Analysis Findings Report

Overview:
The Winston School needs a systematic way to orient new families to the way the school works and
how parents can best support their students. Currently in the fall, the PTO organizes a family fair. This
provides a casual introduction to the current and newly enrolling families. While the fair is going on, key
members of the faculty are in the cafeteria to answer questions from the new families. These key
members include admissions, nurse, front office, athletics, clubs, academies, testing and others. Families
that do not attend the family fair or do not know what questions to ask may not feel prepared for the start
of the schoolyear. The Winston School also has rolling admissions. That is, they accept students
throughout the school year. Parents who join the school after the year has started do not have access to the
fair and may feel less prepared. To fill that void, The Winston Schools PTO assigns a member of the PTO
to meet with the new families as they enroll. This helps a family feel welcome, but it may not address
questions that are best answered by the school, such as how to use the schools LMS software.
Introduction to course:

Format: Online PowerPoint presentation

Topic: New Parent Orientation
Audience: New Parents to The Winston School
Purpose: Parents need to feel as though they know how to find the information they need to

support their student.

Needs:
Identified Needs

RenWeb

Learners

Instructors
Proficiency in RenWeb

Homework
Lesson Plans
Contact info for staff
Calendar
Student Handbook
Back to School Guide (supplies if not purchased in

Homework
Lesson Plans
Contact info for staff
Calendar
Knowledge in accessing resources
Knowledge in accessing resources

advance)
Meeting faculty and staff
Information about aftercare
Assigned to a mentor parent
The purpose and function of The Testing and

Time for a breakfast meeting?

Knowledge in accessing resources
Who has been selected as a mentor parent.
Knowledge in accessing resources

Evaluation Center
Information for after school clubs

Knowledge in accessing resources

Core Problems with existing ID: Most of the information is available on their website or in

the LMS software that they use, but there is not one single place for parents to go to find it.
Existing skills, knowledge, limitations of the audience: The audience is varied in their skills.
There are some people who use a computer very little and others who write computer code.
It must be simple to walk through. Additionally, many of the families are very busy as they
lead professional lives and have children who go to private school. Therefore it cannot take

too long to go through.

Expectations for learning: Upon completion of the course, parents will be able to use the

LMS and will know the key people in the community to go to when they have questions.
Course Goals:
1) The learner will locate and become familiar with how to access their RenWeb account.
a) TLW access their RW account
b) TLW access the school calendar
c) TLW access the directory of staff
d) TLW access the lesson plan and homework sections of RW
e) TLW access the Student Handbook
f) TLW access the Back to School Guide

2) The learner will feel comfortable that they know what is expected of them and how to find
answers when they have questions.
a) TLW meet the faculty and staff
b) TLW experience a meeting with Testing and Evaluation Center for the purpose of reviewing
the Individual Learning Profile

Course Components
o PowerPoint with videos inserted
o Downloadable documents
o Meeting with Testing and Evaluation, other key figures
Environmental Resources:
o Computer Access

o PowerPoint
o Breakfast meeting
Timeline:
o The online course shouldnt take more than two hours to complete.
o This will be sent out via email to new parents after they enroll.
o The breakfast is scheduled before school and twice throughout the year.
Chronology: 2 hours for course, 2 hours for breakfast.

TAP
I am developing An Introduction to The Winston School, a blended online course for new parents.
Currently the development team will consist of Rebbie Evans, Head of School, Debi Sass, Assistant Head
of School, Beth Ballard, Assistant to Admissions and Testing and Evaluation, and me. This training is
aimed at new families to The Winston School and will orient them to the resources and develop the skills
they will need to support their childs success in this community. It will teach them how to use the
Learning Management Software (LMS) through which they will be able to access lesson plans,
homework, and calendar information for the school. It will also introduce them to key players and show
them how to make contact with their teacher.
Currently in the fall, the PTO organizes a family fair. This provides a casual introduction to the
current and newly enrolling families. While the fair is going on, key members of the faculty are in the
cafeteria to answer questions from the new families. These key members include admissions, nurse, front
office, athletics, clubs, academies, testing and others.

Problem
Families that do not attend the family fair or do not know what questions to ask may not feel
prepared for the start of the school year. Additionally, even at the fair, training on how to interact with the
LMS is not provided. Furthermore, The Winston School has rolling admissions. That is, they accept
students throughout the school year. Parents who join the school after the year has started do not have
access to the fair and may feel less prepared. To fill that void, The Winston Schools PTO assigns a
member of the PTO to meet with the new families as they enroll. This helps a family feel welcome, but it
may not address questions that are best answered by the school, such as how to use the schools LMS
software and it doesnt address the need by the new family to be known by the key people.

