Instructional Design Project Proposal- Meganne Downey, Kyla Rose, and Alex Wilcox

Client

        The clients for this project are Ms. Pamela Hamilton and Ms. Sarah MacDonald. Pamela Hamilton is the director of the Adult Degree program and Sarah MacDonald is the director of Outreach and Engagement. The Adult Degree program offers students 22 and up the ability to complete their degree with more flexibility than the traditional college setting. It is a part of Outreach and Engagement which functions to liaise between the university, the community and the business sector of JMU.

Audience (Learner Analysis)

        The audience for this project are the adult learners that are currently participating in the Adult Degree program. Specifically, these will be students who are finishing the program and currently working on their senior project. The senior project and senior project forum are designed to challenge the student from a research perspective, as well as give the students the opportunity to present their research publicly.

These students will most likely be in their mid thirties to early forties and it is projected that they will not be very technologically savy. In addition to this, the students will not have a lot of extra time and will most likely have numerous outside commitments such as full time jobs and families. The design team has been advised to plan for this where necessary.

Context

An integral part of the Adult Degree program is the senior project and senior project forum. The senior project is designed to challenge the student as well as be the culmination of what they have learned over the course of their school career. This project elicits fear and trepidation from most students and is a source of anxiety that not only causes them issues, but also taxes Ms. Hamilton. In an effort to solve this problem, Ms. Hamilton made a handbook that answers the common questions students ask about the project. The handbook also gives them helpful tools and hints for tackling the project. It also provides information about grading and the timeline for work.

The problem with this, is that the students usually do not take the time to thoroughly read the handbook, nor do they reference it to answer their questions. Although there is a quiz about the handbook that students have to pass in order to move forward, they still do not retain the material like they should. In an effort to mediate this problem, Ms. Hamilton has asked the design team to come up with an interactive program that covers the handbook material.

Solution

The design team will be creating an interactive E-handbook that breaks the senior project handbook down into 5 modules. At the end of each of these modules there will be a brief quiz that tests their learning. At the end of the handbook, there will be a more thorough quiz that follows up on the shorter ones and reassess where the students are at.

The team is planning on creating the handbook in Adobe Captivate or Adobe presenter. The follow up quiz will be created in Qualtrics to give Ms. Hamilton easy access to the students results and scores. The interactivity of the program is key as is the brevity of it. Adult learners do not have as much time as younger ones and learn in a more hands on way. Hopefully by keeping the handbook short and interactive they will retain more information than if they had just read it.