their response. Judges will read and provide helpful feedback,
in addition to a rating of the team's performance.
Case Event Participants
Participants in the case event include Sponsors, Student Teams,
Provocateurs, Judges, and Event Coordinators.
Sponsors:
Sponsors are faculty members at a participating institution.
They are responsible for recruiting a student team to represent
their institution. Sponsors may or may not provide course
credit for participation. Sponsors also recruit a professional to
serve as an event official (either provocateur or judge, see below).
Sponsors relay information about the event to their team, and
answer any procedural questions. Sponsors do not discuss the
competition case with the team until the close of the event.
There are three previous cases (and case responses) on-line at
this web site if sponsors would like to prepare their teams by
analyzing other cases with them (http://teach.virginia.edu/go/ITcases).
Student Teams:
Teams are made up of currently enrolled students in a
graduate program (instructional tech, ed tech, etc.).
We recommend not more than six students per Team, so that
scheduling won't be difficult, however the number of
individuals on the Team is up to the institution. To keep the
scale of this event manageable, we can only accept one Team per
institution.
We are open to including professional teams made up of individuals
currently practicing ID. Please
contact us if you have an
interest.
Each Team will receive feedback on their case response from
Provocateurs and Judges, and will be able to compare their
case responses with those from other Teams.
An honor code applies to participation in this event. By
submission of their work, Teams certify that they have upheld
the guidelines for the event.
Provocateurs:
Provocateurs read the case, review blind case responses, and
develop probing questions based the case (common question for
all teams) and each response (specific question for each team).
While teams are considering the case, Provocateurs will be
asked to communicate electronically with other Provocateurs,
to discuss their approach to provoking deeper inquiry.
Judges:
Judges read the case and review blind case and question
responses. Judges then write brief critiques of each response
and complete a rating scale which we will supply.
At the conclusion of the case event, Judges' comments (with
Judges' names attached) will be posted for each team.
The Judges' aggregated ratings (ratings averaged across all Judges)
will be provided via e-mail to the Team Sponosr.
Event Coordinators:
The event coordinators are University of Virginia faculty
member Mable Kinzie and UVa graduate students Marti Julian
and Anna Love.
The Event Coordinators, along with Valerie Larsen of Indiana
University--South Bend, are the authors of this year's case.
Because there is also an event team from the University of Virginia,
we are scrupulously careful about keeping all development meetings,
materials, and discussion private. The Sponsor for the UVa
team is not involved in any event coordination or case
development, and she and the UVa Team receive no information
about the case beyond that conveyed to all Sponsors and Teams.
Timeline for Case Activities, Spring 1998:
What the Case is Like
Chronicles of Rocket Boy, the competition case for 1998, is in
the format of a story presented in a number of scenes and
accompanied by a number of ancillary materials.
Time and Length Limits
Between February 23 and March 16, teams will meet to discuss
the case and develop their case response. The team may spend
no more than six hours working together on this activity .
This time limit applies to meetings of as few as two team members
or to meetings of the entire team. It also applies to asynchronous
discussion (for instance e-mail communications between two or
more members). Any amount of time can be spent on individual
reading and thought, about the case and response, or on
individual writing of what the team has discussed.
There is a length limit on the case response, to encourage
concise expression of ideas and to keep the review work of
event officials manageable: Case responses must be 2,000
words or less. Any responses over this length limit will be
disqualified.
Between March 27th and April 3rd, teams will meet to discuss
the provocateur questions and to develop their responses to them.
The team may spend no more than two hours working together
on this activity. As above, the time limit applies to all
meetings/communications of two or more team members.
There is no length limit on the answer to Provocateur
questions.
Resources for Case Responses
The team may refer to any recorded reference materials they
desire in developing their case responses. (You may consult the
writings of the sages, but you may not consult the sages
themselves about the case.) Case and question responses should
reflect the thinking of the team, and must be developed by the team
itself without participation of the faculty sponsor.
How To Develop a Case Response
In their case responses, teams should prepare a needs assessment,
including analysis of needs and alternative performance support
solutions. Their final recommendations should outline a preliminary
design based on the needs assessment, specifying goals, strategies,
and target groups where appropriate.
Case responses should be based on:
- Identification of the key issues present in the case,
- Consideration of the issues from different perspectives,
including those of the key players (stakeholders) in the case, and
- Relevant professional knowledge/experience that team
members possess.
The case response must be 2,000 words or less.
