Home remodeling

COURSE TEMPLATE DESIGNER: Barbara Rutledge

COURSE TITLE: Interior Design for the Frugal Home Remodeler

DATE: September 24, 2009

Course Description: Overall description of the course including the need for the course determined by your mini-analysis and the audience for this particular course.

This community education course is designed to assist homeowners who are interested in remodeling a room or rooms in their homes. This is a survey course to provide information and resources to those interesting in learning about the process of interior design. My target audience is anyone with access to the Internet who is interested in remodeling their home. A prerequisite for the course is to complete a tech literacy course or to pass a tech literacy assessment. No knowledge of interior design is needed. This non-credit course would be offered through the community schools.

People who were planning to do a home remodeling project were interviewed and asked about their concerns. They expressed concerns about the costs involved and what the final project would look like in the end. They were interested in how long the project would take and wanted to know the steps involved in undertaking a project. Some were uncertain whether to do the project themselves or to hire a professional. If they did hire someone, how should they select that person. How would they know if that person wold do a good job.

This course is needed because the the time and cost involved in such projects has a long-term effect on remodelers. People want to know how to make sure that their money is well spent and that they will be pleased with the outcome. This course is appropriate for a community schools program to help provide a variety of resources available to help those wanting to remodel make better choices in terms of design, using professionals and controlling costs. The course can help people better understand their design style so that they can make better design choices or do a better job describing their style when working with professionals. By utilizing design software, they will be able to better visualize the final outcome and make better design choices. By learning the terminology, they will be able to communicate more effectively during the process. Understanding how to plan a project and create a budget can help them control costs and end up with more successful outcomes.

Course Instructional/Learning Strategies: Explain why you organized the course in a particular way and why you chose the strategies you used within the course (e.g., collaborative aspects, learning activities, problem-based learning, etc.).

Home remodelers have varied goals for their remodeling projects. Some projects will be small and could be completed by the homeowners in a short period of time. Others may tackler larger projects and need the assistance of interior designers, contractors and architects. This course is designed to assist homeowners with their own goals for learning. These goals may change and the course progresses and they refine their goals. Learning about the process of interior design can assist homeowners from making costly mistakes. Learning the vocabulary can assist them with communicating with professionals. The course uses collaboration tools so that students can get feedback from others on their ideas and designs. The course will expose students to software tools than can assist them with their projects. Modeling tools such as Ikea's “Home Planner” can help them visualize their projects. Use of a spreadsheet will be used to assist students with building a sample budget.

Session:

1.Determining your style.
a. Show examples of various current design styles and discuss.
b. Ask students to pick the style they like the most and least and discuss they aspects that they like most and least.
c. Ask students to take a online style assessment quiz to help them identify their style.
d. Review structure of Blackboard course and point out forums. Ask students to post a comment in the feedback forum describing what they hope to learn from the course and how they hope to use the information and skills they learn from the course.
2.Planning. During this session we will discuss aspects of the planning process. Students will start creating a plan so that they can start to identify the various steps that must be completed for their project. We will also discuss design software and take a look at some online programs. The Design Software Forum will be used to discuss design software.

3.Storyboarding.
a. Discuss storyboarding and show examples.
b. Have students discuss sample storyboards.
c. Demonstrate the use of Ethan Allen's design software to create a storyboard.
d. Have students create a sample storyboard using at least five images including one image they they upload to the site.

4.Budgeting.
a. Demonstrate with Excel and application sharing how build a sample budget.
b. Divide students into groups and have them discuss and create a budget for a kitchen remodel. One student in the group will enter the numbers in the sample spreadsheet and post.
c. Discuss issues relating to budgeting, such as obtaining permits, using licensed workers, etc.
d. Ask students about their concerns for their remodeling projects. Ask about experiences others have had and address students concerns and point them to resources for getting their questions answered.

5.Let the project begin. During this session students will be sharing information on the progress of their projects. Students will be asked to discuss if and how this course helped them with their plans and projects and how the course could be improved.

Course Media Platforms (Web, LMS, Email, Forum, Wiki, Blog, Social Software, etc.):

This course will use various web resources. The Blackboard LMS will be used, including five synchronous sessions with Wimba. A valid email address will need to be provided by the student for communication with the instructor. Students will communicate with each other through use the course forum.

This course is presented using web resources because of the ubiquitous nature of the web. Many design resources are available via that web, so using that platform will more likely get students interacting with these resources. Wimba was chosen as the synchronous tool because of the ease of use for synchronous communication. The instructor prefers Adobe Connect, but felt that the learning curve was higher and that Wimba would serve the purpose of the course. Any LMS could be used, but the university offering the course has a Wimba installation on Blackboard and this made it the LMS of choice. Rather than use one LMS (Blackboard) for Wimba and a second LMS for the course, this instructor felt that using one LMS would keep all of the resources in one location and simplify the organization for students who might not be familiar with LMS systems and might find going between multiple systems confusing. The discussion board in Blackboard would meet the need for forums and the group feature could be used if students wished to collaborate on a project. The buttons in Blackboard can be modified so that only the buttons needed would be displayed and the names of the buttons could be changed as needed. The permanent announcement feature could be used to provide students with a roadmap to navigate the course.

