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Welcome to Demystifying Instructional Design, a podcast where I interview various instructional designers to figure out what instructional designers do.
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I'm Rebecca Hogue, your podcast host.
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If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider subscribing or leaving a comment on the show notes blog post and consider helping to support the podcast with a donation to my Patreon account.
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Welcome, Jeremy, to Demystifying Instructional Design, a podcast where I interview instructional designers about what they do.
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My first question for you is going to be can you tell us a little bit about yourself?
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Absolutely.
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And thank you for having me here, Rebecca.
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I've listened to a few episodes and I love what I'm hearing from it and I'm so excited to join the space, join the conversation.
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So my name's Jeremy Tuttle.
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I'm the Director of Learning Design at Niche Academy or Niche Academy, depending on where you live or whether you call it a creek or a crick.
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Niche Academy provides a learning management system and content creation tool primarily to public libraries.
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But we can be used by anybody.
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And my role within the company is providing learning materials, what we call tutorials, to our customers.
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Awesome.
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And can you tell us a little bit about how you got to where you are today?
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Absolutely.
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So I started my career back in 2009 working for a company called School Improvement Network.
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And I started at the very bottom, very bottom rung of the ladder.
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I was a transcriptionist, so the film crew would go out to a location, they'd film something, they'd bring it back as well before AI generated transcripts of videos.
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So I had to sit down in front of that computer for four hours a day and type out what people were saying.
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And fun fact, if you want to get better at typing, become a transcriptionist.
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I started that job typing 30 words per minute.
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I ended at 75 words per minute.
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So highly, highly recommend.
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As I was working there, I was getting a degree in digital film and video production and my plan was to move from that transcriptionist position to working on the film crew in some capacity.
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And that's exactly what happened.
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I graduated with my bachelor's.
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They pulled me on full time and I became an assistant editor.
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So the videos that School Improvement Network produced was professional development videos for teachers, specifically K through 12.
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They go find master teachers, figure out how they were teaching their best practices, how they incorporated standards, all that good stuff.
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So as I was editing these videos, I started like kind of hooking on to to the concepts.
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It became interesting to me to see how a specific teacher would handle a certain situation or how they present information differently from a different teacher.
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And over time, the higher ups at the company noticed that I was taking an interest and they started to feed that interest.
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I started getting reading assignments and the first one that I got was, Why are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?
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by Beverly Tatum. A fantastic book, fantastic read on the impact of race and education.
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And once they saw that I actually engaged with the material, they decided to give me a promotion.
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They promoted me to being a writer of the videos, and that was a really steep learning curve, trying to effectively teach teachers how to teach, though I've never taught myself and it's a really high bar and I spent the first year just learning as much as I could.
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Luckily, I'd spent the previous five to six years observing teachers, whether it was through the transcriptioning, or through the editing process.
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So I had a general, I absorbed that information over time, but it really took actually teaching to really get a grasp.
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So I taught film to middle schoolers for two years.
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It was through what was called a Discovery Program at a local elementary middle school.
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And that that was a really fun time, not only developing my own curriculum for the class, my own materials, getting to talk with all the students, see them in real time, engage with the materials I provided, that I just I loved seeing that, loved seeing them become better filmmakers, you know, even though they were ages 9 to 14, I had a full range.
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It was fifth to ninth grade in that class.
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And when I did that, I realized maybe this is something that I could do more of.
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And around the time that I finished with the class, there was a restructuring at School Improvement Network to where we were no longer just providing instructional videos.
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We were going to become the learning experience team.
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And as part of that transition, I then became a curriculum developer.
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I had to take on research.
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responsibilities, had to start thinking about how you design for online learning, not just video itself.
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Video can be a good part of it, but that doesn't necessarily make it the best piece to deliver something.
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And from there I had a great nurturing environment.
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Great bosses who saw potential in me that I didn't see myself, continued to feed me more books, and I wound up near the end of my tenure there developing a couple micro-credentials specifically on rubrics and criteria and formative and summative assessment.
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Those two are my favorite ones.
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And then the company got sold to another company and I lost my job more or less, so needing to go somewhere else.
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I had been doing some contract work with Niche Academy writing tutorials for their public library customers.
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They brought me on and a couple of years later we're where we are now and we're building, in my opinion, some of the best distance asynchronous learning materials that you can find.
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And I'm super proud of the team that we have.
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Can you tell me a little bit more about the Micro-credentials?
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Like what does that entail?
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What does it mean to say that you were creating Micro-credentials?
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Absolutely.
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Great question.
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So the micro-credentials that we were producing at School Improvement Network specifically focused on discrete skills for teachers that needed more than just a small bit of information.
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There was a lot of microlearning discussion rolling around at the time, and while we did provide Microlearning pieces, the micro- credential was meant to really pull a bunch of things together, create a solid understanding, and then also the credential part of the micro-credential, there was a credentialing process, so we weren't looking to produce a college level course experience, but something that if you had strung multiple micro-credentials together, it could equate to a college level course and the company provided assessors, creditors, all that stuff.
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I can't remember the exact details of who was credentialing us, but it wasn't ourselves.
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And the I'll talk about the formative and summative micro-credentials because that one was my favorite.
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I'm one of the few instructional designers who hears the word assessment and I perk my ears and go, oh yes, you want to talk, you want to talk assessment.
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I love it.
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So that one was encouraging teachers to think outside of how they did traditional formative and summative assessment.
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If you go back to your childhood years, it seems to be ever present, no matter how old you are, that the teacher would give you a piece of paper with a couple of questions.
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You answer the questions that would be your quiz, and they would treat that as their formative assessment.
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And then at the very end, there was either a test or an essay, sometimes a portfolio, but not too often.
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And those are perfectly fine, suitable assessments.
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But there's so many more ways you can get that across.
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Get that information to yourself, get the information back to the students.
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So we were encouraging our learners, the teachers, to apply different methods.
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So the course material is focused on the difference between binary multiple choice questions if you have to go that kind of route.
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And also when a short answer versus a long form answer would be better in a more qualitative assessment.
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And then for summative assessments, really pushing more mastery based methods, portfolios being the strongest case or having them do a project, do anything related to the course material that would result in demonstration of mastery. And usually an essay, unless it's an English class, doesn't lead to that demonstration.
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So, if you're in a shop class, make the thing you know, if you are in a social studies class, maybe it's a video, a documentary of stuff you found while doing your historical research, stuff like that.
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At some point in time in your career, you decided to go back to school.
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Can you tell us sort of how you ended up in a master's program?
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Ah, yeah.
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So in 2019, I'd been with Niche Academy for two years and we were getting to the point where I felt we were stable in what we were providing, but I didn't know what I don't know.
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And I felt that there was a gap in my understanding.
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I'd had a lot of hands on experience through the work that I did at School Improvement Network making the micro-credentials, but that was to a very specific audience with very specific standards and outcomes for what I needed to make, and I'd never explored beyond that.
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And as I was building out the team at Niche Academy and seeing into the future in my directorial role, trying to make sure that we we were making progress, we're going somewhere.
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I saw this giant mass of nothing where maybe there's something I'm missing and if I'm going to avoid it and make something that's less useful or not as good for our customers, we're not going to make the impact we need to make.
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So I started looking around for instructional design programs, so they could fill in that knowledge hole in my brain.
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And I stumbled upon the University of Massachusetts Boston program, and I loved it because of the focus on adult learners.
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There's so many programs that focus on K through 12 student experience, and while that's very good and valid to learn, it just didn't apply to my application.
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I have primarily adult learners.
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I have learners from all over the nation, various levels of education.
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I need to really understand how to present to adults in that capacity, because unlike students who are stuck in a classroom, I need to hook in and really engage an adult learner.
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So I applied, got in, loved it.
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First class was with you, Rebecca, I took 601 and 602 concurrently, that very first semester and boy was that a ride.
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As soon as I finished those two classes, I knew this program.
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The program was for me because it immediately filled in a couple holes.
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The first one to come to mind is connectivism.
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I had a solid understanding of behaviorism, a pretty good grasp on cognitivism, but connectivism never heard of it, didn't understand it at all.
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So having that understanding really shifted how we presented the information that we were putting forth for our customers.
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Instead of requiring learners to demonstrate understanding of everything put in front of them, we instead shifted to can they pull that information when they need it?
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We have all the information here in the tutorial unless they're going to apply it day in, day out.
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They don't need to have it in their working memory.
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So how do we make it as easy for them to find it and connect to it and still be effective?
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That was the main reason why I wanted to go back to school was get information like that and really pull it in.
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And there are a couple other nuggets here and there throughout the program that have really stuck with me and really improved my practice.
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And I'm so glad to have gone through the process.
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Can you share another nugget?
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I think that's fascinating to hear what were those key gaps in that understanding?
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Because one of the big questions that comes up is, is do I do a master's program or do I just do a quick and dirty certificate?
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Do I go to something like Idol courses?
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Like, what do I do?
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And one of the bits of advice I always give is you go to a master's program because you want a master's, right?
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Because it you know, it is a bit of a journey, right?
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Like it is that.
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But I'm curious, sort of what were those those gaps that got filled?
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Yeah, great question.
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The structure provided by the master's program forced me to go through things that I probably wouldn't have done if I were doing a self paced environment.
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One of the classes was research, of course, and the research it was taught by Carol Sharicz, a lovely, lovely instructor.
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The the purpose of the course was to explore a problem in your organization or your life or something, and then deep dive into some research.
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And at the time there were some feedback problems going on with some other people within the company, mainly in the process of providing feedback, not necessarily that feedback wasn't being provided or that the feedback was harmful, harmful or anything like that.
