Running Head: ORGANIZING MIST ASSIGNMENTS

Organizing MIST Assignments 1

How to Organize Learning Materials in the MIST Program

Dune Sharks: Christine Broz, Carmen Davis, Mary Pirritano, Emily Wood

California State University, Monterey Bay

IST522 Instructional Design

Professors Challenger and Lockwood

July 30, 2010 Organizing MIST Assignments 2 Table of Contents Organizing MIST Assignments 3

INTRODUCTION

The Masters in Instructional Design and Technology (MIST) program is in its sixth cohort of implementation at California State University-Monterey Bay (CSUMB). This predominately online program has quarterly meetings in person where the students can converse with the professors and present the culmination of their work in each course. Each year, the program changes in order to ensure the most effective learning for the students, as well as provide the most up-to-date information in the Instructional Design field. Ninety-four percent of the students in Cohort VI, set to graduate in August of 2011, are employed full time in addition to obtaining this degree. Given the shortage of time for students to be with their families, work at their place of employment, and meet the goals of this program, organization is a paramount concern.

The purpose of this instruction is to have MIST students learn to quickly organize assignments, learning material, and assignments delivered. The goal is to help students more effectively complete their class work in a time and energy efficient manner to lower stress and obtain good grades. The major constraint for MIST students is a lack of time. From family time, to work, to school, to sleep, MIST students need to use as much of their time as productively as possible. The second biggest constraint is the iLearn system itself, which keeps all of the assignments for each class in a separate location and does not allow the student to see if group posted materials are completed, to check off items the individual has completed, or warn a student if something is behind schedule.

To address some of the constraints within iLearn, CSUMB has partnered with Google to offer web-enabled space in the form of Google Apps, to organize students with an email client, a Organizing MIST Assignments 4 chat client, a calendar, and a document hosting site. Students may also have their own organizational systems, including client software like Microsoft Outlook, or Apple Mail or paper based solutions like a planner to keep themselves on task.

The assignments for MIST students are not available until Wednesday at 8 am and are due on the following Tuesday at midnight, leaving a student with a very small window to organize and complete all of the work. Most students want a free solution that can be implemented immediately with as little interaction on their part as possible. There will be minimal costs associated with development of this instruction. Many development tools including Captivate, Screenflow, Google Apps, and Microsoft Office tools are available to the developers, available for a 30-day trial, and/or available at the CSUMB media lab.

ANALYSIS

Needs Analysis

Based on surveys to the MIST VI Cohort, one identified problem was the students in MIST

Cohort VI are having difficulty finding a calendar which effectively organizes their assignments.

As a result, students are using a variety of methods that are time consuming and not fully serving their organizational needs. By providing a variety of organizational choices that are preloaded with the weekly assignments the cohort can choose a system and begin coursework, without having to search for a system or assignments on iLearn. This will save students valuable time, which can be used for studying the material.

 Sixty-three percent of MIST students in cohort VI feel they need help organizing their

workload and seventy-three percent of the students surveyed are spending more than

one hour a week organizing their materials. Organizing MIST Assignments 5  Eighteen percent of the students who answered are able to organize their weekly

coursework in less than thirty minutes and seventy-three percent are spending more

than one hour, therefore the average time used to organize coursework should be on an

average forty-five minutes per week.

 A significant percentage of the students in the MIST VI cohort work full-time and being

able to manage their time efficiently is key to their success in the program. Nearly fifty

percent of respondents to the survey work more than full time hours, over forty hours

per week in addition to their school work.

 Although fifty-four percent have an effective organizational system, sixty-four percent

still feel like they need help. Twenty-seven percent of the students are using either

paper or technology to organize their data, whereas forty-five percent are using both.

Therefore, forty-five percent of the cohort has multiple skills and resources to organize

their coursework. The cohort has experience organizing information based on

undergraduate work and experience in the workplace.

