1.

Client Information

Dr. Marva Slade-Jennings

University of Massachusetts
msladejenningsedd@gmail.com

2. The Actual Assessment

Profile of an Online Learner Infographic Assignment

You will construct an infographic that describes today's online learners. You will provide
two separate documents with your infographic: a justification narrative and a reference
list.

3. The Infographic:

Explore infographics:

o Karl Gude - What Makes and Infographic Cool?

o Look for examples of infographics
o Choose a tool for you to use to create your infographic. Here is a site that
might help: 10 free tools for creating infographics.
o Read some principles of graphic design.
o Find your own information about creating infographics.
o If you have access to a copy (any edition) of Robin Williams' The Non-
designer's Design Book, give it a try. This is not a requirement.

Explore the Module 02 Resources to develop a profile of college-level online learners

today.
o Some of the resources are there to help you understand what NOT to say
about online learners.
o Some of the resources are just pointers to organizations where you might find
information.

Create an infographic that describes today's online learners. Your final infographic
must be submitted as a PDF format document. The infographic should, at a minimum,
fit on a standard 8.5" by 11" sheet of paper in either landscape or portrait orientation.

4. The Reference list:

Create an APA style reference of all the sources you used to construct your infographic.
This tutorial, and the APA Style Blog will be good resources for you as you construct the
reference list. Submit your Reference List as a Word-compatible file.
5. The Justification Narrative:

Construct a narrative explanation of how your work for this project aligns with the
assignment scoring rubric. Address each category on the rubric. Use double-spacing with
Times New Roman, 12-point font. Organize your document with headings that correspond
to the scoring rubric. Clearly indicate the score (from the rubric) that you would assign
yourself in each category. Submit your Justification Narrative as a Word-compatible file.

6. Resources

Learning Styles: Research and Expert Opinion

Do Learners Really Know Best? Urban Legends in Education
o You may need to login to the university library to access this link.
Changing Course: Ten Years of Tracking Online Education in the United States
You may find useful information in some EDUCAUSE reports.
You may find useful information in some PewResearchCenter reports.
Do you belong to an organization connected to your profession? It may have reports
available to you that are useful.
Use your library skills and look for relevant reports, survey reports, or research studies.

7. The Measurement Tool

Scoring Rubric
If the work submitted includes too many errors in form, grammar, mechanics, or style,
the work will not be evaluated. Instead, the assignment will be returned upon discovering
the third error.

Category 4 3 2 1
Content Covers topic
Includes Includes Content is
in-depth with
essential essential minimal OR
details andknowledge information there are
examples. about the about the several
Subject topic. Subject topic but factual
knowledge is
knowledge there are 1-2 errors.
excellent. appears to be factual
good. errors.
Graphics All graphics All graphics All graphics Graphics do
are related to are related to relate to the not relate to
(Infographic) the topic and the topic and topic. the topic
make it easier most make it
to easier to
understand. understand.
Visual Makes Makes good Makes use of Use of font,
Appeal/Attractiveness excellent use use of font, font, color, color,
of font, color, color, graphics, graphics,
(Infographic) graphics, graphics, effects, etc. effects etc.
effects, etc. effects, etc. but but these
to enhance to enhance to occasionally often detract
the presentation. these detract from the
presentation. from the presentation
presentation content.
content.
Mechanics No Two or fewer Three Four or more
misspellings misspellings misspellings spelling or
(All documents) or and/or and/or grammar
grammatical mechanical grammatical errors.
errors. errors. errors.
APA Style No errors in Two or fewer Three errors Four or more
APA style. errors in in APA style. errors in
(Reference List) APA style. APA style.
8. One Example of Student/Participant Submission
with Teacher Feedback and Grade
 Feedback
Score
20/20 - 100%

Feedback Date
June 20, 2017

Dropbox Feedback

Your infographic includes a lot of good information. Overall, nice work!

The assignment instructions indicated that work should be submitted as a PDF document.
Please do not miss details like that on future assignments.

Dr. Slade-Jennings

9. Report of Your Findings

Explain what worked well or did not work well with the assessment implementation.

This assessment implementation was not as difficult as I had imagined it could have been.
The instructor, Dr. Slade-Jennings is my mentor therefore accessing her course and
students was not challenging. To help make things a bit easier, we utilized Skype,
FaceTime and spoked regularly on the telephone, as often as her schedule would allow.
Additionally, I made a trip to Massachusetts last week, which also assisted with the process.
Once I arrived to the area, Dr. Slade-Jennings unfortunately was in Burlington, North
Carolina at a conference, which meant I could not connect with her face to face until the
day before I was scheduled to return to Georgia.

Regarding implementing the plan, I felt as though the students were very engaged and
welcomed the opportunity to participate. The topic gave them an opportunity to consider
and explore the features that makeup the online college-level learner. It also gave them the
opportunity to explore the skill of creating or learning to create an infographic. For those
who had never done one before, I made sure the students had access to several resources
and options.

Were the students/participants able to complete the work as directed or did they
need clarification on anything?

