Learner.

If I had to choose one word to best describe myself at this point in my life, this would most certainly be it. I’ve always been a learner. Even my earliest memories are marked by a thirst for knowledge. From a young age, I wanted to know more about the world around me, how it was molded into its current state, and everything in between. I had shelves upon shelves of books as a child. I had history books about Egyptian polytheism, I had magazines all about the natural world, and I had field guides to the night sky. I could never seem to learn enough, and I enjoyed every minute of it.

As I grew older, little changed relative to my attitude about learning. I continued to seek new knowledge. So naturally, in late middle school and early high school when teachers started introducing the concept of a “career,” I knew I was going to end up in education. There was no doubt in my mind. I wanted to take the passion I had for learning and use it to help others. I know it sounds idealistic, but I wanted to help foster this same love for learning in future generations.

My love for learning landed me in Valdosta, Georgia in 2008. I was selected to attend the Georgia Governor’s Honors Program (GHP) as an Agriscience and Biotechnology major. While there, I was able to choose a minor subject to pursue. My minor? Education. This was the first setting in which I was able to focus on this field individually and learn more about it. My instructor, Mr. Daniel Byrd, would probably have been considered more a more progressive thinker than most regarding educational practices. I quickly fell even more in love with the field and Mr. Byrd’s teachings. He told us of a name that he and GHP Director Dale Lyles had come up with for a group of educators with beliefs similar to theirs. This was the Curriculum Liberation Front. My fellow education minors and I quickly adopted the title for ourselves as well. We were genuinely passionate about education and using it to affect the lives of others.

With this experience under my belt, I began my formal training in the field in 2009 as an undergraduate student at Lee University in Cleveland, Tennessee. My official major was “Biology (Teacher Licensure 7-12).” I graduated in 2013 with a 3.89 GPA overall, and had a 4.0 in courses taken through the College of Education. During my time at Lee, I was selected as a Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) Scholar by the Appalachian College Association (ACA). This is only awarded to the top students in the STEM disciplines across the 35 institutions that make up the ACA. I also received a Recognition of Excellence from the Educational Testing Service as my scores on the Biology Praxis II were among the top 15% in the nation. At graduation, I was also given the Scholarship and Performance Award which is reserved for the top student within each discipline.

After graduating, I spent some time trying to obtain a teaching position and was unsuccessful. This was a very frustrating time for me and made me question if I should have pursued education in the first place. However, in 2015, I learned of an opportunity through a friend with a business in Chattanooga that provided online courses for K-12 students. This company, Village Virtual, was in need of a Curriculum Manager. I remember my friend saying “They need someone who is great with technology and also understands education. They’re having a hard time finding someone with both skill sets.” Being a millennial, I grew up with technology. It’s second-nature to me. I can remember playing Centipede on Windows 95 as a child. So, naturally, this opportunity felt like the perfect fit. I sent my resume and was called for an interview. A few weeks later, I was offered the position and accepted. A couple of years after I was hired, my boss asked me if I knew why she hired me. I told her I didn’t know. She said, “It’s because, when I described the position and requirements to you, you didn’t flinch. Everyone else flinched. I knew at that point that you could do what I was asking of you.”  

I have now been with Village Virtual for four years. It was here where my interest in education was further refined to instructional design. As I became more comfortable in my position as Curriculum Manager, I started trying to figure out ways that we (Village Virtual) could do things better than we were. I was tasked with creating content to address opportunities for improvement across several courses. I had access to Adobe Captivate to create these assets, but I didn’t know much about it. My boss entered me in an online program through the Association for Talent Development (ATD) to allow me to learn more about Captivate and earn a certificate in the process. Even though the training was solely centered around this tool, I enjoyed it immensely. I looked forward to every single class I had. It was at this point that I knew I wanted to pursue this field further.

I began researching online graduate degrees in instructional design. The program at the University of Georgia was one of the first I found, and I was excited about the possibilities the moment I saw it. Being from Georgia, UGA has always held a special place in my heart, and applying for this program just felt right. It was in the discipline I enjoyed and at a place that was important to me. I applied and entered the program in the Fall of 2017.  

When I entered the program, I knew that my understanding of instructional design at that point was fairly basic. I could put a design together simply from an aesthetic standpoint, but when I tried to combine the aesthetic design and instructional elements to generate a learning experience for a user, I struggled. My implementation of instructional design at that point was very superficial. Therefore, my main goal when I entered the program was to expand my knowledge of instructional design and related principles. I wanted to understand how people learn and how to create environments that foster learning. I also wanted to understand how instructional technology is implemented in contexts outside my own, that is, at a corporate level, in higher education, in non-profits, etc. as opposed to a K-12 context. I was afforded the opportunity to address each of these goals through this program.

I am not certain if this was intentional on the programs’ part (I have a feeling it was), but I feel that each course gradually scaffolded in more advanced implementations of both instructional and development models. This definitely helped me become more purposeful about implementing these in my own work. Prior to enrolling in this program, I was developing a Career Explorations course at work. I finished development during my first semester in the program. I’m actually re-developing this course now because I felt that I could do a better job from an instructional standpoint. I’m using the Successive Approximation Model as my development model and a combination of Project-Based Learning and Gagne’s Nine Events of Instruction as my instructional model.

Additionally, I enjoyed working with several different colleagues in the program on a wide variety of projects. I was able to help create training in a variety of contexts including for volunteers for a non-profit agency, for workplace training for work-study students at a technical college, and even for kindergarten students in a rural school system in Tennessee. This helped me further understand how instructional design is implemented in settings other than my own. This was important to me because I didn’t want to limit myself to opportunities in the K-12 space after completing the program.

As I near the end of this wonderful program, I’ve started contemplating my professional objectives for the future. I would love to continue to study Instructional Design in a formal setting if opportunities allow it. I am also considering seeking further certifications in the field such as the Certified Professional in Learning and Performance (CPLP) from ATD. I know this will take more preparation and study on my part, but I feel my experience in this program has certainly given me a wonderful foundation and more to build upon! I’ve grown so much during my time with UGA, and I feel that I’ve further defined my personal vision and philosophy related to the field.

I believe that everyone has the innate ability to learn. Sure, some may have more capacity for learning than others, but this does not negate that learning is possible for all provided some criteria are met. Much of this criteria rides on the learner. For example, the individual must be willing to learn, believe that he/she can learn, and exert the needed effort to learn. However, I also believe the instructor, teacher, instructional designer, etc. is also responsible for ensuring the individual has the opportunity to learn. We have to create an experience that gives the learner every chance to succeed. To do this, we have to understand the needs of the learner, develop instruction around the needs of said learner, and make sure our instruction is rooted in sound instructional theory. We must also be dynamic in our work. We should constantly evaluate and improve our instruction using alternative approaches or incorporate new information to strengthen the instruction. The end goal never changes. It is to better help people learn. This is the reason I pursued education originally. This is why I continue to try to better myself in this field. This is what I was meant to do.