My Design Identity

Why Instructional Design?

 I want to be clear. I did not choose to pursue instructional design. Rather, the work that I do can now fall under an academic umbrella and is supported through research. What I mean by this is that I did not seek out schools with the best instructional design programs, nor did I know what to expect once I finally settled on a degree path. I am a scientist by nature, and education is my science of choice. Instructional design, in essence, is the result of decades of research built on the work of students, educators, librarians, and us as a society. Everything we have ever learned, taught, instructed, developed, and harnessed has gone through an instructional design process. Academia now has words to describe it and the research to pursue it. The novelty of instructional design is the reason I chose to study it.

What Instructional Design Means to Me

If you were able to read through my "About Me: A Brief Autobiography," you may have stumbled upon a passage where I mention that I spent ten years outside the realms of academia. Within that timeframe, I worked for various retail and restaurant chains, discovering the inner workings of organizations and the invisible infrastructure that holds businesses together. I learned how to manage food establishments, from a dishwasher to a general manager. Even in the hospitality industry, you can find traces of instructional design tactics. I spent months training employees and managers alike using standards that were designed by instructional designers. From eLearning courses to visual aids, I used the tools available to me to develop individual employees into a self-functioning team.

As of today, however, I spend most of my time writing, studying, and creating unpublished digital learning experiences. I do not yet fully call myself an instructional designer. I still have a lot to learn. On the Instructional Design Projects page, you will find academic models I designed for course credit that I intend to showcase as part of my newly acquired skills. These showcase artifacts are subject to change at any time to provide greater clarity in my instructional design graduate program and to ensure that any future content I publish is fully accessible.

My Instructional Design Ethical Framework and Philosophy

Every industry is faced with ethical dilemmas that challenge how it operates and provides services to society. As an instructional designer, I vow to uphold the highest ethical standards and criteria to ensure that educators, students, and their families participate in the learning process with built-in security in my design models. I am not a software engineer or program designer. I do, however, understand the safety measures it takes to operate educational organizations. My graduate program recognizes the importance of safe data storage and facilitation. Guided by information from research and academia, I will always follow the most ethical path toward success and dispose of any data I receive once it is no longer needed. 

**Later installments will provide a more detailed and bureaucratic analysis of how I will approach future projects. I will have a policies page, similar to those of other organizations, dedicated to the strict guidelines and procedures I follow in my roles as an educator, an independent creative artist, and a business owner.

My Prospective Future as an Instructional Designer

The practice of instructional design is not a new concept. Humans have been teaching and designing instructional methods for a very long time, across just about every industry. I plan to use my background in team building and organizational management to enhance how future educators approach the science of learning. I will create and design learning experiences for all ages and backgrounds, using diversity and inclusion as a lens. 

There are few creative "job" opportunities for imaginative minds like mine. Instead of fearing the inevitable job search when I finish school, I decided to create a digital workspace and business model as a starting point for my new journey. My fear of rejection pushed me to create The Tavern[e], the first of many future organizations I intend to create. I am the first in my family to hold a bachelor's degree, and now the first to own a legal entity. Even as it is still being developed, the skills I learn as a graduate student will be directly applied to the organizational framework in which I operate. To discover the creative house I am constructing, follow-up information about The Tavern[e] is available. (Hint: Click The Tavern[e] anywhere on this page to be redirected.)

Using the concepts of accessibility, fairness, inclusion, equality, and equity, I will design engaging and innovative educational experiences for all ages. Society is experiencing an intellectual revolution in which all learning styles are becoming great assets for change. Instructional Design is only the beginning.