Jessica Adams: Instructional Design Specialist

As with most educators of any kind, my education was and remains a very important part of my journey. It has been nearly ten years since I sat in a University classroom but far less since I sat as a student in any space. I’ve included below my full educational profile as well as some notes about what I’ve been up to since!

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In High School, I was a voracious reader and would have been a real loner if not for my mother’s pestering to be a part of some kind of social group. I, therefore, was almost never home. For four years, I twirled a flag on a football field at half-time, participated in the One Act Play fall competitions, tried my best to get a decent role in the Spring Musical (but the Chorus teacher played favorites with his students, which is understandable.) I was determined to also graduate with honors and could have really used a time machine like Hermione had in Harry Potter to take all the classes I wanted to take. I took the SAT four times because I had a goal for several scholarships and would not have any less. Therefore, when I left High School, I had many choices. Ultimately, I chose to attend Georgia State University.

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To say that Atlanta was a culture shock to this small-town girl would be an understatement. I didn’t have a “time turner” but I realized early on that I could take all the classes I wanted to. That kind of freedom, along with the freedom that comes with moving from a town of under 4,000 to a city of over 4 million, is what defined this era of my life. As a part of my scholarship, I received an academic advisor in my chosen major field who asked for research on any topic of my choosing. Each year, I’d deliver a new paper for her on any subject I wanted and she’d discuss my findings. As an older and wiser person, I’m grateful for her patience with my juvenile attempts at real research and I thank her for all of her invaluable feedback!

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Despite all of my youthful protests, I had come to admire my mother her job as a High School Media Specialist. I decided, economic crash in mind, that I should seek such a solid foundation for employment. The year I was set to join the cohort in the LDT program at UGA, the field was beginning to lean towards instructional technology and learning theory. It was here that I fell in love with the creation of learning and not just the pursuit of it. I learned words such as “pedagogy” and “andragogy” and the LDT program stressed theories such as the ADDIE method of instructional design. It was this program that first put me in a solid launching point for my future career and, indeed, was the credential I needed for my first job as an educator.

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While working as a Media Specialist at Pickens High School in Jasper, GA, I found myself longing to have more practice actually designing learning. I was given a lot of free reign as the resident Instructional Technology expert at the school and was able to create lessons on media literacy, research methods, and create lessons for the teaching staff on uses of technology in the classroom but I wanted more. I saw the same lessons I had in high school still being taught in the exact same way and, critically, leaving the same students behind. I wanted to be the person to do something about this and so, back to UGA I went! In place of a “Doctorate” program, the school offered an Education Specialist degree in Learning Design and Technology and it was a dream come true of a program! It was here that I first learned to use Instructional Design tools such as Adobe Captivate, Articulate Storyline, and Web 2.0 tools and virtual classrooms. Armed with this degree, I planned the biggest move of my life and sought a position “up north” in Virginia as an instructional designer. It was so painful to leave my position as a Media Specialist, but I felt I had more to do and that meant moving on.

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After my time in a college classroom, I’ve attended and spoken at a number of professional development, certificate, and leadership training classes. I’d have to say that my favorite was the ATD Techknowledge Conference in San Jose in 2018. I went to gather new ideas for my rapidly growing eLearning program at work and ended up meeting the most engaging motivational keynote speaker I’d ever seen. I was so impressed by him that I hired him to speak at a conference I managed for the State of Virginia (more on that in my work history and portfolio.)