OP Specification

These are my goals for this OP.  They arise from a combination of my desired outcomes, the academic requirements for the output, and the constraints of an accelerated completion deadline.  In other words, what I want, what is needed, and what is possible. 

1. To communicate the principal work I did during my capstone phase and what I learned / unlearned through these processes.
2. To meet the surprising new deadline of having everything done by the middle of January.  This is twenty days from notice!  
3. To include all required elements.
4. To let go of perfectionism: can I prioritize getting it done over my standards for quality? 
5. To let go of beloved content:  can I prioritize getting it done over including all the cool things I want to share?
6. To work more quickly than ever, while traveling internationally, but still make time for quality reflection.

Goal Outcomes (as of January 14, 2020)

1. Accomplished:  This OP provides overviews of my capstone work evaluated from several different perspectives.
2. Virtually Accomplished:  I expect to have this OP functionally finished by today, although I anticipate change requests from my reviewers.
3. Accomplished:  This OP includes every section required by the PoDAPO form.
4. Partially accomplished:  I'm struggling to tell the difference between "good" and "good enough" and can't stop working on it.
5. Accomplished: There are a lot of things, especially imagery, which I'm just not going to include at this time.  Maybe later.
6. Accomplished:  OP completed in twenty days.  That is less than half as long as my next closest OP.

For the sake of expediency I leaned heavily on the design process that I’ve developed over the last few OPs.  This time, I made some adaptations in order to meet the accelerated completion deadline which gave the process a feeling of simply thrashing this document out.  These included a quick and dirty approach to Goal Setting, a minimalist Production phase, and a disruption of the sequencing with aspects of Evaluation happening before the production was even done and using other's feedback (Evaluation)as an element of Survey.  My familiarity with my framework gave me the agility to do this with confidence.   

My design process harkens to various familiar design frameworks (like GaSADIE, SADIM, etc. [Aranya, P.23]) in its arrangement of common elements:  I begin with goal setting followed by a survey of the elements and an analysis of how to fit them all together to best meet the goals.  I follow this with a decisions stage in which I commit choices about how best to move forward (note that in past OPs I’ve listed this as “design,” but I’ve changed the name for as Aranya rightly points out in Permaculture: A Step by Step Guide the whole process is design[Aranya p.24]).  Next comes the production of content.  Lastly, we review our work and ask for input from others as a form of evaluation that we use to refine our creation.  (I could call it The GsSADPER Framework, but I’d expect everyone to respond “bless you!” every time I said it.)   Translating that general process into a series of concrete steps for creating an OP leads us to the following seven-step sequence:  

1. Goal Setting:  Identify what exactly you are hoping to accomplish by undertaking this task.
2. Survey: Identify all of the elements that you need and/or want, and any specific requirements you must meet.  Make sure to identify all of the stakeholders, especially those not able to advocate for themselves! Figure out what you already have and what you need to create. Consider all the possibilities! Make sure to check your results against the required elements list provided by Gaia University.
3. Analysis:  Examine your desired elements and how each idea is related to other ideas.  What is essential? What might be fun or interesting? What would be nice to include but isn’t needed?  Who else is working on this and what do they think? How does your thinking compare or relate to that of others?  
4. Decisions:  Consider what you are going to keep and discard, in what order you should create all your content, what the narrative arc is, and how you’re going to source any items you don’t create yourself.  A mind map can be helpful at this stage, either paper or digital. Make sure to consider what elements lie within others and add this hierarchy to the map. Conclude your decisions process by creating a to-do list.
5. Production:  Follow the steps of the to-do list you created.  For an OP you are likely to have the following major processes.
   1. Writing:  Convert your mind map into an outline of your OP in a word processor such as Google Docs.  If you are using mind mapping software like XMind you can simply copy and paste the mind map hierarchy into your document. With this outline, writing the content becomes a process of "filling in the gaps.”  This process may take several passes as writing is an emergent process which will spawn new ideas and reveal flaws in your original thinking. As you write, leave yourself bold notes in the text about what to hyperlink and where to add graphical and other elements.  You may wish to update your mind map as you make changes, but I suggest keeping the original version for comparison if you want to reflect back on the process!
   2. Editing:  I recommend at least two editing passes for style, content, and structure.  Then share it with some editor friends for their corrections and feedback. I'm always surprised at what I learn.
   3. Layout:  Create a layout in Mahara.  Here again, refer to your outline for the structure and text box headers.  Since this makes the layout match exactly the structure of the Google Doc, transferring the content becomes a simple cut-and-paste job.  You can add your graphics and hyperlinks as you go, or do that as a separate step.  
6. Evaluation:  This and the following step may cycle a few times; we’ve already done one cycle of evaluation in our editing phase, above.  Here’s what I do: I share my OP with my peer for review, and maybe with some other folks, too. Time permitting, (it did not in this case) I like to share my OP with my Main Advisor for feedback at this stage as well. Then I incorporate all that feedback (Refinement) before submitting for pro-evaluation.
7. Refinement:  At the conclusion of the last step, the OP should be ready for review.  After passing through a round of peer review and then a pro review from my advisor, I incorporate final changes based on their feedback.  Now it is finished.