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It was just more that the process wasn't particularly clear.
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The outcomes of the feedback could have been improved.
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So I dug into the research and as I was doing that, I stumbled upon a way of thinking about feedback that improved the way that I delivered it.
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And that's the expectation of the person who's receiving feedback.
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The way it was described was there are two kinds people who just want the answer, and the people who want to struggle through.
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So I call it answer prompted, answer given.
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So when you want the answer given, that's really great for things like structural engineering.
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You have a team who's building a bridge.
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They go to a civil engineer and they say, civil engineer, is there anything wrong with my bridge?
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It would be really annoying for that engineer to say, yeah, something's not quite right.
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What do you think could be improved?
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The team there, the construction team's gonna be like, no, no, no, that's not my job.
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That's your job.
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Tell me what's wrong and we'll fix it.
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Right?
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They need the answer given.
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And then the other side of the coin for answer prompted is think about a philosophy student.
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You know, somebody who's going for the full philosophy PhD.
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They've put their thesis together.
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They turn it over to their advisor, and the advisor says, the way you are thinking about this issue is wrong and this is how it should be done.
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Right?
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Philosophy is notoriously not that way.
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You know, you figure your own means of thinking and then there's basic structures.
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Maybe you could do that with the grammar.
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But when it comes to the idea you want to, you want to prompt the answer, you say something's not working here.
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Here's what I think isn't working.
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How might you address it?
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Right?
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So in thinking of those two different sides you have what people expect, what people want.
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And for me personally, I want answer prompted most of the time.
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I want I want to think through I want to truly understand what I'm doing.
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But if I forget a period at the end of a sentence, I'm totally fine with somebody saying, hey, you forgot a period, right! Right there.
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There it goes.
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Thank you so much.
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So when I was talking with my colleague about how to provide the feedback, it was creating that understanding because what he was doing was always just answer given everything was answer given, doesn't matter because you need help.
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All right, here's the answer.
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Just go, right?
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And for for the people on that team, it was like, well, I guess I don't have a lot of autonomy.
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I guess I just need to do it this way, no matter what.
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So helping that person see and understand how they can do more answer prompted get get more creative responses.
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Get them to think about what they need to do and that was a great help, great change in my practice and I wouldn't have had it had I not been in that research class.
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Hmm.
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That's fascinating.
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That is actually quite fascinating.
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So I'm going to go back to one of my sort of basic questions here.
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What skills do you find most useful in what you do?
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Ah.
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What skills do I find most useful in what I do?
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I'm no longer deep in the trenches or as deep in the trenches as I used to be.
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So I recently designed a course for my capstone, but other than that, I'm probably not on on the front line making things.
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So right now for my role, the most important element is project management.
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Just making sure that the people on my team have things that they can work on that they're never sitting idle and that they always feel supported.
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That's that's my biggest thing.
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When I am designing, the biggest skill would have to be understanding how to structure the information so that it is as absorbable as possible.
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Not not to throw shade on any other designer, but there are some courses that I've encountered where it's just kind of throw the information at the wall, and I know this information needs to be included, so I'm just going to put it in.
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But there's not a lot of thought put into how it's sequenced, how how a learner would get from point A to point B to point C, It's just here's the information.
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And in some some cases, the ideas are pretty disparate.
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They're not too tied together.
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So it kind of allows itself to do that.
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But even in those cases, there are times where you need to think through, if I'm approaching this new topic, where do I start and how does that logically progress down the road?
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Mmm...
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Mmm.
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Mmm.
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That's great.
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That's awesome.
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So let's turn a little bit to... you hire instructional designers.
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Do you have instructional designers on your team?
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What are the things you look for when you're hiring an instructional designer?
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Great question, and I'm going to give a very controversial answer.
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I don't necessarily look for their skills in instructional design.
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I look for their ability to write clear, coherent English.
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That is the very first thing I look at.
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And a big part of that is because the designer puts together all the materials that support the rest of the process and eventually gets shown to the customer.
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So if they aren't able to clearly and concisely state something, it's really hard for me as as a leader to help other people see that and do that.
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It's it's a somewhat ephemeral skill in my opinion.
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It can be practiced, it can be taught.
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But in terms of it being picked up and executed, in my experience, and maybe I'm not doing it right, it's it's difficult to teach that skill.
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So that's the very top one.
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Yeah.
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And you know what's interesting is, my background, I actually did a certificate in technical writing, for just that reason.
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Right.
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Because you do have to, especially when you're creating online and e-learning stuff, you do a lot of writing and you've got to be good at putting it out there, saying it, but also like writing really good instructions and understanding how to make parallel bullet points and that kind of stuff.
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So yeah, I think that I don't think there's any controversy at all in that.
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But how do you find that out?
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So as part of my interviewing process, or the hiring process, the first thing I do is I always say include a portfolio, or a written sample.
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I need to see a written sample.
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It can be provided in a portfolio.
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Sometimes I'll be a little lenient and go with a cover letter, because a cover letter is theoretically written by the applicant.
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And I just look at grammar, look at spelling, but I don't look at the substance at all.
00:22:08.349 --> 00:22:09.579
That's the first thing I look for.
00:22:09.579 --> 00:22:18.700
If I see grammar errors, spelling errors, I just I'm going to move on because I got other applicants who are meeting those standards.
00:22:18.700 --> 00:22:27.220
It's a harsh reality as a hiring manager that you just can't put too much attention to everybody.
00:22:27.339 --> 00:22:33.970
The last time I hired for an instructional designer position, I had 70 applicants.
00:22:33.970 --> 00:22:42.579
And I don't have a HR team that'll go through and cull the the applicants down to, you know, these are who we think would be a good fit.
00:22:42.579 --> 00:22:44.019
I have to do that myself.
00:22:44.470 --> 00:22:53.529
So if I'm really critically thinking about all 70, it's going to take me a month to go through all those applicants.
00:22:53.529 --> 00:22:57.759
So I really have to do a quick and dirty this is my baseline.
00:22:58.180 --> 00:22:59.650
Is it there? Great.
00:22:59.650 --> 00:23:02.799
Now I can engage my real critical thinking brain.
00:23:02.799 --> 00:23:09.940
How were they applying the principles of ADDIE, SAM, whatever they have in their portfolio or their piece?
00:23:09.940 --> 00:23:18.730
And how are they measuring learner outcomes, if there are any representations of that in the portfolio itself?
00:23:18.730 --> 00:23:23.349
And that'll help me put together the list of who I interview.
00:23:23.980 --> 00:23:25.900
So how does somebody stand out?
00:23:25.900 --> 00:23:27.309
They've got a portfolio.
00:23:27.309 --> 00:23:32.230
How... what do they do to stand out from the 70 other people?
00:23:33.039 --> 00:23:39.579
Another great question. For what I look for, including a tiny bit of color in the resume...
00:23:39.890 --> 00:23:43.990
It helps me remember what resumes I have looked at.
00:23:44.109 --> 00:23:48.700
So do a little bit of styling on the resume, not too much.
00:23:48.700 --> 00:23:56.710
Don't go adding like a paisley background and giant blocks of shapes everywhere.
00:23:56.710 --> 00:24:06.250
Just just a little thing to help me remember that yes, I have seen this resume and cue me in to what I had seen in it before.
00:24:06.250 --> 00:24:10.420
Education, great. Experience, great. For me.
00:24:10.569 --> 00:24:16.599
I don't really look at the personal interests or the stuff like that.
00:24:16.750 --> 00:24:26.950
I know that there are some people who say that that's a really good way of humanizing you, but also in some ways that can be a detriment.
00:24:26.950 --> 00:24:44.019
Having that in, say, say I don't like Bocce ball and you love Bocce ball. Even if I'm not really thinking about it, it can in some ways the back of my head say I put a little distance between me and the applicant.
00:24:44.319 --> 00:24:48.009
I try very actively not to do that, which is why I don't read them.
00:24:48.009 --> 00:25:02.589
But little thing to be aware of with a hiring manager, if there's an element on it that they don't like personally, even though it has no impact on your your work as as a person, it might be there.
00:25:02.589 --> 00:25:14.019
Another element that suggested to hiring managers is like removing the names off, of the applicants because people who have non-Western names typically are selected less.
00:25:14.019 --> 00:25:17.740
That's not on you, that's not on your name, it's on the hiring manager.
00:25:17.740 --> 00:25:33.339
So as part of my hiring practice, if I see a name I can't pronounce, I actively look at that resume because maybe somebody else didn't give them a chance, which means I get the chance of having a great worker who just happens to have a cool name.
00:25:33.759 --> 00:25:37.240
I agree completely that it really is.
00:25:37.240 --> 00:25:42.549
It is the hiring manager's responsibility to remove that bias.
00:25:42.910 --> 00:25:43.750
Absolutely.
00:25:43.869 --> 00:25:44.500
Yeah.
00:25:44.500 --> 00:25:46.119
To actively remove that bias.
00:25:46.119 --> 00:25:48.880
So what are the biggest mistakes people make?
00:25:49.990 --> 00:25:56.319
That's a real good question and it's something that comes up a lot in my hiring process.
00:25:56.470 --> 00:26:06.759
I state very explicitly for instructional designers to include the writing sample or portfolio for other people on my team, I have various other creatives.
00:26:06.759 --> 00:26:10.690
I have illustrators, Video editors. I always say include a portfolio.
00:26:11.259 --> 00:26:14.380
If you don't include a portfolio, I'm not considering you.
