Transitioning from education to instructional design

Several people have asked me about what I did to transition from education to instructional design, so here's an overview of my journey from deciding to leave teaching up to now, when I've just accepted an offer for my first instructional design position.

I was a teacher for 20 years, but the last 10 years have been more in senior leadership than the classroom, including delivering a lot of staff training, mainly about reading and inclusion.

I decided about a year ago that I wanted that academic year to be my last year in the school system, and began exploring what I wanted to do next. I spoke to friends, family and colleagues, and researched various career options, including project management, instructional design, and graphic design. I decided that I needed to hand in my notice to commit myself to making the change, so handed in my notice to leave at the end of the academic year. I created a budget and calculated my minimum income required.

Exploring my history and preferences

I began trying to 'join the dots' between my previous career experiences by creating a map of my career experiences, using app.diagrams.net/.

Working through What Color Is Your Parachute?, I also created a summary of my preferences (using Adobe Illustrator) and listed companies that interested me. I combined these into a one-page graphic summary:

Learning

I looked at many job adverts on LinkedIn to identify and prioritise what skills and knowledge I needed to develop. I then threw myself into learning the relevant theories and models. I wasn't sure how I was going to remember all of the information, so I decided to create a one-page summary of each topic to help me to access the information again easily. I read some advice about 'learning out loud' and sharing your journey, so I began sharing my visual summaries (created in Canva or Procreate) as posts on LinkedIn and trying to link what I was learning to my prior knowledge, experience of delivering training, and experiences of completing online learning. My summary of the first chapter of Design for How People Learn by Julie Dirksen is still my most popular post, with over 1,000 reactions and over 80 comments. This evolved into this newsletter, where I could add more text and other content to supplement my visual summaries. Higher-resolution versions of the visual summaries are available to download from Gumroad (free or pay what you want).

I created a flow chart for myself to chart my journey (using Canva). This began as a fairly simple diagram, with 'essential' learning on the left, progressing towards 'nice to have' learning, and evolved into a more detailed version listing the theories, models and skills I wanted to learn:

I'm hoping that all of this learning will be helpful when I start my new role in a month. But it's been very useful in my career search to enable me to share my past experiences in my CV and interviews using the language of instructional design.

Networking

I began updating my LinkedIn profile, and six months ago I posted on LinkedIn that I was looking for a new role in instructional design or training. I began adding people I knew or had worked with as connections on LinkedIn, and started commenting on others' content on LinkedIn. I then began requesting to connect with some of the people I was interacting with on LinkedIn, including other teachers who were looking to transition, instructional designers, and people who worked at local companies and organisations that I was interested in. I took up the offers of conversations with a few of those new connections, including Olga Anishenkova , Christopher Wheeler , Anita Damjanovic, Ph.D. , Alejandra Dashe , Adi Raheja , and Cecil Cheng, MEd. .

Portfolio

I purchased a domain name and began creating a portfolio website using WordPress. I saw an opportunity at work to transform a face-to-face course into an online learning experience and approached my manager about it. This gave me a 'real life' project to add to my portfolio, alongside personal projects that demonstrated my technical skills.

Resources

Below is a list of the resources that I've used (marked with ?) and the ones that are next on my list (because the learning doesn't stop now that I've got a job!). I've utilised free courses whenever possible, but spent some money on a LinkedIn Learning subscription, Articulate 360, and a few books. I already had subscriptions to Canva and Adobe Creative Cloud, which I've used for a few years for personal projects. I subscribed to Articulate and Adobe while I was still a teacher so that I could get an educational discount.

LinkedIn Learning courses:

• ? How to Develop Your Career Plan by CAREERCAKE LTD
• ? Elearning Essentials: Instructional Design by Samantha Calamari
• ? Adult Learners by Jeff Toister *
• ? Models of ID by Joe Pulichino, Ed.D. *
• ? Working with SMEs by Jolie M. *
• ? Needs Analysis by Jeff Toister *
• ? Setting Goals, Objectives, and Mediums by Karl Kapp
• ? Storyboarding by Brett Kirkpatrick, M.Ed. *
• ? Creating Video Training by Garrick Chow *
• ? Measuring Learning Effectiveness by Jeff Toister *
• ? Agile Instructional Design by Richard Sites, Ed.D. *
• ? The Future of Workplace Learning by Amanda Nolen
• Components of Effective Learning by Michael Allen
• Data-Driven Learning Design by Lori Niles-Hofmann
• Brain-Based Elearning Design by Joe Pulichino, Ed.D.
• Inclusive Instructional Design by Samantha Calamari
• How to Design and Deliver Training Programs by Jeff Toister
• Designing Scenario-Based Learning by Karl Kapp
• Articulate Storyline Essential Training by Daniel Brigham
• Articulate 360: Interactive Learning by David Anderson
• Articulate Storyline Quick Tips by Tim Slade