When I look back over my pathway I recall a time when OP design as a process was an elusive concept.  It should have been natural for someone with years of media design training and experience, and yet I struggled.  Truly, I found the OP process onerous and an imposition.  Yes, mine is a design major, but I was personally here to learn about ecosocial design; to improve my ecological literacy, get up to date on the latest and greatest approaches to sustainability, and learn new ways of organizing and leading people.  I was, in short, all about the project work.  The reporting on my learning just didn't matter that much to me and I found Mahara to be the worst kind of obtuse platform; some kind of torture device my Spanish ancestors would have devised during the inquisition, and seeing as I was explicitly in the business of shaking off ancestral trauma I wanted nothing to do with it.

But, I am an educator and the more I engaged with the pedagogy of Transformative Action Learning (TAL) the more I appreciated the integral necessity of this stage of the work.  There are four stages to the TAL cycle, illustrated below, and I realized that the OP process made me engage with the observation and reflection aspects of the learning cycle in critical ways. It also provided wonderful opportunities for thinking and planning.  Yet I still saw the OP as part of the project process – I did not recognize it as a learning cycle all to itself.  

I'm not entirely sure when this changed.  In fact, I believe it was a gradual process helped along by my advisors beating me over the head with it, but by my capstone phase I'd come to fully appreciate OP creation as a design process and Transformative Action Learning experience unto itself.  Indeed, all the elements are there:

• We think about our OP, what to include and how to organize it, and plan our approach to creation.
• We experiment with different approaches, different content, and act on these ideas.
• We experience our reactions and judgements about how our work is proceeding, and, in my case, feel deeply how annoying Mahara is.
• We reflect on our outcomes and the feedback of reviewers even as we observe how others respond to our work.

And these are just my quick interpretations of how the OP process is also a TAL process, but it can be interpreted many ways.  The point is that OP creation is a rich opportunity for both honing our skills as designer and meaningful action learning.  

So by my capstone phase I'd fully embraced OP creation as a design process, as a learning opportunity, and as a creative challenge.  I hope the outcomes of my capstone portfolio speak to this transformation.

Lots of renegotiation and uncertainty leading into this OP.  Because of an evolving situation with Gaia University’s accreditation provider, my deadline for completion of my program repeatedly shifted.  At one time I didn’t think I could meet it, so I was in no rush. Then on Christmas eve, 2019, I learned conclusively that I had until the end of January: 35 days left to complete my work.  Then, due to the required review processes, 35 days became twenty days.  This represents a significant acceleration of the review process as well, so I am grateful to all of those within Gaia University who flexed their schedules to make this possible.  

Considering I’d never completed an OP in less than 45 days and that I was on vacation in rural Kenya with limited internet, this seemed implausible. Instead, I decided to go for it. Accreditation is important to me and I figured it was worth the effort.  But also, I am ready to finish: 44 months in program is enough! That night as I was going to bed I cranked out a mind map of my outline and the next morning started writing. Having optimized an OP design process over my few OPs, I would now put this process to the test in a new way.

Introductory Reflections

The feedback process is one of the most powerful tools in the Gaia U pedagogy.  The layering of self-review, peer-review, pro-review, and the reviewing of one’s peer’s work creates a powerful pattern of feedback and self-reflection.  This has a several key outcomes. To begin with, It make one very aware of their strengths and weaknesses. In doing so, it teaches us to take feedback constructively: this is a gift, use it for your growth!  Taken together these are wonderful skill-builders for self-awareness.  

