Needs Assessment

Project Title

Whitney Lab Online (WLO)

Project Description

The Whitney Lab Online project is intended to be a series of age-appropriate science education games, activities, and online learning components that enhance Whitney Lab’s current curriculum (learning about marine life, conservation, ecosystems, etc.). The goal of these modules is to create an online presence for the lab’s educational program.

Needs Assessment

COVID-19 restrictions have directly impacted the Whitney Lab Education Program, causing the need for a review of the program and an assessment of short and long term goals. I was able to contact a few members within Whitney’s education program staff, as well as a program administrator. An interviewing process was completed with this group via a combination of phone conversations and email messages.

The Whitney Lab Education Program includes several in-person educational field trips and experiment opportunities for students in local districts. While students have typical, limited exposure to basic content related to topics covered in Whitney’s program in their normal curriculum, engagement is generally high during the in-person events (clear data on student motivation to learn versus excitement to be on a field trip and out of the classroom was not available at the time of the interviews).

Currently the lab is operating at a significantly reduced capacity due to COVID-19 restrictions. As a result, in-person events run through Whitney’s educational program have been indefinitely suspended, causing several concerns to be raised about the future of the program. A lack of student engagement with the program has the potential to negatively impact funding and continued growth of the lab, as well as future enrollment within the graduate program at the university.

The primary concern is that Whitney Lab administrators anticipate a drop in private donations, which are essential for the program. The program currently includes a Traveling Marine Zoo Tour (audience: K-3 grade students), and A Day at the Whitney Lab Program (audience: 4-6 grade students). Additional resources are provided for high school students to aid with conducting experiments using modern biotechnology. Program administrators have expressed a desire to expand the program’s content to cover more topics in the past, however internal resources are limited and the lab is not prepared or staffed to accommodate additional trips or tours. Additionally, the program is logistically limited to 52 local schools, which provides access to a total of 238 classes, roughly translating to 5000+ students. Administrators would like to expand the programs reach beyond the current local boundaries.

Additional concerns include the fact that existing materials used throughout the program are not in a digital friendly format, and additional digital content for the existing problems is extremely limited. Any additional topics added to the program have no existing content or materials. Technical knowledge related to internet based deployment is (extremely) limited within the program, with the staff having little to no experience with building web based content. Depending on the solution, there may be the need for significant training on content management and deployment processes.

Note: The Day at the Whitney Lab program does include a pre/post test assessment students complete, however data related to test results was unavailable at the time of interview. Whitney contacts are looking into the availability of this data, which potentially offers insight to the success of this portion of the program prior to pandemic restrictions.

Learners & Learning Environment

See Learner Analysis.

Goal Analysis

“The goal analysis starts with a problem… someone has identified, and then it focuses on a solution to the given problem.” (Morrison et. al., 2012). We defined the aim of the project as to add an educational online presence to the lab, providing an opportunity to increase revenue, while expanding the available content offered by the program, as well as increasing the program’s reach. I asked the Whitney team to list individual goals they felt were important to the success of the project. The results varied, and provided a wide range of possible directions of development. The initial list included:

• Creating a virtual school program to replace in-person programs.
• Creating an education website.
• Creating a badge system or certificate of completion program.
• Generating revenue.
• Creating virtual meetings for students to interact with scientists.
• Create Q&A sessions between students and scientists.
• Catalog Q&A sessions into an online library.
• Start a community club or membership program.
• Create virtual tours catering to high school students.
• Create virtual tours catering to perspective grad students.
• Produce videos to be used as a virtual recruitment tool.

Once the goals were compiled, I asked the group to help refine the list, combining similar goals and expanding on concepts as needed. Goals 1 and 2 were combined into a single goal of creating a virtual education based program that would replace in-person programs. Goals 6 and 7 were combined into a single Q&A micro-site style project that would include the live sessions as well as an archive of past sessions. Goal 8 was removed, as it was determined that starting a community club would not be directly related to the digital content being discussed for this project. Goals 9 and 10 were also combined into a single goal of creating several versions of virtual tours, catered to several specific target audiences. I then asked the group to sort the list with me based on top priorities that could be completed within the timeline for phase 1 of the project. The refined goals list had been trimmed to:

1. Creating an online education program to supplement (or potentially replace) in-person programs.
2. Generating revenue.
3. Create digital assets to be used as recruitment tools.

Based on the goal analysis, the primary goal of the project is to create a virtual education program and media to supplement the current in-person program, leading to additional streams of revenue, and increase recruitment capabilities that can ultimately expand Whitney’s entire program.

Learner Analysis

To characterize “broad identifying variables including age and education” (Morrison et. al., 2012), as well as any “prerequisite skills and attitudes learners must possess to benefit” (Morrison et. al., 2012) from the proposed course development, a basic learner analysis was done with the help of Whitney lab employees generally involved in the in-person programs being supplemented by this project.

The learners were defined as grade school students, ranging in age from 5 to 11 (grades K-5). These students are attending school in various hybrid models that include a mixture of in class and remote learning, or in some cases 100% remote learning. Remote learning scenarios include a mixture of synchronous instruction and asynchronous work.

Learning environments are mixed, with some students having access to technology in the classroom in the form of tablets and/or laptops, while others have access to digital materials through a smart board or digital projection of the teacher’s work station. Students in 100% remote scenarios use a mix of personal tablets, laptops, and or desktops, or in some cases, laptops provided by the school district. No specific data on the types of devices, operating systems, or browsers being used was available, and therefore the final deliverables would need a broad level of accessibility across a wider array of devices.

All students are expected to have basic working knowledge of using a laptop/desktop and tablet device, with the ability to navigate a web based interface. Older students in remote scenarios are expected to attend class and complete their work independently, while younger remote students receive assistance from parents/guardians as needed. This assistance could include initially launching the program’s interface, as well as helping with general navigation and interaction with interface components.

Task Analysis

• Discuss the available budget and preferred timeline for implementation of a first phase of the WLO project.
• Investigate current in-person program and review how these programs would translate to a digital format.
• Research web hosting requirements and other technical requirements related to posting new content on the existing Whitney Lab website (currently maintained as a subdomain under the ufl.edu domain).
• Research and secure a development team capable of building online training modules and courses.
• Research and select an appropriate CMS, or discuss custom requirements.
• Review current payment processes and determine efficiency.
• Determine initial topics to be delivered in a digital format.
• Review availability and format of existing media related to initial topics.
• Research and secure a graphic designer capable of converting existing materials to a digital format, creating new media, and a user interface for a digital deliverable.
• Research and secure a development team capable of building online content, preferably with experience in online training and course development.
• Research image and video production capabilities available to the lab from within Whitney’s program (dependent on budget & timeline constraints).
  • If adequate staff is not available, research and secure a photographer and/or video production crew.
• Research stock image/video library options, comparing cost and quality of appropriate materials.

References

• Morrison, G. R., Ross, S. M., Kalman, H. K., & Kemp, J. E. (2012). Designing Effective Instruction (7th ed.). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. pages 41, 53