Reflection
Sociology 306 provided me with the opportunity to create a quick, but engaging, and developmentally appropriate kit to encourage bonding and educational progress between parents and their young children. My group created an obstacle course designed to highlight as many developmental areas as possible while also providing a versatile and long-lasting game.
This idea was informed by previous research completed by Longwood professors, including our courses own Dr. Bidwell. A needs-assessment of the local Farmville, VA community identified that parents often felt as though they did not have enough time to dedicate to their children and were not focused on prioritizing development as well as education. To combat this Family Fun-Time Kits were developed and delivered to multiple Head Start sites in the areas as well as Longwood’s own daycare the Andy Taylor Center. In order to identify the effectiveness of these kits, projects were planned with SMART objectives with the goal of sending out a survey to parents. Assessment was built into this project from the beginning. This was a wonderful experience to watch how a program should be developed for maximum impact. Plans will only get you so far, it is imperative to identify a need and design a program that consistently checks itself in order to improve as rapidly and accurately as possible.
A primary concern of my group when developing our kit was to be vigilant of the population we would be providing for. After speaking with Head Start representatives our class also spent weeks focused on the way families reduce stress and build resiliency. The students of Head Start were primarily minority populations with a low socioeconomic status and many of the families were single-parent households. The stress placed on such families is monumental as there may be difficult barriers to overcome for work, equality, childcare, healthy food, safe housing, etc. However, as we learned, families are able to work to overpower obstacles when they have resources such as local friends, insurance, employment, education, and familial security. Unfortunately, our class did not have the ability to provide all of these resources. However, we could provide an activity to implement and encourage some, such as family bonding and developmental education.
While I am quite proud of our project there are always opportunities for improvement and I will be highlighting some of these options below. Due to time constraints this project required a lot of hope for materials, budget concerns, quick deadlines, and large time commitments. While our team managed to accomplish our goals, it was occasionally stressful. Had we had more time or money we could have worked to improve the quality of our final product as they were delivered in paper bags and some cards were cut lopsided, looking less professional than I would have liked. Again, with more time we might have been able to increase the number of represented ethnicities, races, hair types, and disabilities. These images were incredibly difficult to find. However, regardless of these difficulties I believe our creation was impressive.
Team projects are not always my cup of tea, especially when the project is important to me as I struggle to give up my idea of perfection to someone else’s. However, this team did an incredible job, supporting each other, being there when needed, working both inside and outside of class, always being ready to listen and take suggestions as well as being prepared to take on a project we anticipated would be difficult. Teamwork is a life skill we all need consistent practice with and this is a great project to reflect on to remember that others have valuable ideas and are willing to work just as hard in order to create something wonderful. I am particularly proud of my improvement in this area and believe it was supported by my determination to accomplish my goals. I knew what my hopes for this project were and I believe this resolve to develop the best kit we could, encouraged us all to keep working until we found the ideal project. In creating the cards I also was able to use this perseverance to search for, and sometimes even create, the best images to represent the instructions on the card while also showing a variety of people and ability levels. I also provided this activity to my mother who is a preschool teacher, with the permission of my group members, who was able to give us feedback as well which was valuable information during the creation stage.
This link connects to the powerpoint created for our courses projects, it includes information and examples from my team’s project specifically as well.