Building Student-Centered Online Courses with Shannon Boyer

Shannon Boyer shatters the myth of passive income in online education, revealing why high-quality courses require active engagement and student-centered design. Drawing from her 17 years of experience developing innovative college programs, she now helps purpose-driven entrepreneurs transform their expertise into meaningful learning experiences.

Shannon's passion for student success shines through as she discusses the critical components many course creators mistakenly eliminate: guided practice and explicit implementation instructions. She shares a personal experience taking an online course that left her unable to implement what she'd learned, illuminating why feedback and human connection remain essential even in digital learning environments. When transitioning from one-on-one teaching to group formats, maintaining these personal touches becomes even more crucial.

Whether you're creating online courses, developing curriculum, or exploring instructional design careers, this episode provides valuable insights on balancing structure with creativity, standardization with personalization, and efficiency with effectiveness. How will you apply these principles to create learning experiences that truly transform your students?

🔗 Website and Social Links

Please visit Shannon’s website for more information.

Shannon Boyer’s Website

📢 Call to Action: 7 Things Your Online Course MUST Include to Max Student Referrals

This free guide includes a checklist of 7 (plus one bonus) attributes every online course MUST include in order to maximize student completion rates and subsequent referrals.  It also includes a detailed description of each of these attributes so that readers can not only evaluate their own course but also apply the learning to the creation of their next course. 

Join PodMatch!
Use the link to join PodMatch, a place for hosts and guests to connect.

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Shannon Boyer
• 5:17 Top Mistakes in Online Course Creation
• 14:19 The Importance of Guided Practice
• 23:24 Maintaining Personal Touch in Group Courses
• 29:46 Using AI Tools in Course Design
• 34:56 Finding Your Instructional Design Style

Transcript

Jackie Pelegrin: 0:01

Hello and welcome to the Designing with Love podcast. I am your host, Jackie Pelegrin, where my goal is to bring you information, tips, and tricks as an instructional designer. Hello, GCU students, alumni, and fellow educators, welcome to episode 49 of the Designing with Love podcast. Today, I have the pleasure of interviewing Shannon L Boyer, an award-winning educator, curriculum strategist, and entrepreneur. Welcome, Shannon. Thanks, I'm so happy to be here. Yes, me too. I'm so glad we got to connect. So can you tell us a little bit about yourself?

Shannon Boyer: 0:38

Sure. So, like you said, my name is Shannon Boyer and I currently am working in the online space with purpose-driven entrepreneurs who want to take their skills and talents and expertise and move them into the online space, usually as a way of expanding their business and sharing what they know with others. And the reason I say purpose-driven entrepreneurs and we can get into this a whole lot more is because there's so much talk in the online space about passive income, and I strongly believe that there's nothing passive about education. It's a very active process, and so what I focus on is people who really care about getting results for their students and they want to create a high quality course, and what I talk about is high touch, high quality, high impact online course that focuses on the results of their students, because ultimately, that is what's going to lead to the success of their course and their business in general. So that's what I do in my business.

Shannon Boyer: 1:42

I've been doing that for about two and a half years, and I moved into that space two and a half years ago because I had two kids in my 40s during the pandemic and had a real shift in where I wanted to focus my time and my flexibility of my time in my work, my flexibility of my time in my work.

Shannon Boyer: 2:04

Prior to that, I was working at a college for about 17 years. I had the opportunity of starting a brand new program at the college and teaching and it was very innovative programming and I won an award for my work in that program before I moved into administration and then took that curriculum development program development experience and started working and leading teams of people. I was responsible for a time for instructor support and with a lot of mentoring new teachers, mentoring and evaluating existing instructors, helping with curriculum development, leading teams of curriculum developers, starting more innovative programming and then also for a time I was responsible for student success and engagement, which is another thing that I'm really, really passionate about and you'll see that in my work now, focusing on the results of students.

Jackie Pelegrin: 3:02

So yeah, that's kind of me Neat. So you took a lot of your experience and moved that over into your business and still keeping that student-centered approach, which is so important because it can be easy, as we know, to think about what do the faculty or the instructors want? And I've noticed that in my time being in curriculum design and development that it tends to be. You have to kind of separate right what's preference, what's when, what do the students really need and what's going to help them be successful in their future career. So, yeah, that's great that you brought that student-centered approach to your work now. So that's great, I love that.

Shannon Boyer: 3:40

Yeah, absolutely, because. So two things. One is, when I started when I was, you know, on maternity leave and up all night trying to stay awake I started watching online courses. That's kind of how I got into this world is I noticed there were a lot of people who had a lot of like skills and experience and expertise, but they didn't have the teaching background to know how to effectively and efficiently put that into a course that was going to get results for their students, and it wasn't any fault of their own. It's just that sometimes I always say teaching is the only profession in the world I feel like where people think, well, because I've been a student for 12, 14, 16, however many years I've watched it happen that I can go and do it and there's that pervasive message but people don't realize, like, how much goes on behind the scenes and what actually goes into, you know, effective teaching.

Jackie Pelegrin: 4:31

Right.

Shannon Boyer: 4:32

Nobody thinks I've been a patient my entire life, so I can now go and be a doctor.

Jackie Pelegrin: 4:36

It's very unique in that way right.

Shannon Boyer: 4:40

Yeah, and then in the online space, if you know, on my Instagram anyway, it's all full of do nothing, work less, make tons of money, spend your days on the beach, blah, blah, blah, blah, and it's all about, like, what the business owner wants work less to make more money but nobody's ever thinking about the student side of it and like, what does the student not only want but need, and it's just so critical. So, yeah, when I started moving into this space, I just saw a huge gap in the understanding of what goes into a quality course and in terms of just the assumptions that were being made that's amazing.

