my instructional design story

When I was accepted into the MEd program in Instructional Design at UMass Boston, I was beginning yet another new chapter in a professional life that had already seen several distinct phases. In the decade prior, I had worked as a Title 1 Math interventionist with elementary-age students, drawing on graduate studies in education from Framingham State and Bridgewater State. While I was familiar with pedagogy, my transition into a role as a math instructor and technology specialist at the Rhode Island Regional Adult Learning agency in Woonsocket meant that everything I knew had to be reframed. My skillset needed to be reconfigured to serve a different population, and I could see that studying instructional design would be the bridge to make that happen. Now that I am approaching completion, I am amazed, looking back at how much of what I learned was not reframing, but was entirely new territory for me.

I was glad that the program began with introductory courses that introduced me and the other students in my cohort to what instructional design is all about. INSDSG 602: The Adult As Learner had us take a deep dive into adult learning theory and think about what motivates adult learners and what challenges they face. Learning more about how life experience, focus on practical goals, and self-motivation affects the learning styles of adults required me to shift my mindset, adjusting how I implemented concepts like Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and Backward Design. I had to learn to respect and leverage an adult's autonomy. I felt during these first couple of semesters that I had to frequently remind myself that although some of the same ideas were at play, adults perceive things very differently than children and have vastly different expectations. One size of teaching does not fit all.

At the same time that my touchstone concepts and teaching style was evolving, I discovered how well the some former roles I had held had prepared me for instructional design work. Having a background in design made some of the technical tasks of creating digital content much easier. Other technical demands of the curriculum came with a steep learning curve. Trying to master video production in Camtasia, animation in Vyond, and e-learning tools like Articulate Rise was very challenging and took long hours of troubleshooting software, rerecording and editing tracks, and iterating learning modules that did not work perfectly on the first try. These tools can produce incredibly professional and useful results, however, and I found that my new skills were considered a valuable asset by many of my colleagues. I started using these skills to promote our agency on social media and for grant writing, with immediate results. 

Equally impactful were the non-technical, business-oriented courses. INSDSG 604: Communication Theory and Practice and INSDSG 607: Project Management for Instructional Design fundamentally changed how I approach the non-teaching aspects of my job and have had an effect on how the whole agency communicates and manages projects. Learning to create project plans, anticipate stakeholder expectations, and explicitly define communication methods provided me with a vocabulary and methodology that one often sees in the private sector, but is not always found at non-profit organizations. Furthermore, resources interwoven in classes like LinkedIn Learning modules have given me something valuable to share with my colleagues and made me a professional resource for others; reinforcing my belief that effective instructional design includes curating and passing onward the tools that empower others.

Creating this capstone ePortfolio has been an exercise in reflecting on what the most important take-aways from the program were for me and has given me an opportunity to think about how I can continue to share what I learned with others. Looking back, this journey was never just about acquiring a new credential or professional vocabulary. It was an exercise in relearning what I thought I already understood, discovering ways in which my background as a designer and an educator intersect, and building technical fluency while balancing many other obligations. I will leave UMass Boston not with just a degree, but with a permanently-transformed perspective on how learning itself is designed, delivered, and experienced.