Tiffany Finkle

I’ve had the opportunity to step back and reflect on my development as an emerging evaluator. The evaluation proposal and full report I helped create allowed me to build core competencies in real time. After completing the evaluator self-assessment, I would currently rate myself a 4 out of 6 on the evaluator competency scale. I am confident in my growth and knowledge thus far, while still recognizing important areas for improvement. After completing this course I understand evaluation as a systematic, evidence-based process that enhances organizational learning, performance, and change (Russ-Eft & Preskill, 2009) The self-assessment revealed that I’m especially strong in identifying evaluation purposes and needs , developing feasible questions , and designing appropriate evaluation strategies. Through the evaluation report, I was able to demonstrate these skills by weaving survey results and thematic interview insights into actionable, learner-centered recommendations. While des...

When I opened the self-assessment for evaluator competencies I wasn’t sure what to expect. I was sure that I was not going to know any of the competencies or even a basic understanding of what would be expected of me. Instead I found myself to be pretty midline in my understanding of the five evaluator competencies and the pieces that are required to complete them. Reflecting on how I came by my knowledge I attribute it to the basic understanding I gained while completing my undergraduate degree. Even though I majored in Psychology, my focus was in child and adolescent development. Providing me with the first layer of foundational knowledge in evaluation as a whole. I further advance my skill set, by choosing to evaluate a childcare program for its effectiveness in a project towards the end of my degree plan. By evaluating the childcare program I slightly entered into the field of program evaluation. Providing me with a second layer to my initial foundation. Knowing that I have minimal...

Education and the ways in which we learn are constantly evolving. The most recent pandemic had a tremendous impact on the speed at which online and blended learning evolved. Now, we are seeing more and more students shift to online or blended learning for a variety of reasons. It has opened the door for those needing to work, playing competitive sports, facing medical procedures and even those deployed in the military, to continue to further their education. One area that I feel will greatly benefit from advances in mobile technology and artificial intelligence is the ability to diversify the way we teach to meet the needs of the learner. There are people who can play a video game and remember complex strategies to complete the task in game who are struggling in the classroom with simple math processes. I can see the future of learning being able to mesh with and incorporate gaming tasks to support the learning and understanding of a variety of subjects for those who do not do well in ...

  Blended and online learning are both non-traditional ways to gain different types of education. While it has generally been used for higher education or career training purposes for many years, recent world events have shifted the use for these learning platforms. For me and many like me, the difference between blended and online learning is the face to face interactions. Online learning is via the internet and often uses a learning management system. Online learning is often self-paced and doesn’t require face-to-face interactions. Blended learning, combines online learning with face-to-face learning (Rottmann, A, et al.,(2020). The face-to-face learning interactions are not generally a daily required interaction and instead will be scheduled for one or more times a week. The face-to-face interactions built into blended learning have also evolved recently. Now instead of being required to attend face-to-face in a brick and mortar setting, many programs have these face-to-face in...

There are many differing factors that can contribute to dissatisfaction among consumers. When looking into ways to solve this dissatisfaction it is important to take a step back and evaluate all of the areas that consumers interact. Then you need to look for what is working well and what isn’t working well. Identifying these factors provides important information that will translate into a needs assessment. Supporting the ability of the company and learning design team to cooperatively identify key areas where improvement needs to happen. In regards to the learning scenario, CrowTech Systems appears to have areas of concern outside of their identified communication concerns. There are also a variety of technical issues. These include outdated software, a system lag during peak service times, and frequent disruptions due to system outages and crashes. There was also a concern among employees that the customer service department is understaffed, leading to some employees juggling tasks t...

              Developing the eLearning for this class was very labor intensive. Not necessarily for the learning part, but for me more learning to use the technology. I really enjoy taking information and turning it into learning materials for others. I have noticed over my time in this program that I excel at research and organizing information. I even do well with the design ideas and how to lay things out. Where I struggle is implementing those ideas, especially when using a new program.                 This is where I encountered a lot of my roadblocks in the implementation phase. Learning and understanding storyline was a complicated process for me. I watched so many different Youtube videos the last six weeks that they started to blend together. It felt like even when I was following the steps that I still couldn’t implement the navigation or audio quite right. I’m sure that having to sh...