Virtual Open House MS in Learning Design and Technology Transcript

Doug Wilson, PhD: This is a testimonial about the program from one of our students, and so give this a read.

Doug Wilson, PhD: This is from someone who took their last course.

Doug Wilson, PhD: and then they were asked to contribute

Doug Wilson, PhD: a comment

Doug Wilson, PhD: about their experience in the program.

Doug Wilson, PhD: And so I think the last line of this quote.

Doug Wilson, PhD: is probably the part of it that jumps at me. Maybe another part jumps out at you. But

Doug Wilson, PhD: the person the student is very appreciative to the faculty

Doug Wilson, PhD: and for the things that

Doug Wilson, PhD: they’ve learned in the program. And to me.

Doug Wilson, PhD: in addition to this, being a life changing experience which you see listed in the quote to me this suggests that this person is preparing to leave us ready to take action and participate

Doug Wilson, PhD: in not only an employment, but also in solving some of the world’s big problems, and everybody on the call knows

Doug Wilson, PhD: the world has no shortage of big problems and instructional design and learning

Doug Wilson, PhD: designing technology.

Doug Wilson, PhD: As you study it at George Mason University positions, you to.

Doug Wilson, PhD: you know, be at the table

Doug Wilson, PhD: looking at some of the

Doug Wilson, PhD: communities, your local communities, or nationally, or even globally, some of the the world’s biggest problems. And I’m happy to take questions about that. Once we get through

Doug Wilson, PhD: the presentation, there’s plenty of examples about it.

Doug Wilson, PhD: And so now is the time for us to

Doug Wilson, PhD: talk a little bit about ourselves. And so I want to turn this back to Dr. Deba

Doug Wilson, PhD: to share a little bit more about her background. And then I’ll talk briefly about my background. And then we have 2 other faculty members

Doug Wilson, PhD: who are here with us tonight and they’re gonna share a little bit about their work and what their vision is for students and for the program. So Dr. Deba.

Nada Dabbagh: Yeah, and

Nada Dabbagh: can we stop the

Nada Dabbagh: is it gonna text? Everything that I say, I guess? Okay. So I’ll be brief, because, like, we have a great team for you here. Great team of faculty for the masters of science in learning, design and technology, and myself and Dr. Wilson, Dr. Giacomo, and Dr. Fake, who are. We’re all I’ve been at Mason longest, I think, 25 years in counting. This is actually my 26th year and

Nada Dabbagh: I graduated with my Phd. From Penn State, as I mentioned it, was called Instructional systems design and I like to teach courses on how to design meaningful learning interactions. I’ve written books on online learning, meaningful online learning. And lately, with my colleague, Dr. Holly, Fake, who’s actually a graduate of our doctoral program as well. We’ve just written a book on designing personalized learning experiences.

Nada Dabbagh: So I really love our field and my, my area of expertise was in in online learning for a long time and also in problem solving and how to design training that is for higher order thinking skills and

Nada Dabbagh: problem based learning approaches. And lately I’ve shifted into mostly personalized learning, experiences. And just for that comment that Dr. Wilson shared about the testimonial that he that last sentence that he mentioned, I want to say that the program is

Nada Dabbagh: you don’t have it. No exams, no theses.

Nada Dabbagh: no quizzes

Nada Dabbagh: formal quizzes. No, no exams. Every course that you take in this program

Nada Dabbagh: has a design component. It’s all about design. So our field is instructional design or learning design. So you become designers. It’s all about design and every course that you take you design

Nada Dabbagh: something, a product, a training product, a training video. You use the principles of instructional design. So there are no mid terms, no finals, no thesis. We build in projects and design components in every one of our courses. And Dr. Fake will talk about the user experience design courses. Later in the

Nada Dabbagh: you know in in the presentation. Thank you.

Doug Wilson, PhD: So I’m Doug Wilson, Dr. Doug Wilson, and I’m in entering my 4th year at George Mason University. And this is actually my second career or 3rd career, I’ve had a couple of different careers.

Doug Wilson, PhD: And so I came to instructional design as a faculty member at a community college

Doug Wilson, PhD: and saw that we had problems graduating students. And so I wondered, how was I gonna fix a problem of a 50% graduate with my student population disadvantaged students at the time.

Doug Wilson, PhD: and I discovered that there was a whole body of knowledge available to me

Doug Wilson, PhD: that brought

Doug Wilson, PhD: strategies to the classroom that allowed me to bring strategies to the classroom, to move students forward when nothing else seemed to work.

Doug Wilson, PhD: And so, in one of my 1st projects as a teacher. We implemented some technology.

Doug Wilson, PhD: wrote up a design plan, and we instantly went, not instantly. But I would say, after about 16 weeks we went from what had been a 50% pass rate to an 85%

Doug Wilson, PhD: pass rate based on the kind of things that you’re going to be learning about in this program, instructional design and technology. So I got turned on by that

Doug Wilson, PhD: and decided I was gonna go back to school late in life and earn a doctorate because I wanted to do a deep dive on all of the things that we now talk about in this program.

Doug Wilson, PhD: And I think if if anything, I actually became a good student later in life I wasn’t always a great student, and in one of my prior careers I was a television news reporter, and so traveled all over the world all the continents

Doug Wilson, PhD: and

Doug Wilson, PhD: doing that

Doug Wilson, PhD: really allowed me to like open my head literally. And and so if you wanna have

Doug Wilson, PhD: someone who’s been out there

Doug Wilson, PhD: and done these things and has a lot of experience in the world, you know, Dr. Diva and I have those experiences, and I think that would be a great reason for you

Doug Wilson, PhD: to come to our program. A lot of what we do is coaching.

Doug Wilson, PhD: You do the heavy lifting of the reading and the the the research. And then, as Dr. The boss said, making these projects. And and we’re a project based, or inquiry based

Doug Wilson, PhD: shop. And what this means is, when you leave us, you have a you have a portfolio of things that you can show an employer, and it’s informed not only by our skill and our research abilities as social scientists, as instructional designers, but also by life experiences that allow us to, you know, give you what you need

Doug Wilson, PhD: when you need it, independent of the reading and the papers that you are going to write, which is also a heavy lift.

Doug Wilson, PhD: So I want to move on

Doug Wilson, PhD: and introduce our other faculty members

Doug Wilson, PhD: and Dr. Lisa Giacomo.

Doug Wilson, PhD: our newest faculty member, Lisa.

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): Hi, everyone! It’s great to be here tonight. Thanks so much. I’m super excited about joining up with George Mason University this fall. I have 10 years, 9 years of experience teaching 100 online in learning design and technology organizational performance and workplace learning focus.

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): I am a tenure track professor. I’m coming in as an at the associate rank.

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): I have experience working in

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): organizations, including for profits, nonprofits, higher education, Government Military Department of Defense.

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): both in the Us. And abroad. I started teaching about 30 years ago. In at age 16, and aquatics which eventually led to community education and health and safety.

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): And then I did some K 12 enrichment programs and urban after school programs for adolescent interventions. And as well as I did a stint in a residential psychiatric treatment, disability, actually 2 different ones. So eventually, I found myself teaching foundations of education and surveys special education courses at a local community college, and I love the community college. That’s where I kind of entered into my professional career and higher education.

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): And I loved it so much that I decided that I wanted to pursue a Phd. And do that forever.

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): So I chose to focus on learning and technologies. And for my Phd, my father was in the military, and he brought home our 1st family computer.

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): in the 19 eighties, and I was fascinated. We were the 1st ones on our street with one of these things. And we only had it because he was in the military. And that’s how things went. I figured out how to program it and use my modem to call my grandparents, because at that time you weren’t allowed to call people long distance at least, not in my house. I don’t know about yours.