00:26:15.099 --> 00:26:19.180
I'm sorry, it's there in the post.
00:26:19.390 --> 00:26:28.450
It's a request, and I hate to think that I've passed up on somebody who would have been perfect for the position only because they missed that piece.
00:26:28.450 --> 00:26:42.849
So read a job, posting through, figure out what they're requesting, and then after that bit, the next biggest mistake is probably overdoing it.
00:26:42.849 --> 00:26:50.710
So during my hiring process, I ask the applicant to produce something for an instructional designer.
00:26:50.710 --> 00:26:55.720
I ask them to write an introduction to a topic.
00:26:56.710 --> 00:27:11.559
I generally choose the topic ahead of time, and I provide them an exemplar that we have produced at our company because I want to see how well that applicant can replicate the style without knowing the style explicitly.
00:27:11.710 --> 00:27:16.869
There are things about the way we write that should pop out when reading it.
00:27:16.869 --> 00:27:18.519
So that's what I'm looking for.
00:27:18.519 --> 00:27:26.509
And there are people who, when presented that opportunity, will produce practically a novel.
00:27:27.799 --> 00:27:33.650
You did a great job writing 2000 words, but I only needed 400.
00:27:33.650 --> 00:27:34.190
Right.
00:27:34.309 --> 00:27:35.359
So.
00:27:36.660 --> 00:27:38.960
match the expectation.
00:27:38.970 --> 00:27:42.839
If you don't think you know what the expectation is, ask questions.
00:27:43.140 --> 00:27:49.109
If a hiring manager doesn't want you to ask questions, I don't think you want to work for that company.
00:27:50.019 --> 00:27:57.220
Because you should feel like you can ask questions and get clarification on anything without being judged.
00:27:57.250 --> 00:28:08.349
It's so much better, so much better to have open communication than to have implicit expectations that you may or may not hit and not understand.
00:28:08.589 --> 00:28:16.519
So to tip to people who are applying, if you get the sense that you can't ask questions, get clarification.
00:28:16.519 --> 00:28:17.119
Keep looking.
00:28:17.509 --> 00:28:18.250
Keep looking.
00:28:18.259 --> 00:28:19.069
Exactly.
00:28:19.430 --> 00:28:21.789
There is that, you know, that fit thing matters.
00:28:21.799 --> 00:28:24.079
What do you think about video introductions?
00:28:26.160 --> 00:28:27.869
Could you expand on that a little bit?
00:28:28.049 --> 00:28:28.859
Yeah.
00:28:28.859 --> 00:28:35.880
One of the things that we do in the portfolio class is we have students create a video introduction.
00:28:36.210 --> 00:28:38.640
And I'm curious what you think about that.
00:28:40.329 --> 00:28:44.890
I personally wouldn't view it.
00:28:45.490 --> 00:28:52.329
Reason being, again, I'm trying to reduce the amount of bias that I'm bringing to the situation.
00:28:52.660 --> 00:28:55.900
If I see it's there, I'd probably make a mental note of it.
00:28:55.900 --> 00:29:01.690
So later on in the process I might go watch it, but I'm not going to begin my process with it.
00:29:02.349 --> 00:29:13.089
Again, a lot of what I do is trying to mitigate the biases that I have because I'm looking for the best person for the position, not necessarily who I would jive with the best.
00:29:15.099 --> 00:29:16.390
I really like the way you say.
00:29:16.390 --> 00:29:20.529
I think a lot of hiring managers could learn from what you're saying, I think.
00:29:20.920 --> 00:29:21.569
Yeah.
00:29:21.579 --> 00:29:24.970
What advice would you give to new instructional designers?
00:29:26.369 --> 00:29:29.549
Ooh, that's a question that I have for you as
00:29:29.549 --> 00:29:29.730
well.
00:29:29.730 --> 00:29:32.460
So I'll go first, and then I want to hear your answer.
00:29:32.460 --> 00:29:46.500
Mine is understand that instructional design is much more flexible than you might think depending on the organization and how their training has been delivered in the past.
00:29:46.710 --> 00:29:54.720
Their idea of what training or learning should be is going to be very strict.
00:29:54.720 --> 00:29:58.109
It's going to be very concrete in their minds, right?
00:29:58.440 --> 00:30:08.460
If I say the word training to somebody, they might think, all right, so we're going to get together for an hour in the conference room and have to sit and watch a presentation.
00:30:08.880 --> 00:30:15.420
Just because they think training is delivered that way doesn't mean you also have to deliver it that way.
00:30:16.940 --> 00:30:17.390
There...
00:30:17.460 --> 00:30:25.460
there are so many better ways to get information across than always in person or always online.
00:30:25.549 --> 00:30:28.849
Ask questions about what the problem is.
00:30:28.880 --> 00:30:34.849
Get to the root of the problem and then figure out the best intervention.
00:30:34.849 --> 00:30:37.069
And sometimes the intervention isn't training at all.
00:30:37.069 --> 00:30:45.470
And the company should thank you for finding that it's not due to training, because sometimes training is more expensive than what the fix would have been.
00:30:45.500 --> 00:30:54.650
My favorite example is if people aren't clocking in on time, it's not because they don't know how to use the the punch card.
00:30:54.650 --> 00:31:02.210
Probably it might be because it was the punch area was put at the back of the building and they have to walk through the whole building to get to it.
00:31:02.329 --> 00:31:05.779
They just moved the punch right to the front door.
00:31:07.039 --> 00:31:08.690
Then people would clock in on time.
00:31:08.700 --> 00:31:09.019
Right.
00:31:09.140 --> 00:31:09.980
So.
00:31:10.849 --> 00:31:15.710
You'd save tons of money trying to put training together, getting people to understand where it is, how to use it.
00:31:16.130 --> 00:31:19.160
If they already know how to use it, they already know where it is.
00:31:19.700 --> 00:31:20.180
You're not...
00:31:20.900 --> 00:31:23.119
It's not going to make a difference what you did.
00:31:23.420 --> 00:31:25.670
What's the problem you're actually trying to solve?
00:31:25.670 --> 00:31:27.619
And then is it a training problem?
00:31:27.680 --> 00:31:28.549
Yes.
00:31:28.940 --> 00:31:29.329
Right.
00:31:29.329 --> 00:31:30.200
That is, yeah.
00:31:30.200 --> 00:31:33.710
One of the core, the first question of an instructional designer.
00:31:33.710 --> 00:31:34.279
Right?
00:31:34.549 --> 00:31:36.440
Is this actually a training problem?
00:31:36.440 --> 00:31:40.369
And so you were going to ask me the same question, What advice would I give?
00:31:40.549 --> 00:31:41.480
And...
00:31:42.299 --> 00:31:48.690
in my case, it's much more about what things do you need to learn?
00:31:48.809 --> 00:31:54.420
And in many cases, it's I want you to learn how to write well.
00:31:55.410 --> 00:31:57.839
Like, learn how to write instructions well.
00:31:57.839 --> 00:32:00.750
And so that's the tech writing aspect of it.
00:32:00.750 --> 00:32:10.740
And in some ways I think that we could do more to teach people technical writing, because I think that that is a really it's an important part of the job that some people miss.
00:32:10.740 --> 00:32:14.190
The other is learn a little HTML.
00:32:15.230 --> 00:32:16.779
Learn how the web works.
00:32:16.789 --> 00:32:17.390
It doesn't...
00:32:17.390 --> 00:32:25.759
you don't have to learn a lot, but you have to understand the basics of how the web works because you're doing a lot of design for the web.
00:32:26.529 --> 00:32:37.869
And if you're designing for it, you need to understand it or understand at least a little bit about it conceptually so that you can take advantage of the things and then you know what to ask for kind of thing.
00:32:37.869 --> 00:32:43.630
So those are those are things that I, I don't know I see as gaps if people aren't doing them.
00:32:44.869 --> 00:32:45.769
Absolutely.
00:32:46.430 --> 00:32:48.950
So that's sort of where I would go with that question.
00:32:48.950 --> 00:32:52.609
It's a tough one because I'm not ... like I teach the basics, right?
00:32:53.150 --> 00:32:55.190
So I teach the first course.
00:32:55.250 --> 00:33:00.440
I teach people ADDIE, and we walk through the whole that, you know, that whole process.
00:33:00.799 --> 00:33:13.609
And part of the questions that always come up because we, it's very tedious when you do it in the classroom because you're looking, you're deep diving at each step in the process and the reality is, in the real world, you're thinking it.
00:33:14.500 --> 00:33:14.920
Right?
00:33:14.920 --> 00:33:17.019
You think it and you move through.
00:33:17.019 --> 00:33:25.059
And some of the skills that come out are things like sequencing, and how to actually take information and make sense of it.
00:33:25.329 --> 00:33:29.910
Another skill that I think is super important right now is infographics.
00:33:29.920 --> 00:33:39.349
The ability to use visuals to communicate something I think is is becoming sort of a huge thing out there.
00:33:39.349 --> 00:33:42.559
I don't know how much you use infographics in your work.
00:33:43.220 --> 00:33:44.029
Oh, yeah.
00:33:44.029 --> 00:33:52.700
So a big cornerstone of our philosophy is UDL Universal Design for Learning.
00:33:52.700 --> 00:34:03.230
So every bit of instructional information that we provide is delivered as both a video and text.
00:34:03.230 --> 00:34:08.000
And the text is the exact same as the narration in the video.
00:34:08.000 --> 00:34:12.230
So learners can decide how they want to engage with the information.
00:34:12.230 --> 00:34:21.289
And because of that, we generally only use infographics as handouts and reminders of the information presented.
