I have a Ph.D. in Psychology. I was a successful college professor for over 20 years. My first multi-authored textbook had just been published. And I jumped ship.
I am also a Mom. A Mom to 5 wonderful children. 3 of my kids are on the Autism Spectrum. All 5 have ADHD to varying degrees. Accidentally, I became an Instructional Designer when I had to teach my own kids. My children had excellent teachers. But sometimes, they needed to be taught using a-typical methodologies. I took a deep dive into how to reach them. I found a treasure trove of hands-on instructional design options that worked for my kids. Cutting up pieces of paper and lining them up to learn history, building models of cells with marbles and cookie cutters, acting out various parts of social studies, and creating songs with hand motions to remember continents, states, or any other memorization. Welcome to the wide world of Instructional Design.
If this worked for my kids, would this work for adult learners? Non-traditional learners? And how about learners that weren’t coming in with an even playing field? Course by course, lesson by lesson I started integrating the newest instructional design techniques and technologies into my own courses. Then, I started sharing and training other faculty. I became friends with ADDIE and SAM. Without even realizing it, I was slowly moving my career in the direction of instructional design. I eventually took the jump into full-time instructional design and have never been happier.
I ID for accessibility. I ID to level the playing field. I ID to ensure all learners have engaging and immersive educational experiences. I ID for learners like my kids.
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