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Welcome, Stephanie, to Demystifying Instructional Design, a podcast where I interview instructional designers to help figure out what it is instructional designers do. To begin with, can you start by introducing yourself?
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Hi, my name is Stephanie Smith.
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I am the learning and design manager for Tri-State, which is an electric utility co-op.
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So a very interesting part of the business to be in the energy sector at this time.
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And I've been in instructional design for about 16 years.
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And then before that I was a teacher for seven years, and then in the education field for quite some time at this point.
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How did you get into instructional design?
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How did you make that transition?
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Yeah, I was teaching.
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I had become a master teacher and I was really hitting burnout, as many do, and I was like, what is my favorite part besides the kids that I love?
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And that was curriculum design and and building things.
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I started this was way back before I think even e-learning had its big...
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I mean, there was some stuff out there, but it wasn't huge.
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It was distance learning type of things that were out there at that time.
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And so I started working for the Library of Congress doing these sort of virtual field trips and stuff, creating these experiences for students.
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And I used that as the base of my portfolio and then I begged for a job.
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I found a company wasn't a great company but found they were hiring.
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And I just begged quite a few times and then they finally gave me a chance and I came in.
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I'm trying to remember all of it, but I came in and I felt really comfortable on the design side.
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But I really had to learn technology where I think a lot of teachers feel that sometimes, which is funny because I tell people like, You really don't need to know the technology as well as you think you do.
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But I sat with people.
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I learned... we had a recession hit at that point.
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Everybody was losing their jobs.
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So I thought, I better I don't have to be the best, but I better not be the worst designer.
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So I started reading a lot of books, really trying to just up my game as an instructional designer.
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I was doing a lot of I was doing a lot of e-learning and video and I think finally my, my boss, who was also my mentor at the time, he's like, if you've read all of these books, why don't you just finish your master's degree?
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And I had read the entire curriculum for my master's degree before I ever even got there and took the
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master's program.
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He recommended me, I got in and I got to work with some really amazing people in our industry, like Patti Shank.
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She became a mentor for me as well.
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So it was really good.
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I've had two really big mentors in my career that have taken me to those next steps, those next levels both times.
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So it was really, really beneficial to have that.
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A question for you is how do you describe what you do when when you say, hey, I'm an instructional designer, How do you describe that to people?
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So what I tell people is that we use a lot of we use like brain science, we use learning theory to really help people learn skills and knowledge to help further...
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like in the corporate world, we do that for for employees.
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And part of that is, gosh, I'm trying to think of how I would answer that question.
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But I think one of the big pieces that I try and explain to people is anybody can, like a SME can put together a PowerPoint or they can put together a training and really where our where we're really beneficial is that we represent the learner, right?
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We are looking at what is the best way to convey this information? What is the best way for this learner to learn?
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We know there's not going to be a ton of retention for a two hour course versus smaller chunking pieces.
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And so we as brain science and we use learning theory and we and we put together our best methods of trying to transmit that information to improve performance.
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Cool! What kind of projects do you find fun?
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I think in my career I've really enjoyed when they have an actual problem and I have to really think it through and really do analysis and to do.
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I had one where, you know, they came back and they're like, we have to teach this skill.
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It's a super important safety type of skill and we go through this whole process of analysis and we realize that as we're going through this analysis and talking and interviewing people on the job, that everybody was doing something different.
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And so we realized that there was a there was a huge discrepancy on what was supposed to be the actual process.
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So I actually love projects that have a problem where I have to really be creative and think outside the box.
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And then I also really do love doing courses that are fun with lots of different multimedia.
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I love doing video, so there's a development side that I enjoy.
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But from that design side, I really love figuring out, Hey, this is the problem.
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What are the nuances of the problem?
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And then coming up with different types of solutions that will really attack that and help.
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And so what are the biggest challenges you face as an instructional designer?
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I think one of the biggest ones is order taker versus consultant.
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A lot of instructional designers, especially newer ones, they come in and what do you want?
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You want a video?
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I'll make you a video.
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You want that?
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They take the order and they create the product, versus really trying to get down to what is the issue, what is the problem you're solving for?
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And really being able to guide the customer into a solution that's going to be the best solution for a learner.
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And one of the things that I've always had guide me is if I wasn't willing to take my own training, that I didn't do a good job.
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It's because it's funny.
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I've been a teacher, I've been a trainer, and if I can't sit through it because I just I'm not a good student sometimes.
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And so one of my benchmarks.
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If I can't stand it and didn't hit it out of the park.
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I totally relate to that.
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And when I was working in tech writing, it was the same thing.
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If I didn't use the stuff that I was writing as a reference, then it's not good enough.
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It's not solving the problem.
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And so that's very interesting.
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And I really like the order taker versus consultants analogy there because there is so much of that, especially when people don't understand what instructional designers do.
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It's, oh, build this training for me.
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I want training for that.
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Yeah, I want an e-learning course.
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Okay.
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Why?
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What exactly do you want it to do?
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Yes.
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What do you think you're going to get from it?
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Yeah.
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And having having them get something from it.
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Right.
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You want to be able to have that return on investment and I would say corporate.
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In the corporate world, we don't do a great job on doing that.
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But I've really worked hard to try for our department to make sure that we're showing our value right.
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I'm trying to advertise, hey, these are all of the things that we fixed for the company that we did for the company.
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And so that it... that's the other thing, right?
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In a recession, what's the first department to get killed?
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We don't need training, showing your value, being a consultant and a huge portion of that is starting a project as the lead.
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You've got to lead the project.
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You've got to guide your customer through those processes, but explain what we're doing and trying to teach them.
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I have at this point, some of the people we work with, they just love it.
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They're like, I know you're going to handle it.
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You're going to guide me each step, and they really enjoy it working with us.
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That's awesome.
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So what skills do you find most useful in your work?
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I have seen very successful instructional designers in my career and not so successful.
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There really is a brain for it and it's not necessarily something that you're going to learn in a program.
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But one of the biggest skills is managing a project.
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If you can't manage a project well, you will have scope creep and you will you will have a you'll have a very impatient customer who then starts changing their mind and then you don't know what you're doing anymore.
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So having really good project management skills, and part of that's customer service and communication pieces of talking your way through the process and then having this mental ability to organize and chunk content and to look at content and convert it into something that is a lot more easier to digest.
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For example, I might look at a participant guide and if I see paragraph after paragraph, I'm like, I'm going to snore through.
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This isn't working.
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How do you create graphics?
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How do you pop things out?
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How do you make it digestible?
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And those are some really key things.
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And so when I'm interviewing, we create scenario questions because want to see how how does their brain work?
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How do you get from A to B to C?
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And that's going to show me what kind of designer you are.
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So there is a brain to it.
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It's not always, hey, I can make a really great job aid or I can make a video.
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It really comes down to how do you organize and chunk information so that learners can consume that and be able to retain it.
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What advice would you give to the new instructional designer?
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My first mentor, one of the things he had us do was we would take learning theory and then we would try and figure out how to apply it in real life.
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And so we would do these sort of workshop scenarios.
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And I will tell you that you start to really
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learn a learning theory that way and really think about
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how if you're looking at behaviorism, how am I applying that to what I can do for my learner?
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And so they weren't always.
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A lot of them were very rhetorical and discussions, but we really tried to figure out how do you take these concepts and apply them in different mediums.
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So that was one of the things that I think can really help.
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Do you have an example of that?
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Do you have one that off the top of your head?
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One of the ones that I did through that process, I did the format theory, which is not actually really obscure, but a teacher think she was a teacher.
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She came up with this one.
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But basically it combines a whole bunch of things from like Kolbe's Learning Theory of how we perceive and internalize training as being able to take some of that and apply like how do you give time to give content and then allow for processing and then communicating that that content out.
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So that was one that we did.
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It's harder to do with e-learning, but it's pretty easy to do in the classroom, right?
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You can present content, you can allow them to.
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Then you have to look at what is the schema of the learner.
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Having a learner that's somewhat familiar with the content.
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Like if you're teaching something about dogs and you're like, Oh, I love dogs! That's the learner's brain's going to do right?
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There can be like, I'm learning all this content about dogs.
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They're going to reference their memories and experience of dogs and you're going to encode that that into their schema and then having them have a chance to think about it, to process it, and then to communicate that back, that's going to help reinforce what they're learning.
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And so those are some types of examples that haven't used that one.
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But I should say I've used that one as an example to use, but I haven't actually got to do an amazing course about dogs.
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I would love that.
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And so you mentioned you're a hiring manager and so when you're hiring an instructional designer, what are you looking for?
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One of the biggest pieces for me is do they fit on my team personality wise?
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And I think that's where I've seen a lot of people online very discouraged, where they're like, I didn't get this job, or I went through this whole hiring process and sometimes it has nothing to do with your skill set.
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Sometimes it has to do with how are you going to fit in with the rest of my team because I need you to be able to work together.
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Yes, there are skills, there are competencies that I am specifically looking for, but that is one of the bigger pieces of what, of who gets hired over someone else.
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I recently was looking at two different candidates and they were really equally strong and one one of them didn't have a strong portfolio.
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But you know what?
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She sent me emails thanking me.
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She followed up.
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She got a lot of eagerness from her.
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And so when I went to compare the two, because they looked really close, I was like, I'm going to take the one who just put just a teeny bit more effort into it.
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And that's what I ended up going with.
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I know it's brutal out there, but knowing learning theory and understanding the difference between learning theory and instructional design theory, that's a big one.
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You should know the difference.
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A lot of people can't answer that question, which is really surprising our industry.
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And so having being able to like take a scenario, walk through it, I have I've hired people who said I don't know to a question.
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I can teach that.
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So being honest, if you don't know something is totally fine For me as a hiring manager and portfolios, honestly, they can help you, but they don't get you the job.
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For me as a manager, I'm really looking at like how your resume looks and that's going to get you in my pile of interviews and looking to see how you perform on that, those interviews.