00:34:21.289 --> 00:34:26.690
So when they're done with the tutorial, they're walking away, they're going back to doing whatever they need to do.
00:34:26.690 --> 00:34:30.019
They they have a thing that they can pin up at their desk if they want it.
00:34:30.019 --> 00:34:38.599
And part of that is visual literacy, understanding, balance, understanding lines, and understanding color and contrast.
00:34:38.599 --> 00:35:00.199
So when we do decide to make an infographic, all of those things really play in, and I'm very lucky to have such great designers on my team that where if they're just told, here's the copy, this is the text that needs to be in the infographic, they can take it and they cam run and make something beautiful memorable.
00:35:00.199 --> 00:35:04.460
You might even frame it, put it on the wall instead of just pinning it up.
00:35:04.460 --> 00:35:04.969
Right?
00:35:04.969 --> 00:35:07.219
So all those things.
00:35:07.219 --> 00:35:16.309
Yes, I definitely agree that understanding that, and understanding how to make a visual flow really plays into that.
00:35:18.530 --> 00:35:21.409
Have you had a chance to play with ChatGPT yet?
00:35:22.400 --> 00:35:32.360
I have not played with ChatGPT, I will probably play with it when ChatGPT 4 comes out.
00:35:32.809 --> 00:35:33.500
And why 4?
00:35:33.889 --> 00:35:34.849
Why that one?
00:35:34.849 --> 00:35:37.369
It's about 100 times more powerful.
00:35:37.610 --> 00:35:38.809
Approximately 100 times.
00:35:38.809 --> 00:35:40.820
I can't remember the exact...
00:35:40.820 --> 00:35:43.190
But right now it's just text.
00:35:43.340 --> 00:35:48.920
In the next iteration it'll include audio, video, visual, everything wrapped into one.
00:35:49.429 --> 00:35:50.239
Wow.
00:35:50.449 --> 00:35:59.000
One of the things that I use it for is ideas for graphics to go or images to go with my blog posts.
00:35:59.000 --> 00:36:02.849
So I write the blog post, then I'm like, oh, what image is good with this?
00:36:02.989 --> 00:36:10.099
And so I might throw it into ChatGPT to just, you know, like, oh, let's see, what do you think kind of thing.
00:36:10.099 --> 00:36:12.420
And so I'm finding it kind of interesting.
00:36:12.440 --> 00:36:15.739
Have you used any other AI tools?
00:36:16.780 --> 00:36:19.719
No, I have not.
00:36:20.289 --> 00:36:29.670
There are elements to AI in its nascent and current stage where I felt that it would be a detractor to the process.
00:36:29.679 --> 00:36:38.980
There would be more nonsense, more there'd be more obfuscation of what I need.
00:36:39.670 --> 00:36:40.869
It's not good enough.
00:36:40.869 --> 00:36:42.099
It's not good enough.
00:36:42.639 --> 00:36:49.360
But I do recognize it as a useful tool, particularly for idea generation.
00:36:49.360 --> 00:36:55.989
If you're hitting a wall, you need to just find a way around this obstacle.
00:36:56.739 --> 00:36:57.219
Sure.
00:36:57.250 --> 00:36:58.420
See, see if it helps.
00:36:58.510 --> 00:37:00.699
See if it gets you around that obstacle or that wall.
00:37:00.909 --> 00:37:15.969
But when it comes to something like writing instruction, it just makes me giggle because what it produces just a little faux pas here and there, having double words.
00:37:15.969 --> 00:37:20.800
Learning objectives that start with understand... it does that all the time.
00:37:20.800 --> 00:37:23.019
I'm like, oh, those are just bad learning objectives.
00:37:23.019 --> 00:37:24.179
Let's move on with that one.
00:37:24.199 --> 00:37:24.880
But I do...
00:37:24.880 --> 00:37:33.940
I use it to I'm working on a second memoir and all of my text is in past tense and it needs to be in present tense.
00:37:34.659 --> 00:37:47.980
And so it's really great to just throw some text in and say, write this in present tense, and then take that and edit it so that you're editing something that you know it's done a minor step of the edit for you.
00:37:48.099 --> 00:37:49.449
Yeah, exactly.
00:37:49.449 --> 00:37:54.820
And in terms of like a tool, wonderful application you just shared.
00:37:55.210 --> 00:38:05.769
I do have concerns that some people, particularly students, because part of my customer base are academic libraries.
00:38:05.769 --> 00:38:13.389
So they're concerned about their students using AI to just write their materials for them.
00:38:13.570 --> 00:38:13.960
Right?
00:38:14.199 --> 00:38:25.179
So understanding that element, but also having the critical thinking necessary to recognize that what was produced meets the need or doesn't.
00:38:25.599 --> 00:38:37.119
There's an element that I feel surrounding AI in that what it produces on even the second or third pass is good enough.
00:38:37.929 --> 00:38:51.340
When really the point of the writing itself is to build either an understanding or to show a mastery of something, particularly in education learning spaces.
00:38:51.340 --> 00:38:57.280
And that's at the top of my mind in the usages is the philosophy.
00:38:57.280 --> 00:39:13.900
The moral element behind it is a response to a question that I asked a student .If that response was generated by AI, did the student really understand what I wanted them to understand, and do.
00:39:14.590 --> 00:39:26.349
I think it changes or it may change assessment, and assessment practices, because it's exactly it's the example of why are you asking them to write an essay if you don't want if you're not marking their English.
00:39:26.650 --> 00:39:27.070
Right?
00:39:27.070 --> 00:39:35.559
Like if if if you're looking for the ideas, why is that the modality that you're requiring?
00:39:35.559 --> 00:39:41.170
Because I look at it and I go, really I want to teach my students how to write good questions.
00:39:41.170 --> 00:39:49.239
That is, I want to teach the students how to ask the AI properly get it to do what you want because that's where the critical thinking is coming in,
00:39:49.239 --> 00:39:49.630
Right!
00:39:49.630 --> 00:39:53.860
Is figuring out how to ask the right questions of it because it's a tool.
00:39:54.099 --> 00:39:56.409
Yeah, it's become this huge.
00:39:57.010 --> 00:40:01.659
It blew up this semester and became became this huge thing.
00:40:02.170 --> 00:40:09.940
So the question that I always ask everybody, my last question is what is your prediction for the future of instructional design?
00:40:10.690 --> 00:40:12.309
That's a good that's a good question.
00:40:12.309 --> 00:40:17.710
So I think in the immediate future, there's more need...
00:40:17.710 --> 00:40:18.639
absolutely.
00:40:18.639 --> 00:40:27.670
There seems to be a correlation, at least the way that I see it, between the state of the economy and the state of education.
00:40:27.670 --> 00:40:31.119
Whereas if the economy is going down, education goes up.
00:40:31.599 --> 00:40:36.219
And as education goes up, the need for instructional designers goes up.
00:40:36.219 --> 00:41:08.199
I also think that organizations are shifting how they see the need of instructional design as it's shifting from an HR function where I need to present very specific skills at specific times, to I want to provide an opportunity for everybody at my organization to engage with stuff they're interested in when they want it.
00:41:08.619 --> 00:41:30.280
So as that happens, there's going to be a shift from in-person trainers to, at the very least, instructional designers who could do an in-person but also understand how they can deliver asynchronously, online synchronous, various other blended modes.
00:41:30.280 --> 00:41:34.059
So that's my take for the near future.
00:41:34.150 --> 00:41:36.760
For the far future, I don't know.
00:41:36.760 --> 00:41:47.059
It depends on how much we as a society value human interaction.
00:41:47.900 --> 00:41:49.340
That's a hard way of putting it.
00:41:49.369 --> 00:42:03.889
If we are satisfied with artificial intelligence producing something and then working toward it, then sure, instructional designers might go by the wayside just like the horse and buggy.
00:42:04.460 --> 00:42:10.159
But there's still horse and buggies right now around in the world, so there'd be some opportunity.
00:42:10.820 --> 00:42:17.750
But I still think that there's value in having a human brain.
00:42:18.820 --> 00:42:33.639
Put together this information, structure it, sequence it, produce to it, that it would take a long time for artificial intelligence to grasp and deliver to.
00:42:33.639 --> 00:42:36.400
And even if it did that, what were the quality checks?
00:42:36.400 --> 00:42:44.800
When it comes to computer software, it's only as smart as the person who is using it and put it together.
00:42:44.889 --> 00:42:48.309
So at what point does it shift?
00:42:49.000 --> 00:42:49.449
Right.
00:42:49.659 --> 00:42:54.460
And to me and my hopes, I don't think it'll ever happen.
00:42:55.519 --> 00:43:03.139
I will personally always value a human doing the work over a computer.
00:43:03.650 --> 00:43:05.309
Maybe I'll change my mind in the future.
00:43:05.329 --> 00:43:05.869
I don't know.
00:43:06.380 --> 00:43:12.619
Well, thank you very much, Jeremy, for coming on to the podcast and answering all of my random questions.
00:43:12.739 --> 00:43:20.719
You bet! No, this is great! I had a lovely time chatting with you and I hope to maybe chat again.
00:43:21.409 --> 00:43:28.010
You've been listening to Demystifying Instructional Design, a podcast where I interview instructional designers about what they do.
00:43:28.250 --> 00:43:29.300
I'm Rebecca Hogue.
00:43:29.300 --> 00:43:35.059
Your podcast host. Show notes are posted as a blog post on Demystifying Instructional Design.
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com.
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If you enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe or leave a comment in the show Notes blog post.