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): I realized at age 9 that that machine could open a lot of doors for me.

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): And my mother was a high school biology teacher. So my family was always focused on learning and teaching

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): and so I followed those interest into graduate school, and eventually found myself learning how to code web pages, what? Who to thunk right? And then use them in teaching and learning. So when I got to Arizona State University for my Phd. Started a graduate assistantship

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): teaching pre-service teachers who would eventually be practicing in Pre K, through 12 classrooms, integrating technology and teaching and learning. But I also started to research blended learning environments to support adult learners. At the university level.

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): And so from there I started to learn about applications for educational technology and instructional design and business settings right at the global level.

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): Not just in the United States. And I got really excited about that and took some called on some consulting contracts.

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): For some large international global organizations as well as some local community colleges and some local startups.

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): I had studied economics

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): in developing countries and culture and a few different languages and undergrads. So I went to build on that and work internationally, and all that led to a full time position as an instructional designer in a multinational corporate setting

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): which then, of course, led me into working for an international Ngo as a performance improvement practitioner, human resource. Our human sorry, Hrd. Human resource, development practitioner and instructional designer.

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): And so it was while I was working for actually, I’m Gb. And living in the Uk that I finally found my y and what I wanna give to the to the world? For the rest of my career.

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): And I was working to support, to end poverty and support women and deliver sanitation and clean drinking water to survivors of disasters as an embedded instructional designer in their supply and logistics. Department.

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): And I saw them. I saw all of us making a few rookie mistakes. So I went into literature to see what I could find as a practitioner, instructional designer, and there wasn’t much.

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): And so all of that led me into really focusing my research and teaching agenda

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): on how to figure out to both do instructional design across culturally and in support of communities that have been historically marginalized and secure, discriminated against as well as to figure out how to help

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): other people who are entering into the position, into the profession and upscaling into leadership positions that wanted to work

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): to support diverse learners, inside of a more culturally relevant, equitable, inclusive, and socially just way

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): and so since then I’ve been collaborating across the globe, including Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Asia, South America, as well as North America, obviously. And I’ve traveled extensively through each of these areas as well. I’ve lived in some places abroad, too.

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): So

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): And then, I guess most recently, I started working for the Department of Defense in the Us. Armed Forces.

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): and that was a couple of summers ago I went to Patrick Sports Space Force base in Florida and lived on on base with the the military my military counterparts for a summer, and learned how they’re doing their work in that organization. And so I bring all of that perspective. That’s where where I’m coming from when I teach, when I research, when I help people to get prepared for their next

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): their next level, dream jobs as well as setting their focuses on where they want their careers to go.

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): Thank you so much.

Nada Dabbagh: Wonderful, and she just published a book that’s titled. What’s the title of your book?

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): Instructional design for organizational performance. It’ll be available July 24th on the market.

Nada Dabbagh: Wonderful.

Nada Dabbagh: All right.

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): Thank you.

Nada Dabbagh: Thanks, Lisa.

Doug Wilson, PhD: Thank you. Dr. Chiakumo, and you see her QR. Code on the screen, there’s gonna be a couple of more QR codes. So if you have your phone handy in your scanner

Doug Wilson, PhD: you might wanna snap

Doug Wilson, PhD: a picture. So let’s

Doug Wilson, PhD: move along here to

Doug Wilson, PhD: Dr. Helen. Fake.

Doug Wilson, PhD: Hi! Fake. Thanks.

Helen Fake: My name is Dr. Helen Fake. I’m an adjunct professor here at George Mason University. I actually started my career as an emergency medical technician and ambulance driver, and while I loved responding to people, lights and sirens, what I really loved and learned to love was that since this was a high reliability, organization, life and limb were on the line. They were constantly reskilling and retooling us.

Helen Fake: And it made me fascinated in designing training development programs and how to create engaging workforce

Helen Fake: programs which I’ve proceeded to do at a variety of organizations to include the Center for Medicare and Medicaid. Most recently the Motley fool multiple government contracting companies, nonprofits and corporations.

Helen Fake: When I was at the International Trade Administration, one of the things we were doing was building these amazing training assets, and what we found was, even though we were building these with the most cutting edge. Cognitive principles. No, no one could find them. So we have all these great library resources, and no one was accessing them. So it made me wanna fix this and focus on learning experience design which took me to this very program

Helen Fake: I currently serve as the Ux lead on a Medicare Medicaid contract addressing the issue of medical care deserts by creating user friendly platforms.

Helen Fake: That Leverage Cloud based AI and human centered design solutions to support the 65 million Americans enrolled in Medicare. Today.

Helen Fake: I’m also, as I mentioned before, a proud graduate of this program Dr. Dubai is a dear mentor to me, and I maintain close collaborations. As she mentioned, we’ve written a book together, and I’m conducting research on implementing workforce training development programs, reskilling and retooling in the workforce

Helen Fake: in times of these continuous changes and developing personalized learning programs. So we’re even piloting some of these advances, these theoretical principles in a corporate context currently and and doing more research to understand. If our theoretical principles are actually existing in the world, and and how we might further enhance their growth.

Helen Fake: We’ve also started exploring how Chach can support learning, design, using theories of affordances which is really exciting cutting edge work.

Helen Fake: I think you’ve heard a little bit from other people. But what I love about George Mason is the pragmatic lens inherent in the curriculum design. Drudoia was talking about project based learning. Doug was talking about the wonderful

Helen Fake: impacts that we have. Everything in this program is grounded in authentic challenges and research that drives outcomes our project, based curriculum, encourages you to tackle complex spaces with tangible work projects that you can point to as mastery in your domain. You’re gonna get your hands dirty. You’re gonna have the toolkit to design technical solutions that amplify your skill sets and have a real wide impact.

Helen Fake: And whether you’re looking to become more impactful in your existing role, you’re pursuing a career change or you’re looking to take in a promotion. I’ve seen 1st hand, how this program increases. Learn to confidence, to tackle the ambiguous and wicked challenges inherent in our age, the curriculum and the connections you build with your fellow students are, gonna prepare you for whatever comes your way. And I’ve seen our alumni. I mean, that 1st picture was so powerful

Helen Fake: they rise through the ranks. They’ve become chief learning officers and leaders within their training and development departments. I’ve seen them revolutionize existing training programs and find that many students are able to transition their learning from this program to new careers.

Helen Fake: and as a professor, I can say, there’s nothing more rewarding than to see your students presenting their cutting edge work at a conference, finally obtaining that permission or making the career change they’ve been so desperately seeking. So I hope, by the end of this presentation. You’re enticed to take that next step with us and to join this forward thinking community of change makers.

Doug Wilson, PhD: Dr. Fake well, says Dr. Jiakumo, Dr. Deba, very well said. You really get a taste of the different perspectives and personalities in the program which will all be focused on your success.

Nada Dabbagh: We have to mention Carla Carla. So I just sorry before we go to other slides. I want to mention Carla. She’s you can see Carla. A lot of corn.

Nada Dabbagh: and Carla is our administrator. I mean, we can’t do anything without Carla, so Carla helps us with scheduling our courses. She helps us with helps you. If you have questions about graduation, about things that you know your credits. So Carla just is, you know.

Nada Dabbagh: Jack of all trades, and she really supports the faculty and the students in the masters of learning, design and technology. So, Carla, do you wanna say a few words. How long have you been at Mason?

Karla Alarcon: Hello! How are you? I’ve been at Mason for 7 years now.

Nada Dabbagh: Wow!