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And then I'll probably take a look at your portfolio and see you.
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It looks like you have those skill sets or but you're going to talk about that in your interview with me.
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You know, it can be a lot of things, but the portfolio doesn't make or break for the job hunt.
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And what can somebody do to stand out.
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And guess that should be... okay.
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I have hired somebody based on their portfolio before.
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And this person, he was straight out of college.
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He'd never had a job before.
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He had an amazing portfolio.
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I didn't believe he made it.
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So I called him because I didn't think he made it, and he did! And he walked me through his process and he walked me through what he did with his portfolio.
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And I hired him and I trained him on all the other stuff.
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But so I have hired somebody based on their portfolio.
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Guess I should be honest about that.
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But that was because he had zero experience, right?
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So he had an amazing portfolio, zero experience.
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But most of the time I see a lot of people who have decent portfolios and some experience.
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So you have a stack of resumes.
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What makes some person someone stand out over someone else?
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Good.
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That's a good question.
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Okay.
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So things I'm looking at, when you have, and I'll take you've got some of your job titles.
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But what I'm specifically looking at is do you have the tasks that an instructional designer does in that list of what you did for that job?
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So are you managing projects and SMEs? Ae you communicating with those stakeholders?
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Are you are you following the ADDIE process, doing analysis on different projects?
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Are you developing?
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Some people are not developers.
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There's a lot of instructional designers that just do the first analysis and design and they hand it off right.
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I work in a shop where we do everything from soup to nuts, so I want to see that you know how to do everything from soup to nuts.
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And if you have that, then I'm usually in the yes pile.
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I'm going to I'm going to at least give you a chance and give you an interview.
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Cool. You mentioned that when you get to that interview, one of the things you do is scenario.
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Can you give an example of the types of things you ask people?
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Yeah.
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So one of the questions I will ask is if you had to teach the color red, how would you do that?
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So if your objective is describe the color red, how do you fulfill that?
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What would you do?
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What what learning theories would you bring in?
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What would you do to teach that?
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Wow, that one's got me really thinking! I was, like the color red.
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Really?
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That's interesting.
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And then in a sense, it's a little bit of a trick question because anytime you have the word describe, you're really, really what that does in instructional design is you're telling me what it is and what it isn't.
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I've used red, I've used the I've used an elephant or a moose.
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We've used all sorts of different things depending upon the interview, but we're really looking at, can you tell me, can you describe what it is and can you describe what it isn't?
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You create learning pieces around that, and a lot of times what people do, they'll go and say, Oh, I want to teach them the parts of a moose and I want to teach them what an elephant sounds like.
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So they'll start to get that.
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And I know that's where their brain is going.
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And that's really the answer to the question.
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The color red is particularly hard because there aren't parts to it.
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But it's funny because the thing that went to my mind, are okay, so the RGB values and the hues and all of the things that make the color red.
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Red like the prism.
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Yeah, that would be a correct answer.
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Yeah!
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Thta's fascinating.
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Or one of the other ones is I'll ask and I'll say, tell me about your your favorite learning theory.
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Why do you use it a lot?
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What do you use it for?
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How do you use it?
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So just getting to talk about how they're applying those instructional design pieces around that.
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I also ask a question like, if you were going to design...
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You got a project to design new hire benefits, like you came on to the company and you have to teach a new hire about their benefits.
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What would you do?
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So things I'm looking for are getting stakeholders involved, starting with analysis.
00:18:32.920 --> 00:18:34.690
It's really an ADDIE question, right?
00:18:34.690 --> 00:18:36.549
What are the points of.
00:18:36.549 --> 00:18:48.130
And so just having them talk through that sort of scenario tells me that they understand the process and they understand how to... if they SAM or if they use something else, that's fine too.
00:18:48.130 --> 00:18:53.349
I just want to see that they can apply the instructional design theory and follow up with that.
00:18:53.440 --> 00:18:57.759
What are the biggest mistakes that people make during the interview process?
00:18:58.059 --> 00:19:05.019
So having examples and using examples that don't fit with an adult learner.
00:19:05.019 --> 00:19:15.609
So the big red flags I have, if they if you start talking about, Oh, I can have somebody do a crossword puzzle, what's the actual benefit of that besides busy work?
00:19:15.759 --> 00:19:18.369
You can do some vocabulary, things like that.
00:19:18.460 --> 00:19:21.549
Just to say I use it for vocabulary, but that's about it.
00:19:21.759 --> 00:19:27.099
Yeah, but typically that's not going to be something that we're and if you use that as an example, that's okay.
00:19:27.099 --> 00:19:34.420
But I've had a lot of people who, who don't seem with the examples that they use, they're not thinking about what an adult learner is.
00:19:34.420 --> 00:19:39.789
And then I know that's not going to fit with my clients, right?
00:19:39.819 --> 00:19:44.170
They're going to be like, why am I filling out a crossword puzzle?
00:19:44.200 --> 00:19:46.269
Whereas they're trying to learn.
00:19:46.269 --> 00:19:54.519
One of the things that we do at my company is we have we have apprenticeships, so people are coming in and it's like a college in a lot of ways.
00:19:54.519 --> 00:19:56.859
It's not to say that we don't do vocabulary with
00:19:56.859 --> 00:20:02.470
them, but that is... they're looking at pieces of machinery and how things fit together.
00:20:02.470 --> 00:20:10.809
And so you've got to you've got to think about what's going to engage an adult learner and what makes sense for them, if that makes sense.
00:20:10.809 --> 00:20:12.640
So that's usually a red flag.
00:20:12.640 --> 00:20:22.119
I also again, I'm looking at different types of teamwork questions or part of the interview process is it's two sided, right?
00:20:22.119 --> 00:20:28.509
We are interviewing you to see if you fit with us, but you should be interviewing us to see if we fit for you.
00:20:29.049 --> 00:20:31.089
You think people forget that sometimes.
00:20:31.089 --> 00:20:40.210
And part of that is I'll ask you a question like what's your favorite part of the process or what's your favorite things to do at work?
00:20:40.210 --> 00:20:48.039
And if it's completely different than what we do, then we know we're not probably a fit. We want, I want you to be happy.
00:20:48.039 --> 00:20:52.930
I want you to stay and work for me for a long time and be engaged.
00:20:52.930 --> 00:20:56.500
And so I want to find somebody that's going to want to do what we do.
00:20:56.769 --> 00:20:58.059
It makes total sense.
00:20:58.059 --> 00:21:00.369
How big is your team and what is it comprised of?
00:21:00.369 --> 00:21:06.099
What types of people, do you have instructional designers, but do you have other trades as well?
00:21:06.700 --> 00:21:07.450
Yes.
00:21:07.450 --> 00:21:18.460
So we have three instructional designers and then I have an IT trainer, so she does some of the design work.
00:21:18.460 --> 00:21:31.329
She's like a SME in-house for IT projects and then she's also our trainer. Then I have an LMS administrator and she also helps manage and run the apprenticeship programs that we have.
00:21:31.450 --> 00:21:38.619
I team manage partner with our other team, which is our trades and crafts facilitators.
00:21:38.619 --> 00:21:40.210
I think there's nine of them.
00:21:40.210 --> 00:21:48.579
So they are doing training on all the different facets of an energy company from generation of transmission.
00:21:48.579 --> 00:21:56.769
So we have somebody who's teaching linemen how to be linemen, teaching electricians and mechanics how to operate a plant.
00:21:56.769 --> 00:21:57.940
So it's very extensive.
00:21:57.940 --> 00:22:01.720
So there's nine of those guys, and then we also
00:22:01.720 --> 00:22:03.250
partner with the safety department.
00:22:03.250 --> 00:22:10.180
So the safety they have, gosh, I don't know how many facilitators they have, they might have up to ten.
00:22:10.180 --> 00:22:12.130
It might be like somewhere between 5 and 10.
00:22:12.130 --> 00:22:18.250
I'm not sure how many facilitators they have over there that go out and do safety teaching and we support them.
00:22:18.250 --> 00:22:20.769
We build programs for them as well.
00:22:21.009 --> 00:22:25.720
And then we have an organizational organizational development person.
00:22:25.720 --> 00:22:32.170
So she's looking at our leadership programs and some of it is like change management.
00:22:32.170 --> 00:22:34.150
So some of it's that sort of big picture piece.
00:22:34.150 --> 00:22:43.900
So we partner with her and then we have on my team, my instructional designers are part of they do they're part of a DEI committee, some leadership, different committees.
00:22:43.900 --> 00:22:56.140
So not only are they doing that, but they're also trying to be part of these bigger corporate changes that are integral to what we have to do in-house.
00:22:56.140 --> 00:23:02.380
And yeah, and my team of designers, I think instructional designers, I usually have anywhere between 3 and 4.
00:23:02.710 --> 00:23:04.269
I have four right now, sorry.
00:23:04.269 --> 00:23:09.579
When you're looking at portfolios because you mentioned you look at resumes first, but then interview and look at portfolios.
00:23:09.579 --> 00:23:11.619
What are you looking for in the portfolio?
00:23:11.619 --> 00:23:12.609
What do you want to see?
00:23:13.029 --> 00:23:14.349
That's a good question.
00:23:14.829 --> 00:23:27.430
So the first thing I will say is I've had people submit portfolios that are locked where I have to go in and I try and get in there and then I contact them to give me permission to see it.
00:23:27.940 --> 00:23:29.589
That wastes my time.
00:23:29.589 --> 00:23:39.339
So having something that is easily consumable is very important because if I have to waste time, I'm going to go to the next person.
00:23:39.730 --> 00:23:49.000
Not to say that I won't take a look at it, but and totally understand all of the sort of IP types of issues that that come with that.
00:23:49.000 --> 00:23:54.240
But make it easy for me as the hiring manager so I can see your stuff really quickly.
00:23:54.250 --> 00:24:02.200
I will say that I spend probably about five minutes in there, so I'm looking for examples of do you have an e-learning project?
