Curriculum & Instructional Designer | Training Specialist
About
Thank you for taking the time to review my portfolio – please reach out via the information provided in my resume or LinkedIn to connect.
I am an instructional designer, curriculum developer, and training specialist with eight (8) years of experience in K-12 public and private education, educator professional development, non-profit training material development, safety/compliance training, and LMS administration.
I enjoy all aspects of the instructional design process and find my greatest joy when collaborating directly with subject matter experts, facilitators, and instructors to maximize the quality of the curriculum and training materials developed. There is nothing better than to hear “I had everything I needed” or “My students stayed engaged through the entire lesson.”
As a learning and development professional, I am committed to engaging in, and supporting, equitable practices and developing equitable and accessible learning materials. To accomplish this, I ensure each course meets Section 508 and WCAG standards and industry best practices for accessibility, engage directly in DEIB professional development, and practice in community with other professional dedicated to these topics and to improving individually and as an industry in these key areas.
Beyond my daily practice to improve my craft, I am also working towards earning my CPTD through the Association for Talent Development to demonstrate my mastery of talent development skills, including Instructional Design, Training Facilitation, Career & Leadership Development, Coaching, Consulting & Business Partnership, Organizational Development, Talent Strategy & Management, Data & Analytics, and Future Readiness.
Memberships: Association for Talent Development; Association for Talent Development – Central Indiana Chapter, International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE), The Learning Guild, International Society for the Learning Sciences, National Council for the Social Studies
eLearning Course Samples
This section provides two examples of recent work with screenshots of eLearning multimedia materials related to my current role with a non-profit organization focused on safety in relation to defensive driving, workplace (OSHA compliance), and first aid.
Safety Leadership
Problem:
Those in safety roles are often provided training on specific compliance topics, but do not have the opportunity to formally train for leadership/management roles through industry-specific trainings. Customer feedback and survey results corroborated the need in the market to provide this offering. These customers also expressed a desire to network while training and to be able to mix and match in-person and virtual engagement based on local offerings and scheduling constraints.
Solution:
This course uses a modular design to cover important workplace safety related topics to an audience of safety professionals who are either active or aspiring safety leaders in their workplace. This course was a challenge because each module needed to be able to be delivered either ILT (Instructor-Led Training/In-Person) or VILT (Virtual Instructor Led Training) with the same multimedia materials. This sample includes the course module menu with the subtitle and virtual delivery options, a title slide, a few content slides, and a screenshot of an animation with a character.
Naloxone for Suspected Opioid Overdose
Problem:
Naloxone, a medication used for emergency treatment of known or suspected opioid overdose, is emerging in the market in response to the opioid crisis. Workplaces are being encouraged to provide naloxone in their emergency kits. However, there is a lack of education about how to incorporate naloxone into existing safety plans and there are many misconceptions about those who might experience an opioid overdose and what message is communicated when a workplace supplies naloxone. Competitors have trainings that cover administration only.
Solution:
This project I owned from concept to publication as the sole instructional designer. Through collaboration with the first aid subject matter experts, it became clear that we could fill a gap in the market by developing a relatively short (under 30 minutes) eLearning that covered administration, and also included myth-busting, signs and symptoms, incorporation into a company’s safety plan, legal implications, and additional resources that could support any individual in a company or company culture at large to address in addressing opioid overdose. This course uses existing naloxone administration videos available in the First Aid, CPR, and AED course, includes an interactive scenario-based knowledge check, and presentational slides.
Design Documents
This section provides two examples of design documents I’ve developed to solve real-world problems. The first is a design document for an eLearning for subject matter experts to prepare them to engage in the instructional design process successfully and the second is a past project to build out a historical thinking skills module for history teachers to support inclusion of historical thinking skills training.
Instructional Design for Subject Matter Experts (SMEs)
Problem:
Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) are frequently introduced to projects without a full orientation and lack the schedule flexibility to complete an ideal orientation.
Solution:
This design document lays the foundation to build a microlearning course that prepare SMEs to engage in the instructional design process through an eLearning so that instructional designers and subject matter experts can maximize their scheduled time together to collect and curate content for the training at hand. Users of the training are encouraged to either assign as a learning path for new SMEs or to assign just-in-time for experienced SMEs engaging in a new project.
Historical Thinking Skills Design Document
Problem:
History teachers, 9-12 or in higher education, have to balance between content and skill development. In order to meet content coverage requirements, most teachers have to forego historical thinking skills education.
Solution:
This design document builds out a plan to create a 2-hour online module that educates teachers on how to incorporate historical thinking skills into their curriculum without sacrificing content coverage. The course is learner-centered in that it is designed to provide teachers with the chance to build out lesson components within their lesson plans while educating them on the need for this work. By dividing the module into micro-segments, teachers are able to complete each sub-topic as relevant to their course planning process. This document includes the progression of development from initial concept to a final document based on educator feedback.
Syllabus, Unit Guide, & Lesson Plan
This section includes a sample syllabus, unit guide, and lesson plan that I designed, developed, and taught from directly for 11th Grade students at a college-prep independent high school. The syllabus and unit guide correspond to the same course, while the lesson plan corresponds to a Constitutional Law course.
Both courses were built from scratch. The only requirement provided was that they must be NY Regents Exam compliant. I reviewed the existing curriculum and course materials available and found that they were Euro-centric, colonialist, and one-dimensional. In order to best prepare my students to be critical, historical thinkers and active citizens committed to education, equity, and confronting difficult histories, I wrote a curriculum that would prepare them with the skills and content knowledge necessary to be successful in these pursuits. By designing the curriculum with a modular design, students were able to re-engage with people, events, and cultural patterns based on chronology and theme all in the same year which resulted in eight to ten engagements per topic across the two semesters. The Constitutional Law lesson plan sought to establish the course’s first unit to set a framework for students. Many students interested in Constitutional Law walk into the classroom with a set of assumptions about law, the Supreme Court, and society-at-large that need to be addressed through source-based analysis, reflection, and discussion.
Emily Slomski's Portfolio 