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My WGU Point of View Related Links What I Dis/Like About WGU Contact Me Blog Capstone Task 3 Confessions 3/13/2014 0 Comments Can I let you in on a little secret? I'm a sellout. You see, if you've been reading my blog, you'll know that I am not the biggest Western Governors University fan. This feeling never dissipated during my time at the school. I've written numerous letters with suggestions for improvements hoping to get a response from someone, anyone . Nope. It never happened. I never even got an automatic email reply. Task 3 of the Capstone is really two papers in one. The first half requires you to work with a business and try to solve one of their problems using all of the knowledge that you've acquired through WGU. The second part of the task asks you to reflect upon your time at WGU. It basically wants you to tell the grader how you learned so much and now you're going to change the world! If you know anything about me, you know how I hate clearly biased questions like these, especially when their only purpose is to pad someone's ego. I knew that the grader would have to read what I wrote so that I could get a grade. I figured that this would be the time that I could finally get someone to notice me and maybe even respond. I had uploaded my draft when my husband, who usually doesn't interfere with school, talked me out of it. I spent the following afternoon re-writing that section. As I wrote it, I thought of how one of my classmates would write it. I met her during one of my group classes. She seemed to think that a degree from WGU was going to going to be the answers to her problems and that she'd be rich. (I hope she's right! She was a very nice person and I wish only good things for her.) Ugh! I felt horrible. I had to drink Pepto Bismol to settle my stomach. I'm a horrible liar and that's all I was doing. I knew my husband was right, but I really wanted to make a point. I thought there was a possibility that I might not get my degree if I did send that version, so I opted not to. Instead, I'm publishing it here. The irony is that the lie that I wrote about was one of the only sections I passed on the first try. Here's what I wanted to say in my Capstone/Task 3: *I've paraphrased the questions. 1. Tell us how you applied the lessons you learned at WGU to solve the client's problems. I suggested that the owner create an app for microcomputers. I thought that since he had only created the app for mobile devices that work on iOS, Android, and Windows, he was missing out on a large segment of the population. In speaking with the client, however I learned that microcomputers do not support apps and have been phased out since the early 1980s, when personal computers became more popular. (Supply Chain, Strategic Management) 2. Tell us what your SMART goals are, given what you've learned in your program. Finish WGU MBA by January 30, 2013. Attend all GMAT prep course sessions that start on February 2, 2014. Take GMAT in Spring of 2014 with a goal of earning a score of 700 or better. Apply to McCombs Business School at the University of Texas-Austin by the Round 1 application deadline. Start MBA program at the University of Texas-Austin in Fall of 2015. 3. Tell us how you'll be able to achieve your professional goals, given the lessons you've learned at WGU. I take offense to this question. It is biased and makes assumptions that it shouldn’t. This question assumes that I did, in fact learn something. It further assumes that I learned something that I can apply to my professional goals. It assumes that I have professional goals. And finally, it assumes that I’m willing to share my professional goals with the grader. Maybe they’re personal. Why should I have to compromise my privacy to pass a class? So much of WGU is about anonymity. When I submit my papers my personal information is (supposedly) left off. When I receive a grader’s feedback, I know nothing about that grader. Yet in this instance, I’m supposed to share my professional goals. Is this more evidence that grading at WGU is sub jective and not ob jective? When I applied for WGU, I had no idea what I was going to do with this degree when I was done. Here I am, two years later and I still don’t know. I do, however, know what I’m not going to do with it. I’m not going to get a promotion at work. I’m not going to be able to claim on my résumé that I know anything about economics, types of business ownership, business metrics, Agile versus Waterfall project management, negotiating labor relations, marketing or emerging technologies. None of these topics, which seem to be fairly standard for business professionals, were ever covered in the program. If I ever use the lessons I learned at WGU, the only thing I can think of is to assist any of my friends who happen to be teachers. I’ll be able to advise them how to write rubrics that students can actually use. I would encourage them to try and make them as objective as possible. I would also encourage my teacher friends to write questions that they want students to answer, not force them to either guess, or repeatedly watch “Getting Started” videos for clues as to what the questions are actually asking and what qualifies as “sufficient detail”. In all fairness, though, I can’t say that I learned this lesson from WGU. Perhaps I am most critical of the WGU rubrics because I used to write behavioral based exams and scoring criteria for a large state agency. If the rubrics I’d written looked like the ones used here, I’d have been fired. They are absolutely useless because of their subjectivity. I don’t believe that the graders use the same rubric that the students use, but if they somehow do, I can’t imagine how there is any inter-scorer reliability. In HR there is a saying, “If you can’t measure it, you can’t evaluate it.” The same should be true for grading papers. What I learned at WGU was that having objective criteria cannot be undervalued. By having clearly stated expectations, you give students the opportunity to give the graders exactly what is needed to pass a task. This is not the same as giving them the answers. No student should ever receive a graded paper with a grade that they are surprised by. It also gives the graders concrete feedback to give to students. It is extremely frustrating to consistently get the canned response of “needs more detail”. Lesson: Should I ever find myself in a supervisory role. I wouldn’t want my employees to not understand exactly what I expected of them and how they were being evaluated. Just as no student should ever be surprised by a grade, no employee should ever be shocked by an evaluation. I learned after successfully completing 11 courses, all while receiving the highest score possible for articulation, that I am in fact, not actually articulate. I received 0 points for articulation for Task 2 of the Capstone. This came as quite a shock since the grader was apparently able to muddle through my entire submission despite my inability to write coherently. From the comments, I gather that I received the 0 because I hadn’t put the submission in the correct document format. She cited that this was stated in a conference call that I’d been on. That may be true, it probably was mentioned on the call. The call, however, took place over three months ago. It is unfair to expect students to remember some mundane detail from so long ago. Was this meant to be a “Gotcha!”? I especially have trouble remembering things that I was never told. This grader made an incorrect assumption that I was on the call. I recall distinctly telling my team members that I was unable to attend the conference call because I was going to be on an airplane at that exact time. Moreover, this grader insulted my ability to communicate clearly because she had a box to check. A box that had apparently had no impact on her ability to actually read my submission. I submitted my task the way I have been doing for each and every class up until...