00:24:02.200 --> 00:24:06.160
Do you have... does it have audio, so can you do audio?
00:24:06.430 --> 00:24:07.829
Do you have a video project?
00:24:07.839 --> 00:24:09.730
Do you have a participant guide?
00:24:09.730 --> 00:24:13.960
Do you have some examples of job aids or writing?
00:24:13.960 --> 00:24:23.009
I had one person who had a portfolio where she showed this really cool interactive job aid to get started with jobs.
00:24:23.019 --> 00:24:26.140
It was something so different I had I've never seen.
00:24:26.559 --> 00:24:28.269
She immediately got an interview.
00:24:28.269 --> 00:24:31.329
Like I was like, yeah, I want to talk to her because this looks cool.
00:24:31.329 --> 00:24:39.009
So if there is something really special that you've made that stands out, I know a lot of the colleges will have you do write ups.
00:24:39.009 --> 00:24:40.089
I am skimming.
00:24:40.089 --> 00:24:41.019
I am looking for...
00:24:41.019 --> 00:24:43.450
Do you have the basic development skills?
00:24:43.450 --> 00:24:49.900
Your resume should show me that you have the knowledge skills for instructional design.
00:24:49.900 --> 00:24:54.099
But can you show me that you have the development skills?
00:24:54.400 --> 00:24:55.789
Do you have a PowerPoint?
00:24:55.809 --> 00:25:10.960
I've had a hard time too, where there's only Rise courses in somebody's portfolio. That's not e-learning, where it's higher level e-learning, branching with different types of questions and application pieces.
00:25:10.960 --> 00:25:12.549
I want to see that you can build some of that.
00:25:12.549 --> 00:25:17.470
So some of it is really just to show some examples or or skills.
00:25:17.470 --> 00:25:22.119
I will even take screenshots like if I can just see, hey, you did build something like that.
00:25:22.119 --> 00:25:23.170
Works for me.
00:25:23.289 --> 00:25:27.670
But again, I may have 20 resumes so you get five minutes.
00:25:27.670 --> 00:25:29.259
So it just needs to be clean.
00:25:29.259 --> 00:25:32.319
I don't want to have to try and figure out where it is.
00:25:32.319 --> 00:25:38.920
If there's a huge file structure that happens too! So those are anything that makes it not.
00:25:39.130 --> 00:25:48.250
I might dig into something a little bit longer if I'm really interested in your your stuff, but you have to, it has to have that five minute mark.
00:25:48.250 --> 00:25:49.210
I'm going to just skim it.
00:25:49.660 --> 00:25:53.230
And if it looks good, you're in the "Yes" pile, that kind of thing.
00:25:53.230 --> 00:25:56.920
You mentioned earlier that you use an LMS for your e-learning.
00:25:56.920 --> 00:25:57.369
What?
00:25:57.369 --> 00:25:58.960
Which I'm curious... which LMS?
00:26:00.009 --> 00:26:00.640
Yeah.
00:26:00.789 --> 00:26:06.430
Right now we're using Sumtotal Learn which just got bought by Cornerstone.
00:26:06.460 --> 00:26:17.680
I've worked, I actually had a job at one point where we used to sell our training and part of my job was to get it implemented on customers' learning management systems.
00:26:17.859 --> 00:26:22.720
So I ended up like learning a ton about learning management systems.
00:26:22.720 --> 00:26:26.349
And it's really funny because it's like a dime a dozen, some of them work great.
00:26:26.349 --> 00:26:30.579
You have to know what your... what do you need it for?
00:26:30.579 --> 00:26:33.880
And then usually you can find a product that's going to meet that.
00:26:33.880 --> 00:26:46.569
So Sumtotal, it is not the... it looks good on the user end, on the back end it's a lot of work, but it meets the needs for what our company needed at the time.
00:26:46.569 --> 00:26:48.400
I'm running out of questions.
00:26:48.400 --> 00:26:51.670
I'm wondering if there's any question you want me to ask.
00:26:51.670 --> 00:26:56.319
I see a lot of people wanting to transition into.
00:26:57.029 --> 00:26:58.400
Instructional design.
00:26:58.410 --> 00:27:05.220
And then there's a lot of there's a lot of debates about whether you have a master's degree or you do a certification.
00:27:05.230 --> 00:27:08.190
I went the master's degree route for myself.
00:27:08.190 --> 00:27:11.250
I actually felt... did my program prepare me for everything?
00:27:11.250 --> 00:27:14.730
No! But it took me to that next level.
00:27:14.730 --> 00:27:17.670
It did bring me where... it built.
00:27:17.670 --> 00:27:27.599
I would say some confidence, but it also took me into I would say that if you're it took me to that senior level of design, if that makes sense.
00:27:27.599 --> 00:27:31.170
I will look at people who have a certification.
00:27:31.170 --> 00:27:33.359
I know there's a lot of great programs.
00:27:33.359 --> 00:27:34.859
There's not so great programs.
00:27:34.859 --> 00:27:46.859
But I will say a master's holds a lot more weight for me as a hiring manager just because I feel like you get a lot more of design theory and you get a lot more skills.
00:27:46.859 --> 00:27:52.859
And I know some people come out and they're like, I don't know how to do Articulate or I don't know how to do Captivate.
00:27:53.099 --> 00:27:54.089
Oh, they're easy.
00:27:54.089 --> 00:27:56.279
Don't worry, I'll teach you.
00:27:56.279 --> 00:27:57.960
I'll teach you that stuff on the job.
00:27:57.960 --> 00:28:09.720
But having a good understanding of adult learning theory and having a good understanding of how to apply learning theory and how to think through.
00:28:09.740 --> 00:28:18.170
I remember doing a capstone project where I was running my own business and I thought at the time, I go, I'm never going to need this.
00:28:18.170 --> 00:28:20.029
I'm always going to work for someone else.
00:28:20.029 --> 00:28:30.769
And I ended up having a consulting side business and I used that! I took the stuff that I used from there and and was able to apply it and then I felt a little bit better.
00:28:30.769 --> 00:28:33.109
Okay, I could work for myself if I wanted to.
00:28:33.109 --> 00:28:43.670
But I do love I like being in the corporate sphere as much as I enjoyed the consulting piece, but that's where I really like being.
00:28:43.759 --> 00:28:45.980
Yeah, everyone has their preference, right?
00:28:45.980 --> 00:28:47.599
Like they do.
00:28:47.599 --> 00:28:52.609
And one of my employees, she came, she was on her way to be a college professor.
00:28:52.609 --> 00:28:55.400
And she's an amazing designer.
00:28:55.400 --> 00:28:55.880
She's...
00:28:55.880 --> 00:28:58.849
so talented, and I really want to keep her.
00:28:59.000 --> 00:28:59.390
so...
00:28:59.390 --> 00:28:59.690
right?
00:29:00.259 --> 00:29:02.240
So as a manager have to really work hard at that.
00:29:02.240 --> 00:29:06.859
But it's I wouldn't say that there's a waste with with having a master's degree.
00:29:06.859 --> 00:29:19.279
That being said, if you're a teacher and you're transitioning the and it's not in instructional technologies, that's okay. Because think if you have anything in that sort of realm whether that's.
00:29:20.200 --> 00:29:22.839
Whether that's like leadership, organizational development.
00:29:22.839 --> 00:29:28.089
I think all of those kind of feed together. I usually flag those first.
00:29:28.299 --> 00:29:38.319
And then the other big one that people miss they think that instructional technologies means like they're learning the tech side of instruction.
00:29:38.319 --> 00:29:41.980
And that's it's actually the science of instruction.
00:29:42.190 --> 00:29:46.329
And I think that's really funny that a lot of people miss that one, or they'll misuse it.
00:29:46.329 --> 00:29:49.420
And I'm like, that's not totally what that means, but that's okay.
00:29:49.630 --> 00:29:50.230
Yes.
00:29:50.230 --> 00:29:57.279
Yeah, we get a lot of the, oh, do you know, Articulate? or will I be learning Articulate or will I be learning Captivate?
00:29:57.279 --> 00:30:07.990
I'm like, Sure, I'll teach you H5P, though it's free, but it doesn't really matter which one as long as you know how to apply it in the right context.
00:30:07.990 --> 00:30:11.819
And the really the funny part is that technology just keeps getting easier.
00:30:11.829 --> 00:30:21.730
So back in my day when I first started e-learning, we had to code by hand , in these like Excel sheets to get the XML file to work old school.
00:30:21.730 --> 00:30:31.599
And then now I'm on my phone and I can click on my kids' pictures and it pops out the background and I'm like, You don't even need Photoshop anymore!
00:30:31.720 --> 00:30:34.269
Yeah, exactly, Exactly.
00:30:34.269 --> 00:30:48.160
It's funny because, yeah, when I started out, I was I would storyboard and so my first job as an instructional designer was actually writing storyboards that we then handed to programmers who would create the Flash interactions.
00:30:48.160 --> 00:30:50.349
And an interaction was a page flip.
00:30:50.829 --> 00:30:54.309
It was considered interactive if you could, if you had to click next.
00:30:54.460 --> 00:30:57.339
And that was like, yeah, wow, we've come a long way.
00:30:57.339 --> 00:30:58.269
We have come a long way.
00:30:58.269 --> 00:30:58.539
Yeah.
00:30:58.539 --> 00:31:02.740
And I still look at projects and we have that on our team.
00:31:02.740 --> 00:31:06.609
We'll have some stuff that we know we're going to do a cheaper level.
00:31:06.609 --> 00:31:11.859
It's probably going to be slide show next button with a quiz at the end versus something...
00:31:11.859 --> 00:31:18.849
we have one that's for our cybersecurity program that is scenario based.
00:31:18.849 --> 00:31:20.950
Instead of talking head based.
00:31:21.730 --> 00:31:24.769
So it puts you in a virtual environment.
