S1 E9 Teacher Transitions
Episode Audio
Sara Stevick shares what she’s learning about transitioning from classroom teacher to Instructional Designer.
Connect with Sara on LinkedIn.
Transcript:
The following transcript was auto-generated and may contain typos or spelling errors.
Amy Petricek
Welcome. I'm Amy Petricek, a learning enthusiast and your host to share what you learned podcast is for learning professionals to share something they're learning in the field of instructional design. Today, I'm talking to Sarah Steve, about what she's learned in regards to transitioning from the role of classroom teacher to instructional designer. Sarah, It's so lovely to have you on the show. Welcome. Could you tell us a little bit about yourself and introduce yourself to my listeners? Sure. So
Sara Stevick
I am an instructional designer with a major financial institution. And I've been working for them since July of 2020. But prior to that I was a teacher for nine years, I started off in Deaf education. And I kind of bounced around with that at a residential school for the deaf for three years, and then moved out to Arizona and taught as an itinerant teacher of the deaf for a year. And then I went Gen Ed and taught anatomy and biology for four years moved on that to Virginia, which is where I'm from. And I had a health incident where I had to leave school for about four months. And then when I came back, the environment was no longer conducive to learning or working or feeling like a human. So I decided it's time to go. And I did, I jumped ship. And I had no idea what instructional design was, I had no idea how I was going to get there. But I knew I was going to get there.
Amy Petricek
That's such a remarkable story. I think there are a lot of, I can imagine that there are a lot of teachers in the position that you were in, ready for something else, not feeling supported. And I think 2020 brought about a whole bunch of things. But at least from my vantage point, there seem to be a lot of teachers wanting to transition into the field. Could you also share a little bit about that really special? Something? You've created that specifically for teachers?
Sara Stevick
Sure. So I also came to find that there were quite a few teachers out there who were looking for something different. And I came across this on a Facebook group someone had posted, I'm done. What else is there? I'm just a teacher. I mean, I don't know about you, but I can't tell you how many times I've told myself, Well, I'm just a teacher. I'm just a teacher, right. And so I said, Well, I recently got into instructional design, I'm happy to walk through with anyone what that looks like. And, you know, I'm here. Well, I didn't anticipate the amount of people who had reached out and said, Okay, well, I can't meet with all these one on one. So I'm guess I'm gonna have a group zoom, if I'm gonna meet in a big group full of teachers got to have a PowerPoint, which we call slide decks in instructional design. And so I made a slide deck. And then I was like, well, this is not going to be enough. So I made seven more and that made our instruction from teacher to instructional design webinars series. And that snowballed. So this actually all happened by accident. And now it's called teaching a path to l&d. But back in October, when all this started, it was not really called anything, honestly. And I was just running zoom sessions and putting out on LinkedIn, you know, here are these, quote, unquote, webinars that I'm doing that, you know, if you're interested, come on by, and I had about 80 people go through these webinars. And so as I was posting that, I had Heidi Kirby reach out and a couple others saying, Hey, I like what you're doing. I'm interested, how can I help? And I don't know. But we can figure it out in there. You know, and Heidi said, Well, why don't we make a LinkedIn group said, Okay, that sounds good. So we made a LinkedIn group. And now we're at 14 100 members, and just grown from there, where it we've expanded our webinar sessions to include resume workshops, we're going to be having some functional workshops coming up with Camtasia, with PowerPoint, and hopefully some Articulate Storyline. We have just great things to offer and it's all for free. We have one on one mentoring that anyone can sign up for. And we have just a whole bunch of really great people who have made this transition willing to help others make this transition. So I would love to say that I made this but in actuality, it was my my little brain seed That was only able to grow because of the immense love and the immense contributions of everybody in the TPL D family.
Amy Petricek
I love what you've built. Sarah, I think it's the community. I'm a part of the LinkedIn group and get to kind of be a little bit of a bystandard in that group and the amount of resources in the community that's forming there. It just seems really special. And if you didn't hear the part where she said, it's all free, take note free for free, free, free, free, free free, like she said. So if you are someone who's even considering dipping your toes in the waters of instructional design, I think the community of teaching path to l&d is a really great community to try some things out to start to talk to people in the field. And it it seems like to be just like a really safe community to try things out. I see a lot of people posting stuff in the community, like, check out this logo I made, do you have input? Or I built this rice course? Can I get some feedback? And I just love the process. And the, I guess community that's forming there. It's beautiful. Thank you. Yeah,
Sara Stevick
it's definitely such a giving place. We put resources up there, like you said, people post projects, we post jobs, not that we're hiring for, but that we've come across. So we kind of all conglomerate, everything that we find together. Because going through this transition alone is really, really tough. And you're faced with a lot of tough choices out there. Do I pay for a program? Do I just stick with LinkedIn learning? Are there free ways to do this? The answer is absolutely, yes. It's about the same amount of work as a formal program if you do it on your own. But it is possible for free to go through LinkedIn learning, or there's a couple of different programs that have an introduction to instructional design, there's one that is put on by novo Ed. And that is a five week certification course called the foundations of learning experience design. There's so many free things out there.