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Welcome to Demystifying Instructional Design, a podcast where I interview various instructional designers to figure out what instructional designers do.
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I'm Rebecca Hogue, your podcast host.
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If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider subscribing or leaving a comment on the show notes blog post and consider helping to support the podcast with a donation to my Patreon account.
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Welcome, Jeremy, to Demystifying Instructional Design, a podcast where I interview instructional designers about what they do.
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My first question for you is going to be can you tell us a little bit about yourself?
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Absolutely.
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And thank you for having me here, Rebecca.
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I've listened to a few episodes and I love what I'm hearing from it and I'm so excited to join the space, join the conversation.
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So my name's Jeremy Tuttle.
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I'm the Director of Learning Design at Niche Academy or Niche Academy, depending on where you live or whether you call it a creek or a crick.
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Niche Academy provides a learning management system and content creation tool primarily to public libraries.
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But we can be used by anybody.
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And my role within the company is providing learning materials, what we call tutorials, to our customers.
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Awesome.
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And can you tell us a little bit about how you got to where you are today?
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Absolutely.
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So I started my career back in 2009 working for a company called School Improvement Network.
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And I started at the very bottom, very bottom rung of the ladder.
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I was a transcriptionist, so the film crew would go out to a location, they'd film something, they'd bring it back as well before AI generated transcripts of videos.
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So I had to sit down in front of that computer for four hours a day and type out what people were saying.
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And fun fact, if you want to get better at typing, become a transcriptionist.
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I started that job typing 30 words per minute.
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I ended at 75 words per minute.
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So highly, highly recommend.
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As I was working there, I was getting a degree in digital film and video production and my plan was to move from that transcriptionist position to working on the film crew in some capacity.
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And that's exactly what happened.
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I graduated with my bachelor's.
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They pulled me on full time and I became an assistant editor.
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So the videos that School Improvement Network produced was professional development videos for teachers, specifically K through 12.
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They go find master teachers, figure out how they were teaching their best practices, how they incorporated standards, all that good stuff.
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So as I was editing these videos, I started like kind of hooking on to to the concepts.
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It became interesting to me to see how a specific teacher would handle a certain situation or how they present information differently from a different teacher.
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And over time, the higher ups at the company noticed that I was taking an interest and they started to feed that interest.
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I started getting reading assignments and the first one that I got was, Why are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?
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by Beverly Tatum. A fantastic book, fantastic read on the impact of race and education.
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And once they saw that I actually engaged with the material, they decided to give me a promotion.
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They promoted me to being a writer of the videos, and that was a really steep learning curve, trying to effectively teach teachers how to teach, though I've never taught myself and it's a really high bar and I spent the first year just learning as much as I could.
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Luckily, I'd spent the previous five to six years observing teachers, whether it was through the transcriptioning, or through the editing process.
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So I had a general, I absorbed that information over time, but it really took actually teaching to really get a grasp.
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So I taught film to middle schoolers for two years.
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It was through what was called a Discovery Program at a local elementary middle school.
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And that that was a really fun time, not only developing my own curriculum for the class, my own materials, getting to talk with all the students, see them in real time, engage with the materials I provided, that I just I loved seeing that, loved seeing them become better filmmakers, you know, even though they were ages 9 to 14, I had a full range.
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It was fifth to ninth grade in that class.
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And when I did that, I realized maybe this is something that I could do more of.
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And around the time that I finished with the class, there was a restructuring at School Improvement Network to where we were no longer just providing instructional videos.
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We were going to become the learning experience team.
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And as part of that transition, I then became a curriculum developer.
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I had to take on research.
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responsibilities, had to start thinking about how you design for online learning, not just video itself.
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Video can be a good part of it, but that doesn't necessarily make it the best piece to deliver something.
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And from there I had a great nurturing environment.
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Great bosses who saw potential in me that I didn't see myself, continued to feed me more books, and I wound up near the end of my tenure there developing a couple micro-credentials specifically on rubrics and criteria and formative and summative assessment.
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Those two are my favorite ones.
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And then the company got sold to another company and I lost my job more or less, so needing to go somewhere else.
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I had been doing some contract work with Niche Academy writing tutorials for their public library customers.
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They brought me on and a couple of years later we're where we are now and we're building, in my opinion, some of the best distance asynchronous learning materials that you can find.
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And I'm super proud of the team that we have.
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Can you tell me a little bit more about the Micro-credentials?
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Like what does that entail?
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What does it mean to say that you were creating Micro-credentials?
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Absolutely.
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Great question.
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So the micro-credentials that we were producing at School Improvement Network specifically focused on discrete skills for teachers that needed more than just a small bit of information.
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There was a lot of microlearning discussion rolling around at the time, and while we did provide Microlearning pieces, the micro- credential was meant to really pull a bunch of things together, create a solid understanding, and then also the credential part of the micro-credential, there was a credentialing process, so we weren't looking to produce a college level course experience, but something that if you had strung multiple micro-credentials together, it could equate to a college level course and the company provided assessors, creditors, all that stuff.
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I can't remember the exact details of who was credentialing us, but it wasn't ourselves.
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And the I'll talk about the formative and summative micro-credentials because that one was my favorite.
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I'm one of the few instructional designers who hears the word assessment and I perk my ears and go, oh yes, you want to talk, you want to talk assessment.
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I love it.
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So that one was encouraging teachers to think outside of how they did traditional formative and summative assessment.
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If you go back to your childhood years, it seems to be ever present, no matter how old you are, that the teacher would give you a piece of paper with a couple of questions.
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You answer the questions that would be your quiz, and they would treat that as their formative assessment.
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And then at the very end, there was either a test or an essay, sometimes a portfolio, but not too often.
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And those are perfectly fine, suitable assessments.
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But there's so many more ways you can get that across.
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Get that information to yourself, get the information back to the students.
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So we were encouraging our learners, the teachers, to apply different methods.
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So the course material is focused on the difference between binary multiple choice questions if you have to go that kind of route.
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And also when a short answer versus a long form answer would be better in a more qualitative assessment.
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And then for summative assessments, really pushing more mastery based methods, portfolios being the strongest case or having them do a project, do anything related to the course material that would result in demonstration of mastery. And usually an essay, unless it's an English class, doesn't lead to that demonstration.
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So, if you're in a shop class, make the thing you know, if you are in a social studies class, maybe it's a video, a documentary of stuff you found while doing your historical research, stuff like that.
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At some point in time in your career, you decided to go back to school.
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Can you tell us sort of how you ended up in a master's program?
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Ah, yeah.
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So in 2019, I'd been with Niche Academy for two years and we were getting to the point where I felt we were stable in what we were providing, but I didn't know what I don't know.
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And I felt that there was a gap in my understanding.
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I'd had a lot of hands on experience through the work that I did at School Improvement Network making the micro-credentials, but that was to a very specific audience with very specific standards and outcomes for what I needed to make, and I'd never explored beyond that.
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And as I was building out the team at Niche Academy and seeing into the future in my directorial role, trying to make sure that we we were making progress, we're going somewhere.
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I saw this giant mass of nothing where maybe there's something I'm missing and if I'm going to avoid it and make something that's less useful or not as good for our customers, we're not going to make the impact we need to make.
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So I started looking around for instructional design programs, so they could fill in that knowledge hole in my brain.
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And I stumbled upon the University of Massachusetts Boston program, and I loved it because of the focus on adult learners.
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There's so many programs that focus on K through 12 student experience, and while that's very good and valid to learn, it just didn't apply to my application.
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I have primarily adult learners.
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I have learners from all over the nation, various levels of education.
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I need to really understand how to present to adults in that capacity, because unlike students who are stuck in a classroom, I need to hook in and really engage an adult learner.
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So I applied, got in, loved it.
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First class was with you, Rebecca, I took 601 and 602 concurrently, that very first semester and boy was that a ride.
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As soon as I finished those two classes, I knew this program.
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The program was for me because it immediately filled in a couple holes.
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The first one to come to mind is connectivism.
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I had a solid understanding of behaviorism, a pretty good grasp on cognitivism, but connectivism never heard of it, didn't understand it at all.
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So having that understanding really shifted how we presented the information that we were putting forth for our customers.
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Instead of requiring learners to demonstrate understanding of everything put in front of them, we instead shifted to can they pull that information when they need it?
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We have all the information here in the tutorial unless they're going to apply it day in, day out.
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They don't need to have it in their working memory.
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So how do we make it as easy for them to find it and connect to it and still be effective?
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That was the main reason why I wanted to go back to school was get information like that and really pull it in.
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And there are a couple other nuggets here and there throughout the program that have really stuck with me and really improved my practice.
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And I'm so glad to have gone through the process.
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Can you share another nugget?
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I think that's fascinating to hear what were those key gaps in that understanding?
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Because one of the big questions that comes up is, is do I do a master's program or do I just do a quick and dirty certificate?
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Do I go to something like Idol courses?
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Like, what do I do?
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And one of the bits of advice I always give is you go to a master's program because you want a master's, right?
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Because it you know, it is a bit of a journey, right?
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Like it is that.
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But I'm curious, sort of what were those those gaps that got filled?
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Yeah, great question.
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The structure provided by the master's program forced me to go through things that I probably wouldn't have done if I were doing a self paced environment.
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One of the classes was research, of course, and the research it was taught by Carol Sharicz, a lovely, lovely instructor.
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The the purpose of the course was to explore a problem in your organization or your life or something, and then deep dive into some research.
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And at the time there were some feedback problems going on with some other people within the company, mainly in the process of providing feedback, not necessarily that feedback wasn't being provided or that the feedback was harmful, harmful or anything like that.