Karla Alarcon: Yes, and that’s Dr. That I say I’m here for them. I’m here for you, so I’m happy to help with any questions or anything you need.

Nada Dabbagh: Thank you.

Karla Alarcon: Thanks.

Doug Wilson, PhD: You’re awesome, Carla, and Asana said we, we can’t do it without you, so I’m really glad that you’re on the on the call.

Doug Wilson, PhD: and those of you who come to us. We we hope you come to us. You’re gonna

Doug Wilson, PhD: talk to Carla and you. You want her on your side, cause she can make things happen administratively. That only she can do so. Thank you for being here, Carla, and thank you.

Nada Dabbagh: I can’t see anything in the chat again. But please let’s move on because we want to give the participants

Nada Dabbagh: time to ask questions. And there are 19 participants, and we’re already at 7, 38. So if you want to move to the so you know.

Doug Wilson, PhD: Yes, of course.

Doug Wilson, PhD: So dr. Fake really dove in on some of the career opportunities. As did Dr. Giacomo. But some of these probably look very familiar to you.

Doug Wilson, PhD: Instructional design, of course, under that umbrella heading of designers and Developers.

Doug Wilson, PhD: and then consultants, and then managers and

Doug Wilson, PhD: You. You can aspire with your Master’s degree to management

Doug Wilson, PhD: ranks and you know, we talked a little bit about AI, and so we are all all of us infusing that into our courses. Because we think that keeping up with technology is important. But also

Doug Wilson, PhD: it’s lifelong learning

Doug Wilson, PhD: you start this career, maybe at George Mason, or you get your master’s degree or e-learning certificate at Mason. But that’s not the end of the line for you. In order to stay sharp. You must continuously you know. Build on your skill set. So there’s a couple of the job categories that you’ll see on. Indeed.

Doug Wilson, PhD: dot com and other job sites, and I will move along to the next slide.

Nada Dabbagh: What about the one of the curriculum, the one with the curriculum, please?

Nada Dabbagh: Yep.

Doug Wilson, PhD: It’s coming up.

Nada Dabbagh: Oh, okay.

Doug Wilson, PhD: It’s coming up.

Doug Wilson, PhD: Let’s talk about money.

Doug Wilson, PhD: So you’re gonna make a big investment coming to George Mason University. And so you should

Doug Wilson, PhD: be thinking about what your return on that investment is going to be. We actually have a class on the business side of instructional design.

Doug Wilson, PhD: So if you have little experience less than a year. Looking over at the left side of that graph.

Doug Wilson, PhD: 56 k.

Doug Wilson, PhD: Is where you can start with a limited experience.

Doug Wilson, PhD: More toward the the middle

Doug Wilson, PhD: of that line there from 63 k. With one to 4 years to 70 k.

Doug Wilson, PhD: With 5 to 9 years, and then, of course, from 20 plus years at 78 K.

Doug Wilson, PhD: These are, just some numbers to give you an idea of what you can earn in the field with a Master’s degree or e-learning certificate. But a lot of what you earn is, gonna depend on you and what you can do with your design skills and your creativity.

Doug Wilson, PhD: So don’t think of this as like a siloed salary range even with some of the challenges in the tech field

Doug Wilson, PhD: folks with AI skill sets or Scott cyber security skill sets on the design side. I was just looking at the the Association for computing website. There’s people being offered like huge sums of money to do AI work, design work and that sort of thing. So there are some that give you this slide should give you an idea of the earnings potential.

Doug Wilson, PhD: So, as Dr. Debata was saying, we’re getting to the part of the presentation where we’re gonna talk about what it is we actually offer. And then also, we’re gonna take a look in another slide at some of the courses, and we can talk about a little bit.

Doug Wilson, PhD: Excuse me, speak a little bit about some of those courses, but we have an E-learning graduate certificate that’s built into the program. And so

Doug Wilson, PhD: what that means is if you work on an e-learning certificate, which is a 15 graduate credit program. This automatically applies to the master’s program so you could come in.

Doug Wilson, PhD: get your sea legs, so to speak, and then decide. Once you’re you’re with us, that you want to do 15 additional credits, and all of these from the E-learning certificate count toward the Master’s degree.

Doug Wilson, PhD: We have a part like a part of time online format

Doug Wilson, PhD: that’s flexible. So if you’re working, you have a full time job, this can generally fit in. It’s important to understand that you gotta balance your personal life in your work life and your family life with the program, but you can do it and we coach you on that. We help you get through that and find that work, life balance. There’s our ranking at the College of Education 67 out of 456, according to us, news and world report. So George Mason is a known

Doug Wilson, PhD: entity in higher education, in learning, design, and technology.

Doug Wilson, PhD: in educational technology, in instructional design. And, as Dr. Debba said earlier. There’s a very big network of alums out there, especially in the Northern Virginia DC. Area

Doug Wilson, PhD: of folks who came through our program. And so, as a as a graduate. It’s likely, maybe probable even, that if you’re interviewing for a job, that person who’s interviewing for that job is gonna be a graduate of the program, and

Doug Wilson, PhD: you’ve heard the the old adage that it’s not what you know. It’s who, you know. I don’t know if you agree with that or not. But we, the relationships you for jet. George Mason, can allow you to succeed in getting a job or getting a promotion, and then Dr. Deborah is gonna talk a little bit after I get through this slide. Competitive tuition that makes our top rated education

Doug Wilson, PhD: available to more students. We have some incentives. And we’ll get to that in a bit. I want to move along the presentation.

Doug Wilson, PhD: So there’s another one of those QR codes. And I’m gonna just briefly talk about the scholarship opportunities.

Doug Wilson, PhD: We have a lot of awards. At the college competitive scholarships

Doug Wilson, PhD: to qualify students to help defray costs associated with attending George Mason.

Doug Wilson, PhD: we have, announcements about these scholarships and other notifications. That we that we put out. I just sent some of my students a notification about the the deadline for applying for scholarships, and then we also have

Doug Wilson, PhD: college of Education scholarships.

Doug Wilson, PhD: that the office of student and academic affairs has a lot more information on. But again, you can snap that

Doug Wilson, PhD: or scan that QR code.

Doug Wilson, PhD: And then there’s a sample listing of some of the scholarships down below. Under that email address SAAS. SUPR. [email protected]

Doug Wilson, PhD: do you? The Annandale Women’s Club endowed scholarship.

Doug Wilson, PhD: the student licensure and certification exam fund, the Helen Keller scholarship and more.

Doug Wilson, PhD: And so let’s continue on.

Doug Wilson, PhD: Yeah, and so.

Nada Dabbagh: Curriculum, slide.

Doug Wilson, PhD: This is another scholarship opportunity. You see the

Doug Wilson, PhD: social media connections Nsf, which is a big government program in the Washington DC area. So that is also something that’s available to you.

Doug Wilson, PhD: And then as Dr. Navar saying, we have a flexible and accredited curriculum, and so these are the courses that we offer. The required ones are on the left hand side, and the e-learning certificate courses

Doug Wilson, PhD: are on the right hand side.

Doug Wilson, PhD: and so Neta, anything to add about any of these courses.

