Parenting Course — Angela's Portfolio

DD Parenting Course

Snapshot

As part of my master’s program at WGU, I designed and delivered a 7-module parenting course for parents of children with developmental disabilities (DD). This involved conducting a literature review, identifying a research problem, and recruiting study participants. I conducted a research study, performed needs analysis and learner analysis, and produced empathy maps and personas. The final deliverable was a free DD community e-learning solution that can be accessed HERE.

Challenge: Parents of children with Developmental Disabilities (DD) struggle to attend and stay engaged with traditional parenting courses. Create an infotainment-style, self-paced course tailored to the unique dynamics of these families.

Audience: DD parents from a variety of backgrounds, education levels, socioeconomic statuses, cultures, and childhood experiences. Often overwhelmed, exhausted, and uninspired to try new approaches. Very limited on time.

Strategy: Trauma-informed pedagogy integrated with UDL prioritized safety, predictability, relatability, and flexibility throughout this training program. Lessons were delivered in both English and Spanish via videos (that could be stopped/started as needed and viewed/re-viewed at any time and from any location).

Impact: YWCA Green Bay program participants built modern job search skills that enabled them to secure meaningful employment.

Process

My research involved studying DD parent challenges and opportunities. It was discovered that many DD parents cannot attend a traditional parenting course because of the struggle to find qualified childcare, feelings of overwhelm, and a belief that the information presented may not apply to their situation. DD parents are at an increased risk for stress and parenting insecurity. Combining this with the fact that parenting classes tend to reduce challenging behaviors, cultivate more positive parent-child interactions, and improve parent quality of life, it became apparent that there was need for a self-paced, virtual course that could be delivered in an efficient and relatable manner. Challenge accepted!

Research

After fully analyzing the instructional problem, I turned my attention toward learner analysis and created empathy maps and personas. These tools aided empathetic design and ensured the learning objectives could be met for the target learners.

Analysis & Empathetic Design

Based on findings related to the use of animated characters in learning and parent education, I decided to use CreateStudio to rapidly develop entertaining and approachable modules that emphasized key points. It was also decided that I should incorporate parenting scenarios through characters. This provided examples of child struggles, parent responses, and corresponding outcomes in a less-triggering manner.

Development

Learners needed to be able to access the course from any location (e.g., work, home, mobile device, library), so I published it to a DD website. Having a webpage enabled the presentation of a full course introduction along with visual links to each module and the summative assessment. Additionally, if parents didn’t have the direct link, they could easily navigate to the course through the known website.