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It was just more that the process wasn't particularly clear.
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The outcomes of the feedback could have been improved.
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So I dug into the research and as I was doing that, I stumbled upon a way of thinking about feedback that improved the way that I delivered it.
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And that's the expectation of the person who's receiving feedback.
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The way it was described was there are two kinds people who just want the answer, and the people who want to struggle through.
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So I call it answer prompted, answer given.
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So when you want the answer given, that's really great for things like structural engineering.
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You have a team who's building a bridge.
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They go to a civil engineer and they say, civil engineer, is there anything wrong with my bridge?
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It would be really annoying for that engineer to say, yeah, something's not quite right.
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What do you think could be improved?
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The team there, the construction team's gonna be like, no, no, no, that's not my job.
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That's your job.
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Tell me what's wrong and we'll fix it.
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Right?
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They need the answer given.
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And then the other side of the coin for answer prompted is think about a philosophy student.
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You know, somebody who's going for the full philosophy PhD.
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They've put their thesis together.
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They turn it over to their advisor, and the advisor says, the way you are thinking about this issue is wrong and this is how it should be done.
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Right?
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Philosophy is notoriously not that way.
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You know, you figure your own means of thinking and then there's basic structures.
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Maybe you could do that with the grammar.
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But when it comes to the idea you want to, you want to prompt the answer, you say something's not working here.
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Here's what I think isn't working.
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How might you address it?
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Right?
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So in thinking of those two different sides you have what people expect, what people want.
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And for me personally, I want answer prompted most of the time.
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I want I want to think through I want to truly understand what I'm doing.
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But if I forget a period at the end of a sentence, I'm totally fine with somebody saying, hey, you forgot a period, right! Right there.
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There it goes.
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Thank you so much.
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So when I was talking with my colleague about how to provide the feedback, it was creating that understanding because what he was doing was always just answer given everything was answer given, doesn't matter because you need help.
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All right, here's the answer.
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Just go, right?
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And for for the people on that team, it was like, well, I guess I don't have a lot of autonomy.
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I guess I just need to do it this way, no matter what.
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So helping that person see and understand how they can do more answer prompted get get more creative responses.
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Get them to think about what they need to do and that was a great help, great change in my practice and I wouldn't have had it had I not been in that research class.
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Hmm.
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That's fascinating.
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That is actually quite fascinating.
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So I'm going to go back to one of my sort of basic questions here.
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What skills do you find most useful in what you do?
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Ah.
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What skills do I find most useful in what I do?
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I'm no longer deep in the trenches or as deep in the trenches as I used to be.
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So I recently designed a course for my capstone, but other than that, I'm probably not on on the front line making things.
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So right now for my role, the most important element is project management.
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Just making sure that the people on my team have things that they can work on that they're never sitting idle and that they always feel supported.
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That's that's my biggest thing.
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When I am designing, the biggest skill would have to be understanding how to structure the information so that it is as absorbable as possible.
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Not not to throw shade on any other designer, but there are some courses that I've encountered where it's just kind of throw the information at the wall, and I know this information needs to be included, so I'm just going to put it in.
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But there's not a lot of thought put into how it's sequenced, how how a learner would get from point A to point B to point C, It's just here's the information.
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And in some some cases, the ideas are pretty disparate.
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They're not too tied together.
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So it kind of allows itself to do that.
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But even in those cases, there are times where you need to think through, if I'm approaching this new topic, where do I start and how does that logically progress down the road?
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Mmm...
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Mmm.
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Mmm.
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That's great.
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That's awesome.
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So let's turn a little bit to... you hire instructional designers.
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Do you have instructional designers on your team?
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What are the things you look for when you're hiring an instructional designer?
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Great question, and I'm going to give a very controversial answer.
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I don't necessarily look for their skills in instructional design.
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I look for their ability to write clear, coherent English.
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That is the very first thing I look at.
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And a big part of that is because the designer puts together all the materials that support the rest of the process and eventually gets shown to the customer.
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So if they aren't able to clearly and concisely state something, it's really hard for me as as a leader to help other people see that and do that.
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It's it's a somewhat ephemeral skill in my opinion.
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It can be practiced, it can be taught.
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But in terms of it being picked up and executed, in my experience, and maybe I'm not doing it right, it's it's difficult to teach that skill.
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So that's the very top one.
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Yeah.
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And you know what's interesting is, my background, I actually did a certificate in technical writing, for just that reason.
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Right.
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Because you do have to, especially when you're creating online and e-learning stuff, you do a lot of writing and you've got to be good at putting it out there, saying it, but also like writing really good instructions and understanding how to make parallel bullet points and that kind of stuff.
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So yeah, I think that I don't think there's any controversy at all in that.
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But how do you find that out?
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So as part of my interviewing process, or the hiring process, the first thing I do is I always say include a portfolio, or a written sample.
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I need to see a written sample.
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It can be provided in a portfolio.
00:21:54.490 --> 00:22:02.950
Sometimes I'll be a little lenient and go with a cover letter, because a cover letter is theoretically written by the applicant.
00:22:02.950 --> 00:22:08.349
And I just look at grammar, look at spelling, but I don't look at the substance at all.
00:22:08.349 --> 00:22:09.579
That's the first thing I look for.
00:22:09.579 --> 00:22:18.700
If I see grammar errors, spelling errors, I just I'm going to move on because I got other applicants who are meeting those standards.
00:22:18.700 --> 00:22:27.220
It's a harsh reality as a hiring manager that you just can't put too much attention to everybody.
00:22:27.339 --> 00:22:33.970
The last time I hired for an instructional designer position, I had 70 applicants.
00:22:33.970 --> 00:22:42.579
And I don't have a HR team that'll go through and cull the the applicants down to, you know, these are who we think would be a good fit.
00:22:42.579 --> 00:22:44.019
I have to do that myself.
00:22:44.470 --> 00:22:53.529
So if I'm really critically thinking about all 70, it's going to take me a month to go through all those applicants.
00:22:53.529 --> 00:22:57.759
So I really have to do a quick and dirty this is my baseline.
00:22:58.180 --> 00:22:59.650
Is it there? Great.
00:22:59.650 --> 00:23:02.799
Now I can engage my real critical thinking brain.
00:23:02.799 --> 00:23:09.940
How were they applying the principles of ADDIE, SAM, whatever they have in their portfolio or their piece?
00:23:09.940 --> 00:23:18.730
And how are they measuring learner outcomes, if there are any representations of that in the portfolio itself?
00:23:18.730 --> 00:23:23.349
And that'll help me put together the list of who I interview.
00:23:23.980 --> 00:23:25.900
So how does somebody stand out?
00:23:25.900 --> 00:23:27.309
They've got a portfolio.
00:23:27.309 --> 00:23:32.230
How... what do they do to stand out from the 70 other people?
00:23:33.039 --> 00:23:39.579
Another great question. For what I look for, including a tiny bit of color in the resume...
00:23:39.890 --> 00:23:43.990
It helps me remember what resumes I have looked at.
00:23:44.109 --> 00:23:48.700
So do a little bit of styling on the resume, not too much.
00:23:48.700 --> 00:23:56.710
Don't go adding like a paisley background and giant blocks of shapes everywhere.
00:23:56.710 --> 00:24:06.250
Just just a little thing to help me remember that yes, I have seen this resume and cue me in to what I had seen in it before.
00:24:06.250 --> 00:24:10.420
Education, great. Experience, great. For me.
00:24:10.569 --> 00:24:16.599
I don't really look at the personal interests or the stuff like that.
00:24:16.750 --> 00:24:26.950
I know that there are some people who say that that's a really good way of humanizing you, but also in some ways that can be a detriment.
00:24:26.950 --> 00:24:44.019
Having that in, say, say I don't like Bocce ball and you love Bocce ball. Even if I'm not really thinking about it, it can in some ways the back of my head say I put a little distance between me and the applicant.
00:24:44.319 --> 00:24:48.009
I try very actively not to do that, which is why I don't read them.
00:24:48.009 --> 00:25:02.589
But little thing to be aware of with a hiring manager, if there's an element on it that they don't like personally, even though it has no impact on your your work as as a person, it might be there.
00:25:02.589 --> 00:25:14.019
Another element that suggested to hiring managers is like removing the names off, of the applicants because people who have non-Western names typically are selected less.
00:25:14.019 --> 00:25:17.740
That's not on you, that's not on your name, it's on the hiring manager.
00:25:17.740 --> 00:25:33.339
So as part of my hiring practice, if I see a name I can't pronounce, I actively look at that resume because maybe somebody else didn't give them a chance, which means I get the chance of having a great worker who just happens to have a cool name.
00:25:33.759 --> 00:25:37.240
I agree completely that it really is.
00:25:37.240 --> 00:25:42.549
It is the hiring manager's responsibility to remove that bias.
00:25:42.910 --> 00:25:43.750
Absolutely.
00:25:43.869 --> 00:25:44.500
Yeah.
00:25:44.500 --> 00:25:46.119
To actively remove that bias.
00:25:46.119 --> 00:25:48.880
So what are the biggest mistakes people make?
00:25:49.990 --> 00:25:56.319
That's a real good question and it's something that comes up a lot in my hiring process.
00:25:56.470 --> 00:26:06.759
I state very explicitly for instructional designers to include the writing sample or portfolio for other people on my team, I have various other creatives.
00:26:06.759 --> 00:26:10.690
I have illustrators, Video editors. I always say include a portfolio.
