In your Final Project, you will reflect on what you and your colleagues accomplished over this term and how it has prepared you for academic success and meeting the professional and academic goals you had in mind when you enrolled at Walden. As a member of the Walden community, you are motivated to effect positive social change and participate actively in this group of scholars.
After watching the Eric Hickey: Shining Light on Darker Paths video, located in this week’s Learning Resources, how might you use what you learned from Dr. Hickey to become a catalyst for positive social change in your community?
Social change can, indeed, be far reaching, affecting the lives of individuals across many countries and regions of the world. However, social change can also be relatively small and focused, improving the lives of single individuals, your colleagues, a family, a community. Those lives, in turn, will impact others. It is not the size of the change but the intent, focus, purpose, and spirit of advocacy and benevolence that creates ripples of hope for you and others
You have already identified many resources in your network—in this class and outside the university—and within the wider Walden community. Support is best used when you know what you need; it is hard to get support in building a ladder if you do not know what a ladder looks like.
If you have an idea of what a ladder looks like, you can ask for rungs and nails and a hammer. Think of the resources offered by Walden as the rungs and nails for your ladder, but you are the one who must design the ladder. A Professional Development Plan allows you to design your ladder and identify which supports you need to build it.
Remember that you must help your colleagues along the way with their ladders too. Think of what you need to give, as well as what you will need to receive, in terms of support and help.
A Professional Development Plan explains how you, individually, came to the decision to begin your graduate studies, what you envision for yourself and others when you complete the degree, and what objectives or steps you need to define in order to realize your dream and become your previously envisioned “future self.” You will refer to your Professional Development Plan when you want to check your progress or re-evaluate your goals. It should be motivating and related to the mission of Walden, your mission, and the community of your colleagues. Remember, we are all in this together.
PowerPoint presentations will be used in many of your courses at Walden. This Assignment will also provide an opportunity for you to become familiar with, or become a more advanced user of, PowerPoint as a communication tool, which will include the use of narration. As a Walden University student, you have access to Microsoft Office 365, including PowerPoint. To learn more, review the Microsoft Office 365.Links to an external site.
Note: You are strongly encouraged to submit this Assignment as a narrated PowerPoint presentation; however, if you are having difficulty with the software, you may submit it as a Word document with sufficient notes to explain each “slide.” Please contact your Instructor if you need any support with this Assignment.
Resources
Be sure to review the Learning Resources before completing this activity.
Click the weekly resources link to access the resources.
WEEKLY RESOURCES
To prepare:
Review the Learning Resources for this week and specifically focus on how to create a narrated PowerPoint for your Final Project presentation.
Use the PowerPoint Template, located in this week’s Learning Resources, as a guide in completing this Final Project.
Final Project Assignment (12–16 narrated slides)
For this Final Project Assignment, you will create a 12- to 16-slide narrated PowerPoint presentation related to your Professional Development Plan.
Your PowerPoint presentation must include the following:
Cover Slide (1 slide)
Include a cover slide with the following information:
Project title
Date
University
Course number
Your name
Part I: Personal and Professional Goals (3–4 slides)
Include a brief personal introduction, where you:
State your personal and professional goals.
Articulate how these goals intersect with your academic interests and selected field of study.
Review the mission of the university, and reflect on how this mission statement connects to your personal vision for future practice:
Walden University provides a diverse community of career professionals with the opportunity to transform themselves as scholar-practitioners so that they may transform society.
Explain how specialized learning and the attainment of a doctoral degree will help you meet your career and personal life goals.
Part II: Educational Background and Research Proficiency (3–4 slides)
Reflect on the formal and informal learning experiences that compose your educational background, and then explain how these experiences support the direction of study you established in Part I.
Note: You are encouraged to include specifics about your individual knowledge, skills, and accomplishments.
Explain the academic and research proficiencies you bring to the program, and then identify any areas you want to consider for improvement.
Explain your current readiness to engage in academic research.
Note: Honest disclosure will help you gain clarity about any knowledge and/or skills on which you may need to improve in order to succeed in your program.
Categories for you to consider when writing this section include the following:
Academic coursework in the social and behavioral sciences
Academic coursework in other fields
Professional presentations, seminars, and workshops
Volunteer activities
Prior experience designing and executing research
Publications and other writing experiences
Teaching assignments
Professional training
Academic strengths and weaknesses
Research strengths and weaknesses
Availability of library, reference, and information technology resources
You should be clear about your plans for preparing for doctoral study, particularly if gaps exist in your background.
Part III: Plan of Study and Program Progress Guide (PPG) Form (3–4 slides)
Create a timeline for completing the requirements in your PPG for this Part III.
Note: Refer to your Program Progress Guide (PPG), which is available in your student portal.
In your timeline:
Group your degree requirements into stages of progress.
Note: It is suggested that you target a completion date and work backwards from this date.
Identify specific milestones of academic progress and time frames for completion.
Account for review, revision, and approval of academic work throughout your timeline.
Note: Be familiar with the approval processes of your academic work.
Part IV: Ethics and Positive Social Change (2–3 slides)
Explain how the APA ethical principles relate to positive social change.
Explain how ethics and positive social change align with your professional and academic goals.
Even though you are providing narration for your PowerPoint presentation, please also write detailed speaker notes for each slide to complement the slide content. Speaker notes should be clear, in-depth, and function as augmentation to the slide material.
Note: These notes should be written with sufficient depth to allow someone else to deliver the presentation. Make sure the PowerPoint presentation reflects graduate-level writing and presentation standards, with professional looking graphics and appropriate fonts, formatting, and spacing.
Your presentation should be explicit in its detail about what you plan to do at Walden to meet your personal and professional goals.