Nada Dabbagh: Yeah. So I wanna say here that

Nada Dabbagh: you can see the same courses are actually

Nada Dabbagh: on both

Nada Dabbagh: images, right? And there’s a reason for that. So our masters of science is 30 credits, and it’s designed to be acquired as a on a part time basis, as Dr. Wilson mentioned, because all of you, and most of our students are adult learners who work full time or have families, and therefore we cater for

Nada Dabbagh: you finishing the 30 credits across 2 years, hey? If you want to

Nada Dabbagh: do it faster, we can help you do that if you have time

Nada Dabbagh: to take off, and you know, do full-time study. We can work with you towards that. But the program is designed for people who

Nada Dabbagh: work full time and want to study part time. That is why the program is 100% online. And it is asynchronous. Right? So you work at your own pace

Nada Dabbagh: every one of those courses. We sometimes do have office hours, Zoom Meetings that are synchronous. But

Nada Dabbagh: for the most part

Nada Dabbagh: you’re studying at your own time, and the courses are asynchronous. Also, I want to say that the courses are

Nada Dabbagh: in 8 week modules, and therefore we try to have you be taking one course at a time. Right? So if you start in the fall you will be taking, say, one course from when the semester starts with us. A August 20. Second, let’s say through October something, and then you finish that course, and then you start another course

Nada Dabbagh: October, say 21, st and then you finish that one

Nada Dabbagh: in December. So sometimes you can take

Nada Dabbagh: 2 courses in an 8 week module, but we will become your advisor. You will be assigned an advisor, and you will work with your advisor to take the courses in, you know, whatever flexible kind of

Nada Dabbagh: sequence you you would like. Now you have to remember, this is a graduate course program. It is accredited. So there are certain courses that are prerequisite to other courses. You can’t just willy, nilly, take any course you want anytime you want. So

Nada Dabbagh: if you look on the right side of the slide, you will see, as Dr. Wilson mentioned, some courses are 2 credits like edit 5, 26. That’s the web accessibility and design. Edit. 5, 7, 5. That could be articulate storyline, or

Nada Dabbagh: that could be, it will be captivate. But this is also a 2 credit course, and then you’ve got

Nada Dabbagh: the innovations in E learning, which is 3 credits, the instructional technology foundations and learning theories. 3 credits.

Nada Dabbagh: You will always start with the instructional design course, the edit. 7 0. 5.

Nada Dabbagh: And then you will do the business of learning technologies that Dr. Wilson talked about, and then we have a course.

Nada Dabbagh: a new course called Virtual worlds AR VR etc. And we infuse AI and all of those. So you’ve got nothing to lose. We’re gonna wave the application fee. Just because you are attending this session.

Nada Dabbagh: you will communicate with Pam, our facilitators, our facilitator, for this evening we are waving your application fee. You’ve got nothing to lose. All you do. The application is pretty straightforward. Is you submit a goals statement

Nada Dabbagh: like 750 words like, why do you want to study instructional design or learning design. What kind of experience are you bringing into the program? We value your experience, your life experience, your work, experience. So do you have experience in teaching experience, in training experience using technology. That’s what makes our field and our program and our students so diverse and so varied. So

Nada Dabbagh: you can apply for the e-learning certificate. And as Dr. Wilson mentioned, you can have that certificate within one year, because it’s only 15 credits. But then, if you look on the left side of the screen, pretty much all of the courses that you see on the right side are also listed on the left side right, because you would have completed 15 credits. The 1st thing you do is you

Nada Dabbagh: get your certificate, whether you like it or not, even if you apply for the master’s program, we have sequenced the courses in such a way that along the way, in the 1st year like, say, you start in the fall. So in December of 2025 you will acquire your e-learning certificate, and then you can continue for

Nada Dabbagh: one more semester and a summer or 2 semesters to get your master’s degree. So all of the 15 credits for the e-learning certificate will automatically apply towards the masters of

Nada Dabbagh: science in learning, design, and technology. And again, the courses are in 8 week modules.

Nada Dabbagh: and they are contiguous, not on top of each other. You will work with an advisor. We also offer summer courses. And you, if you don’t want to take courses in the summer, you don’t have to. I mean again, this is a graduate program the courses, you know. We don’t have the bandwidth to offer every course.

Nada Dabbagh: every semester. But you. We work with your advisor to help you complete the master’s degree of 30 credits, you know, in about 2 years

Nada Dabbagh: as well as the e-learning certificate. So really you’ve got nothing to lose. We’ll waive the application fee for you. You will start. You’ll get the certificate, and then you just have to write a goal statement and you have to just have 2 letters of recommendations from, you know, people that you’ve been working with, or your professors from your undergrad, or something like that. So it’s a very easy application process.

Nada Dabbagh: and Dr. Holly fake teaches. Can you go back to the previous slide, please, Doug, I wanna talk about the Ux design courses. You see, the 7 32, 7, 52, that Dr. Holly has been teaching, but Dr. Gia Kuma, who’s joining us in the fall, will be teaching those 2 courses. They are supposed to be taken back to back. But before you get to those courses you will be taking the

Nada Dabbagh: the the basic instructional design course. We also have the perspectives on learning analytics course that you will also be be taking and the innovations in in e-learning. So again, it’s a great program. It’s really sequenced in a way that’s flexible to you, and we’re, you know you’ve got nothing to lose by applying, as Dr. Wilson mentioned. If you only want the certificate

Nada Dabbagh: in the beginning you can apply for the certificate, but I would want to caution you that

Nada Dabbagh: if you only apply for the certificate, and then you decide to

Nada Dabbagh: apply for the master’s program. Right, Carla. Then you would have to pay the application fee

Nada Dabbagh: right? Because.

Karla Alarcon: Yes, if you apply for the certificate first, st and then add the master, you’ll have to apply again.

Nada Dabbagh: Yeah, you’d have to like, apply again. It’s just you know how universities work, because the masters program, the masters program is what is. You know you have, you have to. Yeah.

Nada Dabbagh: So.

Nada Dabbagh: So sorry. Go ahead, Carla.

Karla Alarcon: Once. We add this demand this master as a primary. Then you can add the certificate, but unfortunately doesn’t work the other way.

Nada Dabbagh: The other way. Rob, thank you.

Karla Alarcon: Yep.

Nada Dabbagh: So I advise you to apply for the Master’s degree.

Nada Dabbagh: you know, and then you know that along the way. So because you’re not gonna pay the the application fee, and then along the way you’ll get the the e-learning certificate. And then, if for some reason, you don’t wanna continue with the masters. You can always

Nada Dabbagh: opt out of it. Right? Right? Carla, they can. Yeah.

Karla Alarcon: Once they finish the certificate. Yes, they can either resign from the master, or they need to take time off and they can

Karla Alarcon: reapply in without paying the application again. But time limit of 6 years after that you will have to.

Nada Dabbagh: That’s right. So there’s a time limit. So yeah, there’s flexibility. Alright. So that’s what I wanted to say about the program. So you wanna go back. Finish the slides. Yeah.

12024366116: Somebody.

Doug Wilson, PhD: So we’re at the end of the presentation now, and

Doug Wilson, PhD: it was kind of a big information dump for you. So if you’re a little confused right now.

Doug Wilson, PhD: That’s okay. We have some time for questions. There’s another QR code that’ll take you right to the application.

Doug Wilson, PhD: And there’s a phone number

Doug Wilson, PhD: for folks who can walk you through admissions related topics

Doug Wilson, PhD: logistics about being in an asynchronous 100% online program. You see our

Doug Wilson, PhD: email address there, online, [email protected], and then the website address

Doug Wilson, PhD: next to that arrow. And so at this point

Doug Wilson, PhD: again. We’ve shared a lot. It’s your turn to ask questions, and so I am monitoring the chat.

George Mason Online Admissions: I’m definitely happy to read out questions. If that’s helpful as well.

Doug Wilson, PhD: Yes, very much.

George Mason Online Admissions: Yeah. And just again. Thank you to everyone for attending today. I know we are getting close to calf time. Here. Please do share your questions in the chat. And, as was just mentioned, if you are interested in the program and you’re not sure who your admissions representative is.

