Final Project Proposals:

1. Guidelines

Submit: Blackboard->Assignments

What is the Final Project?

Glad you asked! The final project will be a fully-designed unit of instruction, complete with instructor and assessment materials. You will be incorporating pre-existing materials in your design. It will be presented as an instructional package, and can take many forms.

Some ideas include:

Designing a corporate training course. A live version would involve preparation of media, student manuals or materials, and instructor's guide, and assessment materials. A web or CD-based version would probably integrate the media and student guide, and perhaps the instructor's guide too.
Designing an instructional product for use in a traditional classroom. For example, you might create a set of instructional materials based on a particular topic, along with an instructor guide and assessment materials.
Design a training course or instructional product that is delivered Online, blended, or onto Mobile devices.

You should aim to tackle about 2 hours of instruction per person on your team, and you want to pick a topic that you can modularize (each person will be doing some individual development of 2 hours of instruction).

For the purpose of this course, it is essential that the instructor play some role in the instruction that you design, face-to-face, online, or blended learning. Talk to the instructor if you plan to design self-study materials.

Be sure to check out the project parameters to assess how appropriate your idea is.

THE PROPOSAL SHOULD BE NO LONGER THAN 5 PAGES (minimum 1-inch margins). Past successful proposals have been as brief as 2-3 well-written pages.

Grading

0% -- not completed

80--87%-- incomplete proposal or poorly prepared proposal

88-93% --most areas of the proposal template are thoroughly and completely addressed; topic and scope of project are appropriate

94% and above-- all areas of the proposal template are thoroughly and completely addressed; topic and scope of project are appropriate

Final Project Parameters

Introduction

Your final project will engage you for the rest of the semester. Because so much of your time will be involved in its development, it is essential that you choose a project of appropriate topic and scope, and that you and your partners have the skills necessary to complete it successfully

You can determine the viability of a project idea by asking yourself the following questions:

1. Is Instruction Required?

Instruction is used when you want the person to retain information in long-term memory. Choose instruction when:

a job aid will damage credibility;
speedy performance is a priority;
novel or unpredictable situations are involved;
smooth and fluid performance is a priority;
the employee lacks sufficient reading, listening, or reference skills. (Rossett & Downs)

If your chosen setting is K-12, you will want to make sure that your idea fits within the curriculum.

2. Is the Scope Right?

For each person on the team, your lesson will take up approximately two hours of instruction. The amount of learning time will vary with both the content and the target audience, of course. If there isn't enough worthwhile material to fill that amount of time, you should adjust your topic. Similarly, if your topic is so vast that it's hard to pull out a chunk and work on it in isolation, choose again.

3. Is the Content Modular ?

Although each team will turn in one final project, everyone will have the opportunity to develop content on their own.

4. Is the Context Plausible?

Choose a topic that could conceivably be taught in a classroom with technology readily available or, if you're interested in online instruction, that relies on only average computing technology. This will be less of a constraint some time in the future when everyone carries StarTrek-like slates that communicate with each other, but for now choose content that would be taught in a school, training or business setting with computers close at hand.

5. Does Your Team Have the Experience Base?

Choosing a topic suitable for an instructional unit is important, but you also need to ensure that its successful completion is within your abilities. Be sure your team has an expert in each of the areas listed below.

Content Area

Don't use this class to learn a totally new topic — particularly a technical one. You'll be busy enough as the semester progresses without adding to your burden by learning a new domain. At least one person on the team needs to be familiar with the content.

Learners

Just because you used to be a first grade student doesn't mean you can develop appropriate instruction for first graders. Make sure that one team member has helped instruct or recently worked closely with your learners.

6. Is it in the Cognitive Domain (versus affective, psychomotor, and social) ?

Although instruction can be developed for all types of learning, for this project keep the instruction focused in the cognitive domain. You might wonder what else can you focus on. See this taxonomy for affective and Psychomotor Domains.

If you really want to deviate, consult with the instructor to make sure it is OK. Feel free to include the affective, social, and psychomotor components if they are intertwined with the cognitive domain. For instance, metacognitive knowledge category often bridges the cognitive and affective domains. Some schools of thoughts argue that affective domain is inseparable from the cognitive domain.

Here is a page that has an expansive look at the three domains, very inspiring.

7. Is There an Instructor in the House ?

It is certainly possible to develop instruction for self-study, but that does not fall within the focus of this course. Your instruction needs to account for the role of the instruction and provide support for the instructor.

8. Is There An Actual Need?

Is this instruction really necessary? Each year tons of dollars are spent designing solutions for needs which exist only in the developer's mind. You will spend several weeks in the course analyzing and documenting the need for your lesson.

If your topic idea passes through these filters, you're most likely on the way to a successful project.