Needs Assessment Chart at Work:
Sample Assessment for
Materials Design Students
By Prof. Jonathan Acuña Solano
Thursday, August 28, 2014
Twitter: @jonacuso
Post 136
Although
you may have not completed a formal Needs Assessment before, many of the
considerations in a Needs Assessment may already be a part of your everyday
teaching practice. In this sample Assignment Chart, a Needs Assessment was
completed for a very specific course at the university level: ELT Materials
Design and Multimedia. Over here you can analyze both the learning and
performance context for this course and can describe how those contexts compare
to student characteristics and entry abilities at Universidad Latina, a higher
education institution in Costa Rica. Then you will be able to explore how the
characteristics the instructor discovered here in his Needs Assessment chart
inform you about the course design for this class, ELT Materials Design and Multimedia.
The
first of the two charts included on this post is a good summary of what an
instructor will like to achieve to try to get to the course’s exit profile.
However, it is still succinct when it comes to the whole
instructional/teaching/learning process that is required to fully complete the
educational cycle involved in a hybrid or online teaching scenario. To really
get to the course’s exit profile and guarantee that students are really
achieving the learning goals, a second kind of analysis [based on the ADDIE
model] is needed to get to know the whole scope of instruction and the tools
that will be required to develop student competencies in education technology.
Needs Assessment Initial Analysis
|
|||
Course
|
Instructional Goals
|
Entry Level Abilities
|
Exit Profile
|
ELT
Materials Design and Multimedia
 |
·
To
have a solid knowledge in the creation/design of EFL activities for language
skills
|
·
Understanding
of the four skills in language learning
·
Lesson
planning training
|
ü To have student teachers ready to
design and use language activities in class
ü To incorporate their activities as
part of their lesson planning
ü To understand the theoretical
background for accurate language activities
|
·
To
use Google Sites to create an interactive ePortfolio that can be used with
their current or future students
|
·
Knowledge
in blog design and posting
·
Former
training on how to use blogs for education
|
ü To prepare student teachers to
create their own site in Google as an ePortfolio
ü To promote autonomous learning
among students by creating interactive tasks
|
|
·
To
use multi-media and freeware to create/design EFL material
|
·
Possible
basic background on html, movie maker, Office, etc.
·
Use
of freeware such as iTunes
·
PDF
creation
|
ü To instruct students how to embed
documents, videos, etc. onto their ePortfolios
ü To help them develop their
understanding of hosting platforms such as youtube, Scribd or Slideshare
ü To train students on how to create
their own interactive material in various free online platforms
|
|
Now
that the Instructional Goals initially detected, along with the desired exit
profile for this education technology course, an instructor can fully
comprehend the scope of action required by teachers and learners in a hybrid or
online course intended to teach students the use of technology in language
teaching and activity creation. That is why after completing this questionnaire,
what needs to be done to accomplish learning goals is clearer and put in
perspective. This simple but very complete needs assessment can have one see
where data can be collected, the desirable characteristics of learners, and the
implication that this input has in course design.
Type
of Information
|
Data
Source
|
Characteristics
|
Implications
for Course Design and Development
|
Instructional Goals
|
|||
What are the instructional goals that need
to be accomplished through the completion of this course?
|
Course outline:
·
To have a solid knowledge in the creation/design of
EFL activities for language skills
·
To use Google Sites to create an interactive ePortfolio
that can be used with their current or future students
·
To use multi-media and freeware to create/design EFL
material
|
·
Understanding of the four skills in
language learning
·
Lesson planning training
·
Knowledge in blog design and posting
·
Former training on how to use blogs
for education
·
Possible basic background on html,
movie maker, Office, etc.
