Post-MAET:
Goals for Professional Development

Project Management

One of the overarching themes from this program is how awareness of TPACK - the way technological, pedagogical, and content knowledge align and complement one another - should inform decisions to use technology in schools. However, deciding which technologies are most effective for teaching is the first step. From there, you must implement the technology in the classroom, district, or enterprise. 

That’s where project management comes in. Project management is a discipline that isolates and maps five phases of a project: initiation, planning, execution, monitoring/control, and closure. Each phase has specific tasks that project managers are trained to work through, helping their clients navigate every element in order to successfully complete their project. Ultimately I would like to get a certification in project management, but my goal is first to develop a general understanding of the elements of project management - how to organize and guide a project from beginning to completion. In What You Need to Know about Project Management (2012), Fergus O’Connell, a well-known expert in the field of project management, provides introductory context to get started managing projects, specifically the importance of setting clear goals, how to estimate timelines, and how to track progress. 

Verbal Communication

An important element of guiding projects is communication. In both my professional and educational contexts I have had ample opportunity for written communication, and I believe my written communication skills started strong and have continued to improve. However, much of my professional work also requires me to present verbally on new projects, initiatives, and trainings. I feel that I have a lot of room to grow in my verbal communication skills. Specifically I would like to improve how I organize my thoughts when presenting on a topic; I would like the way I speak to be thoughtful and logical in structure, even in informal situations. I would also like to be more cognizant of bad habits I might have when presenting; for example, my use of certain filler words.

I recently was in a professional development training where the presenter seemed to be incredibly talented as a verbal communicator. Surprisingly, she indicated partway through the training that this was not something she came by naturally, and in fact had worked hard to improve. After her training, I asked her to recommend resources to improve my verbal communication skills.

Additionally, a book that I plan to use to improve my presentation skills is The Quick and Easy Way to Effective Speaking by Dale Carnegie (1990). Carnegie’s book offers advice on both informal and formal speaking, and it is written to bridge the gap between these different scenarios; this book sounds like a great tool for improving my speaking skills for a diverse range of situations.

Medical Education Pedagogy

A last goal that I have, which again dovetails with the theme of TPACK, is to improve my pedagogical and content knowledge as it relates to medical education. There are unique challenges and directives related to medical education, and I would like to better understand the overarching concerns related to this field of learning. There is a text that is used by medical content experts called Curriculum Development for Medical Education (edited by Thomas, Kern, Hughes, Tackett, and Chen, 2022). This book would expand my instructional design awareness from the perspective of the content expert, helping me to understand these specific concerns and considerations that they make when building learning experiences. Additionally, this book describes a six-step model of curriculum development, and I would like to explore this method of instructional design further.

By pursuing these goals, my work as an instructional designer in medical education will be expanded and strengthened. I am thankful for the groundwork laid in that endeavor by the MAET program!