 The twenty-seven percent of the students who use paper do so out of convenience and

not lack of computer expertise. Attitude seems overall positive with the exception of

one person in the cohort, nine percent of the MIST VI population, whose answers had a

negative connotation. Many of the students are "double checking" which assignments

are do when, which is time consuming because not all of the professors use the central

assignment bar on iLearn.

 All students learn at a different pace, therefore learning a new organizational system

may actually cause the Learner to take more time organizing their coursework at first,

thus giving a false impression that the new system is ineffective. But over time the

organizational time should decrease if the program is effective for all learning styles. Organizing MIST Assignments 6 Since the MIST program is delivered predominately online and the students all work full- time, it would be incredibly difficult to offer training at one time, either in person or on the web.

The training should be as concise as possible since the students need to spend as much of their time working on content learning or creation and minimize time organizing and learning to organize their work. All students have computers with internet access, so an On-Demand module would allow for students to watch the training at their convenience, and in the event they wanted to reference it again, to have the option to watch the training as many times as they need.

Learner Analysis

The MIST students have general background knowledge of technology, such as

Microsoft Office, Google Docs, Adobe, and the basics of a personal computer. As graduate students, the MIST VI cohort has background experience with organizing, completing and submitting assignments to their appropriate professor. Considering many of the MIST cohort VI students work and go to school, staying organized has become a challenge. Learners may likely be tired from full-time work and frustrated with the amount of school work they need to complete. Their stress levels will be particularly high on Tuesdays and Wednesdays since all work is due at midnight on Tuesday and all new work is assigned on Wednesday morning.

Therefore, the organizational tool that is implemented must be efficient and user friendly.

Overall students are adults and have a fairly positive attitude toward learning since the student has invested in graduate school. Organizing MIST Assignments 7 Workplace / Environmental /Setting Analysis

There are several possible factors that could have a major impact on the development, delivery, and use of the instruction. Students in the MIST program may not use or want to use a calendar system to organize their assignments. Time constraints may also pose a problem of in the delivery of the concepts being taught. The designer has been allotted twenty minutes to introduce, model, and assess the learning, which may not be enough time to teach an effective lesson. The students in the MIST program participate in an e-learning model, therefore it may be challenging to follow up and support the use of the new instruction.

A survey was sent out via email asking questions regarding MIST student's workplace environment. One constraint that could possibly affect the application of the lesson is that eighty-eight percent of the responders complete the majority of their schoolwork at home and are frequently interrupted by family members.

One requirement to be admitted into the MIST program is to own and be able to operate the basic functions of a computer and Microsoft Office. The students will have had completed lessons using Google Docs from Dr. Tao’s class prior to the lesson on organization.

One possible constraint would be if a student forgot their computer at home. If such a situation occurs, the learner can share with a fellow student.

Considering the culture of the MIST program is a fast paced technology supported program, the instructors will need to design a lesson that is concise and efficient using the support instructional technology. The learners will need to apply their new knowledge immediately and be assessed with constructive feedback from their instructors. The learners will have access to computers, Internet, visual aids, and instructor support. Organizing MIST Assignments 8 Each step in the ADDIE process will need to be efficient and concise. The students and the instructors will need to work quickly using appropriate technology that will ultimately save the learner time.

Task/Work Analysis

The learners will sit comfortably in the auditorium at CSUMB and learn to complete several tasks that will support them in their organizational practices while in the MIST program.

The instructors will be available to support any student need.

Task A: The learner will choose two tools found on MyCSUMB to help aid in the organization process.

