2017 AECT Design and Development Competition Webinar Transcript
(slide 1)
DAN SCHUCH: Greetings, my name is Dan Schuch. I am the Chair for the AECT Design and Development Competition Committee this year. And I'm
excited and glad that you are here to hear about our competition. Thank you all
for being here, it is very exciting to me. This is our 14th year of the competition.
(slide 2)
During the webinar there will be an overview of the competition, introductions, from our Coordinating Committee, we'll talk a little bit about problem statement, provide some information about your proposal, and provide a time for Q and A at the end of this webinar.
(slide 3)
We want to thank our two main sponsors for the competition. One, AECT, the organization-- Dr. Phil Harris is the executive director. He has been a staunch supporter of this competition for years and years, and continues to be so. Many of the folks at AECT, work behind the scenes, tirelessly to help us with the competition during the year and at the conference.
(slide 4)
Our other sponsor is the Design & Development Division at AECT, and we are thankful for them. Each year the problem statement that our finalists work on is a design problem, and the support that we get from Design & Development is just absolutely tremendous. I would be remiss if I didn't personally
thank the Division and folks in the Division for their support. Folks, if you're students, I want you to know the Design & Development Division is just phenomenal—the division can help you, can help provide networking, can help you even with some questions you might have. I would encourage you to be part of this organization.
(slide 5)
The organizing component of the competition is called the Coordinating Committee. It works together year around to help put this competition on. So I just would like to spend a moment for our committee members to introduce themselves. I believe all of them are on the call.
CARRIE MILLER: I'm Carrie Miller, instructional designer with Minnesota State University, Mankato.
SHERI STOVER: Hi, I'm Sheri Stover and I'm the program director for our instructional design graduate program at Wright State University.
STEVEN VILLACHICA: Hi, I'm Steve. I work at Boise State University with Lisa.
(slide 6)
DAN SCHUCH: The competition is designed to help improve the skills of our graduate students. The problem statement reflects realistic problems that you will see when you're out working in the world. This competition also provides an opportunity for you to work as a team. Many times, when you go
to work out in the field you will do that in teams. So we are providing you an opportunity to experience this.
You will also have the opportunity of working with a mentor. We'll talk about mentors a little bit later.
The competition now has such a history with AECT that being a part of this competition will give you recognition throughout AECT – both individuals and universities - about your experiences.
The testimonies from previous participants are just amazing. They share how much they've learned from their experiences in the competition.
So I'm really excited for you students.
(slide 7)
So here's how we structure the competition. The competition lasts over the better part of a year. It is broken down into three phases.
We begin with a problem statement that is given out during the AECT National Conference the year before. Students and faculty have an advance opportunity to examine the problem statement and for students to even build their team for the competition. We provide hard copies of the problem statement and it is printed in the conference program. We also provide it online, and there's a link to it on our competition main page. The 2017 AECT Design & Development problem statement is provided for you to download from the competition website.
We'll talk about the problem statement right there in a little bit.
In the first round, your team of two will put together a 2-3 page
proposal that is a highlight of what your possible solution is going to be. We have a judging panel that will identify the best six of those - based on three criteria -- theoretical excellence, feasibility, and creativity.
So our judging panel for round two will select the top six of the first round submissions and they will advance to round two. The teams advancing to round two will be paired with a mentor from another institution. The mentor will help you develop a more polished proposal to submit. This is very exciting. You have an opportunity to work with somebody who may have different ideas and perspectives from your team. This is really good and it can only help you.
So in round two, you will submit a more fleshed out paper with the help of your mentor and submit that. The competition judging panel will evaluate these papers and select what we call the three finalist teams. We invite those teams to AECT, where they will present their solution in person in front of the judging panel. A 4th judge is added to this panel and it usually someone who does not have an instructional design background.
At AECT the judges will select the best presentation from the three finalist’s presentations. So in general, that's what will happen.
(slide 8)
This is really important -- the three teams that make the finals of the AECT Design & Development competition -- these are recognized as the winners
of the competition. AECT and the competition will provide and pay for the registration for the three finalist teams at AECT.
· At the competition, the three finalist teams will get a presentation that you can put in your vitae.
· You get to present your proposal in front of these judges, and then they identify the best solution.
· There's also an opportunity to get some detailed feedback on your presentation.
· And the sole purpose of all of this is to help you improve your skills so that when you go out to the job market, this will give you an advantage to get the job you want.
(slide 9)
The timeframe for the competition is pretty important. The deadline to submit your round one proposal is May 5th, at midnight. All of these deadline dates will be at midnight.
We will have a link within the next few days after this webinar where you can actually submit your proposal (it is now active – Dan) when you're ready to submit it. At that particular date, our judges will then take a look and
identify the six teams with the best solutions.
At that point the committee will assign each finalist team a mentor and communicate this with the finalists. That will be right around June 1st.
Then, you have until August 15th to finish your submission, and submit it into the system that you can access through the competition website.
September 15th, our judges will identify the three finalists teams. And then we will communicate this information with the finalists and AECT.
