Personal Introduction to Capstone Portfolio

When my Penn State journey began three years ago, I had no idea what obstacles I would face along the winding road that has led me to the intersection where I stand today. An educator for over twenty years, I’ve experienced enriching opportunities to teach in community settings, correctional facilities, specialized programs, rehabilitation units, and – for the past nine years – college classrooms; embracing the learning design process transcends occupational mandate for me, it is woven into the fiber of my character. I am also an autoimmune disease sufferer, which prompted my initial interest in distance education and led me to explore the remote facilitation of learning. Choosing to pursue a master’s degree in learning design and technology was a choice I made based primarily upon my desire to continue my career while transitioning to different delivery modalities – but earning this degree became so much more than that singular aim.

Five years after my first autoimmune diagnosis, I decided to pursue an advanced degree in LDT because I felt strongly that it would help me transition into facilitating remote and distance education. What happened along the way was an amazing transformation – a refinement by fire illuminated my path. In early December 2017 as I neared the completion of my first semester of Penn State study, I suffered an unexpected surgical complication that nearly cost me my life. The recovery was long and arduous; sepsis ravaged my body and caused an exaggerated autoimmune cascade that required five major surgeries in total and would ultimately lead me first to a lupus diagnosis and then to an accompanying diagnosis of trigeminal neuralgia. Despite these new demands on my body, I remained dedicated to my calling; even with a temporarily reduced teaching load of only one course per semester and a lengthy medical absence from my studies, I continued to identify avenues of discovery. In fact, I believe that my passion for teaching and learning is one of the things that helped me survive some of my darkest days of illness. I focused my efforts on developing robust online scaffolding so my students could enjoy a seamless learning experience regardless of any setbacks or hospitalizations I may endure. Employing the skill set I’d begun to acquire through the LDT program aided me in this ongoing design process. After a year of recovery and with the help of two dear and dedicated faculty members – Dr. Priya Sharma and Dr. Joshua Kirby – I returned to my Penn State studies not only with a plan, but with new zeal and depth of understanding. Although I knew the road ahead of me would be challenging, I could not abandon my desire to make a difference.

Proceeding with small and careful steps, I continued my expedition to learn best ed tech practices for reaching my students. Within that time, admittedly out of necessity more than innovation, I began to address some gaps in the existing English composition curriculum at my institution. Through independent study and needs assessment, I identified a great need for literacy scaffolding to address the deficiencies of underprepared college learners. In response, I began designing an evidence-based digital badging literacy initiative that has grown over the last two years to include three distinct self-paced learning pathways embedded in my course LMS, as well as a blueprint for several more upcoming. Despite adversity, my LDT study has helped me guide many students. This capstone portfolio offers a sampling of my work along this journey.

Reflective Catalogue of Presented Projects

A clear theme of postsecondary literacy learning scaffolded by educational technology spans the breadth of academic focus and practical design showcased by the works herein.  Each project, while unique in its specific focus, shares a unified mission of incorporating core learning design theories with best practices to yield learner-centered design works that can be (and have been) effectively utilized in authentic settings. Catalogue descriptions of each component follow:

Technology Integration Blueprints Informing Literacy-Based Supplemental Instruction at the Community College Level is a comprehensive course project completed for LDT:440 Educational Technology Integration with Dr. Joshua Kirby. Through the creation of this artifact I evaluated the stages of technology integration and articulated proposals steeped in needs assessment, cost-benefit analysis, and the RIPPLES rollout system for three specific educational technologies within my existing English course. In completing this project, I not only designed a comprehensive set of blueprints for effective technology integration, I created a design document that I proceeded to present to institutional stakeholders within the context of my professional practice and began an initiative for innovative change through literacy digital badges embedded into the current composition curriculum. This project built upon prior work from Dr. Kirby’s LDT:415A course wherein I designed a self-paced information literacy instructional module entitled Identifying Scholarly Sources; this module served as the keystone for building that micro-credentialing project.

Design Blueprints for Building Literacy-Based Competencies in College Composition is a cumulative course project completed for the LDT:527 Designing Constructivist Learning Environments course with Dr. Susan Land. Through the creation of this artifact I designed a set of four course-embedded learning experiences based on foundational constructivist concepts to include teaching for understanding (TfU), guided inquiry, project-based learning (PBL), and learning communities. In completing this project, I applied theoretical design frameworks to areas of my professional practice – specifically, community college English composition courses – and implemented best practices associated with these frameworks to enrich the existing learning landscape.

Distance Education and Andragogical Considerations for Information Literacy Learning in Community College Digital Environments is a culminating project in the form of a reflective essay and annotated bibliography completed for the ADTED:531 Course Design and Development in Distance Education course with Dr. Rick Shearer. Through the creation of this artifact I explored theoretical foundations of remote learning with an emphasis on transactional distance while examining specific literacy practices relevant to my professional practice. In completing this project, I both analyzed and synthesized ideas central to both andragogy and distance learning theory, and applied these tenets within the context of my professional practice.

