Education studies assigment

The purpose of this series of assignments is to help you develop an understanding of the adult education program planning process and to give you some experience in the process of planning a short program. The assignments take you through the steps required to plan a short-term adult education program, from the initial proposal, to needs assessment and specification of objectives, instructional planning, administration, and finally evaluation. The program plan you develop will follow Sork's Basic Planning Model as a framework. [1]

The program you plan may be for any adult learner community, may deal with any type of learning or content, and may be sponsored by any type of agency or organization. Ideally your program should be at least a half day in duration (i.e., 3 hours of contact time) in order to justify all the planning involved, but you are not restricted to how this time will be set up (i.e., one whole day, several short evening sessions, etc.). The program you develop may be a hypothetical one -- you do not need to be presently involved in a situation in which you will be planning actual programs. However, you do need to design and justify it in concrete terms so that it could be realistically implemented. The assignments presented here are designed to encourage consideration of the multitude of elements and variables influencing the design of a realistic, relevant, and potentially successful program. In other words, think of a real program for a real group of learners. In general, the more realistic the planning situation you can focus on, the better off you will be, as this will force you to think through every aspect of the plan in detail -- e.g., if you put yourself in the place of the person having to stand-up in front of a class and deliver instruction, you are more likely to design a comprehensive plan that will be effective!

An assignment must be submitted for grading at the end of Lessons 4, 7, 10, and 12. The assignments are to be submitted on the course website: under "Assignment Drop Box". Your instructor will download your assignment, review it, and return it to you with comments and a grade.

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[1] There are many approaches to program planning; Sork's orientation is just one. If there are elements of this model you prefer to change, replace, or omit, challenges are welcome as long as you justify and support your arguments.

For details of each assignment, please have a look at the assignment template found in the Assignment Drop Boxes area.

Assignment #1 (10%)

Analyze the Planning Context and Learner Community. In this assignment, you will write up a proposal for a short program, identifying some key aspects of the program, enough to give a clear idea of what you're thinking.

Due: Week 4

Assignment #2 (30%)

Justify, Focus Planning and Clarify Intended Outcomes. This assignment is concerned with all your planning activities for your program.

Due: Week 7

Assignment #3 (30%)

Formulate an Instructional Plan. This assignment lays out the information needed to explain how you'll teach this program, what techniques you will use and why.

Due: Week 10

Assignment #4 (20%)

Formulate an Administrative Plan and Summative Evaluation Plan. This assignment combines a few critical elements of planning and helps complete the planning process.

Due: Week 12/13

Assignment 5: (10%)

Self Assessment of Participation and Reflection/Revision throughout the course. In this assignment, you will review your own participation and performance in the course.

Due: Week 12/13

Assignment Due Dates and Length

Assignment due dates can be viewed in the Calendar on the course homepage. To ensure you complete the course in the time allotted, please be sure to submit your assignments by their respective due dates. The deadlines should not come as a surprise as much of the activity online is designed to help you prepare for your assignments as you work through the course content. Assignments should be submitted one at a time; those submitted in batches or sent in all together at the end of the course may not be accepted. Late assignments may have marks deducted or not be accepted at all, at the discretion of your instructor. If you require an extension on an assignment, you MUST request this prior to the due date of the assignment.

Assignment Length

The length of assignments is difficult to specify since it will, to some degree, be dictated by the characteristics of your specific planning situation. The rule of thumb is to be thorough but succinct -- an ideal goal to strive for is to prepare a 20 page report, but write it in only 8 pages. A 12 point font is recommended. You are encouraged to use the Assignment Template files found under "Assignments" on the course homepage. These Microsoft Word files provide a format to structure your assignment and marking worksheets to illustrate how you will be graded. You are welcome to use whatever organizational format you like, but whatever you choose, headings and charts should be used to provide conciseness and clarity.

Recommended word counts

These are recommended word counts to give an indication of the scope and coverage you should give your assignment. If you need to include more information than these counts indicate, you can do so, but keep your descriptions within reason.

Assignment 1: 1200 words.

Assignment 2: 2000 words (excluding worksheets).

Assignment 3: 2000 words (excluding the Instructional Plan table).

Assignment 4: 1500 words (excluding worksheets).

Assignment Submission

Assignments are to be submitted on the course website. Click on the Assignment Drop Box link from the left-hand menu, then the assignment number (Assignment 1, Assignment 2, etc.). You should save the document as a Microsoft Word document (.doc) or in Rich Text Format (.rtf). Please do not submit PDFs. If you need to submit something that cannot be included in this file (e.g., handwritten documents, published documents, etc.), you may be able to fax or mail this content -- contact your instructor to make the necessary arrangements.

It is recommended that you use the format outlined in the assignment, but you may change this as necessary to suit your purpose. In general, following the headings given in the assignment as sub-headings in your assignment is usually quite effective. By answering each question in the assignment in turn, you will be sure not to miss anything important. As stated above, assignment templates have been provided under "Templates" on the course navigation -- by using these, you will ensure that you answer the assignments comprehensively.