It is during the AECT conference this year, between November 6th to 11th in Jacksonville, when the finalists will present their solutions to the judging panel.
So we've got a long time to go, and you've got a good little bit of time to work on your two page proposal. So I encourage all of you to hop on it.
We have a phenomenal problem statement this year, It is simply phenomenal. I hope you are as excited about it as I am.
(slide 10)
If you go to the AECT website, the first thing I'll tell you is it is dynamic and is changing all the time. So at this moment in time, if you go to the website, there are two places that you can find our competition website. Under the gray tab on the left hand side you'll see the word Events. And when you click on that, there will be a number of items. The third item is 2017 ID Competition. This will take you to our competition website. Or at the bottom of the page, there is a link directly to our competition website.
(slide 11)
When you go to our competition website, this is what the screen looks like. Here you can get a copy of the problem statement, I've circled it in red. Now, I've also circled some links at the top of the page. They are also found at the bottom where you can get more detailed information about different things. We
have the problem statement linked again.
For students, I particularly want to alert you to the tabs General and Students. That will give you much more detailed information about what's required in the different levels, right there.
(slide 12)
All right, this competition is for teams, it's teams for two. We've had instances
in the middle of the competition, when one of the team members has had to drop out. When that happened the team was not allowed to continue. There are no exceptions.
(slide 13)
It is a competition for two students. They don't have to be at the same university. We will do everything we can to help you if you're interested in the competition, and you don't have a partner. If you will let us know, we will help you with that.
Your team, if you make it to the second round, we will give you a mentor.
If you make it to the third and final round where you're doing the presentation, you have some requirements. You have to join AECT and the Design & Development Division. That is an absolute must. You also must be physically present to be able to go to the finals, so you must come to the conference. Both members are going to participate, it's not one person doing a presentation, the other cheering them on. Both people will give the presentation to the judging
panel. Let me reiterate that. If you do not have a partner, and you would like to participate, let us know. We have had this in the past. We have found partners for people and it has worked out really, really well.
(slide 14)
Let me give you some details about your very first proposal, for phase one. There are some particular requirements for that, let me just highlight some of those.
(slide 15)
The first one is that the proposal should be 1,500 words – no longer, so I say approximately a two – three page paper. We're not looking for a long discourse, we're looking for a very succinct proposal that just gives you a good outline of what you're doing right here.
You should not be a lot of details and specifics on this very first proposal. Having said that the proposal must have theoretical excellence, be creative, and feasible.
(slide 16)
The second, because it is a real world problem, there's a budget that's usually associated with the proposal. We just want you to know that it's important that you pay attention to this budget, because the teams that move on are ones who have done that. So we wanted to specifically make that particular point to you.
(slide 17)
You should have a theoretical foundation for your solution. It should be clearly stated and supported. You should identify the instructional design or performance improvement models that you're going to use or modify, and how you plan to do any kind of evaluation.
(slide 18)
Let me make a comment to you right here. My professor when I was in graduate school in the University of Oklahoma, Dr. Jay Smith, had a quote that has remained with me for forever to this day. I quote it all the time, "The world belongs to those who do their homework." I want you to really think about what that means.
Now, in the case of writing your proposal together, I just want you to reflect that you never know when somebody may know more than you. Even if they're out there working in business and industry, you never know who you're going to come across. So what I'm going to recommend is that you make sure you know the research that you're going to cite in your solution.
Let me see, I've been doing this for 14 years. And for many, many years, we see the same thing among the finalists - and that is they cite a theory, and they don't really understand it or have it down fully, and they get caught on that. So please make sure that you know what you're theories and models you are basing in your proposal.
(slide 19)
All right, the fourth thing right there-- this is very, very important. Please do not put any information in your proposal that would tell us who you are or where you are from. If you are, you will be immediately disqualified. We are very, very careful about making sure that everybody has a fair shot. We don't want to play favorites. I just mentioned that I did graduate work at the University of Oklahoma, I also did graduate work at Florida State. I don't want to
see Florida State or anything related to Florida State in your proposal. If you put your names in it, the proposal will be removed.
Please be real sensitive about that. We know you're going to do well, and we don't want something silly and little like this to do it. But we must not know anything about you, we want to judge your proposal solely on the merits of your proposal. Please let us know if you have any questions about this one right here. There are no exceptions to that particular rule.
(slide 20)
Now, one of the things between now and the date that you turn in your round one submission, as you're reading the problem statement, your team may have some questions about the proposal. As you are building your proposal, there may be some things that you think might be helpful right there.
Lisa, I'm going to turn this over to you. Lisa is your consultant, we've got
an email for her. She's going to tell you just a little bit about the nature of this year's problem.
LISA GIACUMO: Hello, everyone. If you would navigate down underneath the area where you see the slides, there's a link to the 2017 D&D Competition Problem Statement. And open that up by clicking on the Browse To button. You'll see that the problem statement pops right up on your computer. So this problem statement was inspired through my work with the international