PROJECT DESIGN WORKSHEETpage 1

Name of Project: Engage-Explore Project

Start Date: ?

Course: DEC 250

Instructor: DEC Instructor’s Name

Due Date: ?

Key Knowledge and Understanding (CLO’s)

1, 3, 4-5

Project Overview

For the Engage-Explore project, you will explore and apply what you have previously learned about yourself, your career interest, and an interview with a professional to choose a professional issue or problem that you will then research in order to create a project involving a group peer review process. This project is intended to help you begin to develop strong critical thinking and communication skills while establishing relationships with peers, university faculty, staff, and community professionals. Completion of the final project due in week 14 will require the creation of some type of finished product that has integrated all of the resources introduced and explored during the course in order to communicate a clear picture of the issue or problem. Completion of these steps and the final product will account for 15% of your total grade in the course.

Driving Question

After exploring and investigating an important issue or problem in society related to your professional interests, consider the following question:

How can I create a final project that will best synthesize the research to help myself and others better understand the underlying elements and factors causing and relating to my chosen issue or problem?

Examples of Professional Issues:

School of Business

• Career Interest Area of Business Management: After the interview analysis, an issue that stands out is management’s ineffectiveness in the workplace due to the lack of proper training and development. Because of this lack of proper training and development, managers are not equipped with the skills and abilities needed to motivate and engage a diverse population of employees. This situation is leading to poor performance outcomes in many organizations. For the final product, a business student could create a video of several workplace scenarios that would reveal that issues/problems caused by this lack of training.

Criminal Justice and Social Sciences

• Career Interest Area of Law Enforcement: One issue is women have long been underrepresented in the criminal justice workforce. This underrepresentation is despite the fact that research has repeatedly shown the benefits of women in policing, including the likelihood of not using excessive force, the ability to diffuse volatile situations, and their inherent skill at addressing violence against women. Underrepresentation of women in the law enforcement profession has been an ongoing problem for as long as women have sought it as a career. For the final product, a CJSS student could collect images of police officers in the surrounding cities/towns (or his or her own city/town) and compile a collage revealing the gender disparity with accompanying statistical support in the form of referenced data and sources.

Arts and Sciences

• Career Interest Area of Exercise Science/Nutrition: One issue is the growing obesity epidemic in America. This proliferating crisis is causing many healthcare related problems, such as childhood obesity, rising healthcare costs, and obesity-related deaths. Therefore, addressing this issue would prove to be quite beneficial to society.

Step 1:

Interview

(50 points)

Using what you learned from the course in weeks 1-2 (true colors assessment, career interest profiler, research group discussions), choose a career interest area that you are most interested in pursuing after graduation and write it below:

Career Interest Area Choice: (use a different color font for all your responses on this worksheet)

Now that you have narrowed your career options to a particular area, identify and interview someone in that chosen area in order to learn more about the career and discuss some important issues or problems they encounter/experience on a regular basis. See interview guidelines handout. Turn in completed interview question handout with interview signature and contact information for interview component grade.

Interview Response Here:

Possible Issues Identified in Interview:

Step 2:

Project Ideas

(10 points)

Discuss Possible Issues or Problems with your peer research group, then research them in DragonQuest, and take notes here:

What is your chosen issue/problem? What is your rationale for that choice (why did you choose this issue and why is it important?):

Step 3:

Interview Analysis

(25 points)

Discuss what you learned from your interview on the chosen issue or problem and answer the following questions:

• How does what you learned from your interview align with your current understanding of the issue or problem? What are some possible causes and effects of the issue? What are some gaps in this knowledge that you need to better understand this issue?
• Based on your research findings, in what ways is the culture/community involved in the issue/problem? Does the issue affect them? Explain. Do they affect the issue? Explain. (You could answer yes to both)
• What additional information about your chosen issue did you discover in your research and how does it add to your current understanding of the issue? What seems to be at the center of the issue or problem?
• What type of final product will best synthesize the research to help myself and others better understand the underlying elements and factors causing and relating to my chosen issue or problem?

Response Here:

Step 4:

Annotated Bibliography: Research Findings and Analysis

(20 points)

Now that you have gathered some insight and perspective on the issue or problem from your interview and group discussions, you will conduct outside research in DragonQuest on the chosen issue or problem and complete an annotated bibliography that includes a summary and evaluation of three scholarly sources. After completing this in Week 10, you need reflect on your overall research findings by responding to the following questions:

Response Here: (Please include proper in-text citations in your response and conclude with the list of your three scholarly sources, which can be copied from your Annotated Bib)

Reference List:

Step 5:

Conclusions

(20 points)

Based on your group discussions, interview analysis, and research findings/reflection above, consider the following:

Possible Options Here:

Final Product Choice and Rationale:

Step 6:

Final Product

(75 points)

Based on the information you have gained by completing this Engage-Explore project design worksheet, you will complete the following as the final step:

• Create your final product using the Engage-Explore Project rubric as a guide for the requirements and expectations
• Share your final product with your group for feedback on strengths and weaknesses
• Make revisions/improvements and submit final product with APA reference page by due date