George Mason Online Admissions: The telephone number on the screen here, please do reach out. Email address is also there as well, and the chances are, though, if you attended this evening. You will have a receive, a phone call or an email from representative here at Mason to support you with next steps as well. But again, those are the details for you to reach out to

George Mason Online Admissions: so we’ve got a couple of questions in the chat already. Our 1st question comes from Catherine Burke.

George Mason Online Admissions: She is asking. She’s curious what the employment rate for graduation for graduates is, and whether the salary charts that you guys showed earlier is actually up to date, cause it looks a little bit lower than what she’s seen and what she was expecting.

Doug Wilson, PhD: So the salary schedule is the latest information that we have, and, as I mentioned

Doug Wilson, PhD: during the presentation.

Doug Wilson, PhD: what you earn really in many ways depends on what you can negotiate.

Doug Wilson, PhD: And so

Doug Wilson, PhD: that those th the salaries were there, just to give you an idea of what the earning

Doug Wilson, PhD: potential is. And you have probably heard at this point that the tech sector has been under some pressure

Doug Wilson, PhD: post pandemic.

Doug Wilson, PhD: as people try to upskill

Doug Wilson, PhD: with AI, which has kind of taken over

Doug Wilson, PhD: tech sector right now. And so if you don’t have those skills.

Doug Wilson, PhD: then you are probably going to be less likely to to earn the highest salary

Doug Wilson, PhD: or or get that job in a a very competitive tech sector, which is why Dr. Devon, others we’re talking tonight, and I was talking tonight about the the need to constantly

Doug Wilson, PhD: over the course of a career. You know. Keep building your skill set

Doug Wilson, PhD: and and so on the admission side, in terms of the graduates that are out there, Nata, is that a question that you can tackle.

Nada Dabbagh: Yeah, I’m actually looking at the chat. I’m a bit surprised.

Nada Dabbagh: about this agism thing. I don’t. I don’t get it. So if you could let them speak, please, Pam, or and and then I think Holly can address that th. There is an agism problem. What does that mean?

Nada Dabbagh: Ver versus older job. I I don’t understand. So anyway, our program is not a tech industry. I just wanna make that clear, please. You are not coming into this program to be a tech.

Nada Dabbagh: You know, it’s not about technology. I wanna make that really clear this program and always has been from when I went to school. Dr. Giacomo went to school, and Dr. Fake went to school. This is a our industry is not a

Nada Dabbagh: tech industry. We are learning designers, we are instructional designers. We are curriculum designers. We have principles and learning theories in our field that we use to write a design document to make a case to the organization about, why do you need to spend money? And why do we need a budget to conduct training? I have some of my students building a learning ecosystem

Nada Dabbagh: for their organization. You know you learn how to do

Nada Dabbagh: training on demand just when you need it for your employees and a certain a company. Sure, you’re gonna use technology to create

Nada Dabbagh: training videos. But that’s not the focus. I mean, not all training is going to be using a training videos or using articulate storyline. Th, there’s there’s so many different technologies that you could use. Some training is designed through Lms. Some training is designed, you know. Some of it is online, some of it is blended. Some of it is on demand. Some of it is mobile applications.

Nada Dabbagh: Some of it is VR applications, you will learn how to decide which type of learning environment is appropriate for which type of learning outcomes

Nada Dabbagh: and the skills that you want. The employees of a particular company to be able to acquire. Right? So I’m not. I’m not clear about this agism thing. I’m sorry I I don’t get it.

Nada Dabbagh: What? What, what is the issue with agism?

George Mason Online Admissions: So I read that question was actually addressed in the chat already. I actually had a question from another student as well, who, actually working with. They were interested to hear specifically what programs are actually used. Throughout the master. This one. They want to kind of get some insight there. As to what programs you guys use.

Nada Dabbagh: What do you mean? What programs? We only have one program. Ms, in in in learning, design and technology. What do you mean? What program.

George Mason Online Admissions: So in terms of any software that you that they they would expect.

Nada Dabbagh: No, no, no, we’re not about software, you know. We we keep up to date. Doctor Freight can talk about this. We keep, we have. We have a course, edit. 5, 7, 5. That is offered either as learning articulate Storyline sometimes we offer it with adobe captivate, but those things you can learn pretty much on your own.

George Mason Online Admissions: The result.

Nada Dabbagh: Of the program is not. We’re not teaching you software. The the 5 26 is about web accessibility and design. How do you design? You know, training or websites or lms that are accessible to people with hearing difficulties, vision difficulties, etc. So again, this program is not about technology Dr. Fake. Do you wanna say a little bit about that, please?

Helen Fake: Yeah, I just added in the chat. I I understand the concern about ages. And what I would say is that that may be for more technical roles. As an instructional systems designer, you’re gonna be a

Helen Fake: strategist. You’re going to be likely in a consulting role.

Helen Fake: And you’re going to be trying to design for the people process and technologies.

Helen Fake: So what’s really great is that you have these skill sets where a little bit more seasoning is going to really benefit you in that role. And what we wanna do is make sure you have the toolkit to lead the change and to get technologists in the position that they can make the impact that they’re looking to make.

George Mason Online Admissions: Okay. We also have a question from the heed. I’m just trying to find it here in the chat.

Nada Dabbagh: Let them talk. I I don’t mind hearing their voices, so if they can unmute and ask the question, instead of putting it in the chat, or.

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): May I offer some perspective on that, too? I think that I’ve seen in my experience

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): helping students and working with students over the last decade. Is that there is a place for everyone, and that’s what also I found in my career. So you’re going to find the right spot for you. And I I think it’s it’s reasonable to assume that some people will be looking for a younger person because they have ideas about

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): preconceived notions about what they’re going to do with them. But, on the other hand, I’ve seen a lot of employers want the mature, very experienced.

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): very polished

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): employee candidate who’s gaining entrance into our field or upskilling in our field to work in that consultant role. It’s hard to conduct a needs assessment or an evaluation about gaps, performance gaps and organizations and to be able to know how to position solution set

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): proposals. If you don’t have that experience being immersed in organizations in your past.

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): So does that make sense like your perspective as a more mature person is going to be super valuable to the right employer, and you’re gonna get picked up immediately

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): into that kind of a position.

Doug Wilson, PhD: So we had, some people join late. And so we’re after the hour here by 4 min. But I’m certainly willing to stay

Doug Wilson, PhD: online here to answer some questions. There are some interesting questions in the chat. There was one about

Doug Wilson, PhD: AI, and whether that’s going to take jobs from instructional designers and Ldt type people. And I I don’t really see it that way.

Doug Wilson, PhD: I think that artificial intelligence is going to become a companion.

Doug Wilson, PhD: You know.

Nada Dabbagh: Exactly.

Doug Wilson, PhD: To the.

Doug Wilson, PhD: to the instructional designer. And and it’s

Doug Wilson, PhD: it’s the human person. When we talk about human centered design that is going to be the difference and understands

Doug Wilson, PhD: how that tool is used in a design context

Doug Wilson, PhD: to support

Doug Wilson, PhD: human design human centered design as practiced by

Doug Wilson, PhD: instructional designers and other humans.

Nada Dabbagh: They. I totally agree with the pros, and I have to go. If you want, if you wanna email me separately to ask specific questions. I’m happy to answer them. I I’ve answered the question in the chat from Vihid about the realistic time commitment, and I think

Nada Dabbagh: we’ve we’ve we’ve addressed the issue of agism. But again, thank you all for your participation. I’m gonna leave you in the hands of my colleagues and Pam, who can answer questions about the applications and looking forward to reviewing your application again, you have nothing to lose. We’re gonna wave the application fees and we’ll we’ll hope to see you in our program by everyone.

