Scope Creep

As a teacher, I have been a part of a project that involved scope creep.  Since many states are adapting their curriculum to the Common Core Standards, the district I have been teaching in for six years decided to implement these standards early to see if there were any glitches.  They asked k-2 grade teachers to begin implementing these first and then add 3-8^th this school year.  The curriculum committee put together materials and a scope and sequence for primary teachers and we received these new adoptions the week before the school year started.  I was overwhelmed at first because I had to develop lessons that aligned with these new standards.  They broke the standards down into quarters and asked us to implement them right away.  There wasn't much professional development training, so a team of teachers got together and dissected the new scope and sequence and devised a long term plan for the year.  There were some hurdles to overcome and adjustments that needed to be made.  A part of the plan was for administration to observe teachers using these standards within their lesson plans.  I actually came across an issue when I was teaching math.  Apparently I taught a lesson on place value using standards from the second quarter, which we were still in the first quarter of the school year.  Administration quickly brought up the issue and I corrected it immediately and we moved on.  By the end of last school year, K-2 successfully implemented the common core standards and student test scores increased by at least 10%.  Looking back, if I were an administrator I would have created more resources that aligned with the Common Core Standards.  One issue that many teachers faced was the lack of resources to use when teaching to these new standards.  Many of us had to create our own resources that took a lot of time and effort to make our lessons successful.  This year they invested in a new curriculum for math that aligns exactly with the new standards and is functional and easy for students to understand.

Estimating Costs and Allocating Resources

This week we read about creating project schedules as well as estimating costs and allocating resources. As a project manager it's essential to create a schedule that is conducive to the overall objectives of the project as well making sure every task stays on schedule. We were asked to research different websites and search engines to locate resources that would be helpful to project managers when estimating costs for a project. I have included two websites that I found that can be useful to project managers that help define estimating costs and strategies they can use to make their projects more successful.

 
Clark, D. (2010). Estimating costs and time in instructional design. Retrieved from http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/hrd/costs.html.

 
This website outlines creating budgets and estimating costs for companies. It gives you examples of companies and how they allocated their costs to fit within a certain budget. It gives you an itemized list of costs for specific items for training and development time. It also lists a schedule for each specific course and the time frame it should take to complete the training. This is a great example of how a project manager should conduct a project and the right steps to thrive at a project.

 
Greer, M. (2009). Estimating instructional development (ID) time. Retrieved from http://michaelgreer.biz/?p=279 .


This website was constructed by Greer, who also published one of our text books for EDUC 6145, The Project Minimalist.  He always outlines important details to include in an instructional design project and ideas of how to create your own.  There were a few ideas that stuck out, that I hope to use when creating my own project.  They were:

1.  He discusses the ratio development time vs. training time and what ratio is the most efficient.  The ratio he discusses that is the most useful is 10:1 or 30:1.  He said that it varies from project to project and from company to company.  He said what matters the most when estimating the development time is the instructional development model you will be using (Greer, 2009).  Your model should account for all activities you will perform, which would be called your "non-writing."

 
2.  Deliverables would be different from one project to another.  One course may be instructor led, whereas another course could include videos or interactive simulations within the training course.  It depends on the instruction that is being presented as well as the overall outcome of that particular project. 

 
Basically, he said to not trust the ratios that have worked for other projects unless they include the same instruction, same outcome and the same people throughout the course and project.

The Art of Effective Communication

Communication is the most important aspect of any type of relationship.  Effective communication in the work place is essential when carrying out projects or assignments.  If there is ineffective communication, it can cause a project to fail and many stake holders to be unhappy.

There are many modes of communication in today’s society.  With the advancement of technology, many people can communicate through email, webcams, voicemail and text messaging.  In this post I will be comparing a message that was delivered three different ways, email, voicemail and face-to-face from one employee to another,

Email:  Jane conveys to Mark that she needed to complete the rest of her portion of the project, but it was missing important data that she was waiting for Mark to give her.  My perception of the email that was sent by Jane is that she was very stressed and desperate about completing her assignment and without Mark’s portion; she would never be able to complete it.  I use email to communicate with many other colleagues on my campus, but I think for something that was this important would more effective through other modes of communication.

Voicemail:  Jane sent a voicemail that I felt was clear, to the point and pleasant.  A voicemail message is an easy and effective way to communicate your thoughts in a clear more meaningful way.  When I read the email I thought Jane was desperate and I interrupted her message differently than the voicemail she had left.  I understood exactly what message she was trying to deliver when she left Mark the voicemail message.

Face-to-face:  with everyone’s busy schedule these days, it’s nearly impossible to locate another colleague or anyone on your team.  I have tried to locate my administrators on my campus during my lunch or at the end of the day, but they are nowhere to be found.  The message Jane delivered to Mark face-to-face was very clear, effective and conveyed everything she needed with one conversation.  You could interrupt her facial expressions throughout the conversation and she sounded very pleasant and not demanding or stressed as in the email she had sent him.

References:

Laureate Education (n.d.) The Art of Effective Communication.  Retrieved September 20, 2012 from http://mym.cdn.laureate-media.com/2dett4d/Walden/EDUC/6145/03/mm/aoc/index.html

Blog Assignment: Learning from a Project “Post-Mortem.”

Recently I was asked to put together a lesson plan that an administrator would evaluate on an un-scheduled visit.  So they conveyed to me that it would be during the first week of September.  Since I was a veteran teacher in this district, but a new teacher at this particular school, I was one of the first teachers to be evaluated.  So I planned a unit covering place value, since that is one of the biggest standards for a teacher to cover in second grade.  So I started with concrete concepts first, where students manipulated objects to understand hundreds, tens and ones.  After teaching with concrete objects I created lessons that were all pictorial.  So, when the administrator surprisingly came in on a half day, when all of my students were excited to go home at twelve, she walked through the door to observe math.  I felt like I was prepared and that my students were prepared as well, since they successfully completed my lessons over hundreds, tens and ones using concrete models.  I was shocked at how awful the lesson went and the level of confusion my students stressed throughout the lesson.  I was mortified and astonished at how many students that did not understand the next step in our unit over place value and my assumption that they were ready to move onto pictorial models.

As an educator I often have to modify and adjust my lessons to accommodate the learners in my classroom, which I feel project managers have to do throughout their project that they created for their stake holders.  Many PM’s have to develop objectives, analyze data and modify and adjust throughout the term of the project.  Many assumptions are made about the project, which the project manager is taking as fact while conceiving, planning, and performing a project (Portny, 2008, p. 43).  I made some assumptions when I developed and implemented the place value lesson with my students.  I assumed that they were ready to move on to that new lesson in the unit I designed, but when I observed the way they performed and realized they were not succeeding I had to make some major adjustments.  Overall, the post evaluation indicated that the students were not ready for that next stage and I had to reteach the concepts using concrete models again until I saw a better outcome from their assessments.  After the adjustments were made and I taught the concepts over again, I saw a huge gain in their scores and I felt relieved. 

 References:

Portny, S. E., Mantel, S. J., Meredith, J. R., Shafer, S. M., Sutton, M. M., & Kramer, B. E. (2008). Project management: Planning, scheduling, and controlling projects. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Project Management Introduction

Hello my name is Carmen Daly!  I am originally from Lansing, Michigan and I relocated to Phoenix, Arizona 6 1/2 years ago to pursue a career in teaching.  I am currently teaching second grade and I am looking forward to completing my Master’s in Instructional Design in June of 2013.  I can’t wait to get to know everyone and share ideas:)