00:31:24.799 --> 00:31:29.500
You have to make decisions for cybersecurity and then it teaches you as you go.
00:31:29.500 --> 00:31:35.140
So that's a very high level, high design, type of course.
00:31:35.140 --> 00:31:36.490
People loved it!
00:31:37.029 --> 00:31:37.599
Oh yeah.
00:31:37.869 --> 00:31:40.750
Because they're like, there's no talking person.
00:31:40.990 --> 00:31:42.430
People actually learn.
00:31:42.519 --> 00:31:43.089
Yeah.
00:31:43.089 --> 00:31:48.789
And then our cybersecurity team, we have videos, so if they may, if they do something, then they'll pop up
00:31:48.789 --> 00:31:51.490
and then they'll tell them, but it's their own people
00:31:51.490 --> 00:31:52.299
that they work with.
00:31:52.299 --> 00:31:54.640
So it's really, it's a great course.
00:31:54.640 --> 00:31:57.579
So I'm pretty proud of my team for that one.
00:31:57.579 --> 00:32:07.210
So yeah, we mean we go the gambit and understanding as you go through your your career, you will have an understanding of.
00:32:07.859 --> 00:32:12.849
cost versus sometimes we build things cheap, sometimes we don't.
00:32:12.869 --> 00:32:17.730
But even understanding the cost of instructor led versus e-learning, right?
00:32:17.849 --> 00:32:28.109
E-learning is very expensive upfront, but it has, you don't have to bring in your people from all over the country to take a course, but sometimes that's needed.
00:32:28.109 --> 00:32:40.019
So understanding the cost of things, I think that's something as you go through your career, you'll start to really understand, but that's not necessarily something we focus and teach on early on.
00:32:40.200 --> 00:32:46.529
So the last question I have, which I ask everybody, is what's your prediction for the future of instructional design?
00:32:46.529 --> 00:32:47.940
I think we're already seeing it.
00:32:47.940 --> 00:32:52.619
It's learning in the moment.
00:32:53.319 --> 00:32:55.660
And this is so this is really interesting.
00:32:55.660 --> 00:33:03.970
So my company right now is converting to Oracle, and Oracle has a program called Oracle Guided Learning.
00:33:04.210 --> 00:33:11.049
And it is basically like Articulate or Captivate that's embedded into their program.
00:33:11.049 --> 00:33:18.730
So my designers and we're going to we have a meeting coming up. We we thought, oh, we're going to build job aids, we're going to do this.
00:33:18.970 --> 00:33:29.230
And then we got this tool and went, we have to rethink everything we're doing, what needs to pop out, and what needs to tell them how to do something while they're doing it.
00:33:29.230 --> 00:33:38.319
So to me, and that comes into you can't frontload training anymore, you've got to do it while they need it.
00:33:38.319 --> 00:33:39.849
That's when it's most meaningful.
00:33:39.849 --> 00:33:41.349
That's when they're going to remember it.
00:33:41.769 --> 00:33:48.190
So I think that's we saw that with the sort of the MOOC movement, these small bite size pieces.
00:33:48.190 --> 00:33:53.319
But now I think it's going to be like, what can we put into MS Teams?
00:33:53.319 --> 00:33:59.710
What can we put into... it's almost like the reliving Clippy that would come up.
00:34:00.400 --> 00:34:05.410
It's not dumb, but I do think that's really where things are.
00:34:05.410 --> 00:34:11.168
It's going to be when I need it, just on demand, easily consumable pieces.
00:34:11.168 --> 00:34:12.969
I think that's really where we're heading.
00:34:13.090 --> 00:34:14.349
Performance support.
00:34:14.559 --> 00:34:15.159
Yeah.
00:34:15.159 --> 00:34:15.760
Yeah.
00:34:15.760 --> 00:34:19.840
And it's really yeah, in the corporate world, that's really a big trend.
00:34:20.019 --> 00:34:20.710
Yeah.
00:34:20.769 --> 00:34:40.750
Not to say that people are and I'm always surprised there's a lot of people, adult learners who love podcasts, who love TedTalks, who do books, and so you still have people consuming some of these sort of bigger mediums or longer, I should say, for an attention span.
00:34:40.750 --> 00:34:47.500
But I do think that that's one of the biggest directions we're seeing on the corporate side.
00:34:47.860 --> 00:34:50.349
Well, thank you very much.
00:34:50.349 --> 00:34:53.378
This has been really insightful, really great.
00:34:53.378 --> 00:34:53.800
Yeah.
00:34:53.829 --> 00:34:56.800
So thank you for being a guest on Demystifying Instructional Design.
00:34:57.309 --> 00:34:57.909
Thank you.
00:34:57.909 --> 00:34:58.690
It was great.
00:34:58.690 --> 00:35:03.460
I'm so glad to help out and and help guide people as they come in.
00:35:03.460 --> 00:35:06.130
And this is a, it's a wonderful field.
00:35:06.130 --> 00:35:07.000
I love this field.
00:35:07.599 --> 00:35:08.920
Makes me happy to go to work.
00:00:00.409 --> 00:00:12.199
Welcome, Stephanie, to Demystifying Instructional Design, a podcast where I interview instructional designers to help figure out what it is instructional designers do. To begin with, can you start by introducing yourself?
00:00:12.890 --> 00:00:15.080
Hi, my name is Stephanie Smith.
00:00:15.080 --> 00:00:21.140
I am the learning and design manager for Tri-State, which is an electric utility co-op.
00:00:21.140 --> 00:00:25.640
So a very interesting part of the business to be in the energy sector at this time.
00:00:25.640 --> 00:00:30.769
And I've been in instructional design for about 16 years.
00:00:30.769 --> 00:00:37.219
And then before that I was a teacher for seven years, and then in the education field for quite some time at this point.
00:00:37.969 --> 00:00:40.310
How did you get into instructional design?
00:00:40.310 --> 00:00:41.679
How did you make that transition?
00:00:41.689 --> 00:00:43.820
Yeah, I was teaching.
00:00:44.149 --> 00:00:57.530
I had become a master teacher and I was really hitting burnout, as many do, and I was like, what is my favorite part besides the kids that I love?
00:00:57.530 --> 00:01:02.299
And that was curriculum design and and building things.
00:01:02.299 --> 00:01:07.430
I started this was way back before I think even e-learning had its big...
00:01:07.579 --> 00:01:10.040
I mean, there was some stuff out there, but it wasn't huge.
00:01:10.040 --> 00:01:13.129
It was distance learning type of things that were out there at that time.
00:01:13.459 --> 00:01:23.569
And so I started working for the Library of Congress doing these sort of virtual field trips and stuff, creating these experiences for students.
00:01:23.569 --> 00:01:28.099
And I used that as the base of my portfolio and then I begged for a job.
00:01:28.099 --> 00:01:31.879
I found a company wasn't a great company but found they were hiring.
00:01:31.879 --> 00:01:38.510
And I just begged quite a few times and then they finally gave me a chance and I came in.
00:01:38.780 --> 00:01:43.700
I'm trying to remember all of it, but I came in and I felt really comfortable on the design side.
00:01:43.700 --> 00:01:55.159
But I really had to learn technology where I think a lot of teachers feel that sometimes, which is funny because I tell people like, You really don't need to know the technology as well as you think you do.
00:01:55.159 --> 00:01:56.780
But I sat with people.
00:01:56.780 --> 00:02:00.409
I learned... we had a recession hit at that point.
00:02:00.409 --> 00:02:02.030
Everybody was losing their jobs.
00:02:02.150 --> 00:02:08.389
So I thought, I better I don't have to be the best, but I better not be the worst designer.
00:02:08.389 --> 00:02:14.960
So I started reading a lot of books, really trying to just up my game as an instructional designer.
00:02:14.960 --> 00:02:29.780
I was doing a lot of I was doing a lot of e-learning and video and I think finally my, my boss, who was also my mentor at the time, he's like, if you've read all of these books, why don't you just finish your master's degree?
00:02:29.780 --> 00:02:35.509
And I had read the entire curriculum for my master's degree before I ever even got there and took the
00:02:35.509 --> 00:02:36.319
master's program.
00:02:36.319 --> 00:02:42.770
He recommended me, I got in and I got to work with some really amazing people in our industry, like Patti Shank.
00:02:42.770 --> 00:02:44.750
She became a mentor for me as well.
00:02:44.750 --> 00:02:45.740
So it was really good.
00:02:46.069 --> 00:02:54.379
I've had two really big mentors in my career that have taken me to those next steps, those next levels both times.
00:02:54.379 --> 00:02:58.580
So it was really, really beneficial to have that.
00:02:59.180 --> 00:03:07.129
A question for you is how do you describe what you do when when you say, hey, I'm an instructional designer, How do you describe that to people?
00:03:07.129 --> 00:03:19.520
So what I tell people is that we use a lot of we use like brain science, we use learning theory to really help people learn skills and knowledge to help further...
00:03:19.520 --> 00:03:23.509
like in the corporate world, we do that for for employees.
00:03:23.509 --> 00:03:28.310
And part of that is, gosh, I'm trying to think of how I would answer that question.
00:03:28.310 --> 00:03:45.169
But I think one of the big pieces that I try and explain to people is anybody can, like a SME can put together a PowerPoint or they can put together a training and really where our where we're really beneficial is that we represent the learner, right?
00:03:45.169 --> 00:03:53.180
We are looking at what is the best way to convey this information? What is the best way for this learner to learn?
00:03:53.449 --> 00:04:01.159
We know there's not going to be a ton of retention for a two hour course versus smaller chunking pieces.
00:04:01.159 --> 00:04:12.319
And so we as brain science and we use learning theory and we and we put together our best methods of trying to transmit that information to improve performance.
00:04:12.620 --> 00:04:16.100
Cool! What kind of projects do you find fun?
00:04:16.579 --> 00:04:27.769
I think in my career I've really enjoyed when they have an actual problem and I have to really think it through and really do analysis and to do.