Amy Petricek
I think another component, at least as a as a bystandard of your community is that while you only offer free resources, you're also not against paid resources. It's just a matter of people. I think one of the lines I've heard you say several times is like, do your research. And know that what you're paying for is what you want to get out of it. And so what I hear in all that is just like support for people wanting to transition into it, whatever that looks like. And if you're a teacher, who we all know teachers are not paid near enough of what they deserve, the resources are available at no expense to help you in that transition.
Sara Stevick
So cool. Absolutely. There's there's so many ways to become an instructional designer. And there's a lot of pressure out there to do something one way but as educators, I think we know more than most people know that everybody's path is different. And it can't be compared to somebody else's, we provide options. And we tried to do that in a non biased way. so that people can come to their own decisions, people can find what they need, so that they can be who they want, what they want, in a safe environment with people that care about them. And will like you said, support them, no matter what
Amy Petricek
I also love, it just feels like the perfect. Like the essence of an educator or someone in the learning community of like, where this all came from was just you went through this journey and on your own and then saw a need for other people seeking that same information or knowledge. And you said, Well, I can share that. And I know how to structure it and format it in a way that's digestible and help people achieve success here. And I think for me, as I think about the learning process, I think that's when the learning process really becomes valuable is not just when you learn it and keep it off for yourself when you learn it and are able to share with others. And that's some of my hope with this podcast is people get to learn from other people's learning journeys. And so I'm so grateful to have you here just to reiterate that again. Thank you, I'm
Sara Stevick
so happy to be here. And I think you hit the nail on the head because through collaboration, we take what we know and expand it exponentially. I think the core of opportunity out there is really seeing not asking what can you get from something but what can you give to something and what you get in return is tenfold of what you could have ever found if you were just seeking something.
Amy Petricek
Yes, yes. Yes. I love that. Oh, I think there's a phrase for it. gift economy, I believe is the term but essentially just speaking to, instead of exchanging money, exchanging the gift of whatever, and just knowing that you'll get something back, and you don't necessarily know what it is, or when it is or what it will look like, for myself, I found far greater reward when I'm in a gift economy versus money exchange.
Sara Stevick
Oh, absolutely. I mean, people tell me, and thank me all the time. And, you know, and what I tell them is, I know that you're getting, or that you might be getting a lot out of this. But I can tell you, I'm getting just as much if not more, because it's just so amazing to be part of the community. It's amazing to be able to collaborate, like I said, and be around so many people with good intent. You know, people who care about making the world a better place in some way. It's, it's been amazing.
Amy Petricek
You have encountered met seen a lot of teachers along the way, looking to train to transition into instructional design. And I think one of the things that people who didn't go that pathway in life, and what they don't understand is, what are some of the transferable skills from teacher to instructional designer? And so I'd love to hear your take on some of the transferable skills.
Sara Stevick
Well, in addition to all of them, I would just kidding. But But seriously, teachers have to be a jack of all trades in everything that we do. Because it's a constant, three ring circus, right? So a few of the ones that really stand out. First off would be adaptability. When you're an instructional designer, you might have someone come to you and say, I need this project yesterday. And you can you need to be able to adapt and think and just basically tell, you know, work together with them and ask them what do you need? What can I give, what can I provide? We're very good at time budgeting, and project management to see your forward thinkers. So we think about, okay, well, I'll need this many days to do this to make this and then I'm going to have to do this, this and this in between, right. So that's all has to do with project management and being able to scope out the start to finish to get there before the deadline. We're also pretty good at that, right? I know, we've all had those nights, you know, of making that PowerPoint or slide deck right before and we're, but we make it happen. We are scrappy, and that is something that that dexterity that we bring, and that wide range of skills in creating in thinking in a problem solving mentality. And probably the most important and incredible thing that teachers have is the growth mindset. It's the fact that we know, in order to give our kids what they need, we have to stay on top of what is happening in our field to make sure that we're developing whole people, right. So we're used to learning new things, we're used to going to professional development to learn a new tool or a new trend or whatnot. The differences is this time, you get to actually focus on the things that you need and that you like, you know, instead of hearing the same learning theories again, and again, again, you actually get to learn new tools, and you get to learn different content. Because as an instructional designer, it's not like when you're a teacher, and you're the content expert. This you take somebody else's expertise and you put in a nice, pretty package, and you ship it up, those would be some of my my top ones.
