My Goals As A Learning Designer

 

Of the many graduate programs available, particularly among those offered at Arizona State University, this course was the only one that was immediately recognizable to me as being aligned with my own professional aspirations.  I am already passionate about creating effective, engaging learning experiences; with the additional strategies and resources afforded by this program I look forward to doing this at an even higher level.

By the end of this certificate program, I hope to have dramatically increased my understanding of effective implementation of Instructional Design both as it applies to my current profession (a classroom teacher) and to other potential professions.  My career as a teacher has been incredibly fulfilling, but it has also been exhausting.  It is not uncommon for me to spend 70 or more hours per week at work or engaged in work-related tasks.  Much of this time can be attributed to the original content I choose to create instead of using materials that are pre-made and pre-packaged for my subject matter but have little value to my own students.  By putting new techniques, strategies, and specific resources into play I can potentially reduce this level of time and effort while still providing great learning opportunities for students. 

I have spent time considering if there are other careers that can offer me the chance to create learning experiences.  There are many companies that employ instructional designers in roles that support education, where they create materials, activities, and assessments with the goal of engaging students in content that feels relevant and useful.  Although I would not be working with students directly, the idea of creating these programs still excites me and I want to learn if it could be a better fit for me in the future.  The instructors and peers that I meet during this program will also be assets because they can provide insight into some of these education-adjacent fields and how instructional design is used there.  If I do decide to shift to a new career field, having colleagues already working in that field would be a great support.

By the midpoint of this program, my goal is to have developed knowledge of at least two new design mediums (such as programs or tools) that I can utilize in my classroom.  This course can provide a solid foundation for using video editing tools as a support when creating instructional material.  I am excited to discover what other new resources I will be learning about and how I can put them to use.  My learners are junior- and senior-level students in a math classroom.  Over the course of my years teaching (particularly since the COVID-19 pandemic), I’ve expanded my understanding of what they need to be successful.  I need materials and activities that are: primarily visual, have a hands-on component or option, include ways to access the knowledge at a later date, can be broken up into very small pieces for short attention spans, provide low-stakes opportunities to test their skill, and are clearly relevant to their own lives in some way.  I’ve explored tools that bring elements of gameplay and gamification (Quizlet, Kahoot, and Classcraft) into the classroom to meet these needs, and also grown my knowledge of specific education-focused websites (Desmos and Quizizz) so that I can create interactive assignments that provide meaningful feedback.  Unfortunately, creating these kinds of materials and activities “from scratch” or with little original material is a time-consuming process, so I am eager to discover new tools that may streamline the process.

By the end of the LDT 502 course, I want to have a much better understanding of Instructional Design as a practice and how to use it as a structure for the learning experiences I create.  My life right now is almost wholly devoted to my career as a teacher, which means that providing genuine learning to my students is not only a professional obligation but a personal passion.  Seeing them succeed in a math classroom because they want to and not just because they have to motivates me to continually revise and adapt every lesson, regardless of how many times I’ve taught the material.  However, I want to feel confident knowing that the process I employ when creating these lessons is firmly based on a well-structured approach.  I want my lessons about parabolas to pique student interest and have them wondering how they could build an archway themselves.  I want my lessons about exponential functions to hook their attention and encourage them to debate the comparative benefits of different savings accounts.  I want my lessons about sine graphs to draw on their natural curiosity about the world around them and spark conversations about light, sound, and even the tides.   I also want those lessons to support them in mastering each objective, though.  In fact, I’ve communicated (repetitively and emphatically) that mastery is essential to academic success in my class.  By familiarizing myself with Instructional Design, I will be creating a stronger framework that I can use to accomplish this.  I anticipate that Instructional Design, when implemented as practice, will serve to reinforce my current approach while also providing critical markers for how, when, and why I must address specific weaknesses in my strategies.  For example, our upcoming unit addresses “Needs Assessments,” which I usually do as an informal step in my process.  After learning about the Instructional Design approach to needs assessment, I may need to re-evaluate how I implement this strategy.  As a result, my overall design approach will be fortified.

Both my short-term and medium-term goals for this course and the whole program are heavily focused on how I can best serve my own students.  However, looking out toward the end of the course, I also want to think about how the skills and resources provided by this course can be used to serve me in my search for a more healthy work-life balance.