00:04:27.769 --> 00:04:32.569
I had one where, you know, they came back and they're like, we have to teach this skill.
00:04:32.569 --> 00:04:48.920
It's a super important safety type of skill and we go through this whole process of analysis and we realize that as we're going through this analysis and talking and interviewing people on the job, that everybody was doing something different.
00:04:49.069 --> 00:04:55.129
And so we realized that there was a there was a huge discrepancy on what was supposed to be the actual process.
00:04:55.250 --> 00:05:02.209
So I actually love projects that have a problem where I have to really be creative and think outside the box.
00:05:02.420 --> 00:05:10.639
And then I also really do love doing courses that are fun with lots of different multimedia.
00:05:10.639 --> 00:05:14.600
I love doing video, so there's a development side that I enjoy.
00:05:14.600 --> 00:05:19.069
But from that design side, I really love figuring out, Hey, this is the problem.
00:05:19.100 --> 00:05:20.930
What are the nuances of the problem?
00:05:20.930 --> 00:05:26.779
And then coming up with different types of solutions that will really attack that and help.
00:05:26.959 --> 00:05:31.490
And so what are the biggest challenges you face as an instructional designer?
00:05:31.970 --> 00:05:36.980
I think one of the biggest ones is order taker versus consultant.
00:05:37.160 --> 00:05:42.480
A lot of instructional designers, especially newer ones, they come in and what do you want?
00:05:42.500 --> 00:05:43.129
You want a video?
00:05:43.129 --> 00:05:44.029
I'll make you a video.
00:05:44.029 --> 00:05:44.930
You want that?
00:05:44.930 --> 00:05:56.269
They take the order and they create the product, versus really trying to get down to what is the issue, what is the problem you're solving for?
00:05:56.269 --> 00:06:06.889
And really being able to guide the customer into a solution that's going to be the best solution for a learner.
00:06:06.889 --> 00:06:14.360
And one of the things that I've always had guide me is if I wasn't willing to take my own training, that I didn't do a good job.
00:06:14.360 --> 00:06:15.589
It's because it's funny.
00:06:15.589 --> 00:06:21.980
I've been a teacher, I've been a trainer, and if I can't sit through it because I just I'm not a good student sometimes.
00:06:21.980 --> 00:06:24.290
And so one of my benchmarks.
00:06:24.290 --> 00:06:27.800
If I can't stand it and didn't hit it out of the park.
00:06:28.040 --> 00:06:30.319
I totally relate to that.
00:06:30.319 --> 00:06:33.379
And when I was working in tech writing, it was the same thing.
00:06:33.379 --> 00:06:40.850
If I didn't use the stuff that I was writing as a reference, then it's not good enough.
00:06:40.850 --> 00:06:43.310
It's not solving the problem.
00:06:43.310 --> 00:06:44.629
And so that's very interesting.
00:06:44.629 --> 00:06:54.980
And I really like the order taker versus consultants analogy there because there is so much of that, especially when people don't understand what instructional designers do.
00:06:54.980 --> 00:06:56.660
It's, oh, build this training for me.
00:06:56.660 --> 00:06:57.949
I want training for that.
00:06:57.949 --> 00:07:00.139
Yeah, I want an e-learning course.
00:07:00.560 --> 00:07:00.980
Okay.
00:07:00.980 --> 00:07:01.519
Why?
00:07:01.639 --> 00:07:03.319
What exactly do you want it to do?
00:07:03.319 --> 00:07:03.740
Yes.
00:07:03.740 --> 00:07:05.180
What do you think you're going to get from it?
00:07:05.480 --> 00:07:05.810
Yeah.
00:07:05.810 --> 00:07:08.930
And having having them get something from it.
00:07:08.930 --> 00:07:09.230
Right.
00:07:09.230 --> 00:07:13.370
You want to be able to have that return on investment and I would say corporate.
00:07:13.370 --> 00:07:16.009
In the corporate world, we don't do a great job on doing that.
00:07:16.009 --> 00:07:22.639
But I've really worked hard to try for our department to make sure that we're showing our value right.
00:07:22.850 --> 00:07:28.160
I'm trying to advertise, hey, these are all of the things that we fixed for the company that we did for the company.
00:07:28.160 --> 00:07:30.379
And so that it... that's the other thing, right?
00:07:30.379 --> 00:07:32.959
In a recession, what's the first department to get killed?
00:07:32.959 --> 00:07:40.370
We don't need training, showing your value, being a consultant and a huge portion of that is starting a project as the lead.
00:07:40.370 --> 00:07:42.500
You've got to lead the project.
00:07:42.500 --> 00:07:49.399
You've got to guide your customer through those processes, but explain what we're doing and trying to teach them.
00:07:49.399 --> 00:07:53.660
I have at this point, some of the people we work with, they just love it.
00:07:53.660 --> 00:07:55.610
They're like, I know you're going to handle it.
00:07:55.610 --> 00:07:59.569
You're going to guide me each step, and they really enjoy it working with us.
00:07:59.569 --> 00:08:00.620
That's awesome.
00:08:00.620 --> 00:08:03.980
So what skills do you find most useful in your work?
00:08:04.519 --> 00:08:09.829
I have seen very successful instructional designers in my career and not so successful.
00:08:10.279 --> 00:08:15.920
There really is a brain for it and it's not necessarily something that you're going to learn in a program.
00:08:16.160 --> 00:08:20.689
But one of the biggest skills is managing a project.
00:08:20.779 --> 00:08:37.070
If you can't manage a project well, you will have scope creep and you will you will have a you'll have a very impatient customer who then starts changing their mind and then you don't know what you're doing anymore.
00:08:37.250 --> 00:08:59.299
So having really good project management skills, and part of that's customer service and communication pieces of talking your way through the process and then having this mental ability to organize and chunk content and to look at content and convert it into something that is a lot more easier to digest.
00:08:59.299 --> 00:09:07.100
For example, I might look at a participant guide and if I see paragraph after paragraph, I'm like, I'm going to snore through.
00:09:07.129 --> 00:09:08.210
This isn't working.
00:09:08.210 --> 00:09:10.009
How do you create graphics?
00:09:10.009 --> 00:09:11.659
How do you pop things out?
00:09:11.659 --> 00:09:13.669
How do you make it digestible?
00:09:13.909 --> 00:09:16.460
And those are some really key things.
00:09:16.460 --> 00:09:22.279
And so when I'm interviewing, we create scenario questions because want to see how how does their brain work?
00:09:22.279 --> 00:09:24.440
How do you get from A to B to C?
00:09:24.440 --> 00:09:27.529
And that's going to show me what kind of designer you are.
00:09:27.740 --> 00:09:29.149
So there is a brain to it.
00:09:29.149 --> 00:09:34.220
It's not always, hey, I can make a really great job aid or I can make a video.
00:09:34.220 --> 00:09:44.019
It really comes down to how do you organize and chunk information so that learners can consume that and be able to retain it.
00:09:44.110 --> 00:09:47.259
What advice would you give to the new instructional designer?
00:09:47.799 --> 00:09:57.480
My first mentor, one of the things he had us do was we would take learning theory and then we would try and figure out how to apply it in real life.
00:09:57.490 --> 00:10:00.580
And so we would do these sort of workshop scenarios.
00:10:00.669 --> 00:10:03.759
And I will tell you that you start to really
00:10:03.759 --> 00:10:07.539
learn a learning theory that way and really think about
00:10:07.539 --> 00:10:14.830
how if you're looking at behaviorism, how am I applying that to what I can do for my learner?
00:10:14.830 --> 00:10:16.000
And so they weren't always.
00:10:16.120 --> 00:10:24.820
A lot of them were very rhetorical and discussions, but we really tried to figure out how do you take these concepts and apply them in different mediums.
00:10:24.820 --> 00:10:28.870
So that was one of the things that I think can really help.
00:10:28.899 --> 00:10:30.639
Do you have an example of that?
00:10:30.639 --> 00:10:32.470
Do you have one that off the top of your head?
00:10:32.830 --> 00:10:42.519
One of the ones that I did through that process, I did the format theory, which is not actually really obscure, but a teacher think she was a teacher.
00:10:42.519 --> 00:10:43.899
She came up with this one.
00:10:44.110 --> 00:11:06.570
But basically it combines a whole bunch of things from like Kolbe's Learning Theory of how we perceive and internalize training as being able to take some of that and apply like how do you give time to give content and then allow for processing and then communicating that that content out.
00:11:06.580 --> 00:11:08.529
So that was one that we did.
00:11:08.620 --> 00:11:12.570
It's harder to do with e-learning, but it's pretty easy to do in the classroom, right?
00:11:12.580 --> 00:11:15.639
You can present content, you can allow them to.
00:11:15.639 --> 00:11:19.960
Then you have to look at what is the schema of the learner.
00:11:19.960 --> 00:11:23.080
Having a learner that's somewhat familiar with the content.
00:11:23.080 --> 00:11:29.409
Like if you're teaching something about dogs and you're like, Oh, I love dogs! That's the learner's brain's going to do right?
00:11:29.409 --> 00:11:32.320
There can be like, I'm learning all this content about dogs.
00:11:32.320 --> 00:11:49.210
They're going to reference their memories and experience of dogs and you're going to encode that that into their schema and then having them have a chance to think about it, to process it, and then to communicate that back, that's going to help reinforce what they're learning.
00:11:49.210 --> 00:11:53.080
And so those are some types of examples that haven't used that one.
00:11:53.080 --> 00:12:00.789
But I should say I've used that one as an example to use, but I haven't actually got to do an amazing course about dogs.
00:12:00.789 --> 00:12:01.509
I would love that.
00:12:03.700 --> 00:12:09.490
And so you mentioned you're a hiring manager and so when you're hiring an instructional designer, what are you looking for?
00:12:09.669 --> 00:12:17.350
One of the biggest pieces for me is do they fit on my team personality wise?
