Backstory

This time last year I was teaching Spanish in a culturally diverse school in the North of England. Working with young people was wonderful and there was so much I loved about it. It was great getting to hear so many varied opinions and having a glimpse of the world through so many different eyes. I loved finding out what the learners were interested in at the moment, what motivated them to learn and what worked for them in the different stages of the learning process. My colleagues were fantastic. They were hard-working and creative and they had so many good ideas on how to engage and challenge the learners and how to create an inclusive learning environment. My boss was the best boss I’ve ever had. She trusted us, she supported our development and she fiercely defended us when we needed it.

So, why leave such a wonderful-sounding job?

TIME. There were other things getting in the way of being able to do all these fantastic things. Class sizes were getting bigger, so I didn’t have as much time to hear those opinions. The budget was getting smaller, so I had fewer resources to be creative with. I love a challenge and when our department lost the funding for our online language learning resources, I set to work researching free online resources that would engage the learners and shared my findings with my colleagues. It was a successful project and the materials really motivated the students to learn. I really enjoyed this task…but it was something I did after work in my free time.

Anyway, this isn’t a blog post about the problems with the education system. I spent 5 really special years of my life there and I’m leaving it with very happy memories.

Now, I’m looking for a role where I can use my skills, and develop new ones, to create learning solutions and support colleagues with their development.

…to do what?

Earlier this year I went on a hen do and ended up sharing a room with a girl from my friendship group who I got on really well with but hadn’t had the chance to spend a lot of time with. She worked in Learning and Development and was telling me about a really interesting training session that she had been planning on the use of positive language. It sounded quite similar to something we had previously run at school. I was interested in everything she was telling me about her role and she helped me to think about how well my transferable skills would work in a Learning and Development role.

Learning and Developing

The more I learnt about the Learning and Development world, the more excited I was about pursuing a career in it. I found out about seminars and talks that were going on in the area, I attended free learning conferences and met lots of friendly and supportive people who gave me really useful advice.

I was reassured to find out that a lot of the ideas from the seminars and conferences fit in well with my previous teaching experience. Something I love doing is creating training videos and I found a lot of useful tips to continue developing in this area. One of the things that I wanted to learn more about was using Adobe authoring tools to create engaging learning. So, that is the next part of my plan…

Adobe

I started to do my research and I found this excellent webinar by Christy Tucker on transitioning from teaching to instructional design: https://www.christytuckerlearning.com/transitioning-from-teaching-to-instructional-design/

It was really informative and engaging and it gave me some great ideas of things to put on my ‘to-do’ list.

This then led me to another fantastic resource; an online course, by Kristin Anthony, which shows you how to build a “job-winning” instructional design portfolio:

https://kristinanthony.podia.com/courses/go-design-something-building-your-job-winning-portfolio

I loved doing this course! It has everything you need to know about creating a portfolio and showcases some really stylish examples.

The next step in my plan…

I’m going to use what I have learnt from these two fantastic women and use Adobe Captivate to build the first piece of eLearning for my portfolio. I want to make it useful, so I am collaborating with the head of an IT business (someone I know) to create a learning solution that he can use. I’ve done the needs analysis, so now it’s time to start the fun bit!

This time next year

I’m really enjoying the transition and I’m glad I took the time to focus on developing my skills. I decided to leave my role in teaching while I look for a new role and I plan to do some part-time supply teaching to keep me going and give me the time to build up my portfolio. This time next year, when I’ve found my new role, I will be able to write a new blog post to give advice to people who are also looking for a career change.

I would love to hear about other people who have been through a similar thing.

How did you end up doing what you are doing now?

What did you learn along the way?

What would you have done differently?