So... Now What?

With only several weeks away from completing my program and receiving a Masters of Arts in Educational Technology (MAET), I have started preparing myself  for the next phase of my transition into the field of instructional design: finding employment. As a former middle school teacher transitioning out of the classroom into what is now a saturated field, the journey is not an easy one. I spent the last year in bliss as a full-time student which allowed me to focus completely on my own education and development as an educational professional. But now, all that lies ahead of me is a sense of uncertainty and desperation. 

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The process of finding employment can be an isolating experience - one that makes you feel underqualified and rejected. Your confidence takes a hit, and it leaves your ego hurting. It is easy to compare yourself to your peers, and you might start questioning your decision to leave a perfectly stable job. This is the reality of many people, and I don’t doubt that I will experience it to some level. However, I have a newfound confidence in my capabilities and assurance about my future.  Although I am sure it will be a nice addition to my resume, the master’s degree isn’t the reason for this confidence. I went through a significant change in mindset while in the MAET program. I learned and experienced far more than just theoretical and technical knowledge that is expected of a student in the program. 

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Creativity

I have been a self-proclaimed non-creative for most of my life. I struggled with any assignments that required “creativity”. I often joked about my dismal drawing abilities. I was hesitant to share my ideas out of fear that they would not be unique or interesting enough. When given a choice, I avoided anything that required me to be artistic. But that was just the problem - I equated being creative to being artistic. If that were the case, being called creative would be an honor for the select few who were born with artistic talent. In retrospect, I think I also genuinely believed that being creative meant being original. Not only is complete originality hard to come by, in this day and age, people appreciate and celebrate the art of remixing just as much. Good remixing is also an art form.

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CEP 818 Creativity in Teaching and Learning was a core class in my MAET journey because it completely dismantled my framework of creativity. Through this course, I reframed creativity in completely new ways. Almost every MAET course I have taken incorporates quickfires into the course content. Quickfires are a very unique, effective learning strategy because it makes the learning and creative process fun and low-stakes. In CEP 818, they were a major part of the class that pushed and challenged me from various angles. Prior to taking this course, it had never occurred to me that creativity could be studied. I was surprised at the sheer amount of research on human creativity. By reading academic articles, hearing from people’s personal stories and engaging in methods to enhance creating thinking, I reshaped my understanding of this concept and my own creative process. 

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The most impactful and lasting aspect of the creativity exploration was examining and trying creative thinking strategies such as patterning, abstraction, modeling and play. Most assignments requiring me to use these strategies were formative and low-stakes. The instructor often reminded us to set a timer and do our best within that time frame. “Deemphasize perfectionism” was our class mantra. In this low-pressure environment, I was able to experiment and play with these strategies. After exploring each strategy, there were ample opportunities to reflect via writing and discussions with peers. 

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Aligning my new mindset to my practice would be easier if I were still teaching in the classroom because it would be a context I can apply to. As a K-12 educator, I genuinely believed that creativity could and should go beyond innate talent, but never thought too deeply into it. If I had a classroom to return to after this course, I would make radical changes to how I teach curriculum and design assignments. I would instill in my students my firm belief that creativity is a human experience, both personal and communal. It takes on any form of expression. Humans are naturally creative beings. Perhaps the difference between me and my friend who I thought was “creative” was that I had to learn this in a class and they did not. 

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But what does creativity look like in instructional design? What are creative approaches when designing online learning experiences? Instructional designers are often given a problem to solve and tasked to find e-learning based solutions to that problem. In other words, creative thinking and problem-solving skills are critical to success in this field. Prior to MAET and this course, this would have been discouraging. How would I, a non-creative, produce creative solutions? I approach it with an asset-based mindset. What creative thinking strategies do I know that I can use to ideate a solution? How can I combine, remix and reuse what I know? 

 

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Wicked Problem Solving

Another influential course I took was CEP 812 Applying Educational Technology to Issues of Practice. This course introduced me to a new term: wicked problems. Wicked problems exist in every context including education. Wicked problems are multi-layered and complex. There are often multiple parties of interest involved and the problems themselves are ever changing, making it pretty much impossible to find permanent solutions. Common wicked problems in education include standardized testing, teacher retention and equitable teaching practices. 

