When first starting my master's degree, I was nervous but eager for the new chapter. Coming into this, I knew minimal computer skills and went from a Criminal Justice undergrad degree to which I didn't use a computer that much. I knew it would take time, but I was passionate about the topic and wanted to know more. The first couple of classes were tuff, but the professors would explain the lesson and answer any questions I had. I became a student of learning and figuring out how to become an instructional designer. First starting in the program, I lacked incorporating learning theories, instructional models, and strategies for accessibility.

I learned some lessons in the instructional models; I had many difficulties first starting. In my first couple of classes, I had assignments that led me to implement the ASSURE instructional model. In reviewing the textbook, I thought I had the right idea for creating the content, but my examples were inadequate. It lacked the information needed, and the professor gave me a poor grade. Moving forward in the class, I read the feedback, and for the next assignment, I made sure to do it correctly in providing several examples and learning theories. As I move forward in this program, I have been using different instructional models and been applying them to assignments ever since.

Some difficulties that I faced in my classes were not putting enough learning theories in my assignments. As time moved forward, I started to use more learning theories like behaviorism, cognitivism, constructivism, constructionism, and connectivism. (Pritchard, 2017) I would lean towards only using the behaviorism learning theory. That was the only learning theory I knew coming in. This led to issues creating content with limiting the assignment to only one learning theory. I had to understand that implementing these theories "provide a basis to understand how people learn and a way to explain, describe, analyze and predict learning." (Pritchard, 2017) Applying these different learning theories will be the way to provide the best learning for the students. Moving forward in the class I’ve learned to use multiple learning theories that paved the way for better assignments.

Things I would do differently to learn how to create accessible documents earlier in my program. Until the 2nd semester, I didn’t understand how to make anything accessible. Then, I took the EDET 735 class, which taught me what accessibility was and the strategies. I have deducted points in introductory courses because of document design errors brought on by accessibility. Looking back, I should have took the time to exactly learn how to change and check for it. In my assignments now, before handing them in, I double-check and run the accessibility checker to see if there are any issues. For example, creating headers and pictures to include ALT text to the document to make it accessible. Now my current job is to make documents assessable in the business school. The growth and the lessons I learned with struggling at first led me to understand the process of how to properly do it.