> [!summary]+ Summary > This page describes a high-level take on my experience designing learning experiences. I related this experiences to strategy map produced by the U.S. military and list the things I have managed in multiple learning projects. Final notes highlight other roles important to learning design activities. # Design for learning: My experience I began to design for learning in 2003 as a foreign teacher in rural China. That experience taught me the basics of teaching – building trust, developing relationships, and promoting active learning. Over those 4 years, I discovered that I had a joy and passion for the challenge of teaching and designing learning experiences with the use of technology. Since completing my doctorate in Instructional Technology, I have purposefully built a unique career with learning design, media design, and digital initiative experiences in **higher education**, **international organizations**, and **business consulting**. These combined experiences has shaped my thinking into something of a balanced between education, business effectiveness, and the role of leadership in steering the ship. I think about design for learning similar to how I think about teaching. (See my [[teaching philosophy]].) **It's about demonstrating leadership and striving to do better each time.** To be a good designer is to take ownership, to put out ideas, to be flexible/adaptable to project changes, and to keep reflecting to grow. It is not to *be perfect* or to make *perfect products*, but to evaluate successes and failures to be better. It is also to **make products that keep humans at the center**. This can be done by not over complicating the experience, adding only necessary content and tools, accounting for accessibility needs, and (when possible) getting the data on performance. ## Mentorship notes and teaming Over the past few years as I have spoken with and mentored others interested in getting into Instructional Design. Many of these conversations have involved talking about my experience. As I do this, I often tell others that *each project is a puzzle and the role of the designer is to make sense of the pieces to create a solution*. I find that I often talk about the importance of bringing specialties and overlapping abilities together in teams. Such that not one person is doing everything. As I have found, doing this improves agility, creates necessary checks, provides extra coverage, and helps to build a culture of idea sharing and collaboration. What is more, by actively working as a team, **human-centered design** is also more achievable because each person is helping to keep the focus on the learner and their needs. What wraps all of this up however, is an **organic culture** where everyone is striving in unison. (For something that inspires me on culture see [[the team culture of Sark]] page.) > [!check]- Additional qualities of teams > Beyond the operational benefits of teams, I often tell others about my old teams and what made some "magical". Maybe the most important quality was **shared belief in the mission**. Despite differences in background and skills, on some of my teams we jointly believed in the mission and were happy to lean on each other to gain success. > > Another quality was **comfort to put out ideas and to disagree**. I've seen teams that sit in silence or restate the obvious, and leadership that is fine with that because it is considered stable. Alternatively, I've seen teams that keep putting out ideas, saying 'no' initially but iterating together, and keep asking how to do something better. > > Finally, a quality that I've seen/experienced in teams that makes a big difference is **how they socialize**. Do they share meals together, go out on coffees, make moments in the day to chat, or do it all together and have a happy hour each month? These things build friendships, trust, community, and drive an organic culture. ## Instructional/learning design at a high-level In early 2021 as we recovered from the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a project where where I was providing some guidance to Instructional Designers and Multimedia Producers. For this my involvement was not about design, but was instead about creating a new culture of balanced teaming. The project was a master's level course in international affairs focused on the [U.S. grand strategy during the conflict in Afghanistan](http://www.policyscience.net/afghanistan.hirespowerpoint.pdf) at George Washington University (GWU). As part of this, the content expert shared a *famous slide* that summed up the strategy. Immediately and to this day, I see this slide and it reminds me about my experiences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and George Washington University (GWU). ![[Diagram-of-Afghanistan-conflict-Mail-Foreign-Service-2010-web.png|Center]] While not about learning design, this graphic connects in my mind to the different components of leading instructional design and multimedia design projects. For instance, if I were to re-create this map for learning design in an effort to highlight the types of things and interlinkages that I have managed, then ==I would start with this outline== from my experience. 1. Objectives/goals 1. Organizational 2. Instructor (if applicable) 3. Student learning 4. Designer/Developer 2. People 1. Project leaders 2. Project content experts 3. Project design/development team 4. Non-project stakeholders 5. External department partners 1. Department heads 2. Information technology teams 3. Marketing teams 4. Communications teams 6. Additional support 1. Vendors 2. Temporary staff 3. Intern/student staff 3. Projects 1. Management software 2. Planning elements 1. Timeline 2. Phases 3. Activities 4. Milestones 5. Dependencies 6. People leave schedules 7. Holidays 8. Deadline(s) 2. Joint workflow(s) 3. Artificial Intelligence (AI) use 4. Budget 5. Resources 4. Meetings 1. Weekly department with sharing 2. Weekly project/design sessions 3. Opportunities for (informal) touch-base 4. Ad-hoc team working sessions 5. Coaching sessions 6. Problem resolution sessions 7. Vendor sessions 5. Shared tools 1. Project planning tools 2. Design tools 3. Development tools 4. Delivery platform 5. Compatibility issues 6. Availability + Limits 7. Costs 6. Data management 1. Cloud storage 2. Access/security rules 3. Project tile naming 4. Project folder structure 5. Archiving practices 6. Sharing – team and partners 7. Common design challenges 1. Answering 'why' to past activities 2. Breaking/re-defining practices 3. Applying organizational standards 4. Limiting the scope of multimedia 5. Limiting the scope of content 6. Addressing symmetry and flow 7. Introducing new technology 8. Instructional Design 1. People involved 1. Roles and responsibilities 2. Accountabilities 2. Phases 1. Destruction? 2. Analysis 3. Design 4. Development 5. Iteration 6. Evaluation? 3. Accessibility 4. Meeting and teaming environment 5. Tools/technology 6. Performance metrics 7. Cost 9. Multimedia Production 1. People involved 1. Roles and responsibilities 2. Accountabilities 2. Phases 1. Destruction? 2. Analysis 3. Design 4. Production 5. Iteration 3. Accessibility 4. Meeting and teaming environment 5. Recording environment(s) 6. Hardware/technology 7. Performance metrics 8. Cost 10. Vendors 1. Tools + Services 2. Contracts + cost 3. Training 4. Deliverables 5. Problem resolution 11. People growth opportunities 1. Places to use new or developing skills 2. Places for experimentation, test concepts, and gather data 3. Places to redefine 'best practices' 4. Places to share knowledge and teach 5. Identify future training 12. Project performance 1. Performance metrics assessment 2. Cost assessment 3. Performance trends 4. Knowledge and skill gap impacts 5. Delays ## The take-away I have learned many things and taken away many skills from teaching and designing for learning. But one of the biggest things I have learned through my experience is that when designing for instruction, **instructional or learning design is not a master of everything**. There are distinct and overlapping professions that have a critical parts to play when designing a learning experience. These are for example the following: - Accessibility specialists - Content analysts/researchers - Information technology analysts/engineers - Multimedia producers (e.g. animators, graphics designers, videographers) - Subject-matter-experts Not every team has all of these people. And no Instructional/Learning Designer can or should do all of these. But when they are available, it is great if they can all lean on each other, learn from each other, and share ideas to create together. It is good for the individual, the team, the project, and ultimately the learner.