Quarterly Goals: Developing Knowledge, Skills, and Creative Practice
Lifelong learning is not simply a personal value, it is a necessity in a world that continues to shift rapidly across technological, cultural, and professional landscapes. There are countless opportunities to grow our understanding and encounter new ways of thinking, working, and creating. In order to prepare for an evolving job market, it is important to set meaningful goals that promote sustained development and active cycles of reflection.
As a quarterly practice, beginning today, I am setting three intentional goals to further develop the attributes of an effective team member and lifelong learner. These criteria include being an inquirer, knowledgeable, and a risk-taker. These goals reflect my commitment to lifelong learning and will serve as both a professional checkpoint and a space for personal inquiry and experimentation.
Criterion #1: Inquirer
Deepening understanding of current discourse in instructional design and educational systems.
To be a highly effective member of an instructional design team, it is essential to remain informed about current trends, emerging best practices, and the broader systems that shape learning design. Staying curious and asking questions is the best way to build greater understanding but also to challenge our own intentions, biases, to adopt better practices. Staying current in this field requires ongoing engagement with the discourse to be an informed contributor to change and innovation.
This quarter, I will focus on understanding how educational systems function and why they often fail to meet the needs of learners. One text I plan to read is Recoding America by Jennifer Pahlka, which examines the disconnect between policy and implementation in public service design. While its focus is civic technology, it offers powerful insights into the design and delivery of complex systems and reinforces the care and intentionality required to create systems that serve people well. I will apply these reflections to my own practice, particularly around accessibility and design equity and share more about these findings over in my blog. Follow along using the hashtag #IDinquirer.
Criterion #2: Knowledgeable
Expand my current skill set through new tools and accessible design practices.
A commitment to lifelong learning involves more than acquiring knowledge. It includes continuously refining and evolving the skills that support effective practice. As the educational technology landscape expands, I want to approach new tools not as novelties, but as strategic resources to better support learning for diverse audiences.
This quarter, I will focus on improving my fluency with new platforms while anchoring this growth in accessibility principles. I plan to revisit my understanding of Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) and Universal Design for Learning (UDL) in order to evaluate how technological choices impact the learner experience. By staying rooted in theory while building technical proficiency, I can make more informed design choices that are both creative and inclusive. I will complete the course “Create eLearning Courses with Articulate Storyline 360 | Udemy Business“ as a basis for reflecting on what TPACK and UDL can offer using this particular platform. I will share more about this on my blog using the hashtag #IDknowledgeable.
Criterion #3: Risk-taker
Explore unexpected design approaches to foster creativity.
Exploring design approaches and structures that are not usually seen in the corporate or formal classroom offer a vital space for lifelong learners to explore interests, test ideas, and develop skills that may not fit neatly into formal job roles. Designing outside of professional boundaries allows me to keep my work fresh, take larger creative risks, and explore intersections between design, engagement, and innovation.
This quarter, I want to learn about a structure that blends education, play, and storytelling: an educational escape room experience. Creating a design like this will allow me to experiment with a gamified approach to learning and challenge my ability to create creative assessments. I want to explore these creative assessments and consider how I might transfer some of these skills back into my professional work. To do this, I will explore resources from BreakoutEDU and Articulate 360’s E-Learning Heros as a base-line of my research. To hear more about this and other creative risks, search the hashtag #IDrisks & #breakoutdesigns over on my blog.
Conclusion
I look forward to working toward these quarterly goals, knowing that each one reinforces my larger commitment to lifelong learning. These specific action plans give structure to my growth this quarter while leaving space for reflection and iteration. As I complete these goals, I am equally excited to evaluate what I have learned and determine how I will challenge myself in the next quarter to build a practice grounded in curiosity, purpose, and continual development.
Thrasher Designs 