George Mason Online Admissions: Yes, and there’s actually one question from Christine as well. Just wanna make sure before she leaves here percentage of students that come in with a Master’s degree. Already she was interested in how many already come in with that master’s degree.

Doug Wilson, PhD: So most of the students who come in post pandemic with master’s degrees, were working

Doug Wilson, PhD: in

Doug Wilson, PhD: education in secondary schools.

Doug Wilson, PhD: And I I’ve actually seen

Doug Wilson, PhD: a drop off in that again. I won’t

Doug Wilson, PhD: try to give you the numbers on that. I I can look at those numbers. But more people who are coming to us now are either working inside an organization now where they’re practicing instructional design without

Doug Wilson, PhD: having formal training in it, or they’ve taken certificate programs at you to me.

Doug Wilson, PhD: coursera and other online organizations out there. And so

Doug Wilson, PhD: what they’re lacking that’s going to allow them to get ahead

Doug Wilson, PhD: is

Doug Wilson, PhD: not the Master’s degree, but

Doug Wilson, PhD: it’s more of the theoretical frameworks.

Doug Wilson, PhD: The the actual projects that you put together in a team based in environment, as Dr. Giacomo was saying.

Doug Wilson, PhD: And

Doug Wilson, PhD: those are the people that I’m seeing come through the program.

Doug Wilson, PhD: So yeah, some students have master’s degrees, but also we have

Doug Wilson, PhD: students who are veterans who

Doug Wilson, PhD: don’t have a Master’s degree or a bachelor’s degree in our field.

Doug Wilson, PhD: But the military training that they get from the the Us. Government and other governments really allows these students to excel. So

Doug Wilson, PhD: I hope that answers

Doug Wilson, PhD: your question in kind of a broad way, but in terms of the stats on who comes with a Master’s degree, I would have to. I would have to drill down into that and look at that.

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): In my experience. about a a 3rd of people who are enrolling into graduate programs in this field already have masters and other areas. Sometimes people are coming in with communications, backgrounds or engineering backgrounds or marketing backgrounds or English backgrounds or teacher preparation backgrounds. Psychology is a common one.

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): That’s not to say that you wouldn’t come in with a nursing background. I’ve seen a lot of people do that, or Allied health field. So I think it’s very, very common at the same age when we’re lifelong learners, and we’re transitioning through our lifetimes and through different careers to have multiple master’s degrees.

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): And it’s okay. If it’s your first, st too.

christine carter: Okay, that. Thank you.

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): No, no.

christine carter: I was curious about that. Thank you. Cause I’m I’m toying with

christine carter: die pursuing a doctorate versus another Master’s degree. And so I was kind of curious if other people were coming through this already. Having completed master’s degrees.

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): Yeah. So I think. To. You know, Christine, I love that question. Should I do a master? Should I do a doctoral? Should it be a Phd. And Edd, you know. And I think that that’s really personal. So if you want to connect on Linkedin and chat about that in your specific situation and your goals like, I’m happy to

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): share my perspective. But I think that those are great questions to ask. Many people like, not just us, but also people in your network, and people with roles that you aspire to.

christine carter: Yeah, thank you. I’ve already been trying to

christine carter: peel apart the differences between the Phd. The Edd. And actually a doctor to speech pathology. So an Slpd degree. But it all comes back to the same thing. I wanna be able to work, teach adults, and you know. And so

christine carter: this kind of ties everything together, and it’s not as big of a time commitment. So so

christine carter: and cost. So there’s obviously time and money.

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): Yeah, yeah, so I don’t know anything about those other fields. But for our field people are commonly coming through our programs and then getting jobs as ids and trainers.

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): And then those kinds of roles. You are teaching adults. In organizations. And and I really loved it. I I loved being a trainer, and I love being instructional designer inside of corporate America as well as Ngos and government agencies and the Department of defense. It’s really.

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): I thought it was awesome. So.

christine carter: I appreciate it. And I actually did take your link. So I’ll connect up with you up on Linkedin, too. So.

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): Awesome. Thanks.

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): Yeah.

Helen Fake: My experience has been, too, that people Co, it’s always great to ask an instructional designer like, how did you become? How did you get here. There’s always this amazing story. I mean, like, it’s great to hear your story today. At least I hadn’t heard it yet, so.

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): Oh, thanks. Yeah. I’ve done all the things

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): like most people in our field.

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): I don’t. Everyone has a different journey through the heat. I think you’re raising your hand.

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): Yep.

Doug Wilson, PhD: Pam, can we hear from vihid.

George Mason Online Admissions: Oh, yeah, absolutely. Please unmute yourself and ask your question. Behave! Go ahead.

George Mason Online Admissions: Looks like you are unmuted, Vihiva, and we can’t hear you. Unfortunately.

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): So I noticed, Lori, you asked that question, would a Phd. In another field make it harder to get an entry level job in this field. So I’m not exactly sure what your the context behind your question is like, do you have a Phd.

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): Are you thinking

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): you might go get one. And then come. So I’ve worked with students. Who are in online 100 online, asynchronous and political science. Okay, so that that makes sense. Yeah. So you have a Phd, so I have had probably 4 or 5, maybe 6 students so far in my last 10 years, who already have Phds in different areas. Criminal justice is one

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): actually in

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): instructional design from an academic perspective. And they wanted to do workplace.

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): I worked with somebody like that who came back for our Master’s degree cause we’re very applied and we’re we do projects like we were saying in the earlier portion of this program. And so they came back and got applied master’s degrees, cause that was going to help them get entry into the position that they wanted to. So no. A Phd in a different area, that if you possess one, actually, that adds to your portfolio

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): because, what people know about you is that you’re able to analyze data and a pretty sophisticated level, which is something that people in our area do on occasion.

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): everybody does something a little bit different. But if you are interested in data analysis, those jobs exist. And so they look at you and they see, oh, you have grit, you have determination. You know how to get things done. You can work independently. You can ask for help when needed. You knew, have learned how to learn.

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): I want you right? So I have not seen that as a deterrent at all

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): in my experience, I I can’t speak for

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): all of the world but

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): the people I’ve worked with. It’s only been a helper, not a hindrance.

George Mason Online Admissions: Okay, we’ve got a question here from Vihid in the chat. He asked. Can you please talk about the faculty’s experience level? And will students be exposed to practical learning in the industry from experienced practitioners.

Doug Wilson, PhD: So yeah, we covered some of that. And so I know we had some folks joining.

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): Oh, 8.

Doug Wilson, PhD: After we had started. But the program is based on inquiry, based learning or problem based

Doug Wilson, PhD: learning or project based learning, which is to say that everything is authentic

Doug Wilson, PhD: learning and applied and practical, which basically means that we ask our students

Doug Wilson, PhD: to come in and define problem statements. Where are the pain points in the context that you wanna work in? Many students bring many students who are working in the industry or or working at a company and have an assigned training duty to make training

Doug Wilson, PhD: bring their problems to us for their organizations, and we help them solve those and write plans and develop tools

Doug Wilson, PhD: and training materials

Doug Wilson, PhD: to solve those problems with evaluation plans and some other pieces. So it’s it’s all applied. It’s very practical, but I think it might have been Lisa or Holly, Dr. Giacomo or Dr. Fake who said it.

Doug Wilson, PhD: It’s all evidence based. So this is not stuff that we’re pulling out of the sky. There’s a a whole, a body of literature to support

Doug Wilson, PhD: design, sish decisions.