Task B: The learner will create two folders on their computer desktop

Task C: The learner will download assignments from week 1

Task D: The learner will file the downloaded assignments in the appropriately labeled folder

Goal and Instructional Objectives

Goal: Learn to organize learning materials and assignments

Objective 1A:

When provided all tools, the learner lists 2 free tools from MyCSUMB for aiding with MIST organization, by the end of the term with 100% accuracy. (Declarative Knowledge)

Objective 1B:

When attending 2 classes, the learner creates ordered folders on their computer desktop for each class, by week, and files the learning material and assignments for one week with 100% accuracy. (Procedure) Organizing MIST Assignments 9 DESIGN

Type of testing & test instruments

Given the nature of the goal, the objectives will be tested in different formats. The first objective will be tested as a constructed response question to be emailed to the instructor. The student will need to list a minimum of two free tools available from MyCSUMB to obtain full credit. These will be hand graded by the instructor. The procedural test will require the student to create folders and copy assignments to those folders. The learner will deliver 2 screenshots of the contents of each folder of Week 1 learning materials and assignments included and attach screenshots to the email to be graded by the teacher.

Feedback/assessment examples

The first objective will be tested with the following question: List two free tools from

MyCSUMB for aiding with MIST organization. Acceptable answers to this question are: iLearn,

Google Calendar, Google eMail, Google Chat, Google Docs, Skype, OpenOffice. If the student lists any two of these answers, they will receive full credit. If they answer one, they will get partial credit.

The second objective will be tested by having the student take a screenshot showing the result of the required procedure. The assignments and folders must be created with 100% accuracy to receive full credit. Organizing MIST Assignments 10 Organizational, delivery, and management strategies

The presentation will be offered as an On-Demand video module that the learner can watch at their convenience. It is offered in this manner to allow the learner as much flexibility to learn and re-mediate as necessary through their time in the MIST program.

The test will be offered online where the students will use the laptops they bring to class to answer the questions emailed. The reason for offering the test in this method is that it will enable the instructor to quickly aggregate responses for grading and provide feedback much faster. Since all MIST students will have laptops with them and the classroom provides wireless internet, this is also the greenest method of testing as it will require no paper.

Content

The content in this module focuses on instructing learners to organized learning materials in the MIST program by locating the tools in MyCSUMB, create folders on the desktop, download assignments, and file them into the appropriate desktop folder.

Learning theories and/or instructional theories

The instructors will be using supplantive strategies to instruct the students in how to apply the procedures necessary to organize their assignments in the MIST program at CSUMB.

Instructional strategies

Using a supplantive strategy, the project will scaffold the steps of the procedure throughout the lesson. To teach the procedure effectively, the project will use the fewest number of steps possible and teach the lesson in a sequence (i.e. locate tools, create folders, download assignments, and file assignments. The instructors will deliver a PowerPoint or

Captivate presentation via email to each student. The on-demand learning module will model Organizing MIST Assignments 11 how to locate tools in MyCSUMB, create folders on the desktop, download assignments from iLearn, and file the appropriate assignments into the desktop folders. The learner will be able to follow along with each step and practice on their laptop at their own pace.

Content sources

The content sources are from the Cohort V and Dune Shark knowledge,Windows, iLearn, google docs. The learners will be using their personal laptops and will use the internet available on the CSUMB campus to access iLearn, MyCSUMB, and the on-demand video module from their email.

Media components

The media components will include a PowerPoint document with Captivate/Camtasia screen capture animations.

How media will be used within project

The instructors’ laptop will be connected to the projector, which will be projecting the

PowerPoint onto the large screen at the front of the auditorium. The learners will be following along on their own personal laptops under the supervision of the instructors. The PowerPoint lesson will include graphics and animated screenshots created in Captivate or Camtasia. It will also include navigation buttons to move forward/backwards.

Storyboard

See PowerPoint in appendix. Organizing MIST Assignments 12 Anticipated challenges with description of how constraints will be resolved

Some anticipated challenges and solutions are as follows:

Problem: Lack of internet access

Solution: Have students use documents they already have on their computer to organize into folders

Problem: Projector is not working

Solution: Have the cohort divide in to 4 groups to be supported by one of the four instructors using the instructors’ laptop as the visual.

Problem: Student forgot their computer.

