Interviewing can be nerve-racking and fear-inducing, but it does not have to be with the right preparation.  Yes, all interviews need preparation even phone interviews.  How you prepare yourself now will pay dividends in the future.

Do’s

• Dress the part.  First impressions are vital. This should go without saying, you need to dress for the part.  Know the company and the audience, not all interviews need to be completed in a suit.
• Don’t get lost in the sea of interviewees. How do you present yourself to stand out from the crowd?  Refine your pitch and make sure it has a hook to keep you above the crowd. Find something memorable about yourself, but keep it appropriate. The interviewer might not remember your name but they will remember you.
• Research and Prepare.  Know about the company, what it is they do and don’t do. What is there mission statement and what do they believe in?  Know about the qualifications of the position and how your skills align with those skills.  Prepare examples to specific requirements that highlight:
  • Situation
  • Action
  • Response
• Know what you can offer the company immediately.  This allows you to highlight how you can fit right in if hired.
• Ask questions about the company and position.  This shows that you have done your prep for the interview. 
• Follow-up.  This needs to be genuine and prompt; not boilerplate. If you did not know an answer this would be the time to give it.

Don’ts

• Say you can’t, haven’t or don’t.  If you get stumped do not freak out.  Not everyone is going to be able to answer every question.  Take a moment and buy yourself time by asking to come back to the question or restating it, but whatever you do, do NOT makeup and answer or I don’t know.  It is completely appropriate to say, I have not experienced that or that is currently not one of my duties, but I have …(fill in the blank).  Try to spin it back to you.  During your follow up email give the answer, if you say you will get back to them, you are following through.
• Ask for the job right away.  How do you know the job is the right job for you.  If you are applying you probably think it is the right job, but do you know all the ins and outs of the position and if it is really the “right” job.  If at the end of the interview if you know it is right, ask for it.
• Talk negatively. If you are interviewing for a new job, there is probably a reason. If you have had a negative experience with your current position, do not share your negativity.  What are you looking for that would make it a positive experience? It is possible to relate your experience and put a positive spin, it is all about word choice.

References

Haden, J. (2012, November 21). The Perfect Job Interview in 8 Simple Steps. Retrieved from LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20121121171031-20017018-the-perfect-job-interview-in-8-simple-steps/

Interview Guys. (2013, June 13). Interview Tips – The Top 5 Job Interview Tips You NEED To Pay Attention To. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSylCmes5dw

Stevens-Henager College. (2013, May 2). Influencing Perceptions: 7 Tips on Presenting Yourself Professionally. Retrieved from https://www.stevenshenager.edu/blog/influencing-perceptions-7-tips-presenting-yourself-professionally

To use or not to use social media, that is the question? I am not a social media user and I really do not care to become one. I tend to be a private person and do not necessarily want everyone to know what I am doing nor do I want to flaunt what it is I am doing. I should probably think of this more in terms of highlighting my achievements.  In terms of career advancement that is not a wise decision and I should probably rethink this. However, there needs to be a fine balance. As an educator, there needs to be a definitive line between myself and my students, and I feel social media blurs that boundary. Yes, I know it is possible to have separate accounts, but will not having a social media profile hurt my chances of advancement? I do not know, but the answer is probably yes.  If I cannot be found, what does that make them think, either I am boring, or I am hiding? While I do have a twitter account, I have never used it to promote myself. I view it as a one-stop-shop to keep on the day’s news. It is time to change.

Educators are not viewed as professionals. I could change this perception by highlighting the content I have created and the learning that goes with it.  I am excellent at what I do, but if it is not viewable, no one will know this and what I am capable of. If I want to get out of the classroom and into the role of an instructional or technical coach, I need to be highlighting what it is I do in the classroom and how I do it. How I support others and help them advance. I need to share the successes and the failures because failure is just as important as success. What platform is best to do this?  Twitter is a no brainer, with the appropriate tags it will be seen within my institution itself, but how do you go bigger. How do you know the right hashtag to use? How do I become bigger socially, if solely trying to share content with fellow educators, Pinterest is probably the best bet, but that is not going to get me seen outside the world of teachers?  Instagram is another option that can link to twitter, so I could be killing two birds with one stone. With the ability to post narrative and video, Instagram could be a winner. Again, it all comes down to the right hashtag. It is possible to highlight my accomplishments and achievements in my career and to display my work for others to see that skills gained in the educational field are valuable beyond a classroom.

