Ashley Chiasson, M.Ed

Instructional Designer & Consultant

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Why I Love Instructional Design

The Backstory

If you haven’t read my Instructional Designer Origin Story, I’ll give you the brief rundown of how I got into Instructional Design:

  • Graduated from university and was applying for graduate programs in Speech Language Pathology
  • Didn’t know Instructional Design was a thing
  • Had a friend who worked as an Instructional Designer, thought I was smart enough to do what she was doing, and got me an interview at her place of employment
  • I got hired, worked there for nearly 6 years, and fell in love with Instructional Design

That’s the quick and dirty. Growing up, I never aspired to become a teacher or work in education, because I ignorantly assumed that working in education was synonymous with being a teacher. I hated public speaking, something that might surprise a lot of you, and the thought of standing in front of a room full of little judging people sounded horrifying.

Little did I know that there’s a whole world of ‘background educators’, many of whom are Instructional Designers. In university I did become interested in the concept of technical writing after a particularly challenging IKEA build. Working in a role that allowed me to structure content in a logical and meaningful way to my audience satisfied my original interest. It actually peaked my interest in a world I knew very little about. While in that role, I discovered my passion for Instructional Design, obtained my Masters of Education (Post-Secondary Studies), and discovered my career.

So, Why Do I Love Instructional Design?

1. I Get to Craft Learning Experiences!

Before working as an Instructional Designer, I had been involved in my fair share of horrible training sessions (face-to-face and online), and I took my reflection of those experiences personally. I wanted to make it my mission to make learning more engaging, effective, and meaningful. I wanted the audience to leave their learning experience feeling as though they actually learned something that they could apply, tangibly within their work and/or life.

I wanted to ensure that instruction was being designed in a very purposeful, process-driven manner, and that the instruction and all activities or assessments were being developed to align directly to defined learning objectives or outcomes. Instructional Design allows me to do that.

Being able to craft learning experiences allows me to put myself in the learners’ shoes, and make learning an enjoyable experience.

2. I Can Appreciate the Underlying Theories

There are a lot of cool educational theories that underlie and inform Instructional Design, and they allow me to customize learning experiences further by applying concepts from these theories in order to optimize overall effectiveness.

A lot of folks know about Bloom’s Taxonomy, but do they also know about Gagne’s 9 Events? Constructivism? Behaviorism? Cognitivism? Scaffolding? Chunking? Kirkpatrick’s levels? There are so many other theories! I appreciate them all, and enjoy considering them during the analysis, design, and development phases of any project.

3. The Community!

There are many communities of Instructional Designers and aspiring Instructional Designers that I participate in, and I enjoy learning new things from many of the folks that I follow.

I make it a point to attend and participate in Learning & Development conferences, where I can learn from industry professionals and put my ‘teacher’ cap on and deliver sessions of my own. There are also many online communities that exist and are a wealth of knowledge for any industry professional. Here are just a few:

  1. Articulate E-Learning Heroes – The E-Learning Heroes Community has by and large been one of my greatest support systems, particularly when I was first starting out as an independent contractor. The weekly e-learning challenges have helped me grow my development skills and my portfolio, the community members have provided continual support – from reviewing my e-learning and providing feedback to helping me troubleshoot projects in a pinch, and I’ve met many of the Articulate folks at Community Roadshows and conferences – all of them are incredibly fantastic and supportive.
  2. The Online Network of Independent Learning Professionals – Patti Bryant started this group on Linkedin, and members meet every Thursday (live and online!) to chat about pointed topics or have community hours. Usually, one member will present on a given topic, and then a panel will be available to answer community member questions. Each session is recorded, so if you can’t tune in live, you can watch/listen later! This group has such a wealth of knowledge and I would consider participating – even if it’s only passively listening to the sessions – to be essential for any learning and development professional.
  3. The Instructional Design Sub-Reddit – This sub-reddit is a well-oiled machine, and there always seems to be readers kicking around asking questions, providing feedback, posting jobs, and offering support to folks new to the industry.

4. I Get To Share My Knowledge!

I love sharing all of my knowledge with my readers here on the blog, over on Twitter, or on LinkedIn. It makes me happy to be able to answer your Instructional Design questions, and if my knowledge helps you learn something new, that’s icing on the cake!

If you’re interested in learning more about Instructional Design, I have a 60+ lesson course, Essentials of Instructional Design that you can check out. Until November 28th, 2018, get $150 off all Sprout E-Learning courses using coupon code: bf150.

Check it out on Sprout E-Learning!

If you’re on the fence, be sure to check out the Course Outline and Course Brochure!

DevLearn 2018 DemoFest Recap: Winning Project: Best Academic Solution

This year was the first year that I have participated in DemoFest through the E-Learning Guild. If you’re unfamiliar, they liken it to a science fair for e-learning projects. Basically, a bunch of demonstrators are set up around the grand ballroom with their projects, and they have two hours to pitch/demo the project to as many people as possible. Those people then vote for one project in each category, and I was BESIDE MYSELF with gratitude when they announced that the project I demo’ed had won Best Academic Solution!