 

Although I dealt with my fair share of these issues while teaching, I was not aware that there was a title and category for them. In this course, I learned about wicked problem solving and the importance of asking questions in this process. In A More Beautiful Question by Warren Berger, he explains that asking questions is the only way to find creative, viable solutions to problems that seem impossible to solve. Not only did I learn why asking questions is essential to problem-solving, I learned fundamental principles for asking good questions. 

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It seems like a funny thing to learn, asking questions, but most of us underestimate the power of good questioning. A child learns primarily through asking questions, but as the child grows, they are less prone to asking questions. This is partially due to a more developed cognition, but also because the act of curiosity is discouraged in adulthood. As adults, we stop asking “why” and try to find solutions first. But the more wicked a problem is, the more crucial the questioning step is. A good question can help define or reframe the problem. It helps us view the issue from different perspectives. All of this is a prerequisite to creative solutioning. 

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For my problem of practice, I chose equitable teaching practices in online learning settings, a forever wicked problem in instructional and online course design. But prior to deciding on this issue, I completed an intensive questioning process from various angles. The goal? To identify the wicked problems existing in my professional context and choose the most meaningful one. This was a significant learning point for me: asking questions should start even before identifying the problems. In other words, asking questions should be a cycle that never ends. Then, following the design thinking model, I questioned, defined and ideated to create a prototype - a potential solution to my wicked problem that utilized educational technology.

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As an instructional designer, my goal will be to create e-learning based solutions. The issue? Most problems cannot be solved with an online course or tutorial. My responsibility will be to design a product that achieves feasibility and efficacy at the highest point possible. There will always be room and demands for improvement which means I will never stop asking questions. 

Approaches to Educational Research

Educational research, or any kind of research for that matter, felt far-removed from me. Perhaps I should say formal research because I did quite a bit of informal research as a teacher wanting to improve the educational experience for my students. I think the most accurate statement would be that I never studied the “how to” for research. In CEP 822 Approaches to Educational Research, I studied a specific type of research called street data which is radically different from empirical quantitative data. Street data is an approach to research that is qualitative in nature and is truly centered on the human experience. It collects the most authentic data; one must “pound the pavement” to collect this data hence the name street data. 

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There is an unhealthy dependency on quantitative data in the education field. This has led us to view students as standardized testing scores and attendance records rather than learners. While it is more time and effort consuming than other types of research, street data is valuable because it is learner-centered. It requires the researchers (teachers, administrators, board members etc) to really see and listen to the students and their families. It requires a profound change in mindset and framework of understanding, but it is informative in ways that quantitative data cannot be. 

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The book I read in this course, Street Data: A Next Generation Model for Equity, Pedagogy, and School Transformation, uses K-12 schools as the learning context. However, the street data framework can be applied to any learning setting.  The first step in any design model is analyzing learner needs or empathizing. True empathy calls for listening, deep listening, which cannot be done through data and numbers. As an instructor designer, I will employ deep listening skills as a method of empathy to design products that truly meet the needs of my target user audience. As an educational professional, this was a reminder to always orient my practices to be learner-centered. 

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Synthesizing My MAET Experience

When I began my first semester in the program, I was overcome with the worry that the program would not meet my needs as someone who is transitioning out of the classroom into a different realm of education. Most of my classmates were always in-service K-12 teachers, and it seemed very easy for them to apply learning to their contexts while I struggled to contextualize my learning. This was mostly due to the fact that I had no professional context to apply it to. I was in between contexts which made me feel out of place among all of the working professionals. 

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However, all of my first semester courses began with a back-to-the-basics approach. I almost felt like an undergraduate student again because I was asked to consider questions like “what is learning and what is teaching?”, “what is technology?” and “what is an assessment?” After the initial confusion, it became clear the classes took this approach and how it applied to me. They were foundational and fundamental questions I must be able to answer for myself as an educational professional. The broadness of the questions allowed me to think from multiple perspectives, reflecting on my teaching experience while pondering ways to apply it to my future instructional design context. 

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As I proceeded through the program, it became easier to contextualize what I learned. I also made a considerable personal effort in conducting my own research about instructional design. This, in combination with course projects that allowed me opportunities to instructional design principles, helped to situate my learning in more relevant ways. I am grateful to MAET instructors who were supportive of my journey by actively helping me apply my learning in ways that were authentic and meaningful to me. In a way, as an aspiring instructional designer, being able to witness and participate in a well-designed online program was the most invaluable asset. I am thankful that I was able to experience and graduate from this highly regarded program.