Colby's+Self-Reflection

Reflections 1st UBD Group Activity: Echolurn & Bissu

This activity proved to be a very useful exercise in that it gave our group the opportunity to engage in practical backwards design principles. Our group consisted of five very talented individuals who each brought something different to the table. This balance between functional and technical skills is what enabled us to effectively design a lesson that merged a traditionally functional discipline (language acquisition) with a technically based curriculum.

In large part the development of this lesson and the echolurn website proceeded smoothly and efficiently. Our group, known collectively as the furious five, met on weekly bases and in each setting had clear tasks to accomplish. I focused mainly on the technical development of the website, flash tutorials and survey creation. Dan focused on the development of the executive summary while Dijlah focused on really understanding the web 2.0 tool that we were going to used (bisuu.com). Donna and Mici really led the efforts to attach and develop a strong assessment aspect to the curriculum.

In all we spent the better part of a month, talking, designing, and developing our lesson. It was an exercise in scope management and resource balancing. We were anxious to test drive our lesson with the Cadre and look forward to each member’s participation. When the time came for the test drive we were met with what seemed to be little participation. This was due I believe in a general misunderstanding of project timelines and a lack of clarity when it came to who was to do what when. By the end of the week participation really picked up and I feel that there was adequate participation from the Cadre on the whole. When it came time for the reflection session on TI we as a group came out of it a little deflated. Primarily because we went in with the expectation that the cadre would help us see where we could strengthen our use of UBD principles and where the lesson, a small part of the overall curriculum, could be expanded. Again, I think this deflation was primarily a result of little clarity in regards to the expectations laid out to the cadre at large around this project.

In the end, I really enjoyed working with my group. I learned a lot from each member about time management, creativity and work ethic. As the overall long term project has changed and as I understand it we are no longer going to be working on the expanded curriculum part, I look forward to working with each one of these very talented people in other capacities.