00:12:17.350 --> 00:12:28.299
And I think that's where I've seen a lot of people online very discouraged, where they're like, I didn't get this job, or I went through this whole hiring process and sometimes it has nothing to do with your skill set.
00:12:28.299 --> 00:12:35.649
Sometimes it has to do with how are you going to fit in with the rest of my team because I need you to be able to work together.
00:12:35.649 --> 00:12:46.870
Yes, there are skills, there are competencies that I am specifically looking for, but that is one of the bigger pieces of what, of who gets hired over someone else.
00:12:46.960 --> 00:12:58.509
I recently was looking at two different candidates and they were really equally strong and one one of them didn't have a strong portfolio.
00:12:58.509 --> 00:12:59.230
But you know what?
00:12:59.230 --> 00:13:01.000
She sent me emails thanking me.
00:13:01.000 --> 00:13:02.169
She followed up.
00:13:02.169 --> 00:13:05.139
She got a lot of eagerness from her.
00:13:05.139 --> 00:13:14.080
And so when I went to compare the two, because they looked really close, I was like, I'm going to take the one who just put just a teeny bit more effort into it.
00:13:14.080 --> 00:13:15.700
And that's what I ended up going with.
00:13:15.700 --> 00:13:25.240
I know it's brutal out there, but knowing learning theory and understanding the difference between learning theory and instructional design theory, that's a big one.
00:13:25.360 --> 00:13:26.940
You should know the difference.
00:13:26.950 --> 00:13:32.230
A lot of people can't answer that question, which is really surprising our industry.
00:13:32.230 --> 00:13:40.509
And so having being able to like take a scenario, walk through it, I have I've hired people who said I don't know to a question.
00:13:40.929 --> 00:13:42.100
I can teach that.
00:13:42.100 --> 00:13:54.340
So being honest, if you don't know something is totally fine For me as a hiring manager and portfolios, honestly, they can help you, but they don't get you the job.
00:13:54.610 --> 00:14:05.889
For me as a manager, I'm really looking at like how your resume looks and that's going to get you in my pile of interviews and looking to see how you perform on that, those interviews.
00:14:05.889 --> 00:14:08.750
And then I'll probably take a look at your portfolio and see you.
00:14:08.799 --> 00:14:13.779
It looks like you have those skill sets or but you're going to talk about that in your interview with me.
00:14:13.779 --> 00:14:19.690
You know, it can be a lot of things, but the portfolio doesn't make or break for the job hunt.
00:14:20.110 --> 00:14:22.720
And what can somebody do to stand out.
00:14:22.899 --> 00:14:25.480
And guess that should be... okay.
00:14:25.539 --> 00:14:28.419
I have hired somebody based on their portfolio before.
00:14:28.419 --> 00:14:31.870
And this person, he was straight out of college.
00:14:31.870 --> 00:14:33.460
He'd never had a job before.
00:14:33.700 --> 00:14:36.700
He had an amazing portfolio.
00:14:36.700 --> 00:14:37.870
I didn't believe he made it.
00:14:37.870 --> 00:14:47.389
So I called him because I didn't think he made it, and he did! And he walked me through his process and he walked me through what he did with his portfolio.
00:14:47.389 --> 00:14:50.720
And I hired him and I trained him on all the other stuff.
00:14:50.720 --> 00:14:54.139
But so I have hired somebody based on their portfolio.
00:14:54.200 --> 00:14:55.820
Guess I should be honest about that.
00:14:55.820 --> 00:14:59.179
But that was because he had zero experience, right?
00:14:59.179 --> 00:15:02.960
So he had an amazing portfolio, zero experience.
00:15:02.960 --> 00:15:09.620
But most of the time I see a lot of people who have decent portfolios and some experience.
00:15:09.620 --> 00:15:11.509
So you have a stack of resumes.
00:15:11.509 --> 00:15:16.220
What makes some person someone stand out over someone else?
00:15:16.509 --> 00:15:16.690
Good.
00:15:16.700 --> 00:15:17.629
That's a good question.
00:15:17.629 --> 00:15:18.139
Okay.
00:15:18.529 --> 00:15:24.080
So things I'm looking at, when you have, and I'll take you've got some of your job titles.
00:15:24.080 --> 00:15:33.620
But what I'm specifically looking at is do you have the tasks that an instructional designer does in that list of what you did for that job?
00:15:33.620 --> 00:15:39.590
So are you managing projects and SMEs? Ae you communicating with those stakeholders?
00:15:39.590 --> 00:15:46.100
Are you are you following the ADDIE process, doing analysis on different projects?
00:15:46.100 --> 00:15:47.330
Are you developing?
00:15:47.330 --> 00:15:48.830
Some people are not developers.
00:15:49.070 --> 00:15:57.360
There's a lot of instructional designers that just do the first analysis and design and they hand it off right.
00:15:57.379 --> 00:16:05.840
I work in a shop where we do everything from soup to nuts, so I want to see that you know how to do everything from soup to nuts.
00:16:05.840 --> 00:16:09.379
And if you have that, then I'm usually in the yes pile.
00:16:09.379 --> 00:16:12.139
I'm going to I'm going to at least give you a chance and give you an interview.
00:16:12.840 --> 00:16:20.779
Cool. You mentioned that when you get to that interview, one of the things you do is scenario.
00:16:20.789 --> 00:16:23.610
Can you give an example of the types of things you ask people?
00:16:23.789 --> 00:16:24.389
Yeah.
00:16:24.389 --> 00:16:33.809
So one of the questions I will ask is if you had to teach the color red, how would you do that?
00:16:33.809 --> 00:16:39.480
So if your objective is describe the color red, how do you fulfill that?
00:16:39.659 --> 00:16:40.750
What would you do?
00:16:40.769 --> 00:16:42.929
What what learning theories would you bring in?
00:16:42.929 --> 00:16:44.490
What would you do to teach that?
00:16:44.669 --> 00:16:49.049
Wow, that one's got me really thinking! I was, like the color red.
00:16:49.049 --> 00:16:49.529
Really?
00:16:49.529 --> 00:16:50.850
That's interesting.
00:16:51.149 --> 00:17:03.840
And then in a sense, it's a little bit of a trick question because anytime you have the word describe, you're really, really what that does in instructional design is you're telling me what it is and what it isn't.
00:17:04.170 --> 00:17:07.369
I've used red, I've used the I've used an elephant or a moose.
00:17:07.380 --> 00:17:17.039
We've used all sorts of different things depending upon the interview, but we're really looking at, can you tell me, can you describe what it is and can you describe what it isn't?
00:17:17.410 --> 00:17:28.589
You create learning pieces around that, and a lot of times what people do, they'll go and say, Oh, I want to teach them the parts of a moose and I want to teach them what an elephant sounds like.
00:17:28.589 --> 00:17:30.119
So they'll start to get that.
00:17:30.119 --> 00:17:32.519
And I know that's where their brain is going.
00:17:32.609 --> 00:17:34.529
And that's really the answer to the question.
00:17:34.650 --> 00:17:37.710
The color red is particularly hard because there aren't parts to it.
00:17:37.710 --> 00:17:47.160
But it's funny because the thing that went to my mind, are okay, so the RGB values and the hues and all of the things that make the color red.
00:17:47.250 --> 00:17:49.920
Red like the prism.
00:17:50.279 --> 00:17:51.769
Yeah, that would be a correct answer.
00:17:51.779 --> 00:17:52.710
Yeah!
00:17:52.710 --> 00:17:53.490
Thta's fascinating.
00:17:54.029 --> 00:17:59.400
Or one of the other ones is I'll ask and I'll say, tell me about your your favorite learning theory.
00:17:59.400 --> 00:18:00.400
Why do you use it a lot?
00:18:00.420 --> 00:18:01.589
What do you use it for?
00:18:01.980 --> 00:18:03.140
How do you use it?
00:18:03.150 --> 00:18:09.720
So just getting to talk about how they're applying those instructional design pieces around that.
00:18:09.720 --> 00:18:16.119
I also ask a question like, if you were going to design...
00:18:16.119 --> 00:18:25.779
You got a project to design new hire benefits, like you came on to the company and you have to teach a new hire about their benefits.
00:18:25.960 --> 00:18:27.069
What would you do?
00:18:27.160 --> 00:18:32.920
So things I'm looking for are getting stakeholders involved, starting with analysis.
00:18:32.920 --> 00:18:34.690
It's really an ADDIE question, right?
00:18:34.690 --> 00:18:36.549
What are the points of.
00:18:36.549 --> 00:18:48.130
And so just having them talk through that sort of scenario tells me that they understand the process and they understand how to... if they SAM or if they use something else, that's fine too.
00:18:48.130 --> 00:18:53.349
I just want to see that they can apply the instructional design theory and follow up with that.
00:18:53.440 --> 00:18:57.759
What are the biggest mistakes that people make during the interview process?
00:18:58.059 --> 00:19:05.019
So having examples and using examples that don't fit with an adult learner.
00:19:05.019 --> 00:19:15.609
So the big red flags I have, if they if you start talking about, Oh, I can have somebody do a crossword puzzle, what's the actual benefit of that besides busy work?
00:19:15.759 --> 00:19:18.369
You can do some vocabulary, things like that.
00:19:18.460 --> 00:19:21.549
Just to say I use it for vocabulary, but that's about it.
00:19:21.759 --> 00:19:27.099
Yeah, but typically that's not going to be something that we're and if you use that as an example, that's okay.
00:19:27.099 --> 00:19:34.420
But I've had a lot of people who, who don't seem with the examples that they use, they're not thinking about what an adult learner is.
00:19:34.420 --> 00:19:39.789
And then I know that's not going to fit with my clients, right?
00:19:39.819 --> 00:19:44.170
They're going to be like, why am I filling out a crossword puzzle?
00:19:44.200 --> 00:19:46.269
Whereas they're trying to learn.
