Applying Maker Principles to Developmental Education – Implementation Plan

Eric L. Epps

This is at an implementation plan for the developmental education project I am working on for Sauk Valley Community College. For background, please see the project overview and literature review.

Phase 1: Build Coalition, Get Feedback, Refine. (July-August 2017)

This phase will focus on presenting the plan for initial feedback and discussions. The plan could change dramatically based on the feedback received from key stakeholders. Once the plan is complete, the plan will be presented to as many people in the following groups as possible:

  • fellow administrators at SVCC,
  • members of Developmental Education Committee,
  • Sauk instructors, particularly in math and English departments,
  • high school and college students, and
  • high school teachers and guidance counselors.

In addition to gathering feedback to refine the plan, the hope would be for a coalition to emerge that could move the plan forward.

Phase 2: Develop LTI Q&A Forum and Courses  (August-October 2017)

Assuming the discussions in phase 1 show that the plan is generally on-track, the development phase could begin.

  • Research and/or develop learning management system LTI plugin for a Q&A-style forum with ranking and badges for answering questions.
  • Begin arranging course content, working with instructors to begin adapting existing online developmental courses or developing new one. Also explore alternative courses that could be incorporated to give developmental students exposure to different teaching methods.

Phase 3: Roll Out Courses (October 2017-January 2018)

This phase will focus on working with instructors and instructional technologists to finish developing and arranging courses, making them available to students, and letting students know the courses are available.

Phase 4: Begin Compiling Research (January-December 2018)

  • Compile baseline research, against which the results from new courses can be compared.
  • Monitor student progress through the developmental education courses to see what students’ usage patterns are.
  • Evaluate any available initial results (e.g. number of developmental education course placements)