Project Summary

Title: Simulated Participant Encounters for Library & Information Science Students: Communication Skills, Empathy, & Cultural Humility Training and Assessment

 

Context: A final project for course IDE 632: Instructional Design & Development II

 

Author(s): Amber A. Walton

 

IDD&E Component: Design & Development (10) Use an instructional design and development process appropriate for a given project..

 

Reflection/Self-Assessment:

Overview

This final course project intended to create an Instructional Design model that fits a specific context in which students currently work or where they expect to work someday.  Per the course syllabus: "Documentation for the model should specify various stages through which a course or other type of instructional development project would progress and describe development team or developer activities at each stage. The documentation should include a general rationale and recommend tools, instruments, and procedures for each component of the model."

​

Strengths

I selected the educational context of Library & Information Science (LIS) students after having been approached by a potential client just finishing her Master's degree in LIS.  It was a happy coincidence that the feature film, The Public, was released while I was working on this ID model project; the movie's trailer spoke to some of the interpersonal and cultural-humility issues shared with me by my LIS client.  This topic felt timely and relevant.

​

Another strength of this project was the meaningful inclusion of multiple stakeholders during the front-end analysis phase of the model.  It has been my experience as an SP Educator that often SP simulations are designed without first analyzing the learners' needs, recent graduates' perceptions of the weaknesses they would have liked to strengthen during their studies, and faculty's analysis of a performance gap they they want to see closed.  Also, the traditional model does not include input from the SPs as to the character they wish to portray; my ID model features more control, autonomy, and support for SPs who would be recruited for SP simulations.

​

Opportunities

It was challenging for me to first encapsulate a traditional SP simulation design practice into a visual model - and equally challenging to revise that traditional model with the improvements I hoped to make based on my studies as an instructional designer.  Formulating these models in a way that was understandable by my non-SP Educator classmates was a struggle; during my in-class presentation I was asked clarifying questions which I should have better anticipated.

​

Another opportunity would be to try out this model with real LIS students in real SP simulations.  The theory behind the model may be sound, but until it is enacted in the real world, I cannot be certain of its successes and areas for improvement.