Case Study Presentation

Gruperos Tres

The name of this group is a play on "Group 3", the name designated in class by Dr. RGK for EDAD 523. The group members were Emily Martinez, Angel Salazar, Ramon Rivera, and me. Together, we worked on a major class project, the Case Study presentation. Due to the COVID-19 Pandemic, the work and meetings were completed virtually through Zoom, GroupMe, and Google Docs.

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Term: Spring 2021

Learning Domains:

• Leadership

• Education

• Assessment & Evaluation

Learning Outcomes:

1. I will be able to apply and teach the assigned student development theory to classmates

2. I will be able to apply at least 3 assessment concepts that I have learned in the MSHE program to evaluate student learning during the Case Study presentation.

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Evidence

For the first learning outcome, I believe that I accomplished an advanced level. In our group meetings, I assigned myself the task of becoming well-acquainted with the assigned student development theory by Baxter-Magolda, Self-Authorship Theory (Patton, 2016). The first time I described and, in a sense, taught this theory to anyone was to my groupmates. Because I understood the theory so well, I was able to work with my groupmates in developing a creative way to teach the theory to the rest of the class. We choose to incorporate video clips from a popular NBC show called The Office. We focused on the development of one specific character named Pam Beesly. Through the usage of 4 video clips, we demonstrated the four stages of Self-Authorship as described by Patton et al. (2016). Although student satisfaction is difficult to ascertain through a Zoom class, I believe that the students appreciated the creative manner we taught the lesson.

For the second learning outcome, I believe that I achieved a competent level. In order to assess student learning, we used Google Docs to create an anonymous survey for students to complete after our lesson. We did not want to use Likert scale questions based on their limitations in evaluating actual knowledge (Tucker, 2014). Instead, we created three short answer questions that required students to apply Self Authorship to their own lives. We successfully conducted this portion of the assessment. We feel confident that most students achieved a competent or advanced level of understanding of the theory. However, a separate portion of the class activity required the class to apply self-authorship to the video clips. Because the student responses were provided live by classmates and they were anonymous, we could not fully assess if all students were capable of answering our questions. Instead, we were able to determine that some people provided adequate answers. However, there may have been others that were confused or lost and chose not to answer. For this reason, I do not think I achieved an advanced level for the second learning outcome. The three assessment concepts that we applied to this survey were to keep the answers anonymous, to avoid Likert scale, and to keep the survey relatively short in order to maximize cooperation.

References

Patton, L. D., Renn, K. A., Guido-DiBrito, F., & Quaye, S. J. (2016). Student development in college: Theory, research, and practice (3rd ed.). Jossey-Bass

Tucker, J. M. (2014). Stop asking students to “Strongly Agree”: Let's directly measure cocurricular learning. About Campus: Enriching the Student Learning Experience, 19(4), 29–32. https://doi.org/10.1002/abc.21166

Above is a screenshot of a presentation rehearsal. We needed to practice our presentation several times in order to gauge the presentation timing.

Here is a link to our Google Assessment form that was distributed after the presentation.

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Reflection

The work I completed in this group is possibly the work that I am most proud of so far. The most notable reason for this is that the Case Study project allowed for a very creative lesson plan. During the Gruperos Tres meetings, we were all very eager to apply our various ideas. Leadership was a critical aspect of our meetings. At different steps of development, we took turns as leaders. I was a leader in assigning readings, which I called homework, to all members. Additionally, I provided notes of the development theories and encouraged the group to meet when necessary. As a follower, I appreciated the guidance from my groupmates. It was gratifying to help realize the vision of one of my friends. More importantly, I learned that I do not always need to lead the conversations or make decisions. I realized that if I allow myself to become a follower, my teammates will lead.

I believe that creating the Case Study lesson plan was an invaluable experience for us as Education students. If we are to become student affairs educators, we must be capable of developing lesson plans such as the Case Study presentation. We have been learning much history, theories, and concepts about education. Nevertheless, it is a different experience to put the concepts into practice and actually teach. The thought of teaching was somewhat overwhelming at first. However, once I was well-prepared and had practiced a few times, I became confident and excited to get started.

At first, the assessment portion of the lesson seemed insignificant. Yet, after reading from EDAD 510's texts, I realize that assessment is an invaluable aspect of student affairs. Educators use evaluation tools to determine learning outcomes and program goals are being achieved. For me, assessment and program evaluations still seem like a scary task. In particular, I am worried that negative results from an evaluation will make it seem that I cannot educate students or lead staff adequately. However, I acknowledge that the education of students is what matters most, and I must incorporate proper assessment and evaluation practices to maximize student learning.