Discover Marina Arshavskiy's Proven Methods: Insights from an Instructional Design Expert

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SUMMARY

• Marina Arshavskiy, a multi-award winning instructional design and eLearning expert with over 15 years of experience. She discussed her background, career path and shared her recommendations for beginners in the industry. Marina is the creator of the Instructional Design for eLearning Program and has written books and articles on eLearning and instructional design. She emphasized the importance of copywriting, explained the agile eLearning development approach and shared her tips for maintaining a successful business as an instructional designer. Marina also provided advice for those looking to transition into the field and shared her free eLearning starter kit.
• Marina's expertise and experience in instructional design and eLearning span over 15 years, making her one of the most sought-after consultants in the field. During our interview, Marina provided a wealth of invaluable insights to those looking to start a career in instructional design. Her Instructional Design for eLearning Program has helped countless aspiring designers to develop the skills and knowledge required to succeed in the industry.
• One of the most important aspects that Marina emphasized was the need for effective copywriting in eLearning development. She stressed that it is essential to deliver clear, concise content that engages learners and facilitates effective learning outcomes. Marina also emphasizes the value of continuous learning and practice to become a skilled instructional designer. She encourages professionals to go beyond the basics and explore effective ways to help learners achieve tangible results.
• Furthermore, Marina shared her thoughts on the agile eLearning development approach, explaining how this methodology can significantly increase the efficiency and effectiveness of eLearning development. Her tips for maintaining a successful business as an instructional designer were also well received by the audience. Marina's advice to budding designers looking to transition into instructional design was both practical and insightful.
• Lastly,  Marina's dedication to sharing valuable content is evident, and she offers a free eLearning starter kit on her website. This kit includes resources such as a roadmap for designing successful courses, eLearning tools, checklists, and templates, providing a valuable resource for beginners and professionals alike. Her illuminating insight into the world of instructional design and eLearning, and Marina's wealth of experience and knowledge will undoubtedly continue to inspire and inform aspiring designers in the years to come.

INSPIRATION QUOTES

TRANSCRIPT

Hello and welcome to the elearning and instructional design for beginners podcast, where new and aspiring instructional designers start, grow and advance their careers and instructional design, and online learning development. I'm your host Krystal Harper. I'm a former school teacher who transitioned to instructional design, all while working full time as a single mom, would you like to become a successful instructional designer without the burden of earning another degree? Well, then let's get started. 

Welcome to the elearning and instructional design for beginners channel today I have a special guest Marina Arshavskiy on the show Marina is a multi award winning instructional design and elearning expert with over 15 years experience conferred with the top 100 leaders and Education Award for significant contributions towards the field of education at GF E L. Marina is the author of the instructional design for elearning book and the creator of the instructional design for elearning program. Her work has been featured in Tandy magazine, elearning Industry Training magazine, California management review hr.com, s, HRM, and more. Wow, that's a super impressive background. I'm so glad to have you welcome Reena.

Thank you. I'm glad to be here.

First, I'd love to learn a little bit about your background. How did you get started in instructional design? And why did you choose this career path.

So I always love teaching, I enjoy teaching ever since I was a child. But then I realized that even though I love teaching, most people actually enjoy preparing teaching materials. But I didn't know that there is such a career. And then I got my bachelor's degree in linguistics and Modern Languages. And then I started working in one of the federal government agencies. And there I was responsible actually, one of my responsibilities was to create instructor led training. So I really enjoyed that part. And then I started researching. And I realized that there was a program and I enrolled in the master's degree. And that's how I got started.

Yeah, it sounds like a lot of people that fall into it. They're like, Oh, how this is awesome. Like, that was me, too. I was a teacher. And then I realized how the best part of it is designing the curriculum. Exactly. So why did you start your elearning world.com?

Well, first, I actually wrote a book. And then I started a blog where I basically kept my thoughts about elearning instructional design. And I just wanted to keep everything organized. So I just kept the block for myself. And basically, I wrote a book for myself to learn from my colleagues. So I wasn't really intentional. I would also share my blogs and articles and thoughts on LinkedIn, and other social media platforms. And then people started commenting and approaching me, and asking questions, asking for feedback on their projects. And then I also started getting requests for, like taking on freelance projects, which I wasn't planning to do. So because I already had a book, and I had a blog and also had some website projects. I just decided to make it official and just build a website and start a business. That's pretty much it.