·
Use of freeware such as iTunes
·
PDF creation
|
Possitive Implications:
o
Prior knowledge in language skills
o
How activities and tasks fit in a lesson plan
o
Prior training in blogging platform and use in
education
o
Limited training and html usage
o
Limited knowledge in video production
o
Self-training in freeware
Negative Implications:
o
Lack of knowledge in these areas imply the search for
additional training sources to have students catch up with the class
|
What does the institution require students
to know or be able to do when they complete this course?
|
Course outline
|
Same as characteristics above
|
Ulatina requires students to create and
design their own EFL activities aiming at facilitating their work during
their teaching practicum
|
What do students need to know and be able
to do when they get a job in this industry or profession?
|
English Department
|
Learning outcomes in course outline
|
When becoming full-time teachers at a
private or public school, Ulatina wants them to use technology as part of
their day-to-day teaching and planning
|
Performance
Context Characteristics
|
|||
Where will students use the skills and
knowledge taught in this course?
|
All these technological competencies will
be used in language teaching scenarios in public or private high schools or
adult education, from their lesson plan to the execution of the plan in class
|
||
Under what conditions will students need
to apply the skills and knowledge taught in this course?
|
To start with, competencies acquired in
this course will initially be used in their teaching practicum [before their
graduation] and later on in their daily teaching practice
|
||
Will the students use the skills and
knowledge taught in this course individually or in teams in the performance
context?
|
The idea behind this course is that
learners can use this knowledge individually since they’ll work with their
own groups, but there is no reason why they can embark themselves in joint
ventures with colleagues.
|
||
Learning
Context Characteristics
|
|||
Data
Source
|
|||
What equipment or technology will be
available for the course?
|
English Department
|
If needed, labs
|
|
To what extend is the learning context
like the performance context for the course content?
|
Instructor’s experience
|
In my experience, it is a replica of what
students will face in the real world
|
|
General
Student Characteristics
|
|||
Data
Source
|
|||
What age are your students?
|
Registrar’s Office
|
Mostly young adults, ages 18 to 25 and
some over the age of 30
|
|
What types of occupations or hobbies do
your students have?
|
Instructor’s Interviews
|
o
Most of them are not working though those who are over
30 have a job
o
Some of them work in call centers
o
Just a few hold teaching positions
o
Digital learning inclined
|
|
What cultural backgrounds do your students
have?
|
Mostly Costa Rican
A few foreign students
|
||
What obligations do students have outside
of your course?
|
o
College responsibilities
o
Some working mothers
o
Many work to pay for their tuition
|
||
What expectations do students have for the
course?
|
To learn to perform better in school
|
Extrinsic motivation to learn on their own
|
|
How do students feel about the content
area?
|
Instructor’s interviews
|
Confident
|
Subject-matter can be used practically in
lesson planning
|
How do students feel about taking an
online course?
|
Excited
|
Extrinsic motivation to learn on their own
|
|
Student
Entry Abilities
|
|||
What do students know already about the
course content?
|
Former education technology courses taken in the major
|
o
Basic use of Office
o
Blogs in Blogger.Com
o
Understanding of lesson planning
o
The four skills in language learning
|
o
This course will help them put everything together
inside their lesson plans to teach and provide memorable learning experiences
to their students.
|
What misconceptions do students have about
the course content?
|
o
This course is to develop competencies to create
interactive materials, not just paper-based ones
|
o
Initially, believing that this is just a paper-based
materials production is overcome when they have to work online.
|
|
What relevant experiences do students have
outside of the course?
|
o
Former blogging training and basic use of htmls
|
o
Their prior training is great schemata that they bring
to class and into the course.
|
|
Do your students have the necessary
technology skills to take an online course?
|
o
YES!
|
o
With the constant training of online tools and our LMS
at Ulatina, students are ready to take the next step.
|
|
There
are indeed lots of challenges in trying to teach this course and have great
learning results with students, but there must be ways to palliate them. A
Needs Assessment can for sure define the steps to follow to create and design
online or hybrid learning instruction for one’s students and a good way to mitigate
challenges or obstacles is to use one’s former experience in the F2F classroom.
These former experiences can help the instructor to visualize what the usual
problem areas are to create media that can help students understand what is
needed from them more vividly.
Laureate Education. (2013). Hybrid &
Blended Learning: Module 5, Content Design.
Pronunciation
Development
|
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Reading Skills
Development
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Curated Topics Online
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Thursday, August 28, 2014
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