Context and Conditions

This project was developed forMIT 530: Evaluation and Change in Instructional Development in the spring of 2004 under the direction of Dr. Sue-Jen Chen.  The theoretical model used to carry out this project was Allison Rossett’s Training Needs Assessment Model (1987).  The Center for Teaching Excellence at UNCW needed an assessment to determine a plan that would address a perceived problem expressed by the director.  The problems that were identified by the director included low UNCW faculty participation in the CTE workshops.  The actual and optimal performance of the program had to be analyzed in order to identify causes of the problems.  Once the needs assessment was completed, a change management plan was written to include possible solutions.  A change management plan was also created based on the results found in the needs assessment of CTE.  The plan includes a summary of the plan, stakeholders involved, possible constraints, an implementation plan and timeline, and pros and cons for using the plan.

The needs assessment of the project was completed in collaboration with a team of fellow MIT students, Beth Allred, Patrick Gunn, and Paul Ritchie. The final needs assessment report describes the description of the problems, the assessment implementation plan, data analysis, results, and recommendations.  There was no budget for this assessment process and each of us had to work around varying schedules during the weekdays as well as on weekends.  We used email and weekly meetings before class in order to schedule interviews, review documents, and discuss other issues related to the project.  We also used the UNCW campus services and the university webmaster to help us distribute an online survey for all UNCW faculty.  The change management plan was created as an individual project in order to provide a more detailed description of our possible solutions.  The change plan was also presented to the class.

Scope

The final needs assessment report was submitted to the director of CTE and the Associate Vice Chancellor of academic affairs.  There is no data available that indicates use of any recommendations included in the report. Individual change management plans were not submitted to the department.  It was only used for the course assignment.

Role

While working as a team, I was involved in the needs assessment process of information gathering, analyzing data, and proposing solutions.  As part of the course project, the team had to present the information to the class as if presenting to the client.  I participated in the presentation as well as created the presentation slide show.  I wrote the change management plan individually and created the presentation and presented it to the class.

Reflection

This was the first experience that I had working with a team and had interaction with a UNCW client outside of the MIT program.  We faced challenges in working with varying schedules and yet still managed to meet when necessary and complete tasks on time.  I was unfamiliar with the data analysis prior to this class and gained valuable experience with online survey distribution and analysis of that data received from it.  I would like to have allowed more time for the surveys so that we could return a greater amount of them.