Reflections, Research, Proposals, & more

In my first Instructional Design course, I was tasked with the completion of a full cycle of an instructional design process - from analysis to evaluation.  At the time, I was an instructor at an electrical apprenticeship program.  So, for my project, I developed an "Academic Success Curriculum for Apprentice Electricians" which focused on supporting electrical apprenticeship students in mastery of the rigorous, five-year apprenticeship curriculum that they encounter on their paths to becoming journeymen electricians.  My final ID report includes a project description, needs assessment, goal analysis, learner & context analysis, instructional objectives, sequence, and strategies, message design and sequencing, and some sample instructional materials.  Also included in the report is an instructional materials evaluation.  Overall, this comprehensive project was an incredibly valuable learning experience and I would return to this assignment at the end of my graduate program as I began work on my graduate thesis project.

Header photo by Yousef Espanioly on Unsplash 

In Spring '20, I created a "Universal Design for Learning Repository" for my EME5207 class using Google Slides.  For this project, I reviewed ten different learning tools from a UDL perspective.

For my Summer 2020 "Issues and Trends in Ed Tech Research" class (EME6066), I created a sample study proposal on the topic of "Assessing the Motivational Impacts of Gamification on Adult Learners ."  This was meant to be written as if we were applying for funding to the U.S. Department of Education or another relevant funding agency.

In this "Theory to Practice" essay created in Spring 2021 for EDG6931, "Critical Perspectives on Democratic Citizenship Education" (probably my favorite UF graduate class), I propose a a "justice-oriented civics education project that combines a liberatory curricular framework with concrete community organizing skills."  Though this project is only theoretical at this point, it is based on my experiences as an undergrad at Berea College and I would love to try it out sometime if anyone out there is interested in collaborating. 

In Spring 2021, as the Santa Fe Adult Education program where I taught prepared for a return to in-person instruction, I took EME6053, "Blended Learning Environments."

First, we reviewed an example of a successful blended learning environment.  I chose "Blended Learning by Gamification in a Second-Year Introductory Engineering Design Course" by Alyona Sharunova et al, University of Alberta.  From the Proceedings of the ASME 2018 International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition (IMECE 2018).  I created a Google Slides presentation with narration describing this article and the lessons that I took from it.

Next, I completed a Blended Learning Curriculum Plan for my Adult Education classroom.  This plan included: 

Our final steps in this project were to create a Project Overview and a sample Canvas (LMS) site to serve as a template for our blended classroom.  This was a timely and very useful exercise and served as a springboard for me when I did return to the classroom later that year. 

What follows are four brief writing samples from EDG6931: "Teaching Adults," a course that I took in Spring '22 and thoroughly enjoyed, taught by Professor Sevan Terzian.

In Spring '22, I collaborated on a group project to complete a Usability Study of the Essential Education LMS for my EME6065 course, "Human-Computer Interaction and the Learner."  This was the LMS that the Adult Education program where I taught used at that time and we worked with some of the students in our program to complete the study.

For my Fall '22 "Designing Integrated Media Environments II" course (EME 6209), I was tasked with beginning the design phase of a web-based tutoring program.  I utilized my experience in an Adult Education classroom to create an overview of the program and user stories.  I also created a rudimentary state machine diagram and a use-case diagram, show below:

State Machine Diagram

Use-Case Diagram

For my graduate thesis project, I completed a "Review of Public Utility Board Orientation Procedures," which was relevant to my service on the City of Gainesville's Utility Advisory Board (UAB) from February 2020-September 2023. 

For the first part of my study, I documented the current orientation program for Gainesville Regional Utilities' (GRU) UAB members as of the summer of 2022.  This orientation included meetings, presentations, and facility tours with a wide variety of GRU staff and leadership, as well as educational resources and opportunities provided by the American Public Power Association (APPA).

Next, I worked with the APPA on the creation and distribution of a survey related to utility board orientation procedures.  The results of my survey are presented, alongside relevant results from the APPA's 10th Governance Survey, conducted in 2021.

Finally, I completed follow-up interviews with several of the utility representatives who responded to my initial survey.  A summary of those interview findings is presented along with a series of recommendations for utility board orientation best practices from an Instructional Design perspective.  Those recommendations, as well as the other deliverables related to this project, were published on my Google Site in the summer of 2023.