Despite the fact that I’ve been working as a teacher in the online field for a dozen years, the amount of professional development I’ve been privy to could fit on the head of a pin (or, as it were, into a mustard seed); the amount that I officially know of learning design is even less.
If I were to be very honest, one of the main reasons for my interest in learning design is because I’d love to get a job at the online school I’ve worked with (casually) for nearly eight years; having formal education in learning design would be a huge positive to this goal.
Another (far more altruistic) reason for my being interested in learning design is simply born out of the fact that I actually really like learning new things.
When I saw this image in the slides from week four, I immediately found myself in the fellow at the tiptop of the motivational mountain. It is likely that I’ve been there for a long time; even back when I was first teaching over a decade ago, my students would often groan when I gushed “ooooh that’s a great one! It’s a super fun one to do!” over a math problem they’d asked. Actually, I recall being in a calculus course for my undergrad degree and while studying for the midterm, coming to a point where I realized that I understood the concepts and processes…and rather than putting my books and paper away for the evening, digging in to try the next question, and the next, and the next because I was having so much fun solving them!
This love of learning is also not restricted to my teacher/math self. While coming back from a weekend trip in Jasper with my husband, where I’d also finished reading a historical fiction novel which had described a plague of hoarding grasshoppers, we took a trip down “today-I-learned” lane (thanks, Wikipedia) and I dove headfirst into learning about the now-extinct Rocky Mountain locust. From there we segued to wondering (and informing ourselves) about the manner in which range and township roads are numbered, which led us to yet another topic and essentially occupied the entire three-hour drive home.
Yet another instance of me as self-actuated learner is my love of crossword puzzles — when I come to a clue for which I have zero context or knowledge of, I use it as an opportunity to learn about (and eventually find the answer to) the topic of the clue. My husband dared to tease me about simply looking up the answers I didn’t know; I was abhorred by the mere suggestion.
Along with my well-developed inquisitive nature, I am also driven to do any given task in the best way possible (some have accused me of being a perfectionist…). These two elements combine to mean that when it comes to my work teaching online, I have a foundational desire both to know about and to be able to actualize an optimal and ideal learning environment for my students.
What I do know of learning design is currently relegated to my own experiences and observations. And these have made it abundantly clear that not all online learning environments are created equally. My desire is to be a teacher who is well-versed in and able to pull together all the best elements of online learning design, not only for the benefit of my students but also to be able to share these insights, observations, tips, and skills with my colleagues.
Let’s go. I’m ready.
Featured photo by Lisa Woakes on Unsplash
Seek. Grow. Share.