00:26:11.259 --> 00:26:14.380
If you don't include a portfolio, I'm not considering you.
00:26:15.099 --> 00:26:19.180
I'm sorry, it's there in the post.
00:26:19.390 --> 00:26:28.450
It's a request, and I hate to think that I've passed up on somebody who would have been perfect for the position only because they missed that piece.
00:26:28.450 --> 00:26:42.849
So read a job, posting through, figure out what they're requesting, and then after that bit, the next biggest mistake is probably overdoing it.
00:26:42.849 --> 00:26:50.710
So during my hiring process, I ask the applicant to produce something for an instructional designer.
00:26:50.710 --> 00:26:55.720
I ask them to write an introduction to a topic.
00:26:56.710 --> 00:27:11.559
I generally choose the topic ahead of time, and I provide them an exemplar that we have produced at our company because I want to see how well that applicant can replicate the style without knowing the style explicitly.
00:27:11.710 --> 00:27:16.869
There are things about the way we write that should pop out when reading it.
00:27:16.869 --> 00:27:18.519
So that's what I'm looking for.
00:27:18.519 --> 00:27:26.509
And there are people who, when presented that opportunity, will produce practically a novel.
00:27:27.799 --> 00:27:33.650
You did a great job writing 2000 words, but I only needed 400.
00:27:33.650 --> 00:27:34.190
Right.
00:27:34.309 --> 00:27:35.359
So.
00:27:36.660 --> 00:27:38.960
match the expectation.
00:27:38.970 --> 00:27:42.839
If you don't think you know what the expectation is, ask questions.
00:27:43.140 --> 00:27:49.109
If a hiring manager doesn't want you to ask questions, I don't think you want to work for that company.
00:27:50.019 --> 00:27:57.220
Because you should feel like you can ask questions and get clarification on anything without being judged.
00:27:57.250 --> 00:28:08.349
It's so much better, so much better to have open communication than to have implicit expectations that you may or may not hit and not understand.
00:28:08.589 --> 00:28:16.519
So to tip to people who are applying, if you get the sense that you can't ask questions, get clarification.
00:28:16.519 --> 00:28:17.119
Keep looking.
00:28:17.509 --> 00:28:18.250
Keep looking.
00:28:18.259 --> 00:28:19.069
Exactly.
00:28:19.430 --> 00:28:21.789
There is that, you know, that fit thing matters.
00:28:21.799 --> 00:28:24.079
What do you think about video introductions?
00:28:26.160 --> 00:28:27.869
Could you expand on that a little bit?
00:28:28.049 --> 00:28:28.859
Yeah.
00:28:28.859 --> 00:28:35.880
One of the things that we do in the portfolio class is we have students create a video introduction.
00:28:36.210 --> 00:28:38.640
And I'm curious what you think about that.
00:28:40.329 --> 00:28:44.890
I personally wouldn't view it.
00:28:45.490 --> 00:28:52.329
Reason being, again, I'm trying to reduce the amount of bias that I'm bringing to the situation.
00:28:52.660 --> 00:28:55.900
If I see it's there, I'd probably make a mental note of it.
00:28:55.900 --> 00:29:01.690
So later on in the process I might go watch it, but I'm not going to begin my process with it.
00:29:02.349 --> 00:29:13.089
Again, a lot of what I do is trying to mitigate the biases that I have because I'm looking for the best person for the position, not necessarily who I would jive with the best.
00:29:15.099 --> 00:29:16.390
I really like the way you say.
00:29:16.390 --> 00:29:20.529
I think a lot of hiring managers could learn from what you're saying, I think.
00:29:20.920 --> 00:29:21.569
Yeah.
00:29:21.579 --> 00:29:24.970
What advice would you give to new instructional designers?
00:29:26.369 --> 00:29:29.549
Ooh, that's a question that I have for you as
00:29:29.549 --> 00:29:29.730
well.
00:29:29.730 --> 00:29:32.460
So I'll go first, and then I want to hear your answer.
00:29:32.460 --> 00:29:46.500
Mine is understand that instructional design is much more flexible than you might think depending on the organization and how their training has been delivered in the past.
00:29:46.710 --> 00:29:54.720
Their idea of what training or learning should be is going to be very strict.
00:29:54.720 --> 00:29:58.109
It's going to be very concrete in their minds, right?
00:29:58.440 --> 00:30:08.460
If I say the word training to somebody, they might think, all right, so we're going to get together for an hour in the conference room and have to sit and watch a presentation.
00:30:08.880 --> 00:30:15.420
Just because they think training is delivered that way doesn't mean you also have to deliver it that way.
00:30:16.940 --> 00:30:17.390
There...
00:30:17.460 --> 00:30:25.460
there are so many better ways to get information across than always in person or always online.
00:30:25.549 --> 00:30:28.849
Ask questions about what the problem is.
00:30:28.880 --> 00:30:34.849
Get to the root of the problem and then figure out the best intervention.
00:30:34.849 --> 00:30:37.069
And sometimes the intervention isn't training at all.
00:30:37.069 --> 00:30:45.470
And the company should thank you for finding that it's not due to training, because sometimes training is more expensive than what the fix would have been.
00:30:45.500 --> 00:30:54.650
My favorite example is if people aren't clocking in on time, it's not because they don't know how to use the the punch card.
00:30:54.650 --> 00:31:02.210
Probably it might be because it was the punch area was put at the back of the building and they have to walk through the whole building to get to it.
00:31:02.329 --> 00:31:05.779
They just moved the punch right to the front door.
00:31:07.039 --> 00:31:08.690
Then people would clock in on time.
00:31:08.700 --> 00:31:09.019
Right.
00:31:09.140 --> 00:31:09.980
So.
00:31:10.849 --> 00:31:15.710
You'd save tons of money trying to put training together, getting people to understand where it is, how to use it.
00:31:16.130 --> 00:31:19.160
If they already know how to use it, they already know where it is.
00:31:19.700 --> 00:31:20.180
You're not...
00:31:20.900 --> 00:31:23.119
It's not going to make a difference what you did.
00:31:23.420 --> 00:31:25.670
What's the problem you're actually trying to solve?
00:31:25.670 --> 00:31:27.619
And then is it a training problem?
00:31:27.680 --> 00:31:28.549
Yes.
00:31:28.940 --> 00:31:29.329
Right.
00:31:29.329 --> 00:31:30.200
That is, yeah.
00:31:30.200 --> 00:31:33.710
One of the core, the first question of an instructional designer.
00:31:33.710 --> 00:31:34.279
Right?
00:31:34.549 --> 00:31:36.440
Is this actually a training problem?
00:31:36.440 --> 00:31:40.369
And so you were going to ask me the same question, What advice would I give?
00:31:40.549 --> 00:31:41.480
And...
00:31:42.299 --> 00:31:48.690
in my case, it's much more about what things do you need to learn?
00:31:48.809 --> 00:31:54.420
And in many cases, it's I want you to learn how to write well.
00:31:55.410 --> 00:31:57.839
Like, learn how to write instructions well.
00:31:57.839 --> 00:32:00.750
And so that's the tech writing aspect of it.
00:32:00.750 --> 00:32:10.740
And in some ways I think that we could do more to teach people technical writing, because I think that that is a really it's an important part of the job that some people miss.
00:32:10.740 --> 00:32:14.190
The other is learn a little HTML.
00:32:15.230 --> 00:32:16.779
Learn how the web works.
00:32:16.789 --> 00:32:17.390
It doesn't...
00:32:17.390 --> 00:32:25.759
you don't have to learn a lot, but you have to understand the basics of how the web works because you're doing a lot of design for the web.
00:32:26.529 --> 00:32:37.869
And if you're designing for it, you need to understand it or understand at least a little bit about it conceptually so that you can take advantage of the things and then you know what to ask for kind of thing.
00:32:37.869 --> 00:32:43.630
So those are those are things that I, I don't know I see as gaps if people aren't doing them.
00:32:44.869 --> 00:32:45.769
Absolutely.
00:32:46.430 --> 00:32:48.950
So that's sort of where I would go with that question.
00:32:48.950 --> 00:32:52.609
It's a tough one because I'm not ... like I teach the basics, right?
00:32:53.150 --> 00:32:55.190
So I teach the first course.
00:32:55.250 --> 00:33:00.440
I teach people ADDIE, and we walk through the whole that, you know, that whole process.
00:33:00.799 --> 00:33:13.609
And part of the questions that always come up because we, it's very tedious when you do it in the classroom because you're looking, you're deep diving at each step in the process and the reality is, in the real world, you're thinking it.
00:33:14.500 --> 00:33:14.920
Right?
00:33:14.920 --> 00:33:17.019
You think it and you move through.
00:33:17.019 --> 00:33:25.059
And some of the skills that come out are things like sequencing, and how to actually take information and make sense of it.
00:33:25.329 --> 00:33:29.910
Another skill that I think is super important right now is infographics.
00:33:29.920 --> 00:33:39.349
The ability to use visuals to communicate something I think is is becoming sort of a huge thing out there.
00:33:39.349 --> 00:33:42.559
I don't know how much you use infographics in your work.
00:33:43.220 --> 00:33:44.029
Oh, yeah.
00:33:44.029 --> 00:33:52.700
So a big cornerstone of our philosophy is UDL Universal Design for Learning.
00:33:52.700 --> 00:34:03.230
So every bit of instructional information that we provide is delivered as both a video and text.
00:34:03.230 --> 00:34:08.000
And the text is the exact same as the narration in the video.
00:34:08.000 --> 00:34:12.230
So learners can decide how they want to engage with the information.
