About Me

The Road to Instructional Design

My journey to Instructional Design blends audiences, content, mediums, and purposes.

Like many, my early career started in K-12 as a high school English teacher. While I did the traditional work in this role, I was fortunate to also receive exposure to the world of course design, faculty development, and curriculum alignment early on. Notably, I served on numerous committees across the district to research, implement, and train colleagues on a writing program implemented in response to a district-wide writing initiative - an initiative driven by assessment data. I also collaborated with colleagues to better identify instructional objectives and goals for grade levels, for which we then used to design common assessments. I partnered with administration to pilot teacher evaluations and design faculty development presentations. I also got to lead many student athletic and extracurricular programs. However, in 2014, a need to relocate pulled me away from my position. Thankfully, a door opened in higher education.

Becoming a part-time professor of English/Composition enabled me to apply my previous skills teaching in K-12 to a new audience: adult learners. Designing courses that fill gaps in skill and knowledge for the amazing variety of learners in this setting is a wonderful, and fulfilling challenge. Not only did I design, develop, and implement courses at every level of writing (from prerequisite to more advanced levels); I also integrated technology in new ways. I’m constantly immersed in the Canvas and Blackboard LMS. I’ve designed course for face-to-face, synchronous online, and asynchronous online learning. In addition to teaching English courses, I serve as an academic advisor helping students plan for their future - a role in which I work with an even greater variety of learners.

With a thirst for technology developing, I ventured into web design and entrepreneurship in 2017. I took an existing website and converted it a new platform better optimized for ad revenue and search engine optimization. I also worked as a business and project manager handling the affairs of the business and organizing community events. This experience developed my skills with marketing and writing even more.

In 2021, my Instructional Design journey began.