Yeah, until you've had it for quite some time. And

yeah, I started back in 2013. Okay, that's another book. My first

your website has many resources related to the importance of copywriting. Why do you think copywriting is so crucial for an instructional designer to learn?

I believe that tax has a really big impact on user experience learning, learner engagement. So I strongly believe that clear copy can actually change learners experience and can help them understand and actually like retain the information and actually be able to dissect complex content and concepts into an easy to understand language. So I believe that copy is probably the most important part of creating your elearning career that

makes sense. And that was your degree was linguistics. Yeah,

that's all connected. I guess. I never thought of it that way.

So what is agile ELearning Development and why do you recommend it to instructional designers

agile approach actually focuses on speed, flexibility, and collaboration, which is very important in creating elearning courses. So you're not waiting to actually see what learners think about your course until it's actually developed and ready to be implemented. So instead of constantly talking to your stakeholders are constantly getting feedback. And this actually saves a lot of time at the end. And not just time, but also money and other resources. Because you don't have to go back and redo everything. You can't. Because you're constantly communicating, you're just redoing bits and pieces and changing things as you go. And that, like I said, says a lot of time and money. And there is not that much rework involved at the very end. So that's why I like that approach to elearning. Design.

That's very interesting. Well, I mean, just like going through the whole evaluation, and then it makes sense, getting feedback as you go instead of well, you. I mean, in the evaluation phase, you are getting feedback, but you don't review at all until the end. So reviewing as they're going. Exactly, yeah, that helps a lot. Yeah. And that's what you need. I mean, it's so tedious with building courses. Yeah. So referring to your most recent book, How To Train remote employees, what is your biggest secret to training a remote employee,

I say respecting their time by creating training that's on demand, providing quick bytes of information. So basically, using micro learning approach, focusing on the goals and the why behind the training so that they actually know why they're taking the training the film, approach the what's in it. For me, I also think it's important to actually keep all training in one centralized place. So at LMS, and just giving it all there so that they know where to go and can actually mark it. And then I think, providing lots of feedback. So feedback is very important. In everything that I do, I try to provide as much feedback as I can, in all of my courses, whether it's synchronous or asynchronous, on demand. So any courses I feed that is my,

I think that will be very helpful for a lot of people remote training is growing. So in addition to the multiple books that you've written, I've noticed that you've also written many articles for well known companies like the elearning, industry, training magazine, and tnd. Magazine, referring to your article and Tandy magazine, make your elearning portfolio stand out, what do you suggest is the most important thing that beginners should keep in mind when first building their instructional design portfolio. So I think

making a list of your experiences, and then making a list of all the samples that you have, and trying to match the samples to your experiences, I recommend including a variety of samples to showcase your writing, your design, your development skills, so variety of skills, and then think about the most logical way to actually organize your portfolio. And also the tools that you want to use. There are free tools K tools, do you want to invest in a paid tool? Or do you just want to go with a free one? So and that also depends on the organization of the portfolio, and artifacts that you have? How interactive they are? Or they're just basic documents. So again, try to put a variety, basically being able to answer all this questions Nabal, this LIS have like all this artifacts, that he also I recommend asking for permission to use the artifacts that you have. Because you're the one ended up having them in your portfolio, and you're not allowed to use, especially if they were created for government agencies or you know, private clients. So just make sure that you have that permission. So I would say these are the first steps to creating your first learning portfolio.