Amy Petricek
And I guess I didn't say this at the top of the show, but I am a former educator as well as a classroom teacher. So I'm with you. There's just a laundry list of, of transferable skills. I think one of the things that I really appreciate, too, about instructional design that felt like a carryover for me was analysis, like the analysis phase of the ADDIE process is very much a part of a teacher's work workflow. They're assessing student needs and targeting where specific points are that are that a student needs help or I identified that they need extra support. And then the teacher creates plans to assist in that way. And so that analysis piece has always been really fun to me. And that's probably one of my most favorite components of instructional design. And I think there was just a lot of that in my teaching profession as well. So there's one more to add to the bunch. And I'm sure we could go on and on.
Sara Stevick
Oh, absolutely. Yeah, the fact that teachers know how to differentiate the instruction to meet the needs of learners, that is something that is becoming more and more prevalent within instructional design instructional designs a little bit behind education in some, in some capacities, such as what they liked, called gamification. This is when you know, we we made Jeopardy and all these different games, Kahoot, and quizzes and all that stuff. This is newer to instructional design, as is the trend of making learning solutions, learner centric. So adults, really, we learn best when we are given something that we need to know when we need to know it, and that we can attach to something we already have skills in. So, you know, for example, if I needed to give a presentation, and I needed to embed a movie into Google Slides, right, I might watch a YouTube video on how to do that. And then I know it right then and there. I don't have to watch anything else on Google Slides like how to open a Google site, because I already know that I got to choose exactly what I wanted to know. And so in instructional design right now, and hopefully continuing moving forward, we really want to put as much of that capability in our learning solutions, so that adults get what they need in the timeframe that they need it, and only what they need, because time is money. Right? We don't have time to sit through hours and hours of training, we actually have a job to do too. I think that's something that teachers can really, really expand in ways that corporate would be very grateful to have.
Amy Petricek
So what are some of the go to tips that you offer teachers wanting to transition into maybe the broader l&d or instructional design specifically,
Sara Stevick
first off, don't be so hard on yourself. This is a hard transition. It's not just jumping from one job to another job. It is a mental and an emotional process that you go through it is, as a teacher, we, we have been put into a mindset that because we are a teacher, we will be a teacher, and we will always be a teacher. And we will always be that like I said in the beginning. I'm just a teacher, right. But that's not true. The average American adult goes through five career transitions within their lifespan, this is something that is normal to try and find a new career path or find a career path in which you can be promoted and earn more money and grow and learn new things. Coming to terms with that internally, but also externally. It's a process and it's not easy. So surround yourself with people who know what you're going through other teachers who have been through it, other teachers going through it, build your community, find your community, because they will be the ones when those days just feel impossible, they will be the ones to hold your hand, and they will be the ones to tell you. It'll be okay. And then you'll be the one to tell your friends that it'll be okay. Right. So that's the first thing I would say. The second thing is you have to fill your knowledge gaps, you do have a lot of transferable skills. But you do have a lot to learn. You need to learn about LinkedIn, how to optimize that. LinkedIn is amazing. I wish I had known about it before but again, in education when you're in education, unfortunately, you get a little bit pigeon holed because you're not exposed to things like the ATF system for resumes that screens your resumes before recruiter, you're not exposed to LinkedIn or using it to apply for jobs and to be your professional presence. You're not you're not aware of these things. So do your research. Definitely check out my website. We have a whole path on how to make this transition. It lays it out for you as far as what is it that you need to do because at the end, when you get a job, you will have a nice LinkedIn. You will have a nice corporate resume that is tailored to the position you want. You will have most likely if you're going into instructional does design a portfolio because that shows what you're capable of. Because in corporate, it's not about your pedigree, it's about how you can show what you know, those are all going to be things that you're going to be able to do. In addition, you're going to be able to talk the talk, you can already walk the walk, you've been doing it in education for a long time, there are differences, there are some additional things that you do as an instructional designer that you don't do as a teacher, and vice versa. However, right now you're using teacher terms to talk about it. And those, it's like you're speaking Greek, somebody who lives in France. And it's, it's not coming across the way that you want it to come across, that's definitely where I'd start. Definitely have that growth mindset. And know you can do it, I would say, with all that in mind. Also, keep in mind, it's okay, if instructional design isn't for you, there are other learning and development positions that really do curtail to each part of learning, or each part of teaching that you would enjoy. So for example, I really, really love making things. So it makes sense that I'm an instructional designer, I love technology, which makes sense, because I'm in instructional design where we're constantly learning new technologies. If that's not really your bag, let's say that you really like to look at the whole picture of a curriculum and kind of figure out how to get from A to Z and a whole project, and maybe lead others in presenting that, that might be more along the lines of a learning consultant. You know, if you are someone who really just loves to make things, like videos, or maybe you're into coding, you know, maybe you want to be a multimedia specialist. For a company where you literally make videos all day, those exist, you know, so do your research. The very first thing that you should do is you need to write a list of all the things that inspire you from teaching and inspire you in regular life, keep them general. And then prioritize those and then make a list of things you don't like to do. And then maybe set up a one on one meeting with myself or any of the wonderful volunteers for teaching a path. l&d and we'll sit with you and talk about some different career options. I know Laura Hoyer, she has a list of 89 different careers that teachers can go into. And it's free. Just because instructional designs popular doesn't mean that's your only option, you have lots of options, you are just a diamond in the rough. And what we work to do is help you refine that in the way that you want to shine. Maybe you're a princess cut, or round cut, you know, I love all the diamonds.
Amy Petricek
If you're not picking up on what I've been picking up listeners, it's that she knows her stuff when it comes to transitioning from teaching to instructional design. So I'm so grateful that you've shared your wealth of knowledge, Sarah, I'd love to transition to our rapid round questions and see where you take us there. Sure, let's do it. Alright, learning is you fill in the rest.
Sara Stevick
Learning is opportunity when you are open to learning. When you look at it in its purest form, it will take you anywhere you want to go. You want to be a doctor, you can be a doctor, you want to be an astrophysicist, you go right ahead. You know, like, you want to be an instructional designer, do it. It's all out there. We are so incredibly lucky, because it's all at our fingertips online. So I would say always look at learning as an opportunity. Even if it's not something that you're excited about. Find ways to be excited about it. Find ways to see how it can help you.
Amy Petricek
When you're mustering up the courage to learn something new. What song do you put on? Ironically enough,
Sara Stevick
I I'm not a person that likes to listen to music. When I learn, I find that I have. So I'm going to let you in on a little HIPAA violation, which is that I have ADHD. And so if I hear music, I'm just I'm just gonna rock out I'm learning is gone. Like it's learning. But if I'm like trying to get like jazzed about getting over my fears, I really love that song. I think it's the least Keys and this girl is on fire. Right? Yeah.
Amy Petricek
I love that you saying that. Thank you, Sarah.
Sara Stevick
You're welcome. I also rap I knew can be a little kiddies on my lap cast his back with a brand new rap and I don't mean rappers in the case of Thomas gates and actresses. Ah, this little Eminem. Yeah, and a former life Fun fact, I was a karaoke host. I owned a karaoke business. Yeah, it's, it's not that it was the best vocal demonstrations. But I tell you what, we sure had a great time doing it.
Amy Petricek
I believe it. I wish y'all can see your face. And like her hands going up in the air. She was singing those like it was it was a whole experience. Oh, it's a show. It's a whole show. So you're asked to do a brand new task with a skill set you do not yet have where do you turn,
Sara Stevick
dude, bro, YouTube. Like, YouTube's amazing. Also, LinkedIn learning, I have to say is incredible. The first month is free every month after that $30. But through your library, you can actually get a free subscription as well. So you can learn anything you want. And it gives you a certificate, and you can put it on your LinkedIn. It's just very, very exciting. Like I just love to learn, I can tell without learning, fill in the rest, Sarah. without learning. There is no growth, there is no change, there is no path forward. In order to become who we want to be. In order to do what we want to do, we have to learn. And we shouldn't look at this as an intimidating task. We should look at this as a gift. We should think of it as someone handing you the keys to a car that will take you anywhere you want to go in life. And not everybody has the opportunity to learn. So the fact that that we live in a place where we have internet access every day where we have computers and smartphones and ways to connect and learn from people. I think it would be a terrible shame to waste that. You know, I just think learning. Learning is everything. It's how we we evolve.
Amy Petricek
You said it so well. Well, thanks so much, Sarah for sharing all about transitioning from Classroom Teacher to learning and development professional with us today. Be sure to check out her community teaching a path to l&d at teach, learn dev.org I also want to give a shout out to you my listeners for spending some time living with us today. Until next time, stay open, receptive and kind.