clara
County Board of Education, 2017). A training that focuses on writing skills and is
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“participate in rigorous, relevant and engaging instruction aligned to 21st century skills to
eliminate barriers and promote achievement” and will assist in preparing students for a
Learner Analysis
The learners completing this training are mostly eleventh-grade and twelfth-grade
students at Silver Creek High School. Many of these students are English-Language
Learners. These students are enrolled in at least one of the following Social Science
classes with Wessels: Law and Society, Sociology, Social Problems, Economics,
Advanced Placement U.S. Government, and/or Politics. According to the Silver Creek
High School’s most recent Academic Performance Index (API), this school was at one
socioeconomic status, and other special needs, were not meeting targets set forth by the
training can better focus on assisting these students in meeting and exceeding the
proficiency level for Language Arts, which will, in turn, boost their proficiency in Social
Project Description
There are two main topics to the writing skills training portion of this project,
which will be located on the Google Site. The site will house the online modules
associated with each main topic, Writing Skills and Editing Skills. Team 2 is exclusively
creating materials for the Writing Skills portion of the site. Team 5 is responsible for the
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Editing Skills portion of the site, but we will combine both projects on the same site for
ease of usage. Once the students open the site, they will be greeted with a how-to video
that describes what the purpose of the modules are and how to use them properly. Once a
student chooses “Writing Skills”, they will be met with the “Quick-Start Writing Guide”.
From there, the learners will choose either the writing format Hyperdoc module or the
grammar and spelling Hyperdoc modules. The modules will focus on increasing students’
understanding and use of writing skills, as well as grammar and spelling skills by
utilizing outside sources and sources created by members of Team 2. A breakdown of the
● MLA Format: It is what it is!: an introduction to MLA format and what it looks
plagiarism.
● Spell/Grammar Check: Use the spell/grammar checker within Google Docs and
Grammarly.
● Are you using complete sentences?: Use complete sentences, not sentence
fragments
● Subject verb agreement: A check to ensure that subjects and verbs are aligned.
These modules are specifically designed for differentiation. They can be done in order if
needed, or if a student only needs help in one of the areas, they can access the specific
one that they need. The modules are not meant to be completed in succession.
Design Decisions
The main deliverable for this project is comprised of two Hyperdocs, often
contain “hot links”, otherwise known as live links. The design of these deliverables called
for housing the Hyperdocs on a site that can be maintained and accessed by students with
ease; therefore, a Google Site is the final deliverable for the project. The Google Site also
houses the deliverables from Team 5. It is believed that since Silver Creek students are
familiar with Google products, a Google Site will be user friendly and this might create a
more readily used program. It was decided that the client would create a Google Site and
then give editing privileges to Team 2 and Team 5 in order to actually build the site. This
solution allows the client to be the “owner” of the site with the ability to make changes to
the product over time as needed. The Google Site now houses the Hyperdocs with
Evaluation
English teacher at Silver Creek High School and a high school-aged student completed a
beta-test of the Google Site for feedback regarding content and usability. More
specifically, the testers also worked through the Writing Skills portion of the site. In order
to gauge participant response, and to determine whether it is meeting the needs of the
students for developing writing skills, an embedded Google Form can be found on the
main page of the Google Site. The Google Form includes questions on what resources the
students are using and what further resources might be needed so that they may be added
to the training program in the future. Learner performance will be analyzed through the
use of formative assessments within each main writing topic. Final performance
evaluation will be achieved by evaluating usage of the online portal to student’s writing
Teamwork
From the outset of this project, Team 2 placed emphasis on assigning roles that
matched the individual strengths of each team member. Crystala Button has a background
technology. Due to her extensive background in the training module subject area,
Crystala took on the role of both project manager and subject matter expert. Gia Devlin
and Eric Zachary took on the role of website and multimedia design. This included
creating the website, which served as the portal to the training modules for both Team 5
and Team 2, and creating the introduction videos for the site. Kelly Bettencourt had
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experience working with a Flipped Classroom format, she was able to provide valuable
insight into finding and creating many of the resources used for the training Hyperdocs
Crystala served as the primary contact with the client. In addition, as a team we
had multiple virtual meetings with Wessels using Zoom. Having Crystala as the primary
contact with Wessels worked well as any issues or concerns were directed to one person
and then Crystala could then delegate the task to the appropriate team member for
amending. Crystala assigned the other team members roles for each portion of the
project. Each team member contributed to each part of the instructional design process.
