Reflecting on the DPL course objectives, I believe that executing this project effectively helped me achieve most of the objectives. I particularly feel more confident about goal #2, in that I've gained a better understanding of how applying learning design processes leads to more effective learning experiences. Coming into ECT without ever dipping my toes into any learning- or education- related work, the field of learning design (and honestly education in general) was unclear to me. My background in design was more focused on the technical/technological side than the theoretical side, so when I learned theories of learning and cognitive science last semester, I didn't completely understand how these theories fit into the design process I was familiar with. I'm happy to conclude that this class has expanded my design toolkit and vocabulary, both of which are relevant to my research agenda. 

With this new knowledge, I can also now deduce that DPL is an effective learning experience because its design is scientifically grounded. The project-based format engaged us in constructivism, constructionism, social learning theory, and active learning: we chose a topic personal to us, and worked in groups to iteratively develop learning artifacts that were presented to and critiqued by our peers. While it's been a lot of work, I feel very inspired by the classroom I was a part of this semester. I hope to take this energy to classes I teach in the future.

One aspect of this project that I feel could be improved in future iterations of the class is the "Lead" roles that were designated at the beginning of the semester. I'm not sure if this was only the case in my group, but I felt that there wasn't enough scaffolding for those roles to accurately reflect how the same roles would function in industry. We collaborated well, solving problems together and splitting up work evenly, but it wasn't always clear how having a lead at that moment could be useful. One solution could be conducting meetings with groups of students who have been assigned (or are interested in) the same role, and have some sort of focus group that details what responsibilities these roles typically have in real work settings.

I learnt about the importance of project management. For a large project like this, we might not even be able to fully review each other's work. It is important to define ahead of time what tasks we have, who is doing which part, and make the division clear so that no one is doing overlapping and repetitive work. Poor project management could result in poor time management, more anxiety, wasted work due to insufficient communication and delay of work. 

i also learnt about the importance of asking right questions, and how important it is to have a more defined scope of project at the beginning. Our group went through so many changes during the analysis phase due to the broadness of the topic, causing the data we gathered to be also too broad, unrelated, and cannot easily convey a story. It took us way longer to actually define the problem. But once we have a clearly defined and workable problem, everything went well smoothly afterwards. 

Something I still don't know is not to solve conflicting ideas that's on a higher level. Very often the way we organize things only make sense to ourselves but not other people in the group, but when this happens, it is hard for other people to work on it because it is too unclear what we are doing. So when we all have different ways of organing information and cannot understand each other, what shall we do?

At the start of our project, our group had trouble defining our project's scope since interdisciplinary career exploration is a very abstract, broad problem to tackle that lends itself to many different design solutions, or rather- doesn't lend itself to a single instructional design. As we interviewed stakehodlers, we were better able to narrow our topic to interdisciplinary collaboration- which was still a broad topic to tackle, but was a really good compromise that still got to the roots of the problem we wanted to alleviate initially. 

Throughout this project, I learned about the mediation process and how to let go of really valuable and intriguing ideas that just don't fit the goals of the project. It can be a hard process, especially when you put a lot of work into something already. However, the final intervention (whether proposed or implemented) can be a lot stronger as it can incorporate a lot of the initial elements and directions of the project into the final design while better fitting the learners' needs. Essentially, I learned a lot about the process in overcoming problems in order to successfully create a  design aimed to improve the initial conditions. I believe our current design does just that and I'm proud at how far our team has come.

Also, it was fun to be able to test out a part of our intervention and facilitating user research. I really enjoyed being able to evaluate our design and see the startings of how they can positively affect the learners we are designing for.

In the evaluation phase, I realized the importance of establishing clear objectives and criteria for evaluation. This involved defining specific metrics and indicators to measure our prototype and the effectiveness of our strategies. Quantitative data became instrumental in this stage, providing concrete numbers and statistics that helped us confirm whether our design was intuitive and how to advance it.

However, as we delved deeper into the evaluation process, I began to appreciate the complementary role of qualitative data. While quantitative data furnished us with measurable insights, qualitative data opened a window into the underlying motives and reasons of our participants. Through methods such as interviews, usability testing, and open-ended feedback, we obtained a deeper comprehension of the experiences, viewpoints, and emotions of those involved. I discovered that qualitative data not only enriched our understanding but also fostered empathy on various levels. Direct interactions with users allowed us to empathize with their situations, hurdles, and goals. This, in turn, enabled us to more effectively address their needs and concerns, thereby catalyzing meaningful improvements in our project.