Solution: Have student work with a partner

Major deliverables

The major deliverable for this project is a PowerPoint presentation that includes some video instruction. In this on-demand module, the learner will learn a procedure to locate tools in

MyCSUMB, create folders on their desktop, download assignments, and organize them into the appropriate folder.

Strategies/process for completing project

The Dune Shark team will determine the tasks to be completed, determine priority for completing them, and draft a working schedule. The main tasks will include:

 finding graphics and taking static screen shots

 writing credits/references

 creating screen capture animations

 writing narration Organizing MIST Assignments 13  designing layout of PowerPoint slides

 putting all components together in the PowerPoint document

 evaluation

DEVELOPMENT

Materials

 Laptop/Computer

 Projector

 Screen

 Laser pointer

 Software (PowerPoint, Captivate, iLearn, MyCSUMB, Google Docs)

Time and Costs Task Cost Per Hour Estimated Total Cost Required Hours Project Analysis $50.00 29 $1,450.00 Script Development $50.00 10 $500.00 Design and Layout Development $50.00 8 $400.00 Audio Recording $50.00 4 $200.00 Edit Audio Recording $50.00 8 $400.00 Video Recording $50.00 6 $300.00 Edit Video Recording $50.00 12 $600.00 Assessment Development $50.00 2 $100.00 Assessment Programming $50.00 1 $50.00 Total: $4,000.00 Organizing MIST Assignments 14 Timeline Task Responsible Designer Due Develop and run a needs assessment Mary Pirritano 6/1/2010 survey Run background research on the Carmen Davis 6/1/2010 audience and Market Interview Subject Matter Experts Christine Broz and Emily Wood 6/1/2010 (SMEs) Create Instructional Design Document Emily Wood, Carmen Davis, Christine 6/27/2010 Broz,and Mary Pirritano Design the look of instruction Emily Wood, Carmen Davis, Christine Broz, 8/3/2010 and Mary Pirritano Capture screen shots Emily Wood 8/4/2010 Find additional graphics Carmen Davis 8/5/2010 Develop assessment instructions Christine Broz 8/5/2010 Write narration and screen text for Carmen Davis and Mary Pirritano 8/8/2010 PowerPoint Complete layout content and graphics Christine Broz 8/14/2010 on PowerPoint Record audio Emily Wood and Mary Pirritano 8/17/2010 Edit audio Emily Wood, Carmen Davis, Christine Broz, 8/20/2010 and Mary Pirritano Write credits and references Carmen Davis 8/20/2010 Evaluate instruction presentation Emily Wood, Carmen Davis, Christine Broz, 8/28/2010 and Mary Pirritano

IMPLEMENTATION Delivery

The training modules for how to organize in the MIST program will be On-Demand Video

Modules. They will be available for the Cohort VII and all future students to watch as they enter the MIST program starting in the Spring of 2011.

The modules are available online so that the students will be able to watch them as their schedule permits. The module will take under 15 minutes to watch as well test. The website is not password protected, so it will be available by clicking on the link. The link will be Organizing MIST Assignments 15 provided in the initial face-to-face meeting by the professors to the students. The assessment will be a link from the website. It will be emailed to the test designers for grading within 48 hours.

Formative evaluation

As the training is developed, it is being observed and evaluated by the Dune Sharks team and tested with several of their colleagues. Members of the current MIST program are not used since they will take part in the summative assessment. It will be evaluated by a grading rubric with open and closed ended questions to assess the usability and content understanding.

The only participants in the creation of the evaluations are the Dune Sharks team members.

Since all training is online, observation and assessment will be online as well. The participants are emailed links to the web module to watch at their convenience as well as a link to the formative assessment. They fill in the assessment as they are going through the website.

The observation and evaluation should take no more than 15 minutes and can be completed from the reviewers’ home or office at the time of their convenience. They have a week to return results.