Reflective Discussion of Program Relevance, Personal Philosophy, and Success Potential

Learning is a thread drawn tight upon the loom of human experience, binding us together on a sacred, infinite journey that is both uniquely personal and intimately collective. Learners can and will endow their own initiatives through play, collaboration, connection, and community. While learning can occur through teacher facilitation, it also happens through personal expedition. When teachers provide appropriately scaffolded learning environments, students are free to explore content within safe confines; however, even outside of a formal context, learners can pursue deep learning through participatory culture, affinity groups, and digital milieus.

Ultimately, technology in learning serves the purpose of facilitation through function.  Ongoing, provocative questioning and thoughtful listening create learning dialogues that not only foster a positive growth mindset, but also compel learners to delve deeper into inventive opportunity.  The relevance a leader emphasizes to learners should motivate creative processes, providing guidance and empathy while challenging them to improve their craft.

As I’ve continued on my quiet mission to improve my students’ learning experience, March 2020 brought the COVID-19 pandemic and with it a plethora of issues which demanded the attention and capabilities of learning designers who could implement effective educational technology at a distance. Seemingly overnight, my efforts transformed from their organizational perception as an inconvenient novelty to an innovative necessity, and I was called upon to share my work, my research, my ideas, and my perspectives for delivering high-quality, standards-based remote learning. My humble quest to facilitate meaningful learning through technology – now legitimized by plague – became visibly relevant as I demonstrated to my administrators, my colleagues, my community, and – most importantly – my students how quality education can be facilitated in a distance learning environment with the implementation of the appropriate digital scaffolds. Renewed in this purpose, I have continued to deliver instruction through the myriad challenges of pandemic teaching.

Technology serves as a medium through which learning experiences can be delivered, enhanced, diversified, and optimized.  Technology holds transformative power in that it provides modalities for learning that help engage students in new and different ways.  With this power comes great responsibility: Technology should occur as universally within learning environments as it does in other real-life scenarios; its agency should afford opportunities for deeper learning over novelty functions. The best uses of technology occur ubiquitously, when learners are engaged fully without the interruption of having to think about it.

Learning is an organic process through which learners engage with the world around them and acquire knowledge in purpose-driven, accidental, and unconscious ways.  Learning can take place in any environment and can be assessed through standards, by observation, or in reflection. In this new ecology of learning, students and teachers work as partners to create and sustain opportunities for continued growth.  Within a connected learning environment wherein the interactive web serves as the ultimate creative scaffolding, involvement, publication, innovation, and production present digital avenues for discovery. Learning in this environment unites teachers and students on a shared journey of infinite possibility and ongoing process.  Evidence of learning can be subtle or overt, and can be observed in various manifestations that are not necessarily formal evaluations; a developing skill set, ongoing effort toward goal achievement, even an improved attitude or boosted level of confidence can serve as indicators of learning beyond traditional test scores. This evidence of learning is often aided through the use of technological tools that help promote interactive learning and literacy fluencies.

My primary research interests, honed through my LDT course work, remain within the literacies – specifically information, digital, and media literacy – in higher education settings, and enhancing those literacies and other 21st century skills through digitally scaffolded learning, including digital badges, personalized learning, and game-based approaches. I am also very interested in discovering connections between these efforts and student experience of transactional distance – particularly, how specific online social and community of inquiry practices may enhance student engagement. To date, I have designed four literacy-based digital badges, and I continue to study how these micro-credentialing efforts enhance student competencies and enrich the learning landscape. I hope to transition to doctoral work at PSU in the spring, and to continue exploring how literacy-based initiatives may improve student outcomes in hybrid-delivery and distance education courses.

Moving forward in my instructional endeavors, I hope to inspire learners to empower themselves by providing opportunities that enable leadership and contribution over traditional rote responses. I realize now that my physical presence for learners is not nearly as important as my facilitative presence. Regardless of context or content, I find myself always revisiting a constant and palpable theme: learning is a journey. While I am still learning how to navigate this journey, I have kept the good fight for the privilege to continue on my chosen path. And so, with clarity of vision and gratitude of heart, I find myself once again at a pivotal point – not only in my Penn State journey, but also on my mission as a lifelong learner. While I realize this path will inevitably present navigational challenges and potentially rough terrain, I believe it will also unfold with fluidity into beautiful landscapes that I may enrich through my work. And I am more prepared than ever to embark on that adventure.

Respectfully submitted for review and consideration by the LDT department and in accordance with the capstone project guidelines set forth by the faculty, this capstone project contains samples of work completed during my course of study in Pennsylvania State University’s Learning Design and Technology M.Ed. program. 

Thank you.