The students found the assignment easy to complete with little to no need for further or
additional clarification. The only feedback received from the instructor was the lack of
time to adequately complete the assignment.
 Did you get the types of responses or performances you expected?

Yes I did, although there was a period of time when tracking down the instructor was a
minor challenge. Once we connected, I discovered that students had submitted their
assignments in a timely fashion, making tasks on my end much easier to complete.

What should be done to improve the assessment the next time it is implemented?

Due to time constraints (summer semester course), I believe I could have developed the
assignment much better. Since I like incorporating presentations into module assessments,
I would have required a video presentation of the infographic, related to the chosen topic.
The instructor noted that she will incorporate the additional task into the course and allow
for more time to complete the assignment with the summer course offering.

10. Report of Impact on Student Learning

30
Rubric Score of 20,
Scores Of All 34 Enrollees
24
25

20

15

Rubric Score of 15-

10 19, 8

5 Rubric Score of 10- Rubric Score of 9-

14, 1 below, 1
0
RUBRIC SCORE OF 20 RUBRIC SCORE OF 15-19 RUBRIC SCORE OF 10-14 RUBRIC SCORE OF 9-
BELOW

The chart above illustrates the scores of all 34 students enrolled in Dr. Slade-Jennings
course. As the illustration indicates, 24 students received a perfect score of 20/20.
Receiving a score between 15-19 were eight students, while only one student scored
between 10-14 with a 14 and one scored 9 and below, receiving an 8. It is not completely
clear why the two students received low scores other than not putting an effort in to
complete the assignment.
 Scores Comparison By Sex
20
18
18
16
14
12
10
8
6 7
6
4
2
1 1 0 1 0
0
Rubric Score of 15 - Rubric Score of 10 - Rubric Score of 9 -
Rubric Score of 20
19 14 below
Male 6 1 1 1
Female 18 7 0 0

I thought it would be fascinating to compare the scores between male and female students.
There are nine male and twenty-five female students enrolled in the course. Dr. Slade-
Jennings did notice that for this assignment, the female group has a tendency to submit the
work in a timelier manner that male students.

Based on the chart above, the male scores were as follows:

Six received a score of 20

One received a score between 15-19
One received a score between 10-14
One received a score of 9 and below

Based on the chart above, the male scores were as follows:

Eighteen received a score of 20

Seven received a score between 15-19
Zero received a score between 10-14
Zero received a score of 9 and below
 Scores Comparison By Age

0
Rubric Score of 9-below 0

0
Rubric Score of 10-14 0

3
Rubric Score of 15 - 19 0

10
Rubric Score of 20 14

0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16

20s Age 40+

Since I am especially interested in non-traditional learners, particularly those over the age
of 40, I wanted to look at how well this general population faired against students in their
twenties. Oddly enough, there are zero students enrolled in the course who are in their
thirties.

Students who are in their 20s scored as follows:

Ten (10) received a score of 20

Three (3) received a score between 15-19
Zero (0) received a score between 10-14
Zero (0) received a score of 9 and below

Students who are 40 and above scored as follows:

Fourteen (14) received a score of 20

Zero (0) received a score between 15-19
Zero (0) received a score between 10-14
Zero (0) received a score of 9 and below
 On a separate note, this is an observation previously made by Dr. Slade-Jennings. She and
I do not believe it plays a substantial role in performance in the course or on this particular
assignment. Dr. Slade-Jennings just thought it would be interesting data to pull and cite.
Therefore, the following demographics relate to race for her student population in this
course:

Racial Makeup Of Course Enrollees

Hispanic
4%

African-American
24%

Caucasion
72%

Caucasion African-American Hispanic

11. Future Instructional Plans

I thoroughly enjoyed working remotely with Dr. Slade-Jennings on this project. She gave
me complete autonomy on the lesson and although she is far from requiring a coach by
any means, she was gracious enough to allow my input for the purposes of this learning
experience.

Her course is well developed. However, I thought it would be a great idea to incorporate a
topic that stuck with me from my Global Learning and Collaboration course last semester.
Therefore, I suggested adding a digital literacy and citizenship component, which she
wholeheartedly embraced with great enthusiasm. Her students will be able to define digital
literacy and digital citizenship in higher educational contexts.

Relative to those students who did not perform well, particularly those who fell within the
groups who scored 14 below, we feel that there was just not adequate time given to
complete the assignment. The instructions and expectations were very clear. Based on
student comments to Dr. Slade-Jennings via email, time played a significant role. Students
did not indicate that the assignment was too difficult; again, time to complete it was the
greatest challenge.
Lastly, it was quite fascinating to look at the both the overall scores on the project, as well
as, the scores from the subgroups. It was also interesting to see how the older, female
students did better on the assignment than the millennials. I attribute it to the fact that older
students want to do well for several reasons. They may be preparing themselves for career
advancement, need to sharpen their existing skill set to secure a new career opportunity or
have find themselves out of the workforce altogether, much earlier than anticipated. This
group also has the study skills, motivation and self-discipline to do better. They are mainly
not furthering their education because they want to but because quite often they have to, in
order to prepare for the next milestone in their lives.