Reflection Letter

February 22, 2026

Dear Educational Technology Faculty,

 

The faster the world changes around us, the quicker on the uptake we must be as educators.  It’s not only advantageous, but crucial, to be an innovator and a lifelong learner.  Working toward the M.Ed. in Educational Technology at UTRGV has allowed me to build intentionally on twenty years of classroom teaching – transforming instinct and experience into a more formalized, research-driven, and strategically assembled toolkit.  What began as a desire to “keep up” with technology has evolved into a clearer professional identity: instructional design as a bridge between complex information and real human needs.

 

Experience Before the Program

 

Before entering the program, I was a classroom teacher who eagerly adopted tools but largely operated from intuition and practical necessity.   I began teaching in 2006 at an under-resourced Catholic school in northern New Mexico, where my classroom technology consisted of an overhead projector, a vinyl record player, and two aging desktops running Windows ’98.  When I later moved to a well-funded district with 1-to-1 laptops and G-Suite for Education, I became an early adopter of Google Classroom, converting paper-based lessons into digital workflows and linking students to interactive resources – from museum archives to Kahoot reviews to Russell Tarr’s “Fling the Teacher” game, which briefly turned ancient Rome trivia into a competitive sport.

 

I witnessed firsthand how technology could increase motivation, accessibility, and differentiation.  Programs such as Achieve3000, Lexia, and IXL helped me address diverse learning gaps.  Screen readers supported dyslexic students; translation apps supported English learners.  During COVID closures, I helped colleagues transition to Google tools and produced morale-boosting videos for our school community.  Yet despite these successes, I recognized a gap: I was integrating tools effectively, but I lacked the formal design framework, evaluation strategies, and technical depth to build scalable, transferable learning experiences beyond my own classroom.

 

Experience During the Program

 

Throughout the M.Ed. program, my work shifted from enthusiastic tool adoption to disciplined, research-informed design.  That shift did not happen all at once; it developed sequentially, as each course layered new frameworks onto my prior classroom experience and each artifact in my e-portfolio reflected a deeper level of intentionality.

I began last summer with EDTC 6321 and 6325.  Instructional Design introduced me to ADDIE, which provided structure to instincts I had relied on for years.  My BLUF (Bottom Line Up Front) project required precise articulation of the performance gap, learner characteristics, constraints, and measurable objectives before proposing any instructional solution.  That analytical front-loading felt deliberate – almost slow – compared to the pace of K–12 teaching, but it fundamentally reframed my thinking.  Instead of asking, “What activity would engage learners?” I began asking, “What performance gap exists, and how will improvement be measured?”  That distinction marked the beginning of my transition from teacher to designer.

 

In Educational Communication, I created a Canvas module on media literacy for high schoolers that pushed me to think carefully about audience perception, message framing, and visual rhetoric.  Designing within Canvas required attention to navigation clarity, chunking of information, and visual hierarchy.  More importantly, the project expanded my understanding of educational technology as communication ecology.  Media literacy is shaped not only by content, but by platform affordances, algorithmic visibility, and social context.  I began to see digital learning spaces as environments with structural forces that influence interpretation and engagement.

 

The second half of 2025 grounded my design thinking in cognitive science through EDFR 6302, EDTC 6320, EDTC 6341, and EDTC 6323.  Instructional Technology was an eye-opener – including my favorite, most comprehensive textbook of all of the program’s curriculum – and the course sparked my enthusiasm for the field I will be entering.  Doubling down with 6341 and 6323 cemented Mayer’s multimedia principles in my design thinking.  Reflecting on the importance of coherence, signaling, segmenting, spatial contiguity, and so on, I began to notice design flaws I had once overlooked – extraneous graphics, cluttered slides, unnecessary duplication of text and narration.  Applying these principles to my own prototypes required restraint and clarity, and I appreciated the marked improvements to my video editing habits.  I especially enjoyed the opportunity to have my Ukrainian friend’s university students field test my Reusable Learning Object, which I designed to teach English language learners some common American idioms in historical context.

 

In EDTC 6341, thanks to the opportunity to model student-centered learning by choosing our own paths, I explored Articulate Storyline and was able to build a professional, accessible microlesson with a leading authoring tool in adult learning design.  This could be an important proficiency to demonstrate in my job search.

This winter, in EDTC 6340, I reflected on the dynamics of online learning communities and the inherent value in assuming a leadership role within them.  Curating content and facilitating dialogue require attentiveness to tone, inclusion, and the pacing of interaction.  Educational technology, I realized, is not neutral infrastructure; it is an ecosystem that requires thoughtful cultivation.

