ED 795A: The Interwork Institute
795A was the single most challenging course in my Edtec program of study. Not only did it require the recall of information learned in all my previous classes, it required that information to be used in new, more tangible ways. Add to this the main aspect of the course, the internship, and 795A shapes up as a formidable course under any circumstance.
My own internship with the Interwork Institute was where I devoted the majority of my time in 795A. My assignment was to devise a means of conveying to new and existing faculty members at SDSU their rights and responsibilities with respect to the students with special needs population on campus. Specifically we were concerned with providing adequate resources to the faculty members regarding the treatment of students with special needs in their courses. At first the idea was to create a multimedia CD-ROM with pertinent information for new faculty members that could be distributed at the new faculty orientation at the start of the year. A quick needs assessment quickly revealed that a more appropriate measure would be a website containing the same content. It was my assignment to research, create, and evaluate this website for Interwork.
Initially I began the assignment just kind of going my own way and halfway forgetting what I had learned not only over my previous two years in the program but also in the previous week in class. Nearly a month into the program I finally had the breakthrough realization that the advice I had learned in the program could apply outside of the classroom and outside of theoretical situations to be meaningful in real world problem-solving. This may seem a silly realization to make, but it was a crucial one for me, and it sent me back to the books I had been reading without really comprehending.
Specifically I began to reread Clark and Meyer's E-Learning and the Science of Instruction and found several helpful tips for my specific project. These included ideas about appropriate graphic use in instructional materials as well as advice about lay out options to maximize knowledge transfer. Just as useful as learning about what I could add or include in my web-based educational site was seeing that I was doing some things correct. I had already established a consistent theme for the site that wasn't distracting and provided for easy navigation. I had kept certain graphics consistently placed for referential purposes when looking through the instructional PowerPoint presentations online. These realizations helped me differentiate between what I had been doing correctly in the project and what I had been doing incorrectly.
While I wouldn't recommend most 795A students follow my lead and fail to realize the importance of referring back to their texts until four weeks into their internship, for me it represented an important step in my development as an educational technologist. To experience firsthand the importance of applying principles and theories to real world situations is much more powerful than any presentation or role play could ever be.
By referring back to applicable texts and literature I was able to not only apply principles and theories to troublesome areas in my own project, I was able to assess achievements and failures at midpoint and make the necessary changes to ensure success.