Career Goals - Refined

How have your career goals changed since you started your Master’s Degree Program?  Or, if they haven’t changed, how have you further refined them?

When I began my master's journey 2 ½ years ago, I knew that if I wanted to advance in the field of instructional technology, I would need to gain my master’s degree. In one of the first courses that I took, CECS 5110 Multimedia, we had to create a resume and list our career goals. At the time, I listed three basic goals on this resume. As I look back over the three goals, I can see that my goals going forward will need to be refined.

My first goal was to achieve a master’s degree in the field of Learning Technologies for more insight into 21^st Century Skills and how to integrate those skills into lessons.  I will complete my master’s degree in May of this year. Through this master’s program, I have learned that incorporating 21^st Century Skills into lessons is crucial to enhancing student mastery of objectives. However, moving forward, this goal will be refined to include coaching teachers to integrate technology so that learning is transformed.

My second goal was to share new and upcoming technologies with teachers and administrators. With new technologies being introduced almost daily, this goal for me will not change too much for me. I will continue to share these new technologies with teachers, but also coach teachers on the best way to incorporate these new technologies into lessons so that learning is redefined so that learning is student driven and students are able to connect and collaborate with others beyond the school walls as they seek answers to their own questions in the learning process.

My third goal was to learn how to better deliver content in an online class. I feel that through the process of learning instructional design in the courses I have completed, I have gained great insight in how to create engaging online courses. I have also learned through my experiences in BlackBoard the importance of good instructional design, meaningful feedback, and course facilitation. Additionally, our school district has purchased Canvas LMS and I have now had a year to learn it’s features and I look forward to working with teachers as they continue to build their online classroom environment. I believe that this goal will change in that I will now be training teachers on how to better deliver content in an online class.

What I have learned through this journey could not have come at a better time for me. This past school year, our district hired a new Superintendent. His vision for the district includes transforming lesson activities through the use of technology so that student achievement is enhanced. With everything that I have learned over the past 2 ½ years, I feel that the knowledge and skills that I now bring to the table allows me to support his vision even more.