The findings from the evaluation will be aggregated to determine which sections of the training require the most remediation. The Dune Sharks will discuss all results and implement changes prior to the final deployment.

EVALUATION Organizing MIST Assignments 16 The goal of the summative evaluation is to determine if the instruction met the goal of students learning to organize learning materials and assignments in the MIST program. This evaluation will include a written item and a performance task. Responses will be emailed to one of the Dune Sharks for scoring against an approved rubric. The data collected will measure to what degree the students learned each lesson objectives and how effective the instruction was.

Results of the assessment along with a summary will be provided by the Dune Sharks. See an example of the Summative Assessment tool in the appendix.APPENDICES

Appendix A Survey samples, question samples, storyboards, etc. Do you think you need help with organizing your workload in MIST? Yes * 63.6% 7 No * 36.4% 4

What medium do you view your assignments (i.e. printout or computer) and why have you chosen this particular medium? 1. iLearn course website because it provides the most "up to date" information. 2. Printout because I can assess it at any time. 3. Printout. It is convenient to me. 4. Currently I view assignments, print them out, put them in a folder by class name/number. 5. Currently, I am using both. First, the print version, so I can check it off, then, the online version to double-check I haven't missed anything. 6. Both...depending on where I am and what I am doing...I am online a lot. 7. Both the binder given to us at the kick-off session as well as the computer. Its easier to use the binder as the "at a glance" view, but then I double-check everything online. Kind of annoying actually. 8. both, I can read some of the material when I'm away from the computer. 9. computer. Unless I keep my assignment organized in a separate file (i.e. MS word), printing out seems unnecessary. 10. Computer. It costs too much to print out all of the work and it is cumbersome to manage the paper. 11. On both. This way if something goes wrong (like losing my datebook or my computer crashing) I have backup.

What is your current organizational system within the MIST program? 1. iLearn and Google services (docs, calendar, email) Organizing MIST Assignments 17 2. I print 2 copies of week's assignments, cut 1 copy, paste on 1 page, other copy in binder under class in special assignment spot. I spend most of weekend working on MIST, 2-3 hrs weekdays.plus Skype 1-2 hrs a week. 3. Old fashion. Folder and binder. 4. Every Monday, I have a google message remind me to check for the newest assignments, I download/print materials and record everything on a checklist. 5. I haven't worked on that, yet. I have planning planned for June 19, after my summer break from work begins. Currently, I am simply adding pages to the notebook provided to us 6. I am finding these questions clearly attempting to have me support an already conceived idea or plan...this i not the way to do research and is not helpful. 7. All in my head - haven't added anything to calendars because everything is always due at the same time. 8. an somewhat organized folder 9. One of my wonderful team mate creates a weekly assignment file and share it with me using Google doc. Still, however, I just manually check ilearn for each course and complete my assignments. Still manageable at this workload. But I do feel a need to create MY own system to keep it more organized. 10. File structure on the computer where I attempt to keep documents. I write down to-do lists. 11. I have a task list in Outlook. I have staggered the reminders so that I have assignments due in a logical sequence so I don't feel overwhelmed on Tuesday. I've uploaded the file so anyone can use it.

Does it meet your needs? Yes * 54.5% 6 No * 45.5% 5

What, if anything, would make you happier with your current organizational system? 1. iLearn and Google working together 2. 1 Making sure I printed the entire assignment- occasionally I miss it- maybe the teacher's assignment postings are in several places? (ex under assignment box, also in powerpoint, more articulated in 1) 2. Collaborative skype more organized. 3. So far, no. 4. It is a new system that I am trying and so far it seems to work. I am open to any organizational suggestions and suggested that my group do this as a project. Open to anything. 5. at the moment...having one 6. It is not so much an organizational issue but a functional issue of course curriculum and how the course was designed. If MIST is an example of ISD and the ADDIE models then they clearly are not what I am interested in using. 7. I'd like more of a task list view, where all to-dos for a week are listed in the same place, in one giant list, with perhaps a way to indicate degree of difficulty (Dr. Tao's assignments = easy, answering questions out of ID textbook for 522 = PITA) Organizing MIST Assignments 18 8. ideas on how to improve 9. If it was MINE, not the one my teammate created for me. With multiple assignments from four different courses, I am very worried every Tuesday night going to bed thinking what if I missed anything.... 10. If all of the assignments were in one place and clearly marked on a calendar so I don't need to go hunting for them. 11. Having two weeks to do the work of one week. Barring this, I think it's pretty good.

