Professional Overview
Before I present my portfolio, I’d like to elaborate on how I chose my area of study, highlight some of the intellectual gains I've achieved due the program and my professional goals.
When I decided to pursue a PhD, I put a lot of thought into which program was right for me: ATTD or CECS. I’ve been in the world of corporate learning and development for over a decade and when I reviewed the course offerings in the ATTD program, I came to the conclusion that the CECS path would provide more opportunities for academic and professional growth. There have been times in my classes when I’ve felt like the odd person out – the lone corporate island in a sea of teachers – but I’ve gained a greater appreciation for teachers and the challenges they face today. While there have been many challenges, I still think I made the right decision. In my opinion, higher education should help broaden one’s experiences, not merely reinforce knowledge already gained.
ADDIE and I have been good friends for years, and I’ve also used Gagne’s nine steps of instructions but during the course of my studies, I’ve enjoyed learning about other instructional design models as well as learning theories and have become more aware of the learner’s experience as I design courses. One example is our new employee orientation program. I was brought in as a consultant on this project because my manager wasn’t happy with the original design of the course. The original design would have subjected the learners to a whole week of the trainer (who was also the instructional designer) and a deck of PowerPoint slides. In the redesign, I trimmed the course to two days by focusing only on the most important information needed to get started then scheduled short follow-up sessions to cover anything else. I also incorporated some activities based on Constructivism. One section of the course that I christened “the parade of department managers” was originally to be an afternoon that was spent listening to the various managers lecture on the role of their departments within the organization. In my redesign, I had the learners break into teams and each team was assigned to a department. The teams interviewed representatives of the departments using a list of “starter” questions but could add their own questions as well. The teams then created “presentations” in any style to convey that they had learned with the caveat that they had to get the rest of the class involved with their presentation. When the course was implemented we had teams that presented using games, sketches and even an original song. The learners rated this activity as one of the most effective in the course.
While learning about instructional design models and learning theories had a much more immediate impact on me, the program has also introduced me to whole new worlds of knowledge through the ethics course and the philosophy course, along with various courses I had with Dr. Warren, even though I still get a brain twist when I think about ontology and epistemology. I think the most valuable thing I take away from this program is a healthy skepticism whenever I hear about the latest study results of something or another and I wonder if their methods were sound.
In the course of my career I have pursued a variety of positions, each one building on the other. I started as a music teacher in a tiny west Texas town and that background lead to having some kind of teaching component, whether formal or informal in almost every position I’ve held since. I left teaching for health reasons and my next series of jobs were in the audit and financial fields. While I was ill-suited to be an auditor or financial analyst due to my hatred of repetitious work, I was able to use my teaching skills and later began to learn about instructional design and create courses as a part of my job responsibilities. My fascination with technology began when the State of Texas converted from paper and pencil audit sheets to portable computers in the mid 1980s, even though these “portable” computers required a bit of muscle to lug around. I learned quickly and was assigned to help the other auditors with tech support in the field – a duty I much preferred to digging through rat-dropping infested papers and delivering bad news to small business owners. Since those early days I’ve learned more and more about technology and instructional design though each job I’ve held, through classes and on my own. I also learned that I enjoyed helping people learn and creating training materials and performance support materials, such as job aids more than anything else and also enjoy helping others find the most effective way to present information whether through a course, reference guide, or presentation.
In my parents’ generation, it was uncommon to have multiple careers over the course of one’s life: it is now commonplace. In today’s world it is very rare to graduate from college, get a job and stay there until retirement. There’s even the belief that most people will have from three to seven jobs or careers in their lifetime, though documentation for this theory is difficult to locate. Even if one does stay in the same career, it is necessary to update one’s skills. I think one of the greatest challenges facing the workforce is the ability to unlearn and relearn as necessary to gain skills and knowledge to stay relevant in their current career and to prepare for new careers. I see these changes occurring in my job as instructional designer. People are constantly having to adapt to new software systems, processes, procedures and regulatory requirements. These changes require unlearning the old way of doing things and learning the new.
During my career, I’ve witnessed the move from “just in case” courses to “just in time” training and a shortening of the time available for training – the convergence of training and performance support. The development of courses has moved from lengthy, instructor-led classroom training to tutorials delivered in short bursts focusing on one task or concept so the learner can access just the bits of information that are needed when they are needed. The need to be able to deliver training in such a fashion is what led to my initial interest in online learning, which then progressed to an interest in mobile learning.
I see mobile learning as a way to help serve the needs of a wide range of learners from elementary school children to adults and the possibilities for learning through mobile devices has yet to be fully explored. I’ve chosen mobile learning as my primary research interest because I see a juxtaposition with my other areas of interest: instructional design, online learning, lifelong learning and informal learning. I'd also like to explore emerging technologies and the use of games, especially those using augmented reality. My professional goals are to extend the current body of knowledge through the dissertation process. As a culmination of these efforts, I hope to transfer these concepts to the classroom setting at the university level.