My takeaway from this, I need to create an online presence and not be afraid to showcase my work and accomplishments, but need to do so in a way that there is still a boundary between my work and students.

I am leery of all social media. I do not need or want everyone knowing every aspect of my life. Also, as a secondary teacher, I try to keep my life as private as possible and away from my students. The use of Facebook would provide too much information to the masses. I currently do not have a Facebook account and it drives me crazy that certain businesses only put stuff on Facebook. No account no access to the information. Once upon a time I did have an account. I know this is going to sound bad, but I used a fake name and was only friends with my family. If anyone found they account they would certainly have thought it fake, as I had 7 friends and no posts. One of my sisters posted a picture of and tagged me with my “alias” and a friend from undergrad found me, I now had 8 friends. I am pretty sure I had every privacy lock down possible. Again, I did not want others to find me. Then I watched the documentary on Facebook and thought I should delete my account. I tried to login, but my account was gone, did I do that? Well come to find out, my account had been hacked and the content changed. My undergrad friend was the one that let me know. How long had it been compromised, who knows? How was this brought to the attention of FB, I do not know.

I am of the belief, that if you sign up for FB or any of the other platforms, including professional platforms, you have in a way signed away your right to privacy. No matter how much you lock down your account with the various settings, someone out there is trying to get in and expose you. With that said, one should always be careful with what they post, as once it is out there you can not recall it. As a teacher I try to tell my students this repeatedly, because there are consequences to their posts. Just like old yearbook posts are coming back to haunt people today, social media posts will be around for perpetuity. 

LinkedIn touts itself as a way to get seen.  I believe one of their sayings is you are only one look away from landing your next job. I am curious how true this is or if it is urban legend. I view LinkedIn as an online CV, a space to highlight all your accomplishments and experience.  I once heard it called Facebook for professionals. Yes, you can “connect” with professionals and past acquaintances, but again the focus is career advancement. I choose to stay away from social media, as I like to keep my life private. However, there is a fine line to walk in a world with the expectation to be digitally connected. I am curious what a perspective employer would think of someone if they had no social media presence. Would it be accepted or frowned upon?

LinkedIn does provide a valuable service during the job hunt. Gone are the days of looking through a newspaper or having to search individual companies. The ability to filter positions based on skill and location has brought the job search to a new level. It is a one stop shop. Depending on your degree of participation with the program, it is possible to search, apply, and track position. You can tell how well you stack up to other applicants and know what skills you have or may be lacking.  t is all up to me, the user, and how much effort I want to put forth.  Quality time needs to be spent refining the profile so the most can be gained.

OK, now on to school. I have been working on finishing up content creation and putting my portfolio together. I knew I had to put a portfolio together, but this is probably something I should have been working on throughout my entire time in this program and not just the last weeks. I have learned that I should have probably put more effort and care into my blog posts, as they probably would have helped me out with my portfolio creation. I have learned, that I can do this, I will finish, and we will all survive.

I will miss interacting with students and helping them learn, but transitioning from k-12 does not mean that helping others learn is over, the role I will play will look different, but learning is still the goal.  I am excited about the possibilities and what the future holds.  This brings me to the present.  I have trepidation at leaving k-12 more than ever now due to the current global situation.  I should be excited as everyone is moving to eLearning and online training is in demand, which means that instructional designers are in demand.  The only problem being how long will the demand last and are companies currently hiring during the economic downturn.  I know that there will always be a need for teachers and in the current economic climate, maybe I stay put for another year and then restart the job hunt or do I take the plunge and go for it?

To be determined.