In terms of writing style, your report should read like a case study discussion, where you are describing a situation, making your case for the viability of the program you are describing, and explaining how you will go about planning it. You can present your case in the form of a bulleted list, but you should use full sentences. Your papers should be presented as clear and persuasive documents. They should state your point, give justification for it, and conclude. In other words, your submissions are not essays and they are not just unstructured notes. It is a report like you would want to hand in to your employer or a sponsor in order to justify a program you want to set up.

The writing style can be relatively informal -- it is acceptable to use the "first person" (speak as yourself!). Much of the writing in this course is an ongoing dialogue between you and your instructor, so a conversational tone is fine. Remember, however, that a conversational tone does not lessen your obligation to produce a well considered assignment that is supported by your reading and research. References are always required for each assignment.

Please proofread your paper carefully, as it is distracting if you have typographical and grammar errors. There are marks assigned for presentation and style. A proofreading tip: if you read your paper aloud, this will highlight awkward phrasing and difficult passages. Having a friend proofread your paper is also highly recommended.

Assignment Tips and Guidelines

Students in ADHE 329 represent a broad spectrum of areas of interest, ranging from education to medicine; from forestry to library science. There are students of all ages, educational backgrounds, and professional orientations. Many of you may have had little experience with education courses and/or distance education, or have been out of school for some time. Therefore, the following tips and guidelines have been provided to help you with developing and submitting your assignments and with getting feedback.

1 Scan all of the assignments and read these guidelines carefully before beginning any assignment to understand the building process inherent to this course.

2 Before completing each assignment, take note of the lesson objectives, read the commentaries, all readings, consider the learning enhancement activities in relation to your project, and read the considerations for the assignment at the end of the lesson.

3 Read the assignment requirements. As you develop your assignment, consider what you have learned from the lessons and program units you have completed up to this point.

4 Be sure to justify the statements, choices, and decisions you make using support from your readings, other courses, and your experience. Feel free to use additional library resources. Assignments are generally much stronger when concepts from the education literature are adopted (make sure that you reference these and provide a bibliography).

5 Be explicit, give the rationale behind your choices, statements, and formats; uncover your assumptions, explore the underlying values influencing the development of your project, and if you think something does not apply to your case explain why. It is not sufficient to simply not do a section because you think it is not relevant -- if in doubt, contact your instructor. The assignments are a demonstration of your understanding of course concepts, and to demonstrate competency, you may need to change aspects of your topic (e.g., in order to fully develop your promotional plan, you might need to examine the conference as a whole rather than just your session) or you may need to carry out an assumed or hypothetical analysis for some parts. Again, check with your instructor BEFORE making any assumptions along these lines.

6 The assignments in this course build on each other and, therefore, feedback is important. Ensure that you submit your assignments on-time, so that you build on your instructor's comments in preparing the next assignment. After finishing each assignment, you should proceed immediately to reading the next lesson and begin making an outline for the next assignment. Be sure you get feedback on the previous assignment before writing your final draft of the subsequent assignment, as reflection and revision are essential elements in this development process (and these reflections are worth a portion of your grade).

Keep a copy of your assignment for your reference and protection.

References and Bibliography

You should justify your statements using support from your readings, other courses, and your experience. While you should not provide references just for the sake of having them (i.e., name dropping), the use of concepts from the course readings will flesh out your work and enable you to delve more deeply into the topics covered. The practical focus of many of the readings will provide you with guidance on how to expand and structure your discussion.

When citing resources used for your assignments, adopt a consistent and accurate format both within the text of your assignment and in your reference list at the end. One generally accepted format is APA. You can get the APA manual, Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, from any library; the call number is BF76.7 P83.

Below are two examples of APA style, first, for a direct quote within the body of a text and, second, citing the ideas of other authors, but not a direct quote. When you use a direct quote you must cite the page number and use quotation marks; when you are not making a direct quote, you do not need to note the page number or quotation marks.

Example #1: Direct quote

Interests direct the actions of planners and other people in the planning process and are defined as complex sets of "predispositions embracing goals, values, desires, expectations, and other orientations and inclinations that lead a person to act in one direction or another" (Morgan, 1986, p.41). In other words, interests are motivations and purposes that lead people to act in certain ways when they decide what to do or say.

Example #2: Citing ideas, not a direct quote

Interests are simply the human social purposes that give direction for acting in the world (Carr & Kemmis, 1986; Habermas, 1971). In sum, educational programs are constructed by people with particular interests who have relationships of power with each other.

The bibliographical reference for the paragraph from which these examples were taken would look like this:

Cervero, R M., & Wilson, A. L. (1994). Planning responsibly for adult education: A guide to negotiating power and interests. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers.