Lesson 11: Reflection on Current Practices

Jalen Holston| jalenh4@vt.edu| 11/10/2021

Design:

I recently performed the AECT design task this past summer. I was apart of the leadership
council that helped design ways athletes on Virginia Tech’s football team could report NIL transactions
to the team database. The problem I faced as I helped design this plan was that student athletes didn’t
have a time efficient way to report NIL deals to the school’s NCAA department. They didn’t really have
time on their schedule to check into the team’s office facility every time they engaged in a deal. As I’ve
learned throughout the ITMA program planning is a very important process you have to go through
when designing technology or instructional technology. As a member of the council, I was assigned a
specific part in designing this plan to fix the problem my team faced regarding the new NIL rule. My role
in this instructional process was to find the media outlet we would use to help student athletes on my
team with this process. The outcome was a success as my teammates and I were able to design a plan
that would allow student athletes to use a mobile app through Virginia Tech that allows them to report
NIL deals anytime they choose. They would also be able to communicate new deals through the mobile
app. With my new knowledge, I now know that with using technology I want to make a specific
outcome. I know that in order to get that outcome I have to design a precise and specific plan that will
encourage achievement of that outcome I want. To solve this problem, I performed an analysis of the
student athletes. I was able to identify their daily schedules, tendencies, how they use technology, and
what best fit them so I could find the best way to solve the problem. Before being in this program, my
past approaches to design was simple and straight forward. When designing I never through about
planning who I’m designing for or what I was designing. I just pictured the outcome and did whatever it
took to get to it without thinking twice and that was not very smart. For my current approach, I think
that with design you have to have a precise and specific plan that you develop in order to get to the
specific thing you want to happen. I’ve learned you have to crawl before you can walk and that it is
important to get into detail and the little things when designing instruction.

Development:

In my current approach to development, I go through development processes to lead me to the

creation and production of instructional materials like drills to broadcast to the football team. I have
done this in my profession by making an outline of the drills each position group in the team will do for
agility workouts. The goal during this development stage is to take the drills I can see in my head and be
able to put them on paper for teammates to see physically before they perform the drills. The problems
I faced in this stage were deciding which technology I needed to use. Time is very valuable to these
athletes as they have a lot to do in a small window of time. I needed to be able to develop my ideas into
a technology that would be time efficient and able to fit the athletes. To solve this problem, I was able to
develop visual materials (print technologies) that players could review before their workouts. I used
templates available in Microsoft Word and edited them to show how drills should be performed. The
visual materials solved the problem of wasted time demonstrating agility drills during the workout. The
development stage of my instructional material was successful. With my new knowledge, I know that
you have to develop your instructional design to the best that it can be to meet your specific outcome. I
also learned that it is important to let a design document guide you instead of reacting on the first idea I
have. Before, my past approach of development was just to go with the flow and I didn’t think of a
design plan. Considering my current approach to development, I know that it is emphasized that you
should have design specifications to help you out with your development. Now that I have that to guide
me I can go through the process of turning my design into something real.

Utilization:

College athletes are now able to make money as the NCAA passed the Name, Image, and
Likeness rule. In my current approach of utilization, I help our player development staff member utilize
ways that student athletes at Virginia Tech can access, manage, and connect with Name, Image, and
Likeness partners. The instructional technology that the athletes utilized were their mobile phones, a
mobile application, internet service and iPads. Other options such as athlete’s laptops and computer
labs were discussed, but the most convenient option was athletes’ mobile devices. There was a small
group of athletes that had difficult creating accounts on the mobile app because they were not apple
users. To solve this problem, we were able to create a mobile website for the application so all users
were able to access the NIL partners. Overall, this was a success. Before enrolling in the ITMA program,
my past approach was that I never really considered utilization as important as I should have. Now with
my current approach I know that I need to identify how learners can use the material during the
program that I give. Having the right resources for learning presented will only emphasize positive
outcomes, enhance comprehension in learners, and benefit the instruction.

Management:

This semester I was given the chance to manage volunteer groups on the team that would go
help in shelters, elementary schools, or any other place that was acceptable to volunteer at. I managed
the team to work into position groups and each group would have one Saturday each week that they
would have to volunteer. The problems I encountered in managing these groups were finding which
volunteer program would be the best fit for each group and where which group was needed the most.
In order to solve this problem, I identified which volunteer programs the team would be participating in
for the entire month. I brought the groups together to meet and we discussed the programs to find
which group was interested in what. The groups were able to decide which responsibility they wanted to
take on in helping and the program was a success. My new knowledge of management from ITMA, I
know that in instruction it is imperative when managing something. I have to think of an organized plan
and be able to manage information. When comparing my past approach and current approach with
management I can say it has improved. I have always emphasized being organized when managing and
supervising something, but being in ITMA has helped me grown and develop new knowledge pertaining
to management. I’ve learned from ITMA that if you seek improve me that you have to plan for it.
Management projects won’t end efficient if they are not planned good.
Evaluation:

With my current practices with evaluation, I prepared and delivered an evaluation of Virginia
Tech football strength and conditioning staff to the players involved in it. Every year a new group of
athletes become a part of the football team. For some players workouts that are implemented are brand
new to them and some have never touched a weight before enrolling. I administered a survey for the
players to fill out so the staff could have an idea of how the players reacted to workouts and to find if
improvements were needed. I created the survey through google forms and it allow athletes to give
open ended answers to state their opinions of the workouts. The evaluation was a success as I was able
to get 92 survey responses out of 110 players on the team. I presented the data to the strength staff to
use and explore through the data collected. Problems I faced in creating this evaluation was finding the
right questions to ask within the evaluation that would help the strength staff continue to improve. To
solve this problem, I referred to what learned in the ITMA program. Reading in depth about Kirkpatrick’s
level 1 of evaluation helped me so much. With my past approach to evaluation, I limited my thinking and
though of evaluation as a quick process of getting feedback. With my current views of evaluation, I now
know in evaluation it is important use evaluation in the right way when finding the adequacy of
something. I could use criteria-based evaluation, problem analysis, formative, or summative evaluations.