OL 101. Sustainable Development Course: Design, Fund & Manage Projects
This OL 101 Student Resource Page has three sections that can easily be reached by clicking on the red links just below.
- Download Documents. This is where you can download Word, Excel and PDF documents that can save as course resources for future projects and use as templates for the assignments.
- The Course Website. Webpage versions of the discussions and assignments for each week.
- Read this first: The Class Home Page. This gives you an overview of the course and also sets up the course logistics.
Download Course Documents
OL 101. Sustainable Development Course: Design, Fund & Manage Projects
General Documents
Class List for Partnerships – Excel
Please don’t choose partners unless this has your course’s date on it. If it is the wrong date it is because your section’s list hasn’t been posted yet.
Class List for Partnerships – .csv
Assignment One
Summary of Ten Seed Technique Word Doc 35k
Ten Seed Technique Lesson Plan 72K
Ten Seed How-To Card; Photos and small file size PDF 203K
Ten Seed Technique Book PDF 2MB
Field Guide One 10 Seed Needs Assessment
OL 101 Assignment One Homework Word Document 35K
Magee Example Project OL 101 Assignment 1 Word Document 35K
Links to Development Sites and Docs Web Page
Exemple de projet Magee OL 101 de la semaine 1
Assignment Two
OL 101 Assignment Two Homework PDF 55K
Magee Example Project OL 101 Assignment 2 Word Document 35K
Specialized Links to Adaptation Documents and Sites Webpage
Links to Development Sites and Docs Webpage
50 Sustainable Programs and Activities Developed as Solutions to Community Challenges Word Document 35K
Exemple de projet Magee OL 101 de la semaine 2
Assignment Three
OL 101 Assignment Three Homework Word Document 35K
Magee Example Project OL 101 Assignment 3 Word Document 35K
Scientific Document Example: What Works in Fighting Diarrhea?
Exemple de projet Magee OL 101 de la semaine 3
Assignment Four
OL 101 Assignment Four Homework Word Document 35K
Magee Example Project OL 101 Assignment 4 Word Document 35K
Assignment Four Family Garden Field Guide Example Word Document 35K
Field Guide Knowledge Transfer – Developing Lesson Plans and Workshops Word Document 35K
Exemple de projet Magee OL 101 de la semaine 4
Assignment Five
OL 101 Assignment Five Homework Word Document 35K
Magee Example Project OL 101 Assignment 5 Word Document 35K
OL 101 Assignment Five Lesson Plan Example Word Document 750K
OL 101 Assignment Five How-To Card Example PDF 800k
Field Guide Knowledge Transfer – Developing Lesson Plans and Workshops Word Document 35K
Exemple de projet Magee OL 101 de la semaine 5
Exemple de Plan de leçon OL 101 de la semaine 5
Assignment Six
OL 101 Assignment Six Homework PDF 35K
Magee Example Project OL 101 Assignment 6 Word Document 35K
OL 101 Assignment Six Student Template to Fill In Word Document 61K
Exemple de projet Magee OL 101 de la semaine 6
Exemple de OL 101 de la semaine 6 – Étudiants Matrix Modèle à remplir
OL 101 – 2 minute Evaluation Form Word Document
Webpages with Weekly Course Discussions and Assignments
Specialized Links to Adaptation Documents and Sites
Specialized Links to Adaptation Documents and Sites
Welcome to CSDi Online Learning’s OL 101. Sustainable Development Course: Design, Fund & Manage Projects
Class Home Page
The Course
Welcome to the Center for Sustainable Development’s online learning course OL 101. Sustainable Development Course: Design, Fund & Manage Projects. In this course you will build a project around community need. It is the prerequisite for a second course, OL 102, which will transform your concept into a packaged project ready to fund and launch.
Logistics
The class week begins on Tuesdays; assignments need to be sent to me by the Monday 7 days later. This allows students without Internet at home to access Internet at work on Mondays in order to send their assignment in.
This first week’s Assignment will take longer that any of the assignments over the next 8 weeks. This is why I am giving you three weeks to do it. This will also give you extra time to get used to the course website, explore online resources and read introductory documents about the course.
You have signed up for a specific course within specific dates. If you are not able to complete the course within these dates, the Center allows you to take the course again for 50% of the normal course fee if you enroll in the very next scheduled course and use the very same project. Unfortunately, we can’t make exceptions.
On Tuesday/Wednesday, the first/second day of the course, I will post a student list in the Download Class Documents page with your names, countries, organizations, and what you do so that you can begin the process of selecting partners. Partnerships are not required for the course, however, if one or two people look interesting to you as a potential partner, please send me your choices and I will organize the partnership. Do not try and contact anyone directly; it adds tremendous confusion to the process. Move quickly: Start right away. Our goal is to complete the partnering process this week. Partners go quickly and experience shows that those that wait until Friday miss out.
You will land on this page—the Student Resource Page—each time you log in. It contains:
1. Links for downloading the weeks’ documents: be sure to save them for future reference.
2. Links for the background Discussion on the week’s homework assignment; in this case – OL 101 Discussion 1; read this first each week
3. Links to the week’s Assignment; in this case – OL 101 Assignment One Homework
4. Links to the Magee Example Project Assignment for each week.
5. This, the ‘Class Home page with the class rules and logistics
6. A link to the Email & Homework Etiquette page in the Download Class Documents gives the rules of the game for corresponding with us and for posting assignments. Please print it out and read it first.
Each week I will ask you to download my example project to use as an assignment template. If you have questions please contact me here: OL.341@csd-i.org .
Important: The Email & Homework Etiquette page in the Download Class Documents gives the rules of the game for corresponding with us and for posting assignments. Please print it out and read it first.