Learning Expectations
Course/Lesson Goals and Objectives
1. The learner will locate and become familiar with how to access their RenWeb (RW) account.
a. TLW access their RW account.
b. TLW access the school calendar.
c. TLW access the directory of staff and families in the school community.
d. TLW access the lesson plan and homework sections of RW.
e. TLW access the Student Handbook.
f. TLW access the Back to School Guide.
2. The learner will feel comfortable that they know what is expected of them and how to find
answers when they have questions.
a. TLW meet the faculty and staff.
b. TLW experience a meeting with Testing and Evaluation Center for the purpose of
reviewing the Individual Learning Profile.
Course/Lesson Components
Learners

Computer access
Intermediate computer skills
Network access
PowerPoint software
Interactive .pdf
Breakfast meeting
Instructors

Proficiency in RenWeb
Knowledge in accessing resources: Student Handbook, Back to School Guide, information about
aftercare, information about Testing and Evaluation, who are available mentor parents.
Time for breakfast meeting
Adobe Acrobat DC

Learning Activities
Learners will be given access to an online PowerPoint with embedded videos and .pdfs.

Learners will be invited to a breakfast which will allow them to meet their students teachers and the
leadership team.

Assessment
As this training is provided as a courtesy to our parents, the only assessment will be a couple of selfgrading interactive quizzes and a brief survey after they have completed using the tool.

Evaluation

1. How will you tell if the instructional design was successful? Who will determine this? Will there be
an outside, unbiased observer? A satisfaction survey?
A survey link will be embedded in the deck to allow parents to respond as to how effective they felt
the training was and what additional information they felt should be presented.

2. Does your assessment relate to your evaluation? How?

My assessment directly relates to my evaluation. If the students respond with satisfaction to the
survey, then my assessment will be positive.

3. How will you determine whether your outcomes relate back to your original needs analysis and
goals/objectives to determine the effectiveness of your intervention/implementation?

My project is task based, and whether my outcomes relate back to my original goals/objectives will
be demonstrated by new parents feeling welcomed, informed, and able to engage with the community
effectively. Currently the school hears that parents do not know what is expected of them when they

arrive and that the school does not communicate well with families. If this course is successful, some of
that negative chatter will disappear.

Timeline
The first portion of training will be stand-alone and dependent on how much time the user needs.
The average amount of time should be no more than 2 hours. Basic understanding of all goals should be
completed. This will be followed by a 1 hour breakfast meeting where a parent will be able to meet their
students teachers and the leadership team.

User will open the PowerPoint presentation. They will listen to Ms. Evans welcome and
introduction. (5 minutes)
User will continue through the PowerPoint deck and meet Dr. Debi Sass, who will go over key
principles of the Student Handbook. (10 minutes)
User will continue through the PowerPoint deck and download information that is important to
them such as the student handbook, should they want a copy of that. (10 minutes)
Quiz on handbook. (5 minutes)
User will continue through the PowerPoint deck to view the information about how to access
RenWeb. (10-20 minutes)
Quiz on RenWeb. (5 minutes)
User will continue through the PowerPoint deck to meet the nurse and see what she offers to the
school. (5 minutes)
User will continue through the PowerPoint deck to meet the school counselor. (5 minutes)
User will continue through PowerPoint deck to learn about after school activities such as
aftercare and clubs. (5 minutes)
User will take a brief survey. (5 minutes)

Job Aid: New Parent Orientation

INFORMATION FOR PARENTS:
Dear Parents, we've created a special webpage just for you. This webpage will orient you to The
Winston School, help you learn how to find lessons plans, homework assignments, and other
information, and to help you know how to connect with the community: whether that is a
classmate or a teacher.
Please click on this link and you will be immediately taken to the website. All the video links
will open on another page, and the password for the RenWeb video is ParentsWeb.
When you have completed viewing the webpage, please respond to the survey to help us know if
we provided what you needed to get started, or what we could do to improve this experience for
other parents.

INFORMATION FOR SUPPORT STAFF OR THOSE WHO ARE HELPING NEW FAMILIES TO NAVIGATE THE
WEBPAGE:

To orient our parents to the school Ive created a webpage just for them. The webpage is under
the Admissions tab. Here is a link to that webpage: http://www.winstonschool.org/admissions/orientation.cfm#detailid_177173
This is at the top of the page:

The first thing you will see is that the parents will need to scroll down to view the webpage.
There are four videos that are inserted so that parents can take it in in the chunks of time that
they have to use.
Ive asked them to take about an hour to review the material. Im hoping an hour of time will be
a worthwhile investment in making this transition smoother.

The first video lasts about a minute and introduces the head of school and the assistant head
of school.

The next video is the essential knowledge that needs to be absorbed to be successful in the
school community. This video is about 3 minutes long.