Why was the book instructional design for elearning is so important for you to write

after receiving my master's degree and actually getting like my first corporate job as an instructional designer, I realized that I did have a lot of knowledge but wasn't organized, and it wasn't I O flowing. And I wanted everything in one place. And I kept reading different books and watching different videos, but I couldn't find everything in just like one centralized location. I kept having to look for additional articles and books. So and I needed more practical knowledge too. So I really wanted something within her examples, case studies, and I really couldn't find a lot of information. So I felt like I wanted to write something that would cover basically everything that was missing. That's how I started. I basically wrote the book for myself to cover the knowledge that I needed to have and then it just like, started selling and then Even colleges started reaching out to me and they were like, we want to use your book. And can you send us a test copy? That's how it all started. And then later, I decided to make a companion course based on that book. And that took off too. So it was kind of unexpected. Like I said, I started writing the book for myself and for other colleagues. But then it just like that going.

That's a big accomplishment.

Yeah, thank you. Yeah, I was excited about it. It's unexpected. But it was it was a good thing.

Yeah, you should definitely be excited about that. And it just seems like the type of book that you could just refer to like a reference book, like a coffee table, kind of exactly. What is your biggest tip to maintaining a business and instructional design,

I'd say providing lots of value, share lots of helpful content. I like to share a lot of blog articles content on my social media platforms for free so that people can just use it and apply it to other courses, I think like actually genuinely wanting to help people. And the other thing is staying up to date. elearning is constantly changing. It's evolving. So staying current applying what you learn, that's important. Yeah,

with instructional design, we are continuously learning. I feel like that's just ingrained in the career. What is your favorite thing about having a career in instructional design an elearning. So the

opportunity to actually help people improve their knowledge and skills, actually taking people from not knowing anything from zero to here. So from knowing nothing to actually become mastering the skills that they need. I like when people actually get results. I like to create result oriented courses. So I really like focus on the end goal. I know a lot of instructional designers, they like to focus on either activity, making it fun engaging. I like that part, too. But my main goal is to focus on the end result, I enjoy working with content, I like figuring out ways to organize the content in the most effective

and yes, the goal is super important. So if I am a beginner and would like to transition to instructional design, what would you suggest the first thing to do?

I'd suggest learning the basics of instructional design and elearning. And then I'd recommend like picking one authoring tool like Articulate Storyline, and learning it well creating samples using this tool. And then joining groups and communities. I also recommend building a portfolio with lots of samples of your work, right? Yeah, so basics elearning authoring tool, with lots of samples, again, portfolio and joining groups and communities.

What words of wisdom would you share with someone just getting started and instructional design?

I think like no one became an instructional designer overnight. So we all learn. We can like all learn theories, right? relatively quickly. And it doesn't take a lot of time to just learn the basics of instructional design, but it takes time and practice to become truly good at elearning and instructional design. So I think excellent instructional designers, they go beyond the basics. And they don't just rely on tactics and strategies. They clearly understand how people learn and constantly explore ways to help learners learn more effectively. So I'd say practice, practice, practice, and then explore ways to get better and see how people can get results. continue exploring, practicing and learning.

I think that's really good advice. Okay, so this is the last question, please let the audience know about your free elearning starter kit.

So from your elearning world, it can download your free elearning starter kit. It includes a lot of free information like it has the roadmap to designing successful courses. It has like free elearning tools, like different checklists, and it has a checklist that will help you determine if elearning is actually the right solution for you. It has lots of other free templates and resources. So just downloaded and I'm sure you love it. Okay, great. So

you are an amazing contributor to the instructional design industry. Marina. Thank you so much for all that you do. And thank you for your time and doing this interview. I know this will have a positive impact for everyone that's watching. So thank you so much for sharing your experience. And I know this will bring great value to so many people watching.

Thank you. Thanks for inviting me. It was really nice being here.

All right, that wraps up this week's podcast episode. If you want some more help and more guidance, then make sure that you sign up for my free E Learning and Instructional Design for beginners toolkit tools and processes that will actually help you start, grow and advance your instructional design and elearning course development career. This toolkit will provide you with everything that you need to get started for a successful career in instructional design. Just go to www.ie Teach online.com/toolkit So if you liked this podcast, then you should definitely sign up for the toolkit. Just head to my website at WWW dot att online.com/toolkit. I've also got a ton of other free resources that can help you succeed in instructional design, visit my [email protected] Teach online.com Thanks so much for listening. Now go out there and take action on what you learned about instructional design today.