The Class Project
This class is designed to be fun. We are each going to develop our own project – hopefully a real one. Each one of your assignments is actually a concrete element in building your project. I will comment on the development of each of your projects and have posted my own project components as examples for you to see and use for ideas.
Please use my Magee examples as templates for your project. They are formatted such that one week is the building block for the next week and therefore we need to maintain the format of the examples I provide. Download my examples and just write right over the top of what I’ve written. In this manner you will learn the system and be guided in thinking through the components of your project. This will also make it much easier for me to read through each of your assignments as each participant’s will all have the same look and feel.
I will review each one of your assignments and make suggestions. In this manner, I get to know you through our correspondence, and I become familiar with each of your projects. My suggestions are meant to keep your assignment ‘on track’. There are very specific steps that we work through and each project usually needs a bit of guidance in preparation for the next assignment. Do not move onto the next assignment until you have received my comments on the current assignment.
I invest an unusual amount of time working with each student during the first two assignments, and I’m happy to do so. This is what I do as a consultant for my clients and so by the end of the second assignment you will each have a well conceived, well designed project outline that is formatted in a specific way so as to serve as the foundation for the rest of the 8 weeks—and for moving forward into OL 102.
We will lock in on this project concept at the end of the second assignment; your project concept can’t evolve, change, grow or morph from that snapshot over the following 4 weeks.
If in week five or six you have an idea and decide that you want to make changes to your project concept, I encourage you to develop a separate, new project on the side – outside of the course. Easier yet, upon completion of OL 101 and OL 102, using the templates that you have developed, you will see how easily and quickly you will be able to modify your course project to include your new idea after the course is over.
Assignments that drift from the original concept will be returned to be restored to the Assignment Two project outline snapshot.
Please send photos of you, your project, the community you are working with – and especially your Ten Seed needs assessment (get some good close-ups) and I will post them in an upcoming newsletter. For some tips on taking good photos please look at the Newsletter: Capturing Compelling Photos from the Field.
Class Rules
1. Schedule. The work load is between 2 and 4 hours a week. You need to stay on schedule. We all need to be on the same week. If you get behind the rest of the class, you will need to take the class again in the future. We allow you to take the course again for ½ price if you join the very next class and use the same project.
2. Certificates. Course participants who successfully complete a course on time will receive a course certificate. Learn more. Your certificate will be e-mailed within 30 days of the end of your course.
Signed certificates are delivered by email in a PDF format for you to print out. We do not offer paper certificates by mail. The name on the certificate will be your first and last names as they appear on your Student Enrollment Form.
Course certificates are issued for all students from one course all at the same time—usually within one week of the end of the course. Students requesting a replacement certificate at a future date will be charged a $15.00 fee. So save and backup your certificate when you receive it.
3. Email and Homework Etiquette: the rules of the game. We have had students from 153 different countries enrolled in different courses. It is a bit complicated managing all of the incoming emails. We have developed a system that you need to incorporate in submitting homework and in corresponding with us. Please read the etiquette page now.
4. Our Online Course FAQ has answers to most other questions.
Course Syllabus
OL 101: Community Based Adaptation
Assignment One. What’s the real problem?
Week 1. Learn to navigate course website and to download & read the week’s documents.
Weeks 2 & 3. What’s the Real Problem?
Read the document on participatory needs assessments and conduct an informal assessment with a few community members to uncover important community needs/problems. List the needs identified and organize them into a clearly described project outline—a development challenge that you are going to solve with your project design. We want this as real as possible.
Then, add a problem linked to climate change if your community hasn’t identified one.
If you live in Manchester or Chicago or Wellington—rather than Nairobi or Madras—and aren’t sure where to turn for project ideas—we can develop real projects for you in one of the following manners:
1. Go to a shelter, or an inner-city feeding program, or a drop in center for kids-at-risk and interview staff and beneficiaries about a new program that they would like to fund and launch.
2. Partner with someone who is working in the field in development. Two of you working together on one project could create a project with profound impact. And think of the connections you will both be making.
3. Contact me. I can give you a real-life rural development challenge that you can design a project around.
Week 4. What’s your theory of a solution?
This week we will clean up your project outline, develop a project goal, and search for 3 activity/interventions that would fulfill your project goal.
Week 5. Will your theory of a solution work?
Research one peer-reviewed scientific paper for each of your three activities and see if scientists have found evidence that the activities are effective in solving your project’s problem. Write a one paragraph summary of each papers’ findings.
Week 6. Will the community buy into it?
1. Return to the community with your project concept to get their feedback and a hopeful buy-in.
2. Pick one of your evidence-based activities and write a simple one page field guide that could be used by other field staff.
3. You will also make a list of the parts of your projects where you have no experience nor expertise and list who might be a good consultant or partner that could provide this expertise to your project.
Week 7. How will you transfer the solution to the community?
1. Write a workshop lesson plan for introducing one of your project activities into a community, and then make an illustrated, How-to Card to give to community members.
2. Brainstorm a list of 3 people that you would like to sell your project concept to: a donor, your boss, your professor. Make an appointment with one of them for next week.
Week 8. How will you organize your ideas for presentation to a donor?
1. Lay out your problem statement, goal statement, and intervention activities into a simple matrix that I will supply. This will prepare you for the next course: OL 102 where you will transform your project into something that can formally be presented for funding.
2. Share your project with someone that you would like to sell it to: a donor, your boss, your professor, someone in the development world for feedback.
Now that we’ve gotten past the rules we can begin our adventure together and have a lot of fun in the process.
So what’s next? Click on the Assignment One Discussion and get started in development!
Tim Magee