Conclusion
In the first few courses of the program, I felt like it was very theory based and not applicable to the real working world (where I had 3 years of experience prior to starting the M. Ed. Program). However, as I took more hands-on courses that involved analysis and real world applications, specifically with the tools and technologies for education, I began to comprehend the program much better. I was also able to merge my skills and experiences from my work experiences with the knowledge that I was gaining from the program. My prior experience working within the higher education sector provided me with significant aid and my learning curve was much less steeper than it would have been otherwise.
This journey concludes my ePorfolio, however I come out of it asa much better lifelong learner and with the end of one journey begins another. I believe the artefacts I have created and presented through this ePortfolio allowed me to show that my areas of interest and skills grew. The most important lesson that I took away from this entire experience is that learning is as much a matter of reflection, as it is of study and competencies. By reflecting on these artefacts and overall journey as a M. Ed. Student, I have come to learn a lot about myself as a distance education professional with more comprehensive convictions in the field of education.
I have learned that I am extremely interested in utilization of technologies to help in improving the delivery of education. This, I believe will be something I will continue to pursue in my career, which at the age of 29 is still largely ahead of me. I have also learned that I have great teamwork skills, and that teams are more productive and stronger than a single individual. Another key lesson I learned was how to balance being a student, working fulltime and supporting a family. , a key aspect I struggled with previously.
It is obvious to me now that the past few years in the M. Ed. Program have been an extraordinary journey with a lot of take away lessons. I feel I have grown both psychologically and intellectually as a person. This personal growth is something I foresee continuing well into my future as I pursue other journeys of my life. One of my future goals is to pursue doctoral studies where I can further add to my learning journey.
I am now able to answer the following questions very easily at the end of the M.Ed. proram:
- Why is distance education becoming popular?
- Why is it difficult for some people to learn via distance and easier for others?
- What can be delivered via distance education?
- How do you carry out a Needs Analysis?
- How do you decide the format a course should be delivered in? i.e. face to face, blended/hybrid, distance, synchronous, asynchronous, etc.
- How do I effectively collaborate with individuals that are of a different age group than me? (i.e. different demographics; different phase of life, etc.)
- How does one manage instructional design projects?
The M. Ed program has taught me to have greater appreciation of research. Through completing a number of assignments throughout the various courses, I had to do a lot of researching in order to complete the assignments successfully. Depending on the type assignment, I got the experience of conducting both quantitative and qualitative research. It taught me the time consuming process of researching and analyzing data to develop a conclusion. Another interesting aspect of researching that I learned was that prior to actually carrying out the research, I may have had certain biases and conclusions about the topic at hand, but as I was researching and finding information and other people's conclusions on those topics, I realized that my biases were absolutely not true and that my conclusions needed to be tweaked or completely changed based off the new information that I just found. The best course for researching was MDDE602 as it helped me to take away that researching and conclusions from data are not always black and white, and more often than not, I will come across a lot of grey areas. So the importance of subjectivity in findings and analysis was a very critical lesson for me to learn.
Finally, from the M. Ed program I have become a life-long learner. I have discovered my learning style and that I love to learn about new things. My curiosity level has improved significantly about a diverse range of topics. It has enabled me to convert information into knowledge far more easily than I could prior to beginning the program. I am also able to make connections between different pieces of information that I was never able to before. And I have truly learned the meaning of the saying "knowledge is power."
Overall, I am proud of making the decision to move forward with the M.Ed. program and completing it successfully. As a result, I am a much better Instructional Designer than I was before.
