Casey Schultz - November Monthly Summary

Casey Schultz – November Monthly Summary

            I would have to say that November was, by far, our most successful month as a group. We were able to complete our program evaluations and have just finished our program demonstration. Our communication was better than it has been all semester. We seem to have worked out all the issues we have had to come together for a great final product.

            For my portion of the program evaluation, I went to my former instructor, Sarah Haley. Sarah is a professor and academic advisor for the Honors College at Ball State University. I know that she has developed multiple syllabi in the past and I thought she would be a wonderful person to have evaluate our program design. The Honors College also has a course called “Honors 100” that matches six or seven new freshman with an upperclassman mentor to acclimate them to campus and how to maneuver the different offices throughout the university. Mentors in the program must design a syllabus and I know from my experience as a mentor that Sarah works closely with the Honors 100 program.

            All of our evaluators provided wonderful feedback on the program. I think that the most promising part was how few corrections they sent back to us. It made me feel much more confident in the program that we designed when I saw that it was not ripped to shreds by our evaluators.

            The final project was, I think, a bit of a challenge. None of us have had much experience with Prezi, but we knew that it creates a final product that is more interactive and aesthetically pleasing than PowerPoint. After much trial and error, I figured out how to navigate the website and was fairly pleased with our final product. I think that in the future, I will be much more confident with Prezi and will be able to utilize it in many of my courses that I take throughout my time in the graduate program. Compiling the final project demonstration and the abstract gave me yet another chance to look over what we have created throughout the semester. I have had so much fun developing our course, “Reflections on Life and Careers,” that it has inspired me to develop a course syllabus for another course that I am currently taking. I have not had much desire to do any kind of teaching in the future, but if there are opportunities to teach programs like the one our group has developed, I think I may be excited to participate. 

PROJECT DEMONSTRATION

Casey commented on Groups 1 & 2

Cheryl Honkomp, Kathryn Jones, Casey Schultz

Abstract

            For our project, we decided to incorporate Narrative Learning Theory. Our first step was to individually complete literature reviews. We used internet databases and our textbook to gather research on Narrative Learning Theory to decide what the common themes across the research were. We discovered that, when incorporating narrative learning, it is important for participants to hear stories as well as tell them. We also found that narratives can be shared both in written and an oral format and it is important to be sure to include both in a classroom environment in order to get the full effect.

            Our next step was to individually conduct evaluations of programs that utilized Narrative Learning Theory. We ended with a wide spectrum of programs, some that were evaluated based on personal experience, and others that were found by doing further research on the topic. We took from those programs what we thought to be the key concepts and decided from there what we would like to incorporate in our project and what we felt we could improve on from those programs.

            Once we had finished our research, we had to decide on a program. We originally thought to do a program for college freshman, but then evolved that into a program for students returning to college after a time away from school. We felt that a program of this type would be more beneficial because it is not something that we had heard of before, but that we thought would be beneficial. Our inspiration came from a course that many high school students take called “Orientation to Life and Careers” that helps high school students prepare for life after high school. We decided to title our course, “Reflections on Life and Careers.” The course was designed to be an introductory graduate course that prepares adult students to re-enter classroom discussions. Through the class, they will be encouraged to compile a portfolio filled with ready-made narratives based on personal experiences as well as those of their classmates that they will easily be able to share in classroom discussions.

            Our programs were evaluated by educators that each group member knew personally and we found that, for the most part, our program design is fairly stable. There were a few minor suggestions given that could be easily incorporated into a final syllabus, should this course be taught in real life.

            The final step was to create a Prezi presentation that brings together the whole process behind developing our project. It includes our findings on Narrative Learning Theory, evaluator comments, and the outline for our class, “Reflections on Life and Careers.”

Our final presentation can be viewed at:
http://prezi.com/rxwb7ss5r5xk/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy

I reviewed group 5 and group 6.