The Assistant Head of School mentions things that are found in the Back to School Guide
and the Student handbook. Links to those documents are found in the next section.

Next we have a video produced by the company we use for our LMS, Renweb. This is
hosted on Vimeo and they will not allow the code to be embedded in our website. So the next
video redirects them to Vimeo.

The password to access the video is listed below the video:

The last video is to introduce the counselor and the nurse. It is about a minute and a half.

Finally, clubs are listed and parents are directed to talk to the secretary to find contact
information for the people who sponsor the clubs.
There is no formal evaluation as this in intended to inform parents to the level that they want
to be informed. Parents, given this basic information, generally feel that they have some idea
about how to go about finding answers to their questions as they transition into The Winston
School. A survey is provided for parents to provide feedback to the instructional designers.

Implementation and Evaluation of Project A: Designing a New Parent

Orientation for The Winston School
When I started working for The Winston School as the Admissions Director I had never worked in
that role before. I knew I had a lot to learn. I had worked in project management as a webinar producer
for a company that contracted to Microsoft. I had also worked as an account manager for that same
company, also being contracted out to Microsoft. In many ways admissions was similar to the webinar
production job. It was the same small project repeated over many times. Many would be in development
at once and they would all be at different levels of completion. My job was to get them all to the finish
line. In my role as project manager, there was always an opportunity for feedback from the presenters I
would be working with to me. I needed to hear what worked for them and what didnt so I could improve.
When I transitioned to the role of Admissions Director at Winston, I asked about that. How are new
parents integrated into the school? Do we ask for feedback about the admissions process? The answer was
that once they were admitted to the school, the PTO would take over and connect with them. At the end of
the year I learned we were always dinged by our parents on our lack of communication. So this spring,
when the opportunity came to put together a project, I knew what I wanted to do.
I presented it to my Head of School and explained that I intended to create animated videos to
explain certain features, integrate a video created by our LMS about how to use their software, and
provide one location for the new families to access the pdfs of our Student Handbook and Back to School
Guide. She was on board and excited about it. When I said I needed a client she said that instead she
wanted to be the client.
We met weekly. She wanted to support me by replacing the animated videos with professionally
created videos. This was fine with me, since she was the client, but I worried that it would set us back in
schedule. It did. First, the initial meeting with the videographer was delayed. Then the shooting time was
delayed. Eventually, the videos would be canceled altogether when the bid came in too high. But I didnt
know that at the time.

In my development process I also encountered difficulty. I had initially intended to use a PowerPoint
deck into which I would insert videos. I encountered difficulty inserting both videos and pdfs. The videos
would only work when the deck was in presentation mode, but the pdfs could only be accessed when the
deck was in edit mode. Since I needed this to be able to be absorbed independently I was in a conundrum.
My Head of School and I decided to simply create a webpage for our website and place the information
on the webpage. I could embed the videos and provide links to the pdfs. This ended up working fine and
very quickly I had the skeleton put together for the webpage, just waiting for the professionally produced
videos.
With all the delays in the professional video production going on, I realized that I needed to make the
animated videos anyway if, for nothing else, to use as a placeholder until the videos could be inserted.
I created the animated videos using Moovly. This was a learning curve for me, as I had never used
this tool before. They do provide a pdf handbook, which I used a lot to make the videos. Moovly also
comes with the ability to record sound and add narration or music yourself. Initially, I added narration
through the Moovly tool, but the quality of the recording was so poor that I added music to cover up the
background noise created by the recording. After listening to this for a while and being very unhappy with
the end result, I decided to use Audacity to record my own narration. With Audacity I could record the
narration and remove any background noise through their effects tools. This resulted in a much better
product, so I exported these files as mp4s. They integrated nicely with Moovly.
At this point I was ready to go. I had a meeting scheduled with my Head of School and at that
meeting, she told me that the bid for the professional video had come in too high and we would not be
able to use the professionally produced videos. I told her that I had created placeholders and if she liked
them we could go live with the New Parent Orientation webpage. I showed her the webpage with the
Moovly videos. She was thrilled! I also showed the page to other staff members and they were all really
impressed and happy with the results.
Next I solicited input from parents. After all, they were our target audience. If it didnt help them, we
had missed the boat. All of the feedback was positive. One of the parents pointed out that she was very

appreciative of the videos since she is an auditory learner. Listening to the presentation and seeing visuals
that supported the verbiage really helped her more than simply reading the handbook. She has had her son
attending Winston for most of the year and she said that she had even learned some things that she hadnt
known.
I felt that the feedback I received was beneficial. Although no one yet has made a suggestion for
improvement, Im certain that we will be able to improve it and it will grow with the admissions office to
effectively reach out and help parents feel connected.