Engage in Professional Development

Competency 5: Engage in Professional Development

• Demonstrates the disposition for life-long learning and continuous professional development

Representative Artifacts:

Career Pathways Reflection

Group Project Personal Reflection

Narrative:

For this competency I chose two artifacts from the EDCI 660 course–my Career Pathway Reflection and my Group Project Reflection. The Career Pathway Reflection provides insight into my goals as an instructional designer, as well as some of the steps that I needed to take to get there. While this reflection was done relatively early in the program, most of my goals are the same. I’ve achieved a number of competencies that will help me reach my goals, but there is more work to be done–always.

My Group Project Reflection is an important artifact to me, because it exemplifies a few things about myself. First off, the subject matter of my group project was also my passion within instructional design–future-ready K-12 education. In order to create a future-ready learning environment, an educator or instructional designer needs to be on the cutting edge of technology, design, and subject matter. In my mind, this necessitates an attitude of life-long learning. This group project also highlights my ability to pick up the slack and get the job done, in conditions that are not ideal. What began as a three-person project quickly devolved into a two person project, and my partner and I were left to pull the gaps together, which I think we did quite well. The attitude of “no excuses” has served me well up to this point, and I hope to keep that attitude in my future work and continued learning.

I believe that, taken together, these two documents show that I have a desire to continue to learn, and to apply what I’ve learned in meaningful ways. There are a multitude of ways that I plan on keeping current with ID and educational trends, including my personal learning network, cultivated through my own, and my current organization’s social media presence, as well as workshops and courses that I’ve either attended or helped to host. I’ve been involved heavily in the creation of an online resource center and learning network for middle and high school teachers in my area, and we all learn from each other constantly. That resource can be found at digitalteachers.net.