Some team members contributed more than others on particular assignments; however,
Crystala worked to ensure that the overall workload was distributed evenly.
There were many things that we did as a group that allowed the project to come
together. First and foremost, our team communicated well. We were typically in daily
contact via text message, and when a text wasn’t enough, we called each other or met
virtually via Zoom. Additionally, staying ahead on assignments was vital to our success.
As teachers with the summer off, all of our team members traveled at some point during
the development of this product. As a team we always made sure to complete our parts of
assignments if we knew we wouldn’t have access once leaving home. Finally, having a
responsible and organized project manager was essential. Team 2’s project manager
handled this project with a great deal of dedication. The team never had any question as
to what we were individually responsible for and, as a group, what we needed to achieve.
These three things allowed for a relatively smooth developmental process and a quality
Challenges
One of the major challenges was being able to meet at the same times. Since our
client and our team are all teachers, it was hard working around everyone’s vacation
schedules. In order to overcome those challenges, Team 2 did the best that they could do
in the individual situations they were in. All team members that were on a trip had to
make sure to have work done by a specific date so that it would be done on time. Since
all team members took a vacation, everyone was very understanding of one another.
Another challenge was working with Team 5 to produce content for the same
client. However, working together was simple since we all began communicating early
on in the project. Each team was in charge of a different aspect of the project and met
with the client respectively. It was the teams’ responsibilities to then come together to
A different challenge for our team was designing specifically what the client
wanted. Our client also had deliverables produced for her last year and seemed unhappy
with the results. Knowing that allowed us to gear our meetings with the client in a way
that would ensure that she was satisfied. To overcome this, we took into account what
was unsuccessful for her last year and addressed those issues within our own work along
the way.
1) Set a timeline with dates and stick to it. By having a timeline with everything pre-
set, it helps you keep track of what needs to be done. It is also helpful to have a
visual representation of said timeline shared between the group. That way, group
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members can keep up with what needs to be done and what has already been
done. A shared Google Calendar or Google Doc can help with this process.
2) Keep your client involved during the entire process. By having the client involved
throughout each stage, it helps make less work for you by going back and fixing
things that they may have not worked if you did it, then asked if they liked it. If
you are all on the same page throughout the entire assignment, it helps the work
flow easier. Keeping the client aware of all of the changes or just simply updating
them weekly can help quell any issues before they arise. Ultimately, it is
important to treat your client as if they really are a client that has hired you to
complete a project.
3) Plan your time wisely and make sure that you are available for your team. Never
being able to meet with your team in person is challenging in itself, make sure
that you don’t compound that challenge by further limiting the lines of
communication you do have with your team. Be available through email, text, or
another quick medium that your group has decided on and be sure to respond in a
timely manner.
4) Listen to your client. Understand what they really want from the beginning so you
can craft a product that will be useful. Listen to them along the process and make
changes based on their suggestions. It is much better to build a product the client
will love by using their input and suggestions along the way than to spend time a
product that won’t be used because it wasn’t what the client had in mind.
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References
Acnt2013/2013SchSummary.aspx?allcds=43694274337903
http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy/RH/11-12/
Santa Clara County Board of Education (Ed.). (2017, June 21). Local Control
www.sccoe.org/depts/students/Documents/LCAP.pdf#search=goal
Wessels, S. (2018, May 29). [Video conference interview by MIST Team 2: The
Wolfpack].