* = part of the learning path Become an Instructional Designer

Other courses:

• ? Instructional Design Principles for Course Creation by Eduflow , with David Kofoed Wind , William Cronje , Heidi Kirby, PhD , Erik Jentges, Dr. phil. , and Luke Hobson, EdD
• ? Designing Social Learning Experiences by Eduflow , with William Cronje , Terra van der Lugt , Cassandra Naji , and David Kofoed Wind .
• ? edX : Learning Theories (LDT100x), Instructional Design Models (LDT200x), Digital Media (LDT300x), and Course Evaluation (LDT400x). [I didn't upgrade to the assessed versions with the certificate.]
• ? Learning Experience Design by NovoEd
• Learning in the Network Age with FutureLearn and the University of Southampton
• Planning and Designing Training Solutions with FutureLearn and ATC Training Limited
• Delivery and Assessment Methods with FutureLearn and ATC Training Limited
• Training Evaluation and Measuring Effectiveness with FutureLearn and ATC Training Limited
• Using Virtual Scenarios to Create Effective Learning with FutureLearn and St George's University of London

Videos and conferences:

• ? Acing Your Instructional Design Interview, Devlin Peck and Joanna Cappuccilli (YouTube)
• ? New Instructional Design Panel by elearningdesigners.org , with Cecil Cheng, MEd. , Melanie McCullough, M.Ed. , Nare Khodadadians, M.Ed., CCC., CCSP. , Dana Chung , and Leslie Early
• ? The Accessible and Inclusive Design Conference with The Training, Learning and Development Community & Conference - TLDC , including sessions by Judy Katz ∞ MBA, MEd , Chrisanna Paxton McMillin, M.S.Ed ???? , and Bela Gaytán, M.Ed. .
• ? Transitioning to Learning and Development Conference with The Training, Learning and Development Community & Conference - TLDC , including sessions by Mike Veny , Cara North , Kayleen Holt , Heidi Kirby, PhD , Bela Gaytán, M.Ed. , Ashley Chiasson , Kimberly Scott , and Devin Torres .
• ? Weekly Job search hacks live and Q&A by Andrew MacAskill
• ? Book chats about Design for How People Learn with Shawntay Skjoldager and Johanna (Joanie) Musser M.A.
• ? Book chat about Multimedia Learning by Richard Mayer with elearningdesigners.org , Cecil Cheng, MEd. , Dana Chung , Chaka Jaliwa , and Georgette Tina El-Darazi .
• ? UNCONventional L&D 2022 with L&D SHAKERS

Ashley Chiasson 's Storyline tutorials

Books:

• ? What Color Is My Parachute? by Richard N. Bolles
• ? Design for How People Learn by Julie Dirksen
• The ELearning Designer's Handbook by Tim Slade
• Map It by Cathy Moore
• What I Wish I Knew Before Becoming An Instructional Designer by Luke Hobson, EdD
• The Non-Designer's Design Book by Robin Williams
• Multimedia Learning by Richard Mayer
• The Do It Messy Approach by Robin Sargent, Ph.D. Instructional Designer-Online Learning

Communities:

• ? L&D SHAKERS
• ? The Training, Learning and Development Community & Conference - TLDC
• ? GLDC (Global Learning and Development Community)
• ? The Hangout - For Aspiring Instructional Designers & eLearning Developers
• ? TEACHING: A Path to Learning and Development

Software:

• ? Articulate 360 (Rise and Storyline)
• ? 7Taps
• ? Canva
• ? Adobe Illustrator

Newsletters:

• ? Offbeat
• ? The Learning Nerd's Diary, by Srishti Sehgal

Websites:

• ? National Careers Service (UK)
• Amazing If
• E-Learning Heroes