Doug Wilson, PhD: And

Doug Wilson, PhD: what we do is coach you through how to marry that evidence

Doug Wilson, PhD: with your idea about how to

Doug Wilson, PhD: solve an instructional problem. Typically. But there’s other problems that our students look at?

Doug Wilson, PhD: Did I answer your question?

Vahid Brignoni: I don’t know if this works. I don’t know if you hear me now.

George Mason Online Admissions: Yeah, you can. You’d.

Vahid Brignoni: Oh, okay, great. Yeah. Well, yeah, I appreciate that that response. That question. I guess my

Vahid Brignoni: my underlying question is, you know the what I learned

Vahid Brignoni: is it gonna be something that immediately, right away, I can be set free into the working public and have the skills and the knowledge. I I apologize. I joined you late. So I I you may have already answered it. But is it something that I’m gonna be equipped right away after taking the courses in the, in, the in, the and the content to be set free and into the wild. Thank you.

Doug Wilson, PhD: Yes.

Doug Wilson, PhD: The short answer to the question

Doug Wilson, PhD: is, yes.

Doug Wilson, PhD: and the reason I can say that is as others have expressed here.

Doug Wilson, PhD: there.

Doug Wilson, PhD: the problems that we ask our students to address. They’re all authentic problems. And another way to say that is

Doug Wilson, PhD: the problems that our students address

Doug Wilson, PhD: come from the real world.

Doug Wilson, PhD: The George Mason values and Mission State. Ask of students and faculty members. As you teach, and as you learn.

Doug Wilson, PhD: one of the things that we expect you to do with all of this is to take action, to use the skill set that you’re developing.

Doug Wilson, PhD: so that when you finish

Doug Wilson, PhD: you’re prepared to lead.

Doug Wilson, PhD: You’re prepared to be that person at the at the table who

Doug Wilson, PhD: knows a lot about

Doug Wilson, PhD: how we can use technology and different

Doug Wilson, PhD: things that we have in our tool kit as instructional designers to solve problems. And you start doing that on day one. So by the time you finish an e-learning certificate, or by the time you finish the master’s program you have a collection

Doug Wilson, PhD: of evidence

Doug Wilson, PhD: of not just some paper you wrote which you’re gonna do in the program. But you have evidence for something you made

Doug Wilson, PhD: or something you designed. That’s evidenced base. And that’s gonna be in whatever organization you work in.

Doug Wilson, PhD: That’s going to be powerful

Doug Wilson, PhD: when you’re the one at the table

Doug Wilson, PhD: directing or trying to encourage leadership within an organization about a direction to head.

Doug Wilson, PhD: You’re gonna be armed and ready

Doug Wilson, PhD: and confident

Doug Wilson, PhD: to do that. So yes.

Doug Wilson, PhD: I gave you the short answer, and the long answer.

George Mason Online Admissions: Alright. Thank you. Dr. Wilson.

George Mason Online Admissions: Yeah, in interest of time, I do see. Quite a few participants have have logged off there, and we’ve got a couple still still staying, and if you did join late as I say, you are more than welcome to reach out to us directly. We will have a recording of the entire evening. This for you to to share with you, so please do reach out to us at 703-48-5006.

George Mason Online Admissions: Telephone number. There’s on the screen. And that’s also the quickest way that you can get in touch with your admissions representative as well. You can also email us with your questions, and of course, visit our website. To learn more about the program. So to to reiterate. If you have more questions, or if you’d like to get recording of tonight’s presentation please do reach out to us.

George Mason Online Admissions: And again, I’m taking this opportunity to thank everyone for joining us this evening. Especially our presenters. Offered a wealth of information about the program and took out times even to be with us as well.

George Mason Online Admissions: So thank you so so much. To everyone. I do believe we were all able to cover those questions in the chat. So thank you to our presenters as well for getting involved there. Really do appreciate it.

George Mason Online Admissions: So it’s our last call for any questions I’m gonna give you go guys like 10 seconds to add anything else. If you have something otherwise we will need to log off for the evening.

George Mason Online Admissions: Alright!

George Mason Online Admissions: Thank you so much again. Everyone have a great rest of your night.

Doug Wilson, PhD: Bye, bye, everybody! Thanks for coming.

George Mason Online Admissions: Way.

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): Hi, thanks!

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): Woo! Woo!

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): Do we know Katherine Burke! Katherine, how are you doing?

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): Can you hear us.

Doug Wilson, PhD: I can hear you, Lisa.

Doug Wilson, PhD: but I don’t think Catherine can hear you.

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): Yeah, she must be a incoming student.

Doug Wilson, PhD: Here she is!

Catherine Burke: Hi, yeah, yeah, I’m I’m here. I’ve listened to the whole presentation.

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): Awesome. Katherine, how are you doing tonight?

Catherine Burke: Yeah, could. I’m also like trying to put my toddler to bed at the same time. So a little bit of multitasking.

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): I hear you. I’ve got a 6 year old.

Catherine Burke: Okay.

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): Yeah.

Catherine Burke: Yeah. Mine. Is 2.

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): I remember those days not too long ago.

Catherine Burke: Yeah.

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): Yeah.

Catherine Burke: So.

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): What are you coming from us tonight? Are you in the DC. Metro area? Are you.

Catherine Burke: No, no! I live in New Orleans.

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): Oh, fun!

Catherine Burke: Yeah, and I, my background’s in graphic design.

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): Wow!

Catherine Burke: So I’d be coming from more of like, you know, having a visual background. But I’ve always I’ve worked in. I work for the Public library. And I’ve always kind of worked in the educational space. So it seems like, yeah, I I’m really interested in how those worlds kind of overlap and feeling like.

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): Oh, sorry. Yeah. Go ahead.

Catherine Burke: Oh, just kind of yeah, I don’t have an educational background per se, but like the sort of design background like, How how much do you see, like visual design playing a part in the field?

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): Right? Yeah, you would be a hot commodity.

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): Usually.

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): you would be a hot commodity because you could position yourself for the upper level jobs. Honestly, the upper level salary. Most people in our field have a background, obviously into instructional design, right and educational and design and learning design and technology. But not all of us have a background in graphic design. But what people usually get excited over is the look and feel right.

Catherine Burke: Right. And we.

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): Have we run into like more of a challenge when we’re consulting on the learning design part.

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): But you would get top dollar because you’re gonna be able to to integrate these things and make things that are beautiful, but also work.

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): So oftentimes, organizations. If they’re gonna cheap out, they’ll either hire somebody that knows a lot about learning design, and they won’t care too much about the visual design, and they’ll pay them a little bit less like th. They’ll be able to create things that are plausible looking, but are very effective working right? Or they’ll cheap out, and they’ll

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): hire graphic designers so, and they’ll build things that are absolutely gorgeous, aesthetically pleasing, stunning to look at.

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): but don’t really like do a lot for performance.

Catherine Burke: but there!

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): Really care about how things look. So their values are different, right? And there’s positions for everybody. And then there’s another set of orgs that wants somebody who can come in and kind of do from soup to nuts, because they’ve figured out that it’s cheaper to hire one person with this kind of background and skill set that you would have than to hire 3 people. You know what I mean to do the job. And so these are like more boutique

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): I would say. They tend to be found in like boutique consulting

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): organizations you could be your own consultant, and a lot of are actually more famous.

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): Organizational performance and workplace learning, instructional design consultants out there have that kind of a background. You should check out Tim Slade. Do you know Tim Slade.

Catherine Burke: I’ve yeah. I’ve come across him in my research. Yeah.