When I decided to pursue a PhD, I put a lot of thought into which program was right for me: ATTD or CECS. I’ve been in the world of corporate learning and development for over a decade and when I reviewed the course offerings in the ATTD program, I came to the conclusion that the CECS path would provide more opportunities for academic and professional growth. There have been times in my classes when I’ve felt like the odd person out – the lone corporate island in a sea of teachers – but I’ve gained a greater appreciation for teachers and the challenges they face today. While there have been many challenges, I still think I made the right decision. In my opinion, higher education should help broaden one’s experiences, not merely reinforce knowledge already gained.
ADDIE and I have been good friends for years, and I’ve also used Gagne’s nine steps of instructions but during the course of my studies, I’ve enjoyed learning about other instructional design models as well as learning theories and have become more aware of the learner’s experience as I design courses. One example is our new employee orientation program. I was brought in as a consultant on this project because my manager wasn’t happy with the original design of the course. The original design would have subjected the learners to a whole week of the trainer (who was also the instructional designer) and a deck of PowerPoint slides. In the redesign, I trimmed the course to two days by focusing only on the most important information needed to get started then scheduled short follow-up sessions to cover anything else. I also incorporated some activities based on Constructivism. One section of the course that I christened “the parade of department managers” was originally to be an afternoon that was spent listening to the various managers lecture on the role of their departments within the organization. In my redesign, I had the learners break into teams and each team was assigned to a department. The teams interviewed representatives of the departments using a list of “starter” questions but could add their own questions as well. The teams then created “presentations” in any style to convey that they had learned with the caveat that they had to get the rest of the class involved with their presentation. When the course was implemented we had teams that presented using games, sketches and even an original song. The learners rated this activity as one of the most effective in the course.
While learning about instructional design models and learning theories had a much more immediate impact on me, the program has also introduced me to whole new worlds of knowledge through the ethics course and the philosophy course, along with various courses I had with Dr. Warren, even though I still get a brain twist when I think about ontology and epistemology. I think the most valuable thing I take away from this program is a healthy skepticism whenever I hear about the latest study results of something or another and I wonder if their methods were sound.
In the course of my career I have pursued a variety of positions, each one building on the other. I started as a music teacher in a tiny west Texas town and that background lead to having some kind of teaching component, whether formal or informal in almost every position I’ve held since. I left teaching for health reasons and my next series of jobs were in the audit and financial fields. While I was ill-suited to be an auditor or financial analyst due to my hatred of repetitious work, I was able to use my teaching skills and later began to learn about instructional design and create courses as a part of my job responsibilities. My fascination with technology began when the State of Texas converted from paper and pencil audit sheets to portable computers in the mid 1980s, even though these “portable” computers required a bit of muscle to lug around. I learned quickly and was assigned to help the other auditors with tech support in the field – a duty I much preferred to digging through rat-dropping infested papers and delivering bad news to small business owners. Since those early days I’ve learned more and more about technology and instructional design though each job I’ve held, through classes and on my own. I also learned that I enjoyed helping people learn and creating training materials and performance support materials, such as job aids more than anything else and also enjoy helping others find the most effective way to present information whether through a course, reference guide, or presentation.
In my parents’ generation, it was uncommon to have multiple careers over the course of one’s life: it is now commonplace. In today’s world it is very rare to graduate from college, get a job and stay there until retirement. There’s even the belief that most people will have from three to seven jobs or careers in their lifetime, though documentation for this theory is difficult to locate. Even if one does stay in the same career, it is necessary to update one’s skills. I think one of the greatest challenges facing the workforce is the ability to unlearn and relearn as necessary to gain skills and knowledge to stay relevant in their current career and to prepare for new careers. I see these changes occurring in my job as instructional designer. People are constantly having to adapt to new software systems, processes, procedures and regulatory requirements. These changes require unlearning the old way of doing things and learning the new.
During my career, I’ve witnessed the move from “just in case” courses to “just in time” training and a shortening of the time available for training – the convergence of training and performance support. The development of courses has moved from lengthy, instructor-led classroom training to tutorials delivered in short bursts focusing on one task or concept so the learner can access just the bits of information that are needed when they are needed. The need to be able to deliver training in such a fashion is what led to my initial interest in online learning, which then progressed to an interest in mobile learning.
I see mobile learning as a way to help serve the needs of a wide range of learners from elementary school children to adults and the possibilities for learning through mobile devices has yet to be fully explored. I’ve chosen mobile learning as my primary research interest because I see a juxtaposition with my other areas of interest: instructional design, online learning, lifelong learning and informal learning. I'd also like to explore emerging technologies and the use of games, especially those using augmented reality. My professional goals are to extend the current body of knowledge through the dissertation process. As a culmination of these efforts, I hope to transfer these concepts to the classroom setting at the university level.
