Creating the Marine Corps Community Services mini course will require combining Wiggins and McTighe's Understanding by Design Model with the Successive Approximation Model. 

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Understanding by Design, or "backward design," identifies the desired knowledge, skills, and/or attitudes learners gain through the learning experience. Given the organization's focus on outcomes, to justify the project and return on investment, it will be essential to establish the outcomes early.  In addition to identifying the outcomes, assessments, evaluation criteria, and performance tasks that meet the organization's standards, ensuring that they do so will also be essential. Both of these can be nested within the Successive Approximation Model's (SAM) Preparation Phase and further discussed during the savvy start meeting with stakeholders. Another key component in which SAM is applicable to this mini-course is the iterative process, working closely with stakeholders at each stage. 

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The subject matter isn't necessarily complex, so SAM 1 would be sufficient; UbD is typically best suited for topics requiring deep understanding and transfer of knowledge. Since this mini-course emphasizes real-world application, UbD makes sense. The broad range of learners, with diverse needs and experience levels, will be a significant challenge and may require an iterative approach to create the best learning experience. Given that the mini-course can be expanded into subsequent courses, the project could easily grow into a larger-scale initiative. Since I am the only one primarily working on this mini-course, the Rapid Instructional Design (RID) Model would be beneficial. Given that this project does not have an immediate time constraint, the RID Model isn't necessary.

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Combined Strengths of these models:

• The UbD Model maintains the emphasis on learning outcomes and focusing on the endstate of the learning experience while focusing on higher-order thinking. 

• UbD Model's focus on learning outcomes balances SAM's potential to bloat or expand outside of the original project scope. 

• Both UbB and SAM are flexible, adaptable, and learner-centric approaches.

• SAM maintains collaboration with stakeholders throughout the entirety of the process, which is a perfect opportunity to utilize the organization's Division Advisory Group and make it part of their collaborative, operational planning team projects. 

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Given that UbD and iterative SAM Cycles will be demanding, I will need to rely heavily on instructional (learning) design resources and subject-matter experts, as outlined in that area of my IDD.