There were a lot of cool projects in the category (I did some recon before we started), so I thought for sure I was going to lose out to one of them. I was so surprised that when they announced the winner, I was watching the stage waiting for the winner to present themselves (typical Ashley), when the folks beside me were like “You won!!! Get up there!”. I wanted to cry. Here are some photos of me being super siked and wanting to cry…and of the awards.

So you’re probably asking yourself, “what project did she demo?!” Let me tell you all about it! The project I demonstrated was one that I had worked on for the Addiction and Mental Health graduate program at Algonquin College in Ottawa. The course itself was Group Counselling, and I demonstrated two specific interactions we created and highlighted the different technologies that we used to achieve the outcome. The project itself launches next year, so we don’t yet have student data on overall experience, but the team and reviewers are happy with the product. Below, I’ll take you through a screencast illustrating what was done.

DevLearn 2018: Session Recap and Resources – BYOD: Articulate Storyline 360: Let’s Get Variable!

Initially when I pitched this session, I thought “ooooh…a play on Let’s Get Physical…that’ll get picked up!”. I had planned on playing variations of that song in the background throughout the session…and then I read the lyrics. They are much more inappropriate than I had originally considered! OH MY!

Then I thought “maybe I’ll dress up in an 80s aerobic outfit”, but my session was at 1045am, and there was not enough morning coffee for that. Ah well! The room was packed, which is great news, and I think only about 10 folks trickled out throughout the session, so I’ll consider it a win. These sessions are always tricky because you never know what skill level folks are coming in at and it’s hard to cater to all within a one hour session, but 75% of the room had worked with variables before and they followed along very well – I was so proud!

Last time I delivered this session, I was having participants build a progress meter AND do closed captions with variables in Articulate Storyline 2 (which wasn’t a thing, so you had to do a workaround) and it was painful for them and for me. I opted out of two complex things for this session in favour of a more successful singular thing, and it paid off!

We started out with a bit of theory:

  • What are variables?
  • What variables are available in Storyline 360?
  • What can these variables do?
  • Why use variables?

I demonstrated a few examples of things you can do with (click each to download the .story file):

Then, I discussed controlling navigation using variables. I provided an example of bad controlling of navigation, and then discussed better ways of controlling navigation.

For those interested, you can download the very brief slide deck that I used here.

Finally, I had participants create a very simple progress meter. You can download the PDF walkthrough of what was done here, and you can watch me create the progress meter in the video below.

DevLearn 2018: Introduction to Instructional Design Recap

Alright folks – I’m back from DevLearn 2018, and I’m almost fully recovered, but not quite at 100% just yet. DevLearn was a blast, it was a whirlwind of a week for me, and over the next several days, I’ll be posting recaps for everything I participated in, beginning with the pre-conference certificate workshop that I delivered.

This year was my first time delivering a pre-conference certificate workshop for the E-Learning Guild, so I was incredibly nervous for a few reasons:

  1. It was my first time delivering a pre-conference certificate workshop for the E-Learning Guild
  2. I typically teach this workshop as an M.Ed graduate course over a full semester
  3. This course is available in its entirety at Sprout E-Learning (GO CHECK IT OUT!) and it is nearly 70 lessons, so condensing it into 6.5 hours was daunting

The first thing I have to say is: I had a fantastic group of participants. They were incredibly engaged, despite the boatload of theory I was cramming down their throats, and those who provided feedback were incredibly positive about the workshop and its delivery. They were the best participants I could have had for my first workshop!

I began with some introductions, housekeeping, and an ice breaker. I was SHOCKED when I asked how many people hated ice breakers as much as me and only three people raised their hands. AMEN!

We spent much of the morning discussing the ADDIE framework and Instructional Design models as a lead up to the first big activity: creating your own Instructional Design model. I had each table create a model, based on the things we discussed previously, and then I had them give me a sales pitch, fielding questions as they pitched. Everyone was so engaged in this activity that it went overtime! Look at all of these people working hard to create their models!

After lunch we really hammered through all of the learning theories, as well as doing a deeper dive through each phase of the ADDIE framework, discussing elements contained throughout each. At the end of the day, each group reviewed a self-paced course against an evaluation/QA criteria sheet and we discussed the importance of evaluation, and how, based on all that they learned within the workshop, each course was lacking or succeeding.

Overall, it was a great pre-conference certificate workshop. I was pleasantly surprised with the level of engagement, I believe I converted some folks further into the idea of pursuing a role as an Instructional Designer, and I look forward to receiving the session evaluations so that I can optimize the workshop for its next delivery!

If you’re interested in participating in the full course, Essentials of Instructional Design, it is offered through Sprout E-Learning. It consists of nearly 70 lessons, activities throughout (that you can complete and submit, or not – whatever you prefer), and has been very well-received since launch. Check it out!