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Competition Archives > 2004
In 2004, PacifiCorp (http://www.pacificorp.com/) and the Design and Development Division of AECT were pleased to offer AECT members an opportunity to participate in the first annual PacifiCorp Design and Development Award for promising instructional design research by graduate students working with mentors in the Design and Development Division.
The first awards were made at the AECT Convention in Chicago on October 21, 2004. The three finalist student teams were:
Team A |
Scott Switzer, University of Colorado at Denver Margaret Mistry, University of Colorado at Denver Andy Gibbons (mentor), BYU |
Team A Solution |
*Team B |
Ben Wiant, Florida State University Nathan Fisher, Florida State University Don Ely (mentor), Syracuse |
Team B Solution |
Team C |
Howard Solomon, Florida State University Sanghoon Park, Florida State University Kathy Ingram (mentor), South Alabama |
Team C Solution |
*Also won the award for the best solution presentation.
Each member of the 3 finalist teams received a competition plaque and team members who won the presentation round received additional ribbons. In addition, PacifiCorp paid for the student team members' conference registrations and D&D/RTD luncheon tickets for the 6 student team members and the 4 judges. PacifiCorp also sponsored a ?gmeet and greet?h at AECT on Wednesday evening prior to the presentation session for all participants.
In addition to the students and mentors, several others put in a great deal of hard work to make the 2004 competition possible:
Judges |
Dave Moore, Ohio State University Rob Campbell, Cerner Corporation Deborah ?gSunny?h Cohen, Raspberry Wood Instructional Design John Howse, PacifiCorp |
Committee Members |
MJ Bishop, Lehigh University* |
*2004 committee chair.
2006 Problem Statement:
Your company, a large insurance company with offices in 14 countries and in 37 of the 50 states in the US has determined that it can no longer afford to spend almost $5M USD each year flying sales personnel to St. Louis for a two-day meeting to learn about new insurance products and how best to sell them. The CEO contends that the return-on-investment seems too low. She is not convinced that face-to-face training has made any difference in sales, which have been relatively stable in the last five years.
During this period, there were two new insurance products introduced and five existing insurance offerings underwent significant revision. In addition, new seven new offices were opened, all of which were located outside the US. In fact, the CEO is considering eliminating the Training Department completely and just going back to on-the-job field training by senior sales representatives. You and your colleague are the only instructional designers in the Training Department and your department head is a strong supporter of the benefits of instructional design in training. Build a persuasive argument for your boss to use to persuade the CEO that:
1. Training is a worthwhile investment;
2. Instructional design makes a critical difference in the quality of training;
3. Senior sales representatives may not be the best trainers; and
4. Cost-effective training methods exist that can be effectively developed and deployed in your corporate environment.