Reflective+Essay



Reflection on Learning: Application to Professional Practice

Now that you have completed a semester of learning about evaluation, you should think through your discoveries and new ideas that were generated by you and other members of the class. You probably reviewed things that you already knew, learned new things, and perhaps clarified some misconceptions. You should now take some time to reflect and determine what was most important in your learning.

describe what you did and what you learned in order to meet the course objectives. Describe any learning that was particularly valuable to you. Explain what you did well and what you may have done better in your work.

Click on the links below to find resources for use in this assignment. Writer’s Guide: Reflective Essay (n. d.). Holt, Rinehart, and Winston. Retrieved from http://go.hrw.com/eolang/modbank/mguide/mg12-1.htm UWG Writing. (2009). University of West Georgia. Retrieved from http://www.westga.edu/~writing/

Task
Review your learning and think about how that will influence your approach to your professional practice. Think of the implications to your plans, methods, and evaluation of your professional work. In addition, review the objectives posted in the course syllabus. Think about what you did and what you learned in order to meet the course objectives.

Introduction
During the past five years, I have become interested in online and blended learning environments, which are increasingly being adopted and used in public classrooms. The innovation is here, but is it being used to meet real learning needs? Are students benefiting from it? As I continue to study the fields that are involved with "K-12 online course quality," I hope that I am able to frame my conversations and interventions with this evaluative mindset in mind.

During the spring of 2011, I took a capstone course in my Ed.S. program. The course was called MEDT 8480: Program Evaluation, and through it, I was to learn about the purposes of program evaluation in educational settings. Through the course, I conducted a program evaluation of a small program at my university, and through this real experience, I learned a great deal about different approaches to program evaluation and the need to align program evaluation to applicable national standards. In this paper, I shall reflect upon some of the significant experiences provided by this course.

In reflecting on an experience it is appropriate to share revelatory anecdotes, according to the Writer's Guide (n.d.). In this spirit shall I approach this reflection.

Successful completion of the IRB process was one of the first major accomplishments of the semester. This occurred around late January or early February. I was behind on everything in all areas of life, no doubt, but I knew that I wanted to obtain IRB approval for my evaluation project, even though it was not required by Professor Baylen. I knew that in my solicitation of participants that I would feel better, more authoritative, I suppose, if I could tell them that this evaluation project indeed had IRB approval. So, I knew I must get it. It took me hours to complete the forms and obtain signatures. And at the end of the day, upon submitting it, I was uncertain that I had done it right. I figured that I had not provided sufficient information to convince the IRB panelists that I knew of what I spoke. If the content passed, then I figured I surely wouldn't pass on some clerical error. As you can tell, I was feeling rather low about it all.

The completion of this step showed me that with perseverance, I could achieve any step in the research process. If I could complete this large step, I could complete the "solicit participants" step, the "collect data" step, the "analyze data" step, and so on. So, you see, it was not the achievement of IRB passage in itself that was so great in the end. It was, rather, showing myself I could complete a complicated step in the research process. It was a confidence-building exercise that I was able to carry over into subsequent research activities with my program evaluation.

As a result of this class, I have surmised that the online live classroom environment (as afforded by Wimba Live Classroom and Adobe Connect), is indeed beneficial to graduate students who need to socially process their learning in research-intensive courses. At the beginning of the semester, our professor placed us in groups of six. With this group, we were to socially process five different phases of evaluation as described by Kaufman, Guerra, and Platt (200x). The value that emerged from this experience was that true interaction can take place online. For me personally, I have been disappointed in the text-based discussion board as a place of exchange. I mean, it's okay, and I do a lot of important work and learning in pursuit of discussion board-based tasks. However, for me the text-based discussion board does not give enough interaction. What working in Wimba Live Classroom showed me was that it is possible to have that live, challenging interaction that I believe is needed to a certain extent in most learning situations. This is directly applicable to the work I will be doing in my upcoming doctoral program, which is intellectually-challenging, research-based work just like program evaluation. In this future situation, I will be working in live online classroom environments, and through communication and collaboration, I can become closer to my cohort and benefit from their insights.

The conduct of the program evaluation, from the IRB completion, to contract drafting, on through the phases of the research process, proved quite challenging. There are three things I'd like to say about it. First, I was shocked at how efficiently and quickly I collected my data. I conducted thirteen interviews in about two weeks' time. I had been somewhat glum about the prospect of approaching busy strangers to talk to me about the dissertation process. But, placing one foot in front of the next, I kept the project moving, acquired many volunteers, and was interviewing in no time. The second thing here, is that during one interview, I had what to me felt like an uncomfortable, somewhat confrontational, experience with an interviewee. I am not sure if it was my own hypersensititivty that made this situation more than it really was. When I apologized to my participant, she said everything was okay. She followed up with emails that further discussed what we had covered in the interview. In a social situation several weeks later, we had a great time visiting over dinner. So, I don't think she was very offended by my questioning. However, I sort of panicked after our interview and felt the need to apologize. What do I learn from this? I learn to keep my cool in spite of issues I may detect beneath the surface. I should always do my best to be sensitive to the feelings of my participants.

The third aspect of the program evaluation that has struck me is that of data analysis. This step is crucial, and I need to sharpen my wits in this area. I am good at all the organizing and the collecting, I have found. I am a pretty personable interviewer, too. Where my skills need practice is with data analysis. This project has humbled me, while challenging me to pick up the gauntlet of data analysis. And, just because, as several faculty have told me lately, I seem "so qualitative," it does not mean that I am going to conduct a qualitative study for my dissertation study in a few years. If nothing else, this strictly qualitative program evaluation has opened my eyes to very real concerns of time consumption related to the analysis of qualitative methods.

Implications
discuss how your learning will influence your approach to your professional work. Explain how your learning will influence your plans, methods, and evaluation of your professional work. Include specific examples of how you will apply evaluation to your professional practices.

Conclusion
summarize the most important points of your paper. Although you are writing this paper as a personal reflection, you should also think in terms of explaining your learning to someone else.