00:19:46.269 --> 00:19:54.519
One of the things that we do at my company is we have we have apprenticeships, so people are coming in and it's like a college in a lot of ways.
00:19:54.519 --> 00:19:56.859
It's not to say that we don't do vocabulary with
00:19:56.859 --> 00:20:02.470
them, but that is... they're looking at pieces of machinery and how things fit together.
00:20:02.470 --> 00:20:10.809
And so you've got to you've got to think about what's going to engage an adult learner and what makes sense for them, if that makes sense.
00:20:10.809 --> 00:20:12.640
So that's usually a red flag.
00:20:12.640 --> 00:20:22.119
I also again, I'm looking at different types of teamwork questions or part of the interview process is it's two sided, right?
00:20:22.119 --> 00:20:28.509
We are interviewing you to see if you fit with us, but you should be interviewing us to see if we fit for you.
00:20:29.049 --> 00:20:31.089
You think people forget that sometimes.
00:20:31.089 --> 00:20:40.210
And part of that is I'll ask you a question like what's your favorite part of the process or what's your favorite things to do at work?
00:20:40.210 --> 00:20:48.039
And if it's completely different than what we do, then we know we're not probably a fit. We want, I want you to be happy.
00:20:48.039 --> 00:20:52.930
I want you to stay and work for me for a long time and be engaged.
00:20:52.930 --> 00:20:56.500
And so I want to find somebody that's going to want to do what we do.
00:20:56.769 --> 00:20:58.059
It makes total sense.
00:20:58.059 --> 00:21:00.369
How big is your team and what is it comprised of?
00:21:00.369 --> 00:21:06.099
What types of people, do you have instructional designers, but do you have other trades as well?
00:21:06.700 --> 00:21:07.450
Yes.
00:21:07.450 --> 00:21:18.460
So we have three instructional designers and then I have an IT trainer, so she does some of the design work.
00:21:18.460 --> 00:21:31.329
She's like a SME in-house for IT projects and then she's also our trainer. Then I have an LMS administrator and she also helps manage and run the apprenticeship programs that we have.
00:21:31.450 --> 00:21:38.619
I team manage partner with our other team, which is our trades and crafts facilitators.
00:21:38.619 --> 00:21:40.210
I think there's nine of them.
00:21:40.210 --> 00:21:48.579
So they are doing training on all the different facets of an energy company from generation of transmission.
00:21:48.579 --> 00:21:56.769
So we have somebody who's teaching linemen how to be linemen, teaching electricians and mechanics how to operate a plant.
00:21:56.769 --> 00:21:57.940
So it's very extensive.
00:21:57.940 --> 00:22:01.720
So there's nine of those guys, and then we also
00:22:01.720 --> 00:22:03.250
partner with the safety department.
00:22:03.250 --> 00:22:10.180
So the safety they have, gosh, I don't know how many facilitators they have, they might have up to ten.
00:22:10.180 --> 00:22:12.130
It might be like somewhere between 5 and 10.
00:22:12.130 --> 00:22:18.250
I'm not sure how many facilitators they have over there that go out and do safety teaching and we support them.
00:22:18.250 --> 00:22:20.769
We build programs for them as well.
00:22:21.009 --> 00:22:25.720
And then we have an organizational organizational development person.
00:22:25.720 --> 00:22:32.170
So she's looking at our leadership programs and some of it is like change management.
00:22:32.170 --> 00:22:34.150
So some of it's that sort of big picture piece.
00:22:34.150 --> 00:22:43.900
So we partner with her and then we have on my team, my instructional designers are part of they do they're part of a DEI committee, some leadership, different committees.
00:22:43.900 --> 00:22:56.140
So not only are they doing that, but they're also trying to be part of these bigger corporate changes that are integral to what we have to do in-house.
00:22:56.140 --> 00:23:02.380
And yeah, and my team of designers, I think instructional designers, I usually have anywhere between 3 and 4.
00:23:02.710 --> 00:23:04.269
I have four right now, sorry.
00:23:04.269 --> 00:23:09.579
When you're looking at portfolios because you mentioned you look at resumes first, but then interview and look at portfolios.
00:23:09.579 --> 00:23:11.619
What are you looking for in the portfolio?
00:23:11.619 --> 00:23:12.609
What do you want to see?
00:23:13.029 --> 00:23:14.349
That's a good question.
00:23:14.829 --> 00:23:27.430
So the first thing I will say is I've had people submit portfolios that are locked where I have to go in and I try and get in there and then I contact them to give me permission to see it.
00:23:27.940 --> 00:23:29.589
That wastes my time.
00:23:29.589 --> 00:23:39.339
So having something that is easily consumable is very important because if I have to waste time, I'm going to go to the next person.
00:23:39.730 --> 00:23:49.000
Not to say that I won't take a look at it, but and totally understand all of the sort of IP types of issues that that come with that.
00:23:49.000 --> 00:23:54.240
But make it easy for me as the hiring manager so I can see your stuff really quickly.
00:23:54.250 --> 00:24:02.200
I will say that I spend probably about five minutes in there, so I'm looking for examples of do you have an e-learning project?
00:24:02.200 --> 00:24:06.160
Do you have... does it have audio, so can you do audio?
00:24:06.430 --> 00:24:07.829
Do you have a video project?
00:24:07.839 --> 00:24:09.730
Do you have a participant guide?
00:24:09.730 --> 00:24:13.960
Do you have some examples of job aids or writing?
00:24:13.960 --> 00:24:23.009
I had one person who had a portfolio where she showed this really cool interactive job aid to get started with jobs.
00:24:23.019 --> 00:24:26.140
It was something so different I had I've never seen.
00:24:26.559 --> 00:24:28.269
She immediately got an interview.
00:24:28.269 --> 00:24:31.329
Like I was like, yeah, I want to talk to her because this looks cool.
00:24:31.329 --> 00:24:39.009
So if there is something really special that you've made that stands out, I know a lot of the colleges will have you do write ups.
00:24:39.009 --> 00:24:40.089
I am skimming.
00:24:40.089 --> 00:24:41.019
I am looking for...
00:24:41.019 --> 00:24:43.450
Do you have the basic development skills?
00:24:43.450 --> 00:24:49.900
Your resume should show me that you have the knowledge skills for instructional design.
00:24:49.900 --> 00:24:54.099
But can you show me that you have the development skills?
00:24:54.400 --> 00:24:55.789
Do you have a PowerPoint?
00:24:55.809 --> 00:25:10.960
I've had a hard time too, where there's only Rise courses in somebody's portfolio. That's not e-learning, where it's higher level e-learning, branching with different types of questions and application pieces.
00:25:10.960 --> 00:25:12.549
I want to see that you can build some of that.
00:25:12.549 --> 00:25:17.470
So some of it is really just to show some examples or or skills.
00:25:17.470 --> 00:25:22.119
I will even take screenshots like if I can just see, hey, you did build something like that.
00:25:22.119 --> 00:25:23.170
Works for me.
00:25:23.289 --> 00:25:27.670
But again, I may have 20 resumes so you get five minutes.
00:25:27.670 --> 00:25:29.259
So it just needs to be clean.
00:25:29.259 --> 00:25:32.319
I don't want to have to try and figure out where it is.
00:25:32.319 --> 00:25:38.920
If there's a huge file structure that happens too! So those are anything that makes it not.
00:25:39.130 --> 00:25:48.250
I might dig into something a little bit longer if I'm really interested in your your stuff, but you have to, it has to have that five minute mark.
00:25:48.250 --> 00:25:49.210
I'm going to just skim it.
00:25:49.660 --> 00:25:53.230
And if it looks good, you're in the "Yes" pile, that kind of thing.
00:25:53.230 --> 00:25:56.920
You mentioned earlier that you use an LMS for your e-learning.
00:25:56.920 --> 00:25:57.369
What?
00:25:57.369 --> 00:25:58.960
Which I'm curious... which LMS?
00:26:00.009 --> 00:26:00.640
Yeah.
00:26:00.789 --> 00:26:06.430
Right now we're using Sumtotal Learn which just got bought by Cornerstone.
00:26:06.460 --> 00:26:17.680
I've worked, I actually had a job at one point where we used to sell our training and part of my job was to get it implemented on customers' learning management systems.
00:26:17.859 --> 00:26:22.720
So I ended up like learning a ton about learning management systems.
00:26:22.720 --> 00:26:26.349
And it's really funny because it's like a dime a dozen, some of them work great.
00:26:26.349 --> 00:26:30.579
You have to know what your... what do you need it for?
00:26:30.579 --> 00:26:33.880
And then usually you can find a product that's going to meet that.
00:26:33.880 --> 00:26:46.569
So Sumtotal, it is not the... it looks good on the user end, on the back end it's a lot of work, but it meets the needs for what our company needed at the time.
00:26:46.569 --> 00:26:48.400
I'm running out of questions.
00:26:48.400 --> 00:26:51.670
I'm wondering if there's any question you want me to ask.
00:26:51.670 --> 00:26:56.319
I see a lot of people wanting to transition into.
00:26:57.029 --> 00:26:58.400
Instructional design.
00:26:58.410 --> 00:27:05.220
And then there's a lot of there's a lot of debates about whether you have a master's degree or you do a certification.
00:27:05.230 --> 00:27:08.190
I went the master's degree route for myself.
00:27:08.190 --> 00:27:11.250
I actually felt... did my program prepare me for everything?
00:27:11.250 --> 00:27:14.730
No! But it took me to that next level.
00:27:14.730 --> 00:27:17.670
It did bring me where... it built.
00:27:17.670 --> 00:27:27.599
I would say some confidence, but it also took me into I would say that if you're it took me to that senior level of design, if that makes sense.
00:27:27.599 --> 00:27:31.170
I will look at people who have a certification.
00:27:31.170 --> 00:27:33.359
I know there's a lot of great programs.
00:27:33.359 --> 00:27:34.859
There's not so great programs.
