Brian Deyo's Professional Portfolio
Reflection for Standard 7 Processes
7. Processes - Understand processes such as change, design, development, and learning.
Reflection on Processes Work Product
At the time of this project, I was working as an elementary school teacher and also enrolled in EDTEC 544 with Dr. Wang. I worked in a team of three schoolteachers and we created a prototype of a web-based tutorial for Natural Disaster Preparedness for New Teachers. We were aware of the influx of new teachers in the profession who had little or no training in preparing for natural disasters. Therefore, we decided to create an online class to address this problem. As I noticed the inexperience in my team members, I took the leadership role for directing the development of the work product. I wrote the Initial Analysis, created the prototype, and prepared the final design concept report.
The EDTEC standard I am demonstrating with this project deals with understanding processes such as change, design, development, and learning. With inexperienced teammates, I learned how to adapt the project assignments to the talents of the team members. When I saw that no one else could perform the tasks at hand, I took over direction of the project. While I was conducting and writing the Initial Analysis, I tried to turn over the data analysis to my teammates. However, their results demonstrated to me that I had to change priorities and reanalyze the data that I was going to include in my Initial Analysis. As I created the design for the prototype, I tried to delegate subtasks to teammates. When I discovered that they couldn’t perform the subtasks, I completed the subtasks myself. I noticed that they were not able to incorporate e-Learning best practices into their work samples. I had to revise their work to adhere to appropriate design principles. Through the development of this prototype, I watched how my teammates couldn’t rise to the level of proficiency we needed to complete the work product. Rather than complain about my team, I just took over the process and created the work product we needed to satisfy the class requirements.
The main problem that arose during this project was the inability of my teammates to participate in the completion of our group work product. I felt short-changed with my team and I felt that I had to pull my team along on the back of my talents. I did learn to recognize the shortcomings in my co-workers and have the will to take control of a project to get it finished. I feel that this work demonstrated my ability to manage and direct a project from start to finish. I was able to evaluate the skill sets of my teammates and give each person tasks that fell within the realm of these skill sets. I didn’t ask too much of my teammates. I only ask of them what they could do. This project was an example of my talents as a project manager. This experience as a project manager will help me in the field of educational technology. We were able to meet all of the deadlines of the project and we were able to produce a quality work product in the end.