There’s nine accreditation standards my political course has to meet:
| 1.Focus on Results | |
| 1.1 There is a rationale for the proposed program and justification of the investment.
1.2 The rationale includes the program’s intended impact on outputs, outcomes, or compliance. 1.3 The rationale includes the desired results and baseline measures. |
|
| 2. Take a Systemic View | |
| 2.1 The program supports the enterprise’s larger objectives or mandate.
2.2 The program accommodates constraints in the workforce, workplace, and marketplace. 2.3 The program was designed, developed, and implemented by considering factors at the workforce, workplace, and marketplace levels. |
|
| 3. Add Value | |
| 3.1 The program contributed to sponsors’ and users’ current needs and goals.
3.2 There is a future value proposition for sponsors and users. 3.3 The value created by the program has been measured and documented. |
|
| 4.Partner and Collaborate | |
| 4.1 Input was solicited from appropriate parties throughout the process, including problem or opportunity identification, developmental testing of the program’s elements, and ongoing evaluation and maintenance.
4.2 Input was solicited from parties who are impacted by the current state; who are key to supporting successful change and implementation; who will be impacted by any anticipated changes; whose financial and political support are essential to sustain the program; and who are in a position to monitor and report on adoption of new behaviors and interim results. 4.3 Input solicited was used in the process, and feedback was given to the appropriate parties who provided that input. |
|
| 5. Analyze the Need or Opportunity | |
| 5.1 An analysis was done to determine the opportunity or performance gap.
5.2 The results of the analysis discovered or confirmed a problem, need, or opportunity in terms of its current and potential impact. |
|
| 6. Develop the Program | |
| 6.1 The design of the program included its elements, the resources required to develop and implement the elements, how and when developmental testing would be conducted, and the implementation strategy.
6.2 The plan for creating the program included the required infrastructure and support pieces to be developed or acquired. |
|
| 7. Conduct Formative Evaluations | |
| 7.1 The program’s elements were tested to ensure content accuracy, usability, feasibility, effectiveness, and alignment with the organization’s mission and goals.
7.2 The program’s required enabling infrastructure was tested to confirm its capacity and utility. |
|
| 8. Measure Outcomes and Impact | |
| 8.1 Data were collected to compare interim results or results at predetermined milestones with baseline data or goal accomplishment data (target).
8.2 The data were analyzed to measure change, improvement, and trends. 8.3 The results were reported to appropriate parties. 8.4 The results of the measurement were used for corrective actions, celebration, and continuous improvement. |
|
| 9. Sustain the Results | |
| 9.1 Resources are committed to maintain the program and the intended results.
9.2 Ongoing performance data are used to improve elements or the infrastructure. 9.3 Data on adoption, trends, and improvements are collected and reported. |
|
I first need to explain the rationale behind my training, why is it needed. The way to do that is to conduct a needs analysis. In Tim Slade’s book “The eLearning Designer’s Handbook” he writes,” Most needs analyses seek to answer three basic questions:
- What are people doing? Answer this question to determine the current level of performance.
- The people I’m targeting are regional conservative candidates. The candidates are winging it. They don’t have structure. They’re relying on volunteer campaign managers that don’t have a winning track record meaning they don’t have a track record of putting candidates into office. Since the volunteers are free though, the candidates gladly accept their help.
- How many candidates do I need data from? There’s 12 House seats and 7 Senate seats. I could do 10 House seats and 7 Senate seats. I’d focus on the demographics of the district not the candidate. There isn’t 10 house candidates that have run multiple times so I can’t collect their data: number of votes, social media metrics, canvassing data, etc. I’ll focus on the district. So it’s like the house district or senate district is the business and the candidates are the employees. Why aren’t the employees doing their job (aka getting elected)?
- To establish a current level I’ll look at the number of votes a Republican candidate got in the 3 election cycles. Why 3? Because academic journals usually have data in a span of 10 years. 3 election cycles would be every 4 years so that’d be 12 years which is close enough. I’ll also have to look at campaign contributions via ORESTAR. I’m not sure how I can get canvassing data or social media data. I could ask the candidate how many doors they knocked on. Social media, I could look at what platforms the candidate was on and how many likes and follows they got. I’ll look at their websites to see their communication style.
- What do you want people doing? Answer this question to determine the desired level of performance.
- Given an audience of Washington County constituents the candidate will speak about him/herself and his/her platform for no more than 5 minutes.
- Given a guided questionnaire the candidate will identify his/her 3 talking points when talking to constitutents and PCPs.
- Given a video tutorial the candidate will create a website for his/her campaign within one week.
- Given multiple practice sessions the candidate will debate a topic with 20 or fwer filler words for 2-5 minutes.
- Given a video about a day in the life of a Republican legislature, the candidate will answer review questions with 90% accuracy.
- Using the free version of Canva the candidate will create multiple Facebook ads, signs, palm cards, business cards with no more than 3 colors.
- Using the Oregon Secretary of State website the candidate will list everything s/he needs to file from declaring candidacy to the end of the campaign with 100% accuracy.
- Given an eLearning course the candidate will explain how and when to file political donations and other finances with 100% accuracy.
- Given an eLearning course the canddate will state a start date of when s/he will start canvassing with at least 3 volunteers.
- Why aren’t people doing it? Answer this question to determine the cause of performance.
- I’ll circle back to this once I conduct the data on the first question.
He also lists ways to gather information for your needs analysis:
- Talk to your stakeholders
- Review any data
- Observe your learners
- Talk to your learners
- Review best practices
Gathering the current level of performance is what I’m most anxious about because I don’t know where to start. My first step will be to gather the data I listed above that I can find using the internet. Then email or cold call(if they don’t answer my email) previous candidates and ask them questions via a survey. I’m not sure how to observe my learners since there isn’t a state election until next year. I could talk to a campaign manager I’m acquaintences with and ask her what she’s seen unsuccessful candidates do vs successful candidates.
0 Comments