Popular and scholarly writing each has its own time and place.  It is important to know the intended audience as to what form of writing to take on.  No matter the form of writing, both scholarly and popular sources try to communicate information.  The difference is the audience and the content.  Scholarly writing is “…the active process of clearly communicating original research in a field of study” (O’Brien, Marken, & Petrey, 2016).  There is a need for both forms in society, but the reader needs to be able to determine the source of the writing and whether it comes from a factual peer-reviewed basis.  The problem with scholarly writing is that not everyone can understand it and have access, this is where the audience comes to play.  Most of the population, my assertion, has access to popular writing.  We as humans are constantly reading or watching the news to gain information. Where does the media get their information?  Hopefully, it is coming from a scholarly source.  It is important for the popular writing to include sources so, if interested, the consumer can learn more about the topic and make informed decisions about its validity.

I would like to look more at the audience.  While this was not an example of writing, it does demonstrate the importance of the audience.  Recently an early childhood teacher posted a lesson to a social media challenge equating pepper to germs and the importance of soap usage in hand washing.    The students saw from observation that the pepper covered the entire surface of the water, but when a finger with soap was added, the pepper was repelled by the soap.  The kids were amazed as were some adults.  Was this beneficial in demonstrating the importance of using soap, absolutely.  Did it accurately portray the relationship between soap and germs/viruses, not exactly?  It was extremely oversimplified, and she was called out on various platforms for this.  Some tried to explain what was happening but do 3 to 5-year-olds need to know that the virus contains a lipid layer, no, they just need to know that using soap will “repel” and wash off the germs.  The importance of knowing the target audience.  Had the teacher gone in there with a scholarly explanation she would have lost the students, but the same lesson undergraduate and graduate students, while appreciated, would not have been explained at the proper level of the consumer.

“What is your sample set?” is a question I ask my family, on a regular basis, when they try to tell me something that they have heard or learned.  The reason I ask is to determine what their source is and if it has any factual basis.  It has become a joke in our family.  Consuming knowledge helps shape our beliefs and the source of that knowledge matters (Braun & Nuckles, 2014).  While popular sources may pique interest it is important to ensure that the information presented comes from a reputable source with an acknowledged background and expertise.  As my sister would say, just because you stayed at a Holiday Inn Express does not make you an expert.  Too much misinformation occurs in popular media, especially in today’s climate.  As consumers, we need to do our due diligence to ensure the media we are consuming is fact based from a reputable source and not based on feelings and misconceptions.

References

Braun, I., & Nuckles, M. (2014). Scholarly Holds Lead Over Popular and Instructional: Text Type Influence Epistemological Reading Outcomes. Science Education, 867-904.

O’Brien, S. P., Marken, D., & Petrey, K. B. (2016, July). Student Perceptions of Scholarly Writing. The Open Journal of Occupational Therapy, 4(3), 1-19.

I know that I have always liked to learn by doing and seeing.  It comes back to the constructivist and constructionist theory, in my mind, experiencing first hand is going to help me create new schema to the topic and truly understand the material.  Does this mean I learn best from this style, no, it just means that I am more engaged with the material/content and therefore am learning.  However, I do not fully buy into learning styles.  While I like one method, it does not mean that I am not able to learn from the other styles or that is it preferable (Kirschner, 2017).  This program for instance does not cater to the kinesthetic learner, but I am still successful because I know that I can relate the readings to experiences in my live and construct new schemas without having first hand experience.  Like Kirschner (2017) and Newton (2015) found, having a student think they learn best in one method may prevent them from learning from all styles, because they feel they can only learn in one way.  I find when I complete any sort of inventory, I can manipulate my answers to match what I think the result should be.  For example, on the VARK I was able to select the answers dealing with doing and seeing to suggest I am a visual kinesthetic learner.  However, I am very able to learn in an auditory and written fashion. 

What does this mean when designing instruction?  Kirschner (2017) and Newton (2015) suggest that it is more important to design based on the learners’ cognitive abilities rather than how they perceive they learn best.  This is because self-reporting is not reliant and trying to learn continuously from one style can be detrimental to one’s ability to learn.  Therefore, it is important to design good sound instruction rather than trying to match instruction to a preferred learning style (Kirschner, 2017; Newton, 2015).  Creating instruction that incorporates all the “learning styles” will result in better learning (Newton, 2015).

