Episode 9 - Sara Stevick
Listen to the podcast episode here:
My guest this episode is Sara Steevick. She was a teacher for nine years when she decided to make the switch and became a Sr. Instructional Designer with a major financial institution.
That journey inspired her to start a volunteer initiative called "Teaching: A Path to L&D", where they work to help teachers make the jump to instructional design by providing free resources to all.
Sara has worked on everything from end-to-end design projects for courses and full instructional programs, writing strategies and business proposals for adopting and incorporating different L&D tech and learning culture.
I feel so fortunate to be able to talk with Sara. It was about a year back that I decided to make the shift into learning and development and it was one of Sara’s previous interviews that helped me find a community and get started on that journey. I hope you enjoy this episode as much as I do and without further ado, here’s the episode!
Sara tackled the following challenges:
1) You’re being asked to digitally adopt a training resource that has long been in need of an update (Your standard binder collection or loads of powerpoint slides). Your supervisor is asking you to just copy and paste the material into an LMS, but you see this as an opportunity to improve the materials. How do you present this position to your employer with challenges of budget and timeline being the main focus?
2) I want you to imagine that you are in a managerial position where you’re planning out when and how to designate training for your employees. What schedule or focus would you provide to maximize the effect and avoid the drone of continuous learning an employee must cram into their limited free time?
3) There seems to be a challenging bias in L&D where some companies look at previous teaching experience as inefficient for an L&D role. How does a teacher overcome this challenge and demonstrate their worth when applying for a position?
Here are some resources we mentioned in the show:
Dr. Luke Hobson’s class on Collaborating and Building Relationships with Subject Matter Experts : https://www.eduflow.com/academy/collaborating-and-building-relationships-with-subject-matter-experts
Cathy Moore’s book: Map It: https://blog.cathy-moore.com/book-map-it/
Josh Bersin and HR: https://bersinacademy.com/
Here are some links to follow Sara and the work she’s doing:
Follow Sara on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarastevick/
Here are TPLD's important links:
Website: www.teachlearndev.org
LinkedIn Group: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/12490007/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/TeachingAPathtoLD
Sara’s other speaking recordings: https://wakelet.com/wake/ZVoGJrmhqqpzDDNv3KueR