 

As fortifying as all of my ed tech classes have been, however, the practicum felt seismic.  Designing my “CCM1: A Genetic Risk Linked to New Mexican Spanish Ancestry” microlesson required synthesizing everything that came before it – ADDIE analysis, multimedia principles, accessibility standards, UX-informed layout, and structured formative evaluation.  Designing for adults encountering sensitive health information underscored the role of empathy in instructional design.  Rather than focusing on engagement alone, I prioritized clarity, emotional resonance, and informed action.  Peer review and small-group feedback cycles reinforced the value of iteration as professional practice.  The practicum made visible how far I had moved – from a teacher integrating tools to a designer building intentional, research-grounded learning experiences with real human impact.

 

Lessons Learned

 

When I step back and look at the arc of this program, I can trace a shift in my design thinking.  Before I enrolled, I saw myself as a teacher who used technology well.  I was comfortable with tools.  I could troubleshoot.  I could make things engaging.  Now, I think of myself differently.  I am not just choosing tools; I am designing learning systems. That shift has changed how I work.  Engagement alone is not enough.  Instructional design means asking harder questions.  Does the activity reduce extraneous cognitive load?  Does it align tightly with measurable objectives?  Will learners transfer what they practiced into a new context next week – or next month?  Formal frameworks do not constrain creativity – they elevate it.  ADDIE, multimedia principles, accessibility guidelines, UX heuristics: these are not bureaucratic hoops.  They are scaffolds.  They give shape to creativity and anchor it in clarity, accessibility, and impact.

 

I have also learned patience for multiple iterations of a project.  In the classroom, the calendar ruled everything.  You finished the unit because Monday was coming whether you were ready or not.  In this program, especially during the practicum, I had to sit with drafts longer than felt comfortable.  Structured peer review and small-group feedback forced me to confront what I could not see on my own.  At first, that process felt exposing.  Over time, it became reassuring.  Improvement is not a sign that the first version failed; it is evidence that the process is working.  Iteration is professionalism.

 

Hand in hand with patience and iteration, empathy is a crucial pillar of learning design.   Empathy has always mattered to me as a teacher.  Relationships and trust drive motivation and success in any classroom.  What this program clarified is that empathy is just as central in digital spaces.  Learning designers may never meet their audience face-to-face, but the human stakes remain.  Empathy now means thinking about usability, accessibility, cultural responsiveness, reading level, screen fatigue, and decision fatigue.  It means anticipating confusion before it happens.  Designing a patient-facing microlesson made that tangible.  Clarity is not cosmetic; it can affect whether someone feels informed or overwhelmed.  Emotional context and cognitive design are inseparable.

 

In practicing empathy, you have to get out of your own head.  Your brainstorming session isn’t all-encompassing.  The first draft of your lesson materials is far from perfect.  Those assumptions you just made about your learners could easily be wrong.  Enthusiastically elicit stakeholder input.  Keep asking for more and more input.  Practice active listening when people give you feedback.  Humility does not weaken a project; it strengthens it.

 

Just don’t take the humility too far. I had to learn through the practicum project how to overcome imposter syndrome.  At some point, you have to stop worrying and stop tweaking.  If you listened carefully to the stakeholders and thoughtfully revised your materials to maximize positive impact, you’re ready. It’s time to push that module out to your target audience.

 

It’s been quite a journey since I began the program ten months ago.  Shifting fields is unsettling – and exhilarating.  My world has expanded as I’ve explored how educational technology extends far beyond K–12 – into healthcare, SaaS, corporate training, and global communities – but the common thread remains performance support: helping real people understand and act confidently in complex environments.  That is work worth doing, and thanks to the UTRGV Ed Tech program, I am prepared to do it.

 

Future Goals

 

As I complete the M.Ed. and embedded certificates in E-Learning, Online Instructional Design, and Technology Leadership, I am especially interested in customer- and patient-facing education roles within technology, SaaS, and healthcare organizations.  These contexts demand learning experiences that are efficient, accessible, and empathetic – designed for adults navigating unfamiliar systems or high-stakes decisions.

 

My short-term goal is to secure a role as an Instructional Designer or Learning Experience Designer focused on external education – whether onboarding customers to digital platforms or supporting patients with clear, actionable health information. Long-term, I want to collaborate with designers, developers, and subject-matter experts to build learning experiences that are both technically strong and deeply human-centered.

 

The empathy cultivated through two decades in K–12 education transfers directly to adult learners.  Understanding cognitive load, emotional context, accessibility needs, and motivation is universal.  Through this program, I have learned to pair that empathy with measurable outcomes, structured evaluation, and scalable design.

 

Educational Technology, at its best, is not about novelty.  It is about clarity, access, and empowerment.  My goal is to continue building the technical and analytical skills necessary to serve that mission – designing learning experiences that help organizations communicate more clearly and help people act with confidence and understanding.

 

Thank you for guiding my transition from teacher to designer.  The program has not only expanded my skill set; it has clarified my professional direction.  I look forward to applying these lessons in contexts where thoughtful instructional design can make a tangible difference.

 

Respectfully,
Cindy Richard