How much time do you spend organizing your classwork? 1. 1hr per week (at least) 2. 3 hours or more- printing assignments, readings, punching holes, putting in binder, cut and paste assignment master sheet. 3. It is about 30 mins for me to check assignments, print out needed materials, organize them. 4. Hard to say. To read each assignment, print and organize into a folder and checklist may take me about 1-2 hours depending on interruptions. 5. hard to answer right now...30 minutes? 6. For what time period? per week? per day? per course? 7. ~1-2 hours a week....feels like too much. 8. 1/4 of the time of assignments 9. 1-2 hours a week. 10. 1-2 hours a day. 11. A lot. But I'm a little compulsive.

How much time are you spending doing your classwork? 1. More than 16hrs per week 2. 23 hours give or take. 3. I would say more than 5 hours per day. 4. I am in the process of logging that now. It seems that group work takes the longest though. For this weeks assignments (wk4) I started Wed (its Thurs) and am already at 2.5 hrs and anticipate another 4 hrs by weeks end (nxt Tues). 5. 25 - 30 hours per week 6. group? individual? reading? research? all of the previously mentioned? 7. ~18 hours a week 8. alot; whatever time I am not working or sleeping 9. Forever! About 30 hours a week. (I am very slow) 10. 20-30 hours a week 11. A lot. I am hoping that it will get easier as I get used to the pace.

How much money would you be willing to spend on an organizational solution? 0 36.4% 4 $1-$25 36.4% 4 Organizing MIST Assignments 19 $26-$50 18.2% 2 $51-$75 9.1% 1 $76-$100 0.0% 0 Organizing MIST Assignments 20 Appendix B- Storyboard Organizing MIST Assignments 21 Organizing MIST Assignments 22 Organizing MIST Assignments 23 Organizing MIST Assignments 24 Organizing MIST Assignments 25

Appendix C- Sample Formative Evaluation Tool Directions: Take the assessment available at: https://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform? formkey=dGU3dWpVM1UxcFIxNDdtVWFXVnpqcmc6MQ

Appendix D- Sample Summative Evaluation Tool Directions: Email your answers to the following two test items to [email protected].

1. What are 2 free tools from MyCSUMB for aiding with MIST organization?

2. Complete the following task: a. Download an assignment and a learning material document for courses 522 and 524 week 1 and save them in folders for the appropriate week. b. Take screen shots of the materials in both folders and paste them into a word document. Organizing MIST Assignments 26 c. Save the document and name it: first_last name_Organizing in MIST.doc ______Answers and Rubrics 1. Two of the following answers: Email, Calendar, Google Documents, Sites 2 pts: 2 of the possible correct answers 1 pt: 1 of the possible correct answers 0 pts: 0 of the possible correct answers

2. A screen shot for a folder of course 522 Week 1 includes the following: 1 assignment document 1 learning material document A screen shot for a folder of course 524 Week 1 includes the following: 1 assignment document 1 learning material document

4 pts: 2 screenshots showing 1 assignment doc and 1 learning material doc for both classes labeled Week 1. 3 pts: 2 screenshots showing 3 of the requested docs in the class folders. 2 pts: screenshot/s showing 2 of the requested docs in one or both classes 1 pt: 1 screenshot showing 0 pts: no screenshots or incorrect documents downloaded in screenshot/s