00:27:34.859 --> 00:27:46.859
But I will say a master's holds a lot more weight for me as a hiring manager just because I feel like you get a lot more of design theory and you get a lot more skills.
00:27:46.859 --> 00:27:52.859
And I know some people come out and they're like, I don't know how to do Articulate or I don't know how to do Captivate.
00:27:53.099 --> 00:27:54.089
Oh, they're easy.
00:27:54.089 --> 00:27:56.279
Don't worry, I'll teach you.
00:27:56.279 --> 00:27:57.960
I'll teach you that stuff on the job.
00:27:57.960 --> 00:28:09.720
But having a good understanding of adult learning theory and having a good understanding of how to apply learning theory and how to think through.
00:28:09.740 --> 00:28:18.170
I remember doing a capstone project where I was running my own business and I thought at the time, I go, I'm never going to need this.
00:28:18.170 --> 00:28:20.029
I'm always going to work for someone else.
00:28:20.029 --> 00:28:30.769
And I ended up having a consulting side business and I used that! I took the stuff that I used from there and and was able to apply it and then I felt a little bit better.
00:28:30.769 --> 00:28:33.109
Okay, I could work for myself if I wanted to.
00:28:33.109 --> 00:28:43.670
But I do love I like being in the corporate sphere as much as I enjoyed the consulting piece, but that's where I really like being.
00:28:43.759 --> 00:28:45.980
Yeah, everyone has their preference, right?
00:28:45.980 --> 00:28:47.599
Like they do.
00:28:47.599 --> 00:28:52.609
And one of my employees, she came, she was on her way to be a college professor.
00:28:52.609 --> 00:28:55.400
And she's an amazing designer.
00:28:55.400 --> 00:28:55.880
She's...
00:28:55.880 --> 00:28:58.849
so talented, and I really want to keep her.
00:28:59.000 --> 00:28:59.390
so...
00:28:59.390 --> 00:28:59.690
right?
00:29:00.259 --> 00:29:02.240
So as a manager have to really work hard at that.
00:29:02.240 --> 00:29:06.859
But it's I wouldn't say that there's a waste with with having a master's degree.
00:29:06.859 --> 00:29:19.279
That being said, if you're a teacher and you're transitioning the and it's not in instructional technologies, that's okay. Because think if you have anything in that sort of realm whether that's.
00:29:20.200 --> 00:29:22.839
Whether that's like leadership, organizational development.
00:29:22.839 --> 00:29:28.089
I think all of those kind of feed together. I usually flag those first.
00:29:28.299 --> 00:29:38.319
And then the other big one that people miss they think that instructional technologies means like they're learning the tech side of instruction.
00:29:38.319 --> 00:29:41.980
And that's it's actually the science of instruction.
00:29:42.190 --> 00:29:46.329
And I think that's really funny that a lot of people miss that one, or they'll misuse it.
00:29:46.329 --> 00:29:49.420
And I'm like, that's not totally what that means, but that's okay.
00:29:49.630 --> 00:29:50.230
Yes.
00:29:50.230 --> 00:29:57.279
Yeah, we get a lot of the, oh, do you know, Articulate? or will I be learning Articulate or will I be learning Captivate?
00:29:57.279 --> 00:30:07.990
I'm like, Sure, I'll teach you H5P, though it's free, but it doesn't really matter which one as long as you know how to apply it in the right context.
00:30:07.990 --> 00:30:11.819
And the really the funny part is that technology just keeps getting easier.
00:30:11.829 --> 00:30:21.730
So back in my day when I first started e-learning, we had to code by hand , in these like Excel sheets to get the XML file to work old school.
00:30:21.730 --> 00:30:31.599
And then now I'm on my phone and I can click on my kids' pictures and it pops out the background and I'm like, You don't even need Photoshop anymore!
00:30:31.720 --> 00:30:34.269
Yeah, exactly, Exactly.
00:30:34.269 --> 00:30:48.160
It's funny because, yeah, when I started out, I was I would storyboard and so my first job as an instructional designer was actually writing storyboards that we then handed to programmers who would create the Flash interactions.
00:30:48.160 --> 00:30:50.349
And an interaction was a page flip.
00:30:50.829 --> 00:30:54.309
It was considered interactive if you could, if you had to click next.
00:30:54.460 --> 00:30:57.339
And that was like, yeah, wow, we've come a long way.
00:30:57.339 --> 00:30:58.269
We have come a long way.
00:30:58.269 --> 00:30:58.539
Yeah.
00:30:58.539 --> 00:31:02.740
And I still look at projects and we have that on our team.
00:31:02.740 --> 00:31:06.609
We'll have some stuff that we know we're going to do a cheaper level.
00:31:06.609 --> 00:31:11.859
It's probably going to be slide show next button with a quiz at the end versus something...
00:31:11.859 --> 00:31:18.849
we have one that's for our cybersecurity program that is scenario based.
00:31:18.849 --> 00:31:20.950
Instead of talking head based.
00:31:21.730 --> 00:31:24.769
So it puts you in a virtual environment.
00:31:24.799 --> 00:31:29.500
You have to make decisions for cybersecurity and then it teaches you as you go.
00:31:29.500 --> 00:31:35.140
So that's a very high level, high design, type of course.
00:31:35.140 --> 00:31:36.490
People loved it!
00:31:37.029 --> 00:31:37.599
Oh yeah.
00:31:37.869 --> 00:31:40.750
Because they're like, there's no talking person.
00:31:40.990 --> 00:31:42.430
People actually learn.
00:31:42.519 --> 00:31:43.089
Yeah.
00:31:43.089 --> 00:31:48.789
And then our cybersecurity team, we have videos, so if they may, if they do something, then they'll pop up
00:31:48.789 --> 00:31:51.490
and then they'll tell them, but it's their own people
00:31:51.490 --> 00:31:52.299
that they work with.
00:31:52.299 --> 00:31:54.640
So it's really, it's a great course.
00:31:54.640 --> 00:31:57.579
So I'm pretty proud of my team for that one.
00:31:57.579 --> 00:32:07.210
So yeah, we mean we go the gambit and understanding as you go through your your career, you will have an understanding of.
00:32:07.859 --> 00:32:12.849
cost versus sometimes we build things cheap, sometimes we don't.
00:32:12.869 --> 00:32:17.730
But even understanding the cost of instructor led versus e-learning, right?
00:32:17.849 --> 00:32:28.109
E-learning is very expensive upfront, but it has, you don't have to bring in your people from all over the country to take a course, but sometimes that's needed.
00:32:28.109 --> 00:32:40.019
So understanding the cost of things, I think that's something as you go through your career, you'll start to really understand, but that's not necessarily something we focus and teach on early on.
00:32:40.200 --> 00:32:46.529
So the last question I have, which I ask everybody, is what's your prediction for the future of instructional design?
00:32:46.529 --> 00:32:47.940
I think we're already seeing it.
00:32:47.940 --> 00:32:52.619
It's learning in the moment.
00:32:53.319 --> 00:32:55.660
And this is so this is really interesting.
00:32:55.660 --> 00:33:03.970
So my company right now is converting to Oracle, and Oracle has a program called Oracle Guided Learning.
00:33:04.210 --> 00:33:11.049
And it is basically like Articulate or Captivate that's embedded into their program.
00:33:11.049 --> 00:33:18.730
So my designers and we're going to we have a meeting coming up. We we thought, oh, we're going to build job aids, we're going to do this.
00:33:18.970 --> 00:33:29.230
And then we got this tool and went, we have to rethink everything we're doing, what needs to pop out, and what needs to tell them how to do something while they're doing it.
00:33:29.230 --> 00:33:38.319
So to me, and that comes into you can't frontload training anymore, you've got to do it while they need it.
00:33:38.319 --> 00:33:39.849
That's when it's most meaningful.
00:33:39.849 --> 00:33:41.349
That's when they're going to remember it.
00:33:41.769 --> 00:33:48.190
So I think that's we saw that with the sort of the MOOC movement, these small bite size pieces.
00:33:48.190 --> 00:33:53.319
But now I think it's going to be like, what can we put into MS Teams?
00:33:53.319 --> 00:33:59.710
What can we put into... it's almost like the reliving Clippy that would come up.
00:34:00.400 --> 00:34:05.410
It's not dumb, but I do think that's really where things are.
00:34:05.410 --> 00:34:11.168
It's going to be when I need it, just on demand, easily consumable pieces.
00:34:11.168 --> 00:34:12.969
I think that's really where we're heading.
00:34:13.090 --> 00:34:14.349
Performance support.
00:34:14.559 --> 00:34:15.159
Yeah.
00:34:15.159 --> 00:34:15.760
Yeah.
00:34:15.760 --> 00:34:19.840
And it's really yeah, in the corporate world, that's really a big trend.
00:34:20.019 --> 00:34:20.710
Yeah.
00:34:20.769 --> 00:34:40.750
Not to say that people are and I'm always surprised there's a lot of people, adult learners who love podcasts, who love TedTalks, who do books, and so you still have people consuming some of these sort of bigger mediums or longer, I should say, for an attention span.
00:34:40.750 --> 00:34:47.500
But I do think that that's one of the biggest directions we're seeing on the corporate side.
00:34:47.860 --> 00:34:50.349
Well, thank you very much.
00:34:50.349 --> 00:34:53.378
This has been really insightful, really great.
00:34:53.378 --> 00:34:53.800
Yeah.
00:34:53.829 --> 00:34:56.800
So thank you for being a guest on Demystifying Instructional Design.
00:34:57.309 --> 00:34:57.909
Thank you.
00:34:57.909 --> 00:34:58.690
It was great.
00:34:58.690 --> 00:35:03.460
I'm so glad to help out and and help guide people as they come in.
00:35:03.460 --> 00:35:06.130
And this is a, it's a wonderful field.
00:35:06.130 --> 00:35:07.000
I love this field.
00:35:07.599 --> 00:35:08.920
Makes me happy to go to work.