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): Right. So he’s an example of the kind of profile that you could have. And you know, once you build up your portfolio and your online presence. And you could do that as a self employed contractor. But you could also be an internal consultant for an organization. And my students that have that graphics background that you’re gonna bring in

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): like, I said. They they land

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): really nice gigs. I actually had one that landed a gig with sephora

Catherine Burke: Oh!

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): Because Fora obviously is very interesting.

Catherine Burke: Yeah, I’m aesthetic.

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): And they also care about performance right?

Catherine Burke: Right.

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): They not only want something beautiful, but they want their their employees, and they want their customers to be supremely satisfied with their high end products. Right? So the person that’s gonna hire you the org that’s gonna hire you is gonna be a high end, national or multinational type of a

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): such context, and then.

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): We’re going to have that that kind of cash flow to make something that’s beautiful and that works banks. Banks would like.

Catherine Burke: Oh, yeah.

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): Have that money

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): to hire the High End people.

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): So I think. You, you have a little nice little

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): you know, package going for you.

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): Where did you.

Catherine Burke: Well, that’s yeah. That’s encouraging to hear. Do you find that most people are able to get remote jobs? Or do you usually have to kind of start in a more in person, setting.

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): Yeah. So that’s a really interesting question. You know, if you asked me that 5 or 10 years ago, I would tell you, you have to start in person, and then, when you get more senior, you can be remote. But I think, since the pandemic especially

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): there is just more remote available for everybody.

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): And so you know

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): one of the nice things about do you work full time right now?

Catherine Burke: I do. Yeah, I do. I work from home.

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): Yeah. So one of the nice things about going to grad school and working full time is that along the way? If you choose to go a little slower, you can take on these little side, console consulting projects which are almost

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): 90% of the time

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): remote. And so then you start building your reputation as being able to deliver remote right, and so.

Catherine Burke: So, then.

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): You go, and you apply for remote positions, and they say.

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): Well.

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): tell us about a time when you worked virtually right.

Catherine Burke: Yeah.

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): You have. You’re like, well, here’s what I made for this person, and here’s what we did here. And here’s how. Here’s how we got that done, and virtually you know what I mean in a virtual team, and you’ll have that in like a degree program as well.

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): But you can start

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): if you want to. You can start also while you’re in the

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): the graduate course work. Yeah.

Catherine Burke: Yeah. Yeah. And then, do you all provide like career connections? Do? Do most of your graduates come out with

Catherine Burke: jobs like right off the bat.

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): I can answer that, for at the program level, but for me as an individual faculty member, students, that work closely with me like the people I would consider my mentees

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): you know, they tend to get jobs when they want them. So I’m not gonna tell you that like you won’t wake up tomorrow and get a job if you want one.

Catherine Burke: Right, right.

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): Start putting that out there into the universe.

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): If you, after you take a couple of courses, depending on how much time and energy. You have to put on the task during the course right?

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): If you have a lot of energy to put into your work learning and your coursework. You’re going to be ready sooner, and but whenever you are ready like, whether it takes you shorter time or a longer time, I would say that my students will work closely with me. They’re landing jobs in 6 to 12 months.

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): and it’s not that it’s 1 job offer. It’s the one they accepted.

Catherine Burke: Bring, my.

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): Get more than one offer some of them

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): but they will turn it down because it didn’t meet their needs, or they didn’t.

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): you know, just didn’t want, didn’t want it.

Catherine Burke: Okay, go there.

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): They’re more in the driver’s seat in that.

Catherine Burke: Yeah.

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): Not like they’re like, oh, it’s been 12 months. I haven’t gotten an offer right. It’s more like that wasn’t a good one. I’ll wait.

Catherine Burke: Right right gotcha.

Doug Wilson, PhD: George Mason has a lot of resources on campus

Doug Wilson, PhD: to support students who are looking for work. There are job fairs, and then we also have the alumni network.

Doug Wilson, PhD: And so there’s there’s a list. Serve

Doug Wilson, PhD: in the program that Dr. Debar runs. And so what happens on that list serve is, and you could sign up for it. Now

Doug Wilson, PhD: jobs come through the list. Serve

Doug Wilson, PhD: that aren’t

Doug Wilson, PhD: always announced.

Doug Wilson, PhD: And so those are alumni in hiring or managerial roles who send that

Doug Wilson, PhD: announcement to us. 1st it gets pushed out to the network.

Doug Wilson, PhD: and then I’ve seen students get jobs

Doug Wilson, PhD: that way. And so, of course, talking to your faculty member like like Dr. Jiakumo and others

Doug Wilson, PhD: who know people in the business who are looking for good people.

Doug Wilson, PhD: That’s gonna be very helpful to you.

Doug Wilson, PhD: And then just on your graphic design background.

Doug Wilson, PhD: a lot of the work that I’m doing these days. I didn’t get to talk about it during the presentation, but I’m working in the

Doug Wilson, PhD: extended reality domain. And it’s all visual. It’s not

Doug Wilson, PhD: solely visual.

Doug Wilson, PhD: but the bulk of it is visual, and one of the challenges there. And this might be something that you could look into is, you know how those environments

Doug Wilson, PhD: going to be accessible.

Doug Wilson, PhD: And so that’s 1 of the challenges that folks are looking at right now. So I think, as Lisa said, you’re well positioned

Doug Wilson, PhD: with your visualization skills.

Doug Wilson, PhD: The idea

Doug Wilson, PhD: and represent it on paper or using some kind of technology. I I mean, I have students in my course. Who

Doug Wilson, PhD: they’ll do storyboards, basically

Doug Wilson, PhD: as pen and paper, and take a picture of it

Doug Wilson, PhD: representing

Doug Wilson, PhD: and evidence-based

Doug Wilson, PhD: idea, low fidelity prototype. And so

Doug Wilson, PhD: there’s room for graphic designers, and then

Doug Wilson, PhD: folks who don’t have your skill set.

Doug Wilson, PhD: But yeah, you’re well. You would be well positioned in the business.

Catherine Burke: that’s great to hear. Thank you.

Doug Wilson, PhD: Of course.

Catherine Burke: Alright. Well, yeah, thank you both for kind of hanging back.

Catherine Burke: I appreciate your your time and your your advice and wisdom on this on the matter so.

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): Absolutely. And hey, if you have any other questions like, please reach out.

Catherine Burke: Okay, great. And I just connected or tried tried to connect with you on Linkedin. So you’ll have a request for me in there.

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): Awesome.

Doug Wilson, PhD: Very good.

Catherine Burke: Alright!

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): Wow!

Catherine Burke: Yeah, I’m I’m I’m really planning on it. So it’s the August 1st is the deadline. And then when does the class? When does the semester begin? Actually.

Doug Wilson, PhD: So.

Doug Wilson, PhD: so I think. Don’t quote me on this. I’d have to look at the schedule, but it’s generally toward the end of August. Say, like.

Catherine Burke: Okay.

Doug Wilson, PhD: 23rd it changes. That’s toward the end of August.

Catherine Burke: Okay.

Doug Wilson, PhD: And so.

Doug Wilson, PhD: yeah.

Catherine Burke: Okay.

Catherine Burke: great, thank you. I’m to get back to bedtime. But I appreciate this little bit of extra personal attention.

Doug Wilson, PhD: Yeah, of course.

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): Cool man.

Catherine Burke: Yeah. Okay, bye.

Doug Wilson, PhD: Aye.

Doug Wilson, PhD: why.

Catherine Burke: Thank you. Okay, have a good night.

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): And to, yeah.

Doug Wilson, PhD: Well.

Catherine Burke: Bye.

Lisa Giacumo (she/her): Bye.