This project has made a major impact on my academic career. Throughout the semester this project helped me understand program development, implementation, and how to assess the project you have created. I now have the knowledge of how to create a project that can affect lives and bring families together. Through our partnership with another Longwood class I have also learned how to assess a program by using surveys and data analysis. The process of creating a program like this is difficult and time consuming but can be done with well thought out ideas and proper execution. The project that my group created was a great success and the data showed that we reached all of our SMART goals for the project. Creating SMART goals is vital when assessing your work and should be done at the start of all programs. These SMART goals are goals that are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time bound.
Throughout this project I gained knowledge on parental engagement and how much of an impact it has on childhood development. Parental engagement is vital in the development of a child. Creating projects like this hopefully creates an environment where parental engagement is a regular activity in homes. I believe that the data showed that our project had 10 out of 11 families do it. These 30 minutes that were taken to improve a child’s motor development skills and creativity skills are also vital to their development.
This project was a success but it would be great to do it on a larger scale so that we could receive more data. Having gotten surveys back from just a few participants makes it tough to see what improvements could be made going forward. I believe that when this project is done another time it would be good to see how this project is received from different socioeconomic backgrounds and the effects that has on the data.
Throughout this project I used my leadership skills as the project I created was the one picked for the group. I was able to lead my group and show them my reasoning for choosing this activity and how we should make adjustments going forward. I was able to use my communication skills, time management skills, as well as my critical thinking skills which can be used often in the workplace.
I believe my biggest asset to the group was my leadership and creativity skills. I was able to think back to when I was a kid and get creative with the ideas that came to my mind to create the best activity possible. I was able to put myself back in the shoes of a youngster and think about activities that I would be interested in and what made them interesting for me so that we could get the most successful parent and child engagement.
This project was a major success and I believe it had a very positive impact on local families. I hope going forward we can have students going into the daycare to create relationships with the students and parents so that they are more likely to do the activity and give good feedback. I believe that this project is one that is going to grow and with proper funding can have a major impact on the Farmville community.