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Competition Archives > 2007

In 2007, 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 fourth annual PacifiCorp Design and Development Award for promising instructional design research by graduate students working with mentors in the Design and Development Division.

The following three finalist teams advanced to the final round of the competition and presented their solutions at the AECT Conference in Anaheim:

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. 

In addition to the students and mentors, several others put in a great deal of hard work to make the 2007 competition possible:

*2007 committee chair.

PacifiCorp Competition

Your role:

You are part of a team of instructional design consultants hired by Wallerich Company, Inc. Your team typically works on the analysis and design of instructional media that are ultimately produced by a professional media production group. These media include print matter (brochures, booklets, posters), audio, video, electronic media (websites, presentation materials and/or Flash-based pieces that are presented on the Web or on CD-ROM) and instructor materials for face-to-face training.

Wallerich Company, Inc.

Wallerich is a forest products company founded over 100 years ago as a logging operation. Today, Wallerich specializes in the production of paper and packaging materials. Wallerich operates from locations around the United States that include the original logging operation, a paper production facility, two packing materials production facilities, and a corporate headquarters. Although middle and upper management at Wallerich tend to be a highly educated group (most of whom have at least an undergraduate degree), the majority of workers (approximately 500 of them total at the logging and production facilities) are more moderately educated. Most workers in the logging and production facilities have at most a high school diploma (many have only one year of high school), and many of the workers are the sons and daughters of Wallerich employees. The company has a tremendously loyal following among its logging and production personnel and jobs at the production facilities in particular are considered excellent career options within the communities in which these facilities are located.

The problem the company faces:

Wallerich is concerned with the safety of its employees. This is both a company commitment to the wellness of its staff and a financial consideration (accidents are costly in any number of ways). Although Wallerich has a safety record that is similar to other companies of its type, it wants to do better, and the company has set for itself the goal of becoming the world?fs safest logging and production facility. The Wallerich board of directors realizes this may be a costly endeavor, but they are agreed among themselves that this is a worthwhile expenditure and have allocated a generous budget to this project.

Currently the company adheres to the United States?f Department of Labor?fs Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA) regulations. For example, CPR and first-aid training is required for employees engaged in logging activities, and all supervisors are required to receive training that includes introductory and specialized courses and materials that enable them, ?gto recognize and eliminate, or reduce, occupational safety and health hazards in their working units,?h (OSHA regulation 1960.55(b) ? see http://www.osha.gov/).

The logging facility, paper production plant and the two packaging materials plants each share the need to train all employees in safety procedures that include first-aid and CPR. They would like to do more, though. Wallerich would like all employees to receive training in the following:

?E          accident investigation

?E          back injury/safe lifting

?E          fall protection

?E          eye protection/safety

?E          emergency planning

The Wallerich board of directors has disseminated a request for presentations directly addressing the issues involved in delivering instruction that covers the five safety concerns listed above to the approximately 500 workers at the logging and production facilities.  The request from Wallerich has asked teams to minimally address the following:

?E          Methods of analysis that will create a solution appropriate for the audience?fs education and prior skill level.

?E          An approach to the development of the final material presented to the learner

?E          A plan for evaluating the effectiveness of the material.

NOTE: Keep in mind possible non-instructional approaches that might be applied to support instruction as well.

What the company is asking of you: As instructional designers with advanced knowledge of instructional systems, you have been asked by the company's CEO to present a training solution and preliminary designs for training materials. The CEO would like to see a few possible delivery strategies and hear your thoughts on the strengths and weaknesses of these strategies. Before meeting with your team, the CEO has asked that you supply him with a short executive summary that helps him understand your ideas. As you begin this project, the creation of this document is your first task. 

Once you have agreement that your ideas are appropriate for Wallerich and its goals from an independent learning consultant (a role assigned to your mentor), you will begin to create a vision of the training program and necessary materials. You will work with the independent learning consultant on what will become the training materials presented to the CEO. What you create will be the model for Wallerich safety training, and ultimately will need to be explained to the Board of Directors in terms that business people will understand. As much as possible, justifications for the decisions that went into your planned model will need to be provided. The creation of the documents that will be distributed to the members of the Board of Directors is your second task.

You've been part of the team that has put together all of the safety training materials. The CEO has now asked you to make a half-hour presentation to explain and distribute these materials to the Board of Directors. Present your case for your solution to their problem.