00:34:12.230 --> 00:34:21.289
And because of that, we generally only use infographics as handouts and reminders of the information presented.
00:34:21.289 --> 00:34:26.690
So when they're done with the tutorial, they're walking away, they're going back to doing whatever they need to do.
00:34:26.690 --> 00:34:30.019
They they have a thing that they can pin up at their desk if they want it.
00:34:30.019 --> 00:34:38.599
And part of that is visual literacy, understanding, balance, understanding lines, and understanding color and contrast.
00:34:38.599 --> 00:35:00.199
So when we do decide to make an infographic, all of those things really play in, and I'm very lucky to have such great designers on my team that where if they're just told, here's the copy, this is the text that needs to be in the infographic, they can take it and they cam run and make something beautiful memorable.
00:35:00.199 --> 00:35:04.460
You might even frame it, put it on the wall instead of just pinning it up.
00:35:04.460 --> 00:35:04.969
Right?
00:35:04.969 --> 00:35:07.219
So all those things.
00:35:07.219 --> 00:35:16.309
Yes, I definitely agree that understanding that, and understanding how to make a visual flow really plays into that.
00:35:18.530 --> 00:35:21.409
Have you had a chance to play with ChatGPT yet?
00:35:22.400 --> 00:35:32.360
I have not played with ChatGPT, I will probably play with it when ChatGPT 4 comes out.
00:35:32.809 --> 00:35:33.500
And why 4?
00:35:33.889 --> 00:35:34.849
Why that one?
00:35:34.849 --> 00:35:37.369
It's about 100 times more powerful.
00:35:37.610 --> 00:35:38.809
Approximately 100 times.
00:35:38.809 --> 00:35:40.820
I can't remember the exact...
00:35:40.820 --> 00:35:43.190
But right now it's just text.
00:35:43.340 --> 00:35:48.920
In the next iteration it'll include audio, video, visual, everything wrapped into one.
00:35:49.429 --> 00:35:50.239
Wow.
00:35:50.449 --> 00:35:59.000
One of the things that I use it for is ideas for graphics to go or images to go with my blog posts.
00:35:59.000 --> 00:36:02.849
So I write the blog post, then I'm like, oh, what image is good with this?
00:36:02.989 --> 00:36:10.099
And so I might throw it into ChatGPT to just, you know, like, oh, let's see, what do you think kind of thing.
00:36:10.099 --> 00:36:12.420
And so I'm finding it kind of interesting.
00:36:12.440 --> 00:36:15.739
Have you used any other AI tools?
00:36:16.780 --> 00:36:19.719
No, I have not.
00:36:20.289 --> 00:36:29.670
There are elements to AI in its nascent and current stage where I felt that it would be a detractor to the process.
00:36:29.679 --> 00:36:38.980
There would be more nonsense, more there'd be more obfuscation of what I need.
00:36:39.670 --> 00:36:40.869
It's not good enough.
00:36:40.869 --> 00:36:42.099
It's not good enough.
00:36:42.639 --> 00:36:49.360
But I do recognize it as a useful tool, particularly for idea generation.
00:36:49.360 --> 00:36:55.989
If you're hitting a wall, you need to just find a way around this obstacle.
00:36:56.739 --> 00:36:57.219
Sure.
00:36:57.250 --> 00:36:58.420
See, see if it helps.
00:36:58.510 --> 00:37:00.699
See if it gets you around that obstacle or that wall.
00:37:00.909 --> 00:37:15.969
But when it comes to something like writing instruction, it just makes me giggle because what it produces just a little faux pas here and there, having double words.
00:37:15.969 --> 00:37:20.800
Learning objectives that start with understand... it does that all the time.
00:37:20.800 --> 00:37:23.019
I'm like, oh, those are just bad learning objectives.
00:37:23.019 --> 00:37:24.179
Let's move on with that one.
00:37:24.199 --> 00:37:24.880
But I do...
00:37:24.880 --> 00:37:33.940
I use it to I'm working on a second memoir and all of my text is in past tense and it needs to be in present tense.
00:37:34.659 --> 00:37:47.980
And so it's really great to just throw some text in and say, write this in present tense, and then take that and edit it so that you're editing something that you know it's done a minor step of the edit for you.
00:37:48.099 --> 00:37:49.449
Yeah, exactly.
00:37:49.449 --> 00:37:54.820
And in terms of like a tool, wonderful application you just shared.
00:37:55.210 --> 00:38:05.769
I do have concerns that some people, particularly students, because part of my customer base are academic libraries.
00:38:05.769 --> 00:38:13.389
So they're concerned about their students using AI to just write their materials for them.
00:38:13.570 --> 00:38:13.960
Right?
00:38:14.199 --> 00:38:25.179
So understanding that element, but also having the critical thinking necessary to recognize that what was produced meets the need or doesn't.
00:38:25.599 --> 00:38:37.119
There's an element that I feel surrounding AI in that what it produces on even the second or third pass is good enough.
00:38:37.929 --> 00:38:51.340
When really the point of the writing itself is to build either an understanding or to show a mastery of something, particularly in education learning spaces.
00:38:51.340 --> 00:38:57.280
And that's at the top of my mind in the usages is the philosophy.
00:38:57.280 --> 00:39:13.900
The moral element behind it is a response to a question that I asked a student .If that response was generated by AI, did the student really understand what I wanted them to understand, and do.
00:39:14.590 --> 00:39:26.349
I think it changes or it may change assessment, and assessment practices, because it's exactly it's the example of why are you asking them to write an essay if you don't want if you're not marking their English.
00:39:26.650 --> 00:39:27.070
Right?
00:39:27.070 --> 00:39:35.559
Like if if if you're looking for the ideas, why is that the modality that you're requiring?
00:39:35.559 --> 00:39:41.170
Because I look at it and I go, really I want to teach my students how to write good questions.
00:39:41.170 --> 00:39:49.239
That is, I want to teach the students how to ask the AI properly get it to do what you want because that's where the critical thinking is coming in,
00:39:49.239 --> 00:39:49.630
Right!
00:39:49.630 --> 00:39:53.860
Is figuring out how to ask the right questions of it because it's a tool.
00:39:54.099 --> 00:39:56.409
Yeah, it's become this huge.
00:39:57.010 --> 00:40:01.659
It blew up this semester and became became this huge thing.
00:40:02.170 --> 00:40:09.940
So the question that I always ask everybody, my last question is what is your prediction for the future of instructional design?
00:40:10.690 --> 00:40:12.309
That's a good that's a good question.
00:40:12.309 --> 00:40:17.710
So I think in the immediate future, there's more need...
00:40:17.710 --> 00:40:18.639
absolutely.
00:40:18.639 --> 00:40:27.670
There seems to be a correlation, at least the way that I see it, between the state of the economy and the state of education.
00:40:27.670 --> 00:40:31.119
Whereas if the economy is going down, education goes up.
00:40:31.599 --> 00:40:36.219
And as education goes up, the need for instructional designers goes up.
00:40:36.219 --> 00:41:08.199
I also think that organizations are shifting how they see the need of instructional design as it's shifting from an HR function where I need to present very specific skills at specific times, to I want to provide an opportunity for everybody at my organization to engage with stuff they're interested in when they want it.
00:41:08.619 --> 00:41:30.280
So as that happens, there's going to be a shift from in-person trainers to, at the very least, instructional designers who could do an in-person but also understand how they can deliver asynchronously, online synchronous, various other blended modes.
00:41:30.280 --> 00:41:34.059
So that's my take for the near future.
00:41:34.150 --> 00:41:36.760
For the far future, I don't know.
00:41:36.760 --> 00:41:47.059
It depends on how much we as a society value human interaction.
00:41:47.900 --> 00:41:49.340
That's a hard way of putting it.
00:41:49.369 --> 00:42:03.889
If we are satisfied with artificial intelligence producing something and then working toward it, then sure, instructional designers might go by the wayside just like the horse and buggy.
00:42:04.460 --> 00:42:10.159
But there's still horse and buggies right now around in the world, so there'd be some opportunity.
00:42:10.820 --> 00:42:17.750
But I still think that there's value in having a human brain.
00:42:18.820 --> 00:42:33.639
Put together this information, structure it, sequence it, produce to it, that it would take a long time for artificial intelligence to grasp and deliver to.
00:42:33.639 --> 00:42:36.400
And even if it did that, what were the quality checks?
00:42:36.400 --> 00:42:44.800
When it comes to computer software, it's only as smart as the person who is using it and put it together.
00:42:44.889 --> 00:42:48.309
So at what point does it shift?
00:42:49.000 --> 00:42:49.449
Right.
00:42:49.659 --> 00:42:54.460
And to me and my hopes, I don't think it'll ever happen.
00:42:55.519 --> 00:43:03.139
I will personally always value a human doing the work over a computer.
00:43:03.650 --> 00:43:05.309
Maybe I'll change my mind in the future.
00:43:05.329 --> 00:43:05.869
I don't know.
00:43:06.380 --> 00:43:12.619
Well, thank you very much, Jeremy, for coming on to the podcast and answering all of my random questions.
00:43:12.739 --> 00:43:20.719
You bet! No, this is great! I had a lovely time chatting with you and I hope to maybe chat again.
00:43:21.409 --> 00:43:28.010
You've been listening to Demystifying Instructional Design, a podcast where I interview instructional designers about what they do.
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I'm Rebecca Hogue.
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Your podcast host. Show notes are posted as a blog post on Demystifying Instructional Design.
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com.
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If you enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe or leave a comment in the show Notes blog post.
