Recapping TLDC: Translating Teacher to ID Terminology (Heidi Ranganathan)
This is a series of posts recapping and reacting to sessions from the recent January 2023 Training, Learning, and Development Community (TLDC) event to support teachers transitioning to L&D. The full event recordings can be found at the TLDC website.
Summary: Heidi covered so many things! She covered what teachers do and some ways that might relate to various parts of Learning and Development (L&D) in order to help folks develop clarity towards the kind of niche they wanted to focus on in L&D. She gave basic career clarity tips, thinking about how to find a niche that works for you. Later, she focused in on instructional design and other duties within L&D roles in order to connect what you like to do and already do to the corporate field, with such great specific, concrete examples of instructional design terms. If you didn’t watch the video yet, her examples are extremely helpful so do that first! She also made a handy resource of terms to get you started, which is available here (Heidi’s work, not mine!). She then talks about a way to “workshop your lingo” and practice using these terms to become more natural with the language.
All of Heidi’s advice built towards this in the end: use the language. Use it in your resume, your LinkedIn, your interviews, and your conversations, she said! Show people you don’t just color pictures all day (sad we have to say this part, but especially for Elementary teachers, you may face some bias, she’s right). The quickest way to get people to take you seriously as a candidate and as a learner upskilling is to begin to use the language and immerse yourself in the language of the field you want to go into. I think her message here is also that you need to use the language not just in writing those application materials. You need to use it to build comfort with it. You need to begin to internalize it.
P.S. As an aside, I must say I enjoyed Heidi’s slides so much. Only occasionally does slide design actually grab me, and these really did. They were extremely functional for the examples as well.
So, our homework this time is about beginning to internalize new language. Heidi already gives you lots of things to do:
Think about your current job and skills
Research careers that include things you like to do
Look at job advertisements
Begin to learn keywords (she gives you that starter list too!): Heidi’s List
So, what exercise do I have for you?
(Again, I highly suggest drawing the Venn diagram yourself or crafting it yourself in some form to best fit you, but you can download my version as a PDF here if it’s beneficial in any way: Pick a Skill Organizer)
So here’s your translation template:
Pick a skill that you think is important to what you want to do
Be detailed and write out step by step, with some narrative detail (don’t boil it down for a resume yet, you want to deeply understand first) what you did like you would say to a colleague already
Translate it, noting keywords you think are important (highlight, underline, circle, etc.) and then think about explaining it. Say it to someone if you can or just aloud to yourself. Connect it to what you’ve been learning, reading, listening to about your new field.
In order to do this successfully, I do think you need to research what you want to do, immerse yourself in it, listen to people “talking the lingo” already on podcasts, webinars, in books, etc.
More in this Loom about what I mean:
About this Activity (Watch on Loom) (Loom Transcript)
The point of this homework is to begin to get you comfortable making examples like Heidi’s. The more particular and unique they are to you, the better. This is why the myriad of translations that already exist will not serve you alone: you must write your own because, as we learned in an earlier video, you are a unique individual. You are not selling “Teacher to ID” when you apply. You are selling your skills specifically. You will probably trim for your resume, but you want to write them big first and then trim (I think) to make sure you also get specificity. And you also want to just be able to discuss them — more and more. Remember, if you want to go somewhere different, you have to think differently.
About the Speaker: Check out Heidi Ranganathan on LinkedIn!
