What is left to do on my project? I have been able to work a bit ahead and get much of the content and activities completed. What is left are the last two intro videos and then major editing for not only grammar but educational flow. I also need to incorporate some of the feedback from the peer reviewers into the first half. I have just gotten behind on that part. Then I need to go through and make sure that I am really accomplishing the intended theoretical perspectives for each module. Its easy to choose one and stick with it through the whole course, but change from one to another can be difficult. Especially if you are trying to present a consistent end-user experience. Obviously some things will change, but if you don’t provide some familiarity with structure, learners can become stressed.
That probably also touches on the challenges that I face. Changing theoretical perspectives is a good way to get professors to see learning from other perspectives, but you don’t want to confuse them. Finding that perfect balance of changing the perspectives but not so much as to lose people is a bit challenging. Change it too much and people get frustrated (and rightly so), but don’t change it enough and your participants don’t notice it and will continue on as they have been. So I am striking a balance of explaining the changes but using similar repeated elements in the design to tie them all together.
I will be able to meet the deadlines as long as something unexpected doesn’t come up. Which is why I work ahead – that is always a possibility. But I do intend to meet the deadlines and have worked enough ahead to hopefully be able to ensure that.
As far as implementing this course, it probably won’t be immediately. The system for getting something like this going at UTA just takes a long time, so implementation will be in the future. There has been some interest expressed in a course like this, so I am pretty sure they will be open to the idea.
Evaluation will probably have to occur before it is implemented, because that would be part of the approval process at UTA. There would need to be considerable formative evaluation as part of that approval process. If it does go forward as a project, then there would also be summative evaluation built in. As far as getting my colleagues in review the course as part of formative evaluation, that will probably also happen, too – but not until after May. We are just over-extended until then.