This process also reinforces an understanding of the criteria for success within the Gaia U system (and in the greater world).  One receives critique and one gives critique. How many times have I given largely positive reviews only to find myself wondering whether I am applying quality thinking?!  Learning to be critical of your own analytical skills even as you are conducting an analysis of the work of another is a wonderful stacking of skill-building functions.  

This critical self-analysis is particularly relevant in the question of the Self-Review.  One must remember the purpose of this step: to give yourself an objective assessment of your own work in order to help you improve it and yourself.  Challenging at best as there are temptations on both sides here. One the one hand, I have an inclination to notice every little mistake or omission and be overly harsh with myself.  On the other hand, it is important to celebrate one’s victories. I had a tendency to grade myself rather harshly for a time. In OP3 and 4 I tried a new experiment: highlighting what I’d done well and grading myself generously.  I gave myself an 87 and an 84, whereas I only scored my OP2 a 77. (In my pre-capstone phase my three project OPs only averaged 71.6!) I found that being more generous in my self-evaluations had a positive effect on my attitude and my work.  Rather than having a chronic feeling that I was never “good enough,” I started to feel that I’d done a great job, with specific instructions for improvement. I was still able to give myself constructive critique, but without the emotional burden of failure.  

I’ve found that it is critical to engage with all of these reviews while they are still fresh and immediately implement whatever changes you want to make to your OP based on the feedback.   This usually triggers a pattern of making a number of small tweaks discovered along the way which can have a dramatic effect on the overall quality of the OP.

Having taken the Gaia U Advisor/Mentor training and begun advising my first associates, I have an especially close relationship with the feedback process; it is both an academic and a professional necessity.  This training and my experience with my associates has upleveled all of my skills associated with this process.  

Cumulative Feedback Engagement 

For this OP5 – Learning Review I conducted a cumulative review of all my feedback from my capstone cycle.  Turns out there’s a lot! Six pro, peer, and self reviews, many of them with narrative addenda, plus six reviews of peer’s work, my acceleration review, and the cycle wrap-up.  Counting the reviews I did for others that’s over thirty documents! I did my best to scan them all and look for patterns. Below I offer some pattern highlights that stood out to me and how I have sought to address them over the course of this cycle.  

Themes that emerged repeatedly from OP to OP included:

• Typos:  I start off my capstone struggling with getting clean edits and over the cycle develop a way to bring in outside editors to catch the errors that I’m missing.  This results in much cleaner OPs at the time of delivery.  
• Attention to design processes:  While I engage deeply with design and experiment with different design processes, I start of the cycle being rather lax about documenting my processes and providing thoughtful reflection.  This improves markedly throughout my cycle. By OP4 I am writing an OP that is about design principles. In OP5 I provide a cumulative reflection on design frameworks.
• Integration of ideas:  My main advisor critiques me repeatedly for not throroughly integrating ideas I introduce into my writing.  She’s right and the result is disjointed narratives and “floating” ideas. I modify my writing style over time to make more use of outlines before writing, and to identify and make sure I connect ideas to each other and to the overarching arc of my narratives.
• Use of visual aids, graphics, etc:  During this cycle I had several OPs that were significantly time-crunched.  Because graphics are usually the last element I add to an OP, this step often got short shrift.  Yet I identify art in design as one of my skillflexes and make a concerted effort throughout this cycle to improve both my inclusion of visual aids, and my creation of them.  By the end my OPs (except for OP5 which is the victim [survivor?] of a massive time crunch) offer a more balanced presentation.
• Collaboration:  Collaboration is a huge aspect of how I work, yet I did not do a good job of articulating this in my early OPs.  OP2 in particular suffers from a dearth of this. I correct this in my later OPs
• Leadership:  Leadership development is integral to my thematic focus, yet at times I don’t write explicitly about my own leadership roles.  By OPs 3 and 4 I have rectified this and am very explicit about the leadership role I play in those projects.  

I have tracked highlights from all of this feedback in a Google document that is available at this link. 

I did it!  I completed this OP in record time and I like it! It is not be as visually complete as I would have liked, but it serves its purpose.  Content-wise I made some compromises with this OP. The coupling of international travel with a truncated delivery schedule meant that I would not have access to a collection of physical documents I’d set aside specifically for this document.  With a good outline, I was able to lean on my own memory, whatever materials I had available digitally, and a bit of imagination to tell a coherent story of my journey.  The adaptability of my design process enabled me to engage creatively with change (a permaculture principle) and use these shifts in the landscape to propel me to success.