After reading Kumar and Ritzhaupt’s “What Do Instructional Designers in Higher Education Really Do?”, I was comforted to know that I’m doing the “right” things! As my first foray as an Instructional Technology professional at a theological graduate school, I have been wondering, over the past year, if I am doing “what I’m supposed to be doing”. According to this article, YES! Although I am now receiving my formal training in IST, I have been an educator at the K-8 level and higher education level for over 20 years, working with all constituents including faculty, staff, and students, and always the de-facto tech person who was designing online courses before it became a thing, making a website when we didn’t have one, or delving into best practices and assisting instructors to be better teachers. What I ultimately came away with was as long as what I’m doing is benefitting the faculty/students/staff of my institution – my course design and delivery assistance, training sessions, Knowledge Base articles, research, keeping up with current happenings, troubleshooting the LMS – and sharing this all with my “constituents”, then I’m on the right track. Whew!
I have wondered, since I’ve started the EdD program at IU, why there are not more bachelor’s degrees in EdTech. Part of me wondered if it was like international education – a field where people found themselves there without formal degrees, and then now, there are graduate degrees (when I started in international education 20 years ago, there were no degrees specifically in that, even at the graduate level – so I came up through the ranks of experience). “Are we Ready for the Bachelor’s Degree in Educational Technology” was informative on the study they did to survey professionals in the field to find out if they thought a bachelor’s degree was relevant, feasible, and necessary. There was a lot packed into this article, but one thing I saw, that really stood out, was that most job announcements in EdTech requires a bachelor’s degree as a minimum requirement (yet, at the time this article was written, only eight programs still exist today), so it looks like the 66% of respondents were correct that there are jobs for those with a bachelor’s degree in EdTech, or, once again the professional world is out of sync with academia and higher education.
I do find it daunting to look at the plethora of acronymic organizations in EdTech and decide which one aligns best with me, what I’m doing, my professional aspirations, etc. I feel I still don’t know “what I want to do when I grow up”. I still have all the questions that “Getting Involved in Instructional Design and Technology: Recommendations for Professional Development” posed:
· How do you know which organization to join?
· Which conferences should you attend?
· Which social networks should you spend your time on? (Klein et.al., 2018)
I think for now, I’m going to stick with my courses, as I feel like I’m already learning a lot and being new to the theories of IST; I’m getting my professional development right here in my courses (and it’s only my first semester)!
References:
Klein, J. D., & Rushby, N. (2018). Getting involved in instructional design and technology:
Recommendations for Professional Development. In R. A. Reiser & J. V. Dempsey (Eds.),
Trends and issues in instructional design and technology (4th ed.) (pp. 219-228). Boston,
MA: Pearson Education, Inc.
Kumar, S. & Ritzhaupt, A. D. (2017). What do instructional designers in higher education really do? International Journal of E-Learning, 16(4), 371-393.
Ritzhaupt, A. D. & Kang, Y. (2015). Are we ready for bachelor’s degrees in educational
technology?: Perceptions from the field and a proposal. Educational Technology, 55(3), 14-22.
Hi Melissa,
I am also interested in why most colleges in the U.S. only have Master and PhD degrees from IST? Why are there only a few schools that have IST bachelor’s degrees? I think it might be because IST was a supplementary professional in its early years. During the early years, most students chose undergraduate programs at educational schools (such as math, history, language, etc.) as their major, and then they might study for a further degree in IST if they wanted to advance instructional skills. IST has become popular due to the trends of authentic learning and online learning, both of which require new types of instructional designs. I think this was a turning point for IST.
Pei-Shan
Hi Melissa,
I also read the article about the bachelor's degree program and I thought it was really well-put-together. It sounded like a solid program, so I was disappointed to hear from Mark that it never got off the ground!
I love reading your first paragraph and I found myself nodding my head to so much of what you said. Although I didn't read that specific article and I'm not in higher ed., I feel like so much of what you said applies to me as a Lead Teacher in a primary educational setting as well. I especially connected with your statement, "as long as what I’m doing is benefitting the faculty/students/staff of my institution – my course design and…
Hi Melissa,
How wonderful you have found you're calling and feel the alignment in what you are doing!
I didn't read the "Are we ready for bachelor’s degrees in educational technology" article, so I'm curious to know your thoughts on this topic? And if the majority of positions in Ed Tech require a bachelor's, but there are not many bachelor's offerings, what background are these professionals bringing to these positions?
Thanks for your thoughts and expansion on the articles!
~Rebecca
Hey Melissa,
I am glad to hear that you feel like you are on the right track! That extra level of reinsurance is always comforting. I, too, really enjoyed the article about the bachelor’s degree program. The one thing that I find interesting is that most of the jobs require a bachelor’s degree but do not state the required program. If you look at the IST field, it seems like everyone comes from drastically different backgrounds, and maybe this is why there is only the general requirement for a bachelor’s degree. Though from week 13’s readings, I found it interesting that the majority of the jobs for an instructional designer are in the business world. Based on this class, I…