Adobe Creative Educator Portfolio: John Alexander March 29, 2022
My Background as an Educator
I began my teaching career in 2002 when I received a certificate in TESOL. My first teaching experience involved teaching ESL to young adults at several different language schools in San Diego. This teaching experience, coupled with my interest in emerging technology tools, prompted me to get a MA in Education with a Focus on Technology. Now, I currently work as a Sr Instructional Designer where I coach higher education faculty to design effective, pedagogically sound online courses. My approach to teaching involves combining pedagogical best practices with emerging technology tools to create highly engaging, student-centric, online experiences.
I. My Reflection Video: Creative Instruction
II. Takeaways from The Adobe Creative Educator Level 2 Course: Design Your Creative Class
1. The importance of Sequencing and Scaffolding Creativity. One critical step in creating instruction involves thinking carefully about how to sequence and scaffold the content. The graphic below, drawn from the Creative Educator Level 2 Course, represents three effective stages in terms of sequencing and scaffolding content. First, it's important to think about the audience and when it makes sense to build on their prior knowledge and skills. Second, it's important to consider the content and think about whether it makes sense as a stand-alone activity or a multi-part project. If a multi-part project makes sense, it is also important to reflect on how to chuck the project appropriately for students. The last step involves reflecting on the way in which sequencing and scaffolding can help students reach their full potential. After taking this course, I plan to incorporate this useful sequencing and scaffolding framework into my own instructional design work with faculty and industry experts.
2. The importance of Enhancing Student Choice. One important aspect in designing instruction deals with personalization as mentioned in the Creative Educator Level 2 Course. In other words, instead of assigning only one text that all students have to read for a particular assignment, a more effective strategy might involve selecting multiple texts and allowing students to select the text that resonates most strongly or personally with them. This principle is represented by the image below which illustrates that the most effective way to boost personalization involves allowing student choice. This resonates with me as I plan to be even more reflective and mindful as far as infusing instructional design with enhanced student choice.
3. The importance of Formative Peer Feedback. One critical aspect of designing instruction deals with the importance of Formative Peer Feedback, as mentioned in the Creative Educator Level 2 Course. In other words, students need guidance along the way, while they are working on a project, to boost their own confidence as far as their ability to complete the work. As educators, it is very important to reinforce the proper message to students, as evidenced by the Instead of this/Try this prompts format. In other words, the prompts and questions that we as educators pose to students can have a dramatic effect on their overall success. This point also resonates strongly with me as my goal is to ensure that the faculty and industry experts I work with utilize this sort of Formative Peer Feedback.
III. My Adobe Education Exchange Resources
Resource: Design a Career Networking Action Plan
I plan to recommend the use of this activity in a University-level course I am working on which focuses on preparing students for life after graduation and the world of work. Leading up to this activity, students will create a web-based resume and cover letter using an Adobe Creative Cloud Express page. During the activity, they will use Adobe Acrobat Pro to read and annotate the Khan Academy articles and then create their career networking action plan. They will also conduct and film a brief explanation of their plan using Premiere Rush and Creative Cloud Express, and offer feedback to their peers. Students will then be invited to put their action plan to the test by attending an exclusive virtual networking event sponsored by industry experts in their field.
I. Adobe Creative Cloud Express Page containing:
Web-based resume
Web-based cover letter
II. Career networking action plan - PDF - Adobe Acrobat Pro
III Brief (1.5-2 min max) video explaining their networking plan in Premiere Rush (Creative Cloud Express)
IV. My Social Media Links