My portfolio contains a combination of both instructional design documents and instructional design/e-learning modules; I wanted to strike a balance in my portfolio between presenting items that reinforce my learning as an instructional designer and also the improvement I’ve seen in myself as an e-learning developer. When I entered the program, I already had a lot of skill in audio and video but these skills only increased in their effectiveness as I learned more about research-backed instructional design principles.

As I think back on the progress that I have made during the program, I see some rather significant milestones, number one of which is that I’ve grown in my ability to properly research and execute needs assessments. From the results of a needs assessment, I have learned to collect and analyze the data in order to create impactful learning experiences. I have also learned several instructional design models that I will be able to use as an instructional designer to create meaningful products; those models include the MRK (Morrison et al., 2019) model, the Smith and Ragan (Smith & Ragan, 1999) model, and rapid prototyping specifically the Successive Approximations Model, or SAM (Allen, n.d.).

I have also started to learn a great deal about accessibility, though I should say that accessibility is a very large topic, and I am only at the beginning stages of the process. That said, several accessibility highlights come to mind: I have learned the basics of making a Word document accessible. I have also started I have also grown in my ability to make videos more accessible by using Camtasia’s built-in accessibility features, such as ADA compliant captions. Finally, I have also begun to use a tool called Descript, which automatically transcribes audio to text, allowing users to edit text while simultaneously editing the corresponding audio. With Descript, I have created transcriptions for videos and transcriptions for podcasts.

As I reflect on my time overall in the program, it has—in short—been a whirlwind. I have had to learn how to balance my schoolwork with life, and though it has been challenging, in the end, I know it will be immensely rewarding. Regardless of where I fall on the spectrum of experience for certain assignments—some assignments in the program have felt like a review and others have been more challenging—I have always been able to find at least a bit of gold that I have been able to apply in my life as an instructional designer. In fact, even before finishing the program I have been able to use artifacts that I created during the program to land an instructional design job before graduation. So, all in all, I’m incredibly pleased with the progress I have made in the program.

In this program, I have also specifically learned to always think about accessibility at the very beginning of every project. I have also learned that there is not a one size fits all instructional model that will work for every situation. Instructional design needs to be flexible, it needs to be malleable, it needs to be possible to pivot to other solutions if need be. Finally, I have also learned the importance of using data to make decisions and to make decisions before products have been produced.

To cite a difficulty I experienced during the program, and one that is perhaps not necessarily a difficulty in my journey as an instructional designer, so much as it is in my journey as an artist: Projects including instructional design elements always take longer than expected. I tend to try and make everything that I produce look and sound really good, and because of this, I have to always remember to give myself more time than I think I will need to complete projects. This difficulty has also brought me to the conclusion that I always need to be very upfront with my clients and with stakeholders about the timeline required for projects. That said, I know that not every client will be able to give me the time that I require for certain time-sensitive ID solutions. Therefore, it will be important to carefully manage client expectations and ask them to choose between a more thorough solution and one that is quickly produced, and which, consequently, may not be as effective. That said, if I had to do this instructional design program again I would most likely give myself more time to finish projects.