Earlier in the semester, we were required to submit our proposals for our summer projects. This week, I received feedback from my supervisor on my submission. I felt this post would be an excellent opportunity to reflect on and analyse that feedback, and to outline what I have learned as a result.
The main piece of feedback presented was with regard to the amount of content I had proposed to include as part of the course I will be developing. My supervisor strongly advised me to reconsider the breadth of information I had outlined. They were concerned that I was both over-ambitious and that I wasn't adequately accounting for the length of the individual lessons which will make up each unit.
On reflection, I believe I likely erred on the side of including more content than necessary. I did this knowing that it would be a more manageable task to remove extraneous material rather than create additional content after-the-fact. Ultimately, I still feel that this is the case. I will be re-examining the volume of information I have proposed to include in these topics over the following weeks. I believe it will be advantageous having future content outlined, should I later realise my modules require more comprehensive tutorials (or indeed, should I wish to continue development of this resource outside of the scope of the summer project).
Another critical piece of commentary provided was about ethics. When I wrote the proposal, I suggested that I would include a user testing component to the development cycle of the course. I failed to take into account that this would require approval from the Ethics Board. This oversight was, in my opinion, caused by my lack of experience when it comes to conducting research. Being informed that ethical approval would be necessary for this aspect of the project is undoubtedly a valuable lesson to learn. I have yet to decide whether I will pursue the usability testing route. I am currently evaluating the work schedule to determine whether it would be feasible in practice. My initial thoughts are that (similar to including too much content in lesson outlines) it may be beneficial to go through the ethics process regardless of whether I eventually end up conducting the testing or not. I feel this would potentially be good experience to have should I continue in academia following completion of the MA. Furthermore, given that the Ethics Board meets monthly, it would be significantly more challenging to acquire approval later in the development process if it transpired that I could carry out the user-tests.
Finally, my supervisor expressed concerns about the schedule I had outlined. They felt I was being unrealistic with the volume of work I was aiming to do in tandem with other modules in the programme. Similar to the content issue earlier, I think this will benefit the final product. When I wrote the proposal, I underestimated the volume of work we would be undertaking in Semester 2. I now recognise that it will be impractical to adhere strictly to the work plan as set out in the proposal. However, the fact that I have each step laid out in chronological order - regardless of whether the suggested time-frames are ultimately delivered on - will surely be of help. I will be able to progress through the development in a logical order thanks to the steps I outlined in the schedule.
Getting this feedback early in the project cycle has, in my opinion, been very valuable. It has forced me to reconsider the approach I was planning to certain aspects of the task. It has made me aware that I need to be more conscious of my inexperience concerning the research element of development, and it has encouraged me to assess how I will proceed with new facets such as whether or not to obtain ethics approval.
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