Ashford 5: – Week 4 – Assignment
Applying Learning Theory to Life
Preparation is key to any good research paper and presentation. Next week, you will be creating your Final Paper and Presentation. It is important to begin gathering your information and sources to fulfill this project successfully. For your Final Paper, you will be designing a training moduleproposal (not a full training module). The title of this training module is “The Importance of Understanding Your Learners’ Needs”. Essentially, you will be proposing the information you would include for assisting managers gain knowledge in how to meet the learning needs of their departmental employees.
In this week’s paper, you will be setting the stage to demonstrate your understanding of the psychology of learning and how it can be applied to a real-life scenario by creating a list of learning principles you may want to incorporate into your training module. The group you are hypothetically assigned to train has already been designed for you. See the “PSY331 Final Assessment Scenario“.
Although the Final Paper requires you to apply five principles to your training, that you feel will best meet your diverse learners’ needs, you will include a minimum of seven principles in this assignment that will provide you with options for your final design. The principles you choose may be from the following areas of learning psychology: behaviorism, cognitivism, constructivism, or humanism. Be sure to review the Final Paper instructions in Week Five for further guidance. You will also include five content areas that you would want to include in a training such as this.
For this assignment, you will be evaluating the different types of learning, which are indicated in the scenario for the final assignment, and then list what content you intend to include in your training, based on their needs.
Your paper must include the following:
To complete this successfully, also apply your research skills to this content by synthesizing supporting evidence from at least three scholarly sources from the Ashford University Library that defend these strategies as the best options for your training.
Be sure to review the Final Paper instructions in Week Five for further guidance.
Writing the “Applying Learning Theory to Life” Paper
The Paper:
Final Paper and Presentation
You are one of many training specialists in your company. You have been asked to design a training module for managers on how to meet the learning needs of their departmental employees. Meet the employees. The all have different needs. You will need to decide on these needs first.
The title of the training will be “The Importance of Understanding Your Learners’ Needs”.
If your proposal is chosen as the training module for the company, you will be granted a substantial bonus and a raise. Woohoo! But you have to get the job first.
For the written portion of your final assignment, you will create a training module design that includes five strategic principles that you will apply in the training to assist your own training module in being successful, and a minimum of five principles of learning that you want to “teach” to your group of managers. You will base your choices on the hypothetical group of managers that you want to train. These principles may include any theoretical elements that have been introduced to you in the course. Examples of principles from these areas are provided below:
You may also wish to review the following online sources to guide you in making decisions for your training:
Examples:
You may want to apply an activity to your training that uses repetition based on Behaviorism that suggests that reinforcement of responses is done through repetition, giving the student small sequences of tasks and providing constant flow of positive reinforcement to encourage effective learning of responses. Why would you think this is important? What learner needs did you notice?
A reminder – You do not need to design the activity or learning. Simply explain what you will teach and why and how you would teach it and why.
Or you may want to include a scaffolding strategy, such as linking the information to past experiences each manager has had, based on Cognitivism. What would this look like as a training session?
For the content you may want to include the importance of Emotional Intelligence differences or Multiple Intelligences? There are many we have discussed in this course. This is up to you, but you must include 5 areas of content you think would be the most important to teach. Remember the focus of your proposed training is “how to meet the learning needs of their departmental employees”. You are the expert.
Your grasp of each of the five principles you include in your content, as well as the applied principles from your course activities, will be evaluated based on your assessment of learner needs, the accuracy of your description, and the application of each in your proposed training module. Be sure to download the “PSY331 Final Assessment Scenario” document to view the specific information for the employees and training. You should follow these steps to complete your assignment:
A Suggested Outline
Through the use of headings and subheadings, you should be able to thoroughly explain what you would like to teach and how you will approach your training. Please see the “PSY331 Suggested Outline format” document for an example.
Focus of the Final Presentation
After completing your paper, it will be time to sell your idea. You will create a presentation with the goal of having your training module chosen for use by the company to train its management teams. For this presentation, you will produce a screencast presentation using PowerPoint and Screenr.com. You will only be allotted five minutes for your presentation, so you will need to showcase you ideas effectively. Learning how to market yourself and sell your ideas will be extremely advantageous to you in your current and/or future career, so you should think outside of the box and be as creative as possible in the presentation portion of this final assignment. Additionally, this final assignment will help you build technical skills that will potentially aid you in your current and/or future career.
Consider the following questions as you create your presentation:
Create a script document and a PowerPoint presentation from your paper by highlighting the points that really show why your training is the best option. The script will assist you in creating a video presentation, which cannot exceed the five-minute time limit allowed for your screencast. The PowerPoint presentation should be a minimum of six content slides and must include the following elements:
Using Screenr.com or Screencast-O-Matic, create a screencast of your presentation. Include a title for your presentation in the description box when you publish your screencast. Refer to the “Screenr.com Quick-Start Guide” for assistance.
Your presentation time is limited to five minutes, so it is highly recommended that you practice reading through your script prior to beginning the screencast capture. Please do not read your slides. This is boring, and it will not impress your manager (or get you that raise).
The slides should provide selling points that support the training module included in your paper. You should have put a lot of time and effort into your paper; the presentation is where you convince your boss how great it is and why the company should go with your proposal.
Copy and paste the URL link to your screencast at the top of your script document and at the bottom of the reference slide in your PowerPoint presentation. Although the reference slide must be present, you will not read through it due to the five-minute time constraint of the presentation. You must utilize at least four scholarly sources in your paper that are cited in APA format as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center. All sources used within the writing assignment and/or presentation must be cited properly. You will submit both your written paper and PowerPoint presentation files for the final assignment for grading.
Writing the Final Paper
The Final Paper:
The PowerPoint presentation:
No references are needed for this portion of the assignment. The most important aspects of this assignment are creativity and thoroughness. You want the company to choose your training. In your pitch, explain why it is great based on learning theory. For assistance with ideas for creating an impactful presentation, watch the following videos: