LAMP Proposal + Followup Email

Link to Proposal Presentation - LAMP

Proposal

A Proposal to Present New Web Design Material to the Learning Actively Mentorship Program

For:

Rachel Watson, Mentor—Learning Actively Mentorship Program (LAMP)

Charlamagne Belknap
Paige Bodily
Anson Lichtfuss
Anthony Rodd
Megan Rogge
Robert West
English 2035: Writing for Public Forums

University of Wyoming

A Proposal to Present New Web Design Material to the Learning Actively Mentorship Program

Introduction

The purpose of this proposal is to discuss the necessity and benefits of aiding the Learning Actively Mentorship Program (LAMP) in developing significant and thorough content for their University of Wyoming webpage. This proposal will discuss: the background of LAMP and the students working with them, the problem LAMP has encountered, the proposed solution to this problem, beneficiaries of solving the problem, and a timeline of expected completion.

Background Information

English 2035: Writing for Public Forums is a class designed to partner groups of students with members in the community who have expressed need to further the achievement of their goals. This specific group is working with the Learning Actively Mentorship Program (LAMP). LAMP’s plan is to transform core science classrooms into engaging, interactive environments through the use of active learning classrooms (ALCs). The ALCs this program has created are comprised of pods of desks and computers for ease of group-work, a central location for the professor, and white boards and projectors all around the room. The format of these classrooms are designed to get every student involved in the learning process and eliminate the idea of a front and back of a classroom. ALCs and small group work help students focus on the application of learning content as opposed to memorization. 

Some of LAMP’s goals include improving the quality of undergraduate science education, increasing the percentage of pass rates in entry level science courses, and achieving top quartile status in publication rates in PhD faculty (University of Wyoming, n.d.). Governor Matt Mead created the Science Initiative and the subgroup LAMP. The task force assigned to these groups plans to implement the success of LAMP by training two full time faculty in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields to run the program, training graduate and undergraduate students as TAs and GAs in an active learning environment, and training most existing faculty by 2022 in using an active learning environment. Professor Rachel Watson is the interim leading role of LAMP and plans to hold this position until they begin hiring for two full time faculty.

As the leading role, Professor Watson is our primary point of contact for this ongoing project. With the information she has given our group and our diverse group of Accounting, Economics, English, and Computer Science majors we will provide different perspectives that can aid LAMP. We aim to conduct research and produce website content that will be useful to the long-term success of LAMP and its acceptance across campus.

Problem of Need

Overall, LAMP struggles with communicating its goals, helping other departments feel included rather than excluded, and a lack of web presence. Professor Watson also expressed a need to compile research from other universities on how their Active Learning programs have been successful.

LAMP’s relationship with the community is compromised because the community does not understand how their goals will positively affect them. This has led to an absence of support from the community and non-STEM UW faculty for LAMP’s mission. The lack of communication leads to tension within university departments.

This ties into the second problem: helping other departments feel included in the initiative. Since LAMP has received substantial funds to carry out its plan, it seems the departments not involved in LAMP feel left out, and possibly unwanted. This is not LAMP’s intention. Better communication with departments about LAMP and it’s purpose might clear up that feeling of exclusion. Professor Watson has identified feelings of exclusion from LAMP’s peers in non-STEM-field departments. Those feelings of exclusion arise from those outside fields being left out of implementation of Active Learning curricula and not having a good understanding of what exactly it is that LAMP is doing right now and what they have proposed to do in the future.

Another important thing that LAMP is missing is web presence. Currently, the LAMP page is very short and difficult to find. For a short while, the webpage could not be found, and we needed to search the Google cache to find a reference to the page (See Figure 1). The inefficient web presence affects students, government officials, and community members that might be researching LAMP and its purpose. With an online presence that is easily understood and accessible, LAMP will be able to communicate its goals, market its program, and update the community as the program progresses.

Proposed Solution

We propose to generate content for LAMP’s website. This will create a clear pathway for communicating its goals within the community. There are great examples of existing organizations working on similar projects, as well as specific techniques which we will use.

First, there are several other universities across the country that have already started up a LAMP program of their own. The University of Minnesota (UM) is one example. On the UM site (see Figure 2), common concerns and issues are identified and addressed, useful tools to empower professors were posted, and the whole site displays in a fluid, understandable layout. It can be seen that including each individual staff member can be a challenge, but websites provide a way for staff to uniquely engage the cause and make it their own. These websites also serve to educate several audiences in an effective manner.

There are also outside resources, such as an article written by Georgia Everse in the Harvard Business Review, to help guide our creation of completely new content for the website. Using the guidelines outlined in her article, the final product we write will be concise and meaningful (Everse 1). If it provides value to the reader in a way he or she cares about, we have succeeded. Such content may apply to anyone from a UW staff member to a state government official. Although the material will cover many topics, it will also stay focused and continually reinforce LAMP’s purpose (Everse 3). While we work to implement these strategies, keeping the narrative human and perhaps even telling a story will help extraordinarily (Everse 4). These are all keys to developing high-quality content, and we will actively use them for this project.

As we collaborate closely with LAMP staff, we will work hard to make this project a holistic representation of the program, clearly communicating its goals and how viewers might engage with them. The Active Learning Program is relatively new to the University of Wyoming, and this project will help disseminate positive information about this growing program.

Beneficiaries

Many categories of people, ranging from students taking core sciences to the entire state of Wyoming, can benefit from a successful implementation of a webpage for LAMP. For the purpose of this proposal, main beneficiaries will be the students of the University of Wyoming and the teaching faculty throughout campus.

Students at UW have heard little about LAMP, if they have heard of the program at all. By creating a better, all inclusive, online presence, students who are to participate in the courses LAMP intends to create will have readily available information regarding the methods of teaching they are to experience.With the incorporation of ALC’s and LAMP, their education, real world preparedness, and grades will also drastically improve.

Core science faculty will have better pass rates in their classes and more substantial curriculum. Faculty outside of the STEM-fields will have role models to observe the usage of Active Learning so they can implement it on their own in their own classes.

The proposed website design and information will benefit these community members by better informing them to LAMP’s purpose, and their existing and continuing work.

Timeline

We intend to have webpage material ready for LAMP to integrate into their new page by the end of the Spring 2016 semester. The final day for classes is May 5^th. In the interim, there will be several projects completed, including a presentation of this proposal to LAMP, and meeting with Professor Watson before April 7th.

Conclusion

The Learning Actively Mentorship Program (LAMP) seeks to aid students in successfully passing their introductory science courses. To do this, LAMP has begun to develop a new building with a more student-centered floor plan. In addition, the program’s members anticipate training new and current science faculty in Active Learning practices. As they work to complete their program, LAMP faces adversity by being unable to clearly define their purpose and how implementing new classrooms and Active Learning teaching will benefit the University of Wyoming and its students. To solve this issue, this group proposes to create better informed, clear, and concise content to be integrated into LAMP’s webpage. Once LAMP is fully unified into the University of Wyoming introductory science courses, the new webpage will better inform students and faculty at the University of Wyoming as to what LAMP is, what they do, and how the program will benefit them.

Works Cited

"Active Learning Classrooms & Learning Actively Mentoring Program." University of Wyoming. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Mar. 2016.

Everse, Georgia. "Eight Ways to Communicate Your Strategy More Effectively." Harvard Business Review. Harvard Business Publishing, 22 Aug. 2011. Web. 29 Feb. 2016.

"Making Active Learning Work." University of Minnesota. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Mar. 2016.

University of Wyoming. "UW Science Initiative." UW Science Initiative. University of Wyoming, n.d. Web. 28 Feb. 2016.

Appendix

Figure 1. University of Wyoming webpage; UW Science Initiative, Active Learning & Student Success tab;

Figure 2. University of Minnesota

Followup Email

Good Afternoon Rachel,

Thank you for coming to our presentation last Thursday. We are excited to continue our work with you for LAMP.

To recap Thursday's presentation, we proposed generating content for your website based off research and successful examples at other Universities.

In our conversation afterwards, we discussed possibly creating a video for LAMP as well as reorganizing and updating the new LAMP webpage.

As a group we have decided that maybe a video is out of the scope of this course. However, using our robust writing abilities and the skills we have practiced in Writing for Public Forums, we plan on refining and improving the webpage content.

We would love to meet with you in the next week to devise a plan most beneficial to LAMP. Is there a time that works best for you? Please ‘reply all’ to make communicating with the whole group easier.

Thank you,

The LAMP Group