Describe the type of platform you will use for your course and why you chose that particular platform. If your course uses multiple platforms, provide an explanation for each type of platform.

The instructor will be using the Windows operating system. Students may use either a PC or a Mac. Some tools may operate differently on a Mac or may not be available on a Mac. Links to other tools will be provided and differences between the systems will be explained as it relates to this course. Mac's have good tools for design, but the instructor owns a PC, so that is the platform the instructor will be using.

Course Provision for Learner Autonomy: Describe how your course provides each learner with his/her own autonomy and how your course meets each participant’s learning style.

Students can select from a variety of tools to help them with their projects. Tech savvy students might use a tool as complicated as AutoCad and others might use freeware to help them visualize their projects. Low tech students can visit a home design or home improvement store and watch others design with these tools.

Course Provision for Structure: Describe the aspects of the course that provide structure for the learners (e.g., one website for them to find information, outline of the course, syllabus, etc.)

Blackboard will be used to provide structure. The navigation buttons on the left will all be used and will help provide the structure. Buttons not being used with be hidden. Documents provided by the instructor will be linked to when discussed. A variety of forums will be available to provide discussion on various topics discussed within the course. The Announcement area will contain a link each week to the Assessments area where students can provide weekly feedback. The Course Documents Area will be used to provide additional materials for students to read. Some of these will be assigned during the course and some will be additional reading materials. A course bibliography will be included in these documents with links to additional resources. The Communication Area will be used for forums to allow students to discuss their projects and other topics of interest. One forum will be used for technical issues.

Course Communication: Describe the methods of communication used within your course by both students and instructors and explain why you chose these communication platforms. Also, describe how these opportunities for communication help increase the dialog within the course.

To avoid spamming students, forums will be used for class discussions. Email will be limited to the instructor and student unless students form groups and decide on their own to use email. Forums allows students to get a variety of perspectives on their projects and allow students to learn from each other. This also increases the opportunity of feedback to students without having to wait for an instructor to be available to provide timely feedback.

Assessments (major & minor): Describe any major and minor assessments used within your course and why you chose these particular types of assessments. Include descriptions any self-assessments or peer assessments participants will use within the course.

Pre-assessment of technology skills: Students will take a technology assessment prior to taking the course to ensure that they have some minimal technology skills. Any students without knowledge of basic skills such as word processing, web searching and email will be encourage to take a basic computing course prior to taking the course. By ensuring that students have some level of technology knowledge, the instructor and those in the course will not be hampered by students that do not have a basic level of tech skills.

Ongoing evaluation: Student projects will be reviewed by the instructor and feedback provided. The feedback will include helping students find resources they can use to help improve their plans.

Peer evaluation: Peer assessments will be used to provide students with other perspectives on their design project. While designers might agree on many things, they do differ on design choices. To some extent, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Some people might be confident enough in their own ideas that they don't care how others feel about their design. But most people do want others to like what they have done. Also, for resale of a home, it is important to make choices that enhance rather than detract for the value of the home. Therefore, allowing students to give feedback on each others projects allows student to get a preview of how others might react to their final project. Plus the process of evaluating other projects helps students to be able to better assess their own work.

Self evaluation: At the end of the course, students will be asked to write a self-evaluation. This process will allow them to define what they learned and what they still need to know. This along with the teacher's evaluation will help give them a road-map for next steps.

Final evaluation of student performance: Many students have anxiety about taking tests. Since this is a non-credit course, students either successfully complete the course or they get an incomplete. Assessment of student progress is based on evaluating projects and evaluating students' understanding during course discussions rather than on tests. A certificate of successful completion will be provided to students who participated in four of the five sessions and submit a project plan that demonstrates understanding of how to plan a home-remodeling project. A teacher evaluation report will identify areas of strength and weakness.

Dynamic course evaluation: Short informal and formal online surveys will be provided throughout the course to see how students are progressing and how the course can be modified to meet their changing needs. Online anonymous surveys will be used so that students will be more likely to provide honest feedback. Students will do an online course assessment at the end of the course to provide feedback on how the course can be improved. They will be asked to do this during the last session to ensure completion. Because of the short-time frame of the course, the surveys will be kept short to minimize impact on students time. All online course assessments will have a comments section if students wish to elaborate. Also, feedback during sessions will be encourage to the extent that it does not take impact the learning goals for the session. Longer discussions will be handled outside of class time.