References

Kirschner, P. A. (2017). Stop propagating the learning styles myth. Computers and Education, 106, 166-171.

Newton, P. M. (2015). The Learning Styles Myth is Thriving in Higher Education. Frontiers in Psychology, 6, 1-5.

Constructive cognitivism is a theory of learning, proposed by Piaget and Vygotsky, where one gains knowledge due to interactions with the outside world and how those interactions are assimilated into pre-existing knowledge (Savery & Duffy, 2001).  Learning is active, social, and reflective.  When learning, the learner needs to be able to be a part of the process and engaged.  To remain engaged and motivated they need to feel that they have a chance at succeeding, which in turn builds confidence (Cheng & Yeh, 2009).  When the learner can do, they are better able to incorporate it into a schema and learning shifts from just covering material to working with the idea/material (Driscoll, 2002).  Learning is social.  Students need to be able to interact with others to make connections.  Interacting and communicating ideas strengthens the learner’s knowledge and schemas.  The saying you only get out of it what you put into it, sums up the reflective portion of learning.  Reflecting and revising on one’s mistakes and failures is a critical aspect of the process and strengthens learning (Driscoll, 2002). 

The learner gains knowledge through active doing rather than passive learning, with the teacher providing opportunities to learn rather than being the sole knowledge bank.  The teacher acts as a mentor or coach, facilitating learning and offering feedback when needed.  They will conduct instruction based on the students’ needs.  They are the experts in the subject and are available for consultation and resources.  The teacher and student are partners in learning with the teacher providing activities in context to the learning. 

Chemistry can be taught by having the teacher expound knowledge on the student or letting the student explore the concepts learned in class.  The following are examples created by myself and my chemistry team at the Liberal Arts and Science Academy to allow students to explore the concepts learned and begin to fit them into their world and see how the laws have real life implications.

The unit begins with students exploring different situations of temperature, pressure, and volume and developing mathematical relationships based on observation (American Chemical Society, 2006).  From there students explored stoichiometry of gases and applied it to determining how the stoichiometric ratio of acetic acid to sodium bicarbonate needed to launch the rocket after measuring the amount of pressure required.  During this lab, students were able to trouble shoot and varying the calculated ratio to see if it made a difference in the distance the rocket travels.

References

American Chemical Society. (2006). Chemistry in the Community (5 ed.). Macmillion.

Cheng, Y.-C., & Yeh, H.-T. (2009). From concepts of motivation to its application in instructional design: Reconsidering motivation from an instructional design perspective. British Journal of Educational Technology, 40(4), 597-605.

Driscoll, M. P. (2002, October). How People Learn (and What Technology Might Have To Do with It). ERIC Digests.

Savery, J. R., & Duffy, T. M. (2001). Problem Based Learning: An instructional model and its constructivist framework. Bloomington: Center for Research on Learning and Technology.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xV8BSzkcQiokQjxw9Egks6iyjT1Ofdki/view?usp=sharing

I always a imagined a client would know exactly what they wanted, just not necessarily how they wanted it, and this is where I would step in, to help them get where they want. Well I finally met with my first actual client, found by a group member.  It was not at all what I imagined.  I am not going to say it was unorganized I just don’t know if the client really knows what they want or how to envision the final product.  While they do have some vision, it is very open ended as to how we will be able to complete the work, due to the fact that they have no tutorials, online nor paper, but only technical documents to help guide the user in the nuances of the product. 

I am not going to lie, the fact that I am making something not for myself of another colleague is nerve wracking and I am my worst critic.  I know I am going to lose sleep over whether the product is “good enough”.  I know this is a fantastic opportunity to strength my portfolio and I just need to breath.  Ok, now to what I have learned the past two weeks, although above is also part of the learning.  Even though this is designing for someone else the process is still the same.  The needs assessment is critical to lay the foundation for a positive strong design.  Knowing the clients needs and expectations while developing the scope of the project will make for smooth sailing.  I am excited to work as a team, because the opportunity to bounce ideas off one another will only make for a stronger project and better design.