November Summary

November Summary

This month, we were able to coalesce all our efforts and assignments into a final presentation, which is the culmination of the project we’ve been doing all semester.  The first half of the month, though, was focused on finding two professionals to evaluate the syllabus we created at the end of October.  We each were able to find one professional, and the feedback was indeed helpful.  Both reviewers offered suggestions on what was missing and what could be improved.  Some of the suggestions were to add basic contact information for those who would be running the seminar and to also indicate, at the beginning of the syllabus, both start and end times for each day of the seminar.  Other suggestions were to add a specific example of the type of activities that would be performed, and to also clarify the details of the take-home assignment.   

The reviewers also had positive responses to the syllabus, such as the specificity of the daily schedule, the clear list of objectives, the mixing of varied activities, the organization of the syllabus, and the layout and brevity of the syllabus.  Upon reflecting on the feedback, we responded to it as part of our syllabus evaluation assignment.  As has been done before, the assignment was completed separately and then merged at the end. 

Following Thanksgiving break, attention was fully given to the final project demonstration.  It was decided that a thorough powerpoint presentation uploaded to Voicethread would be the best way to communicate the essence and progress of the project.  The work effort was again split in half, with one person focusing on all the syllabus-related assignments, and the other person working on the introduction, literature review, and program investigation.  The designed slides were then merged into a cohesively-themed powerpoint and uploaded to Voicethread to allow others to comment.  Overall, the project demonstration has gone as smoothly as the rest of the project throughout the semester.  Designing a seminar has been both challenging and rewarding.  The syllabus design skills that have been gained will offer a big advantage in the future.