Jackie Pelegrin: 5:24

So you saw that need and that gap and you're working to fill it. So that's wonderful. I love that, exactly. Yeah, so we talked about some of the mistakes. What are some of those top mistakes that course creators make that, you see?

Shannon Boyer: 5:37

So one of the biggest mistakes I see course creators make is thinking that it is fast and easy to make an online course, and I think anybody in your world knows that that's absolutely not true. So that's one of the first mistakes that I have to dispel, because people that coupled with you know that sitting down in front of a PowerPoint or Canva, you know slide deck is step one, and I always say to people that's like 50%, like 50% of the work comes before you sit down with that, you know slide deck or whatever it is, and so, and then people think because it's difficult for them, right? They've been sold this idea that it's easy to do, that you just put sticky notes up and organize your sticky notes and then you can create your course and it's not so easy. And then they think there's something wrong with them and they think that, you know, maybe they're not cut out for it or whatever, and they don't have the confidence behind what they're putting forward. And so I think that that's really really key is to just know upfront like it's not easy and it does take a lot of work. So I think that's number one.

Shannon Boyer: 6:50

I think the other thing, too, is the sticky notes. Part of it is, you know, not using frameworks and existing structures and processes to create the curriculum because they are so well, not only are they based in like good pedagogy, andragogy, whatever, but that they are like kind of the the hat, the coat rack to hang your hat on. You know, like they're the structure, the framework, they give you the process so that not only can you organize your ideas and you know what comes next and you're not just floating out in this world of ambiguity, but it also gives you the confidence that you've done it in quote, unquote the right way. I don't believe in like one right way, but that's part of where people's lack of confidence there's a lot of talk about imposter syndrome in the online space and that's where a lot of it comes from is because you're just guessing. So I think you know using those established frameworks, structures, processes to help guide you in the curriculum process is just so critical for making sure you have a high quality course, but also the confidence behind it.

Jackie Pelegrin: 8:01

So important. We do that a lot in curriculum development too. Yeah, and with instructional design, relying on those evidence-based frameworks, yeah, it's so important to do that and I remind that with my students all the time make sure you're, you know you're, you're going to something, whether it's one or two models or theories or frameworks that you know will work. If you're looking at evaluation of a course, make sure you use something like Kirkpatrick's model of evaluation or something like that, so you know that you know it's. If it's Addy or something else, whatever it is, you know you know. Make sure that it's. It has it's something that's established and has that evidence-based to it. So you know.

Shannon Boyer: 8:43

Yeah, absolutely, and it's you don't have to reinvent the wheel, at least as a starting point.

Shannon Boyer: 8:49

Because I think for myself, I kind of take now that I'm so experienced, I've done this for so long, I kind of take different models and meld them together, use hybrids of different things and tailor it for the situation, because you know, everyone has its pros and cons, every situation has its nuances and that kind of a thing.

Shannon Boyer: 9:07

So, yeah, especially when you're beginning, start out with those tried and true frameworks and then, as you become more experienced and you start to understand them better, then you can massage them and, you know, start to make them work for you. And I think at the beginning it can feel maybe too regimented or restrictive or like the process is too, yeah, regimented and restricted. Yeah Right, I think people sometimes like rebel against it because it's like constraining their creativity or whatever. But when you're first starting out, it's so important to things about Addy and they want to go to Sam and I'm like, but Sam is for rapid development and you may not always be doing rapid development and you may not always have that constant collaboration where you can do that iterative design and development.

Jackie Pelegrin: 10:03

So I always let them know. There's benefits, like you said, benefits and drawbacks to every model. So, yeah, I like that approach of being able to, once you know them well enough, you can kind of take pieces from each one and make something that works for you and works for the project.

Shannon Boyer: 10:19

Absolutely, and I think you need to have that experience before you can do that, because you don't always necessarily understand exactly why it's done in that way or in that order, or you know whatever in that order or you know whatever, and through experience you start to understand more of those nuances and like what can be left behind, what needs to be kept in, what's critical and all of those kinds of things.

Jackie Pelegrin: 10:39

Right, that's so important, yeah, yeah.

Shannon Boyer: 10:42

And then I think, another mistake. I'll wrap up with one more mistake that I see, especially in the online space. Well, we can probably talk about two more, but anyway missing out on the opportunity for guided practice and explicit implementation. So often and I guess this kind of ties into the to the other thing I was going to say about you know, with the I do, we do, you do kind of gradual release of responsibility model that we do step gets missed out so much.

Shannon Boyer: 11:21

And often, in an effort to like speed things up, there's a lot of like cut the fluff and just give them what they want. And I mean absolutely you should make sure that whatever's in the course is directly related to the outcome of the course, and you know taking out whatever is extraneous and overwhelming and not necessary. You know that's an important step, but I find that sometimes with people again it's like messing with the model before you really understand it. So many times I see people trying to take out the fluff but what they think is the fluff is not really fluff, it's actually really critical. I heard somebody say like I don't ever tell my students why they're learning something or why something is important, because they don't want to know or need to know, they just need to do it. And I was like alarm bells are going off in my head because I'm like that's not fluff, you're not getting out fluff, so it's you know.

Shannon Boyer: 12:15

And so again, it's like just telling people what to do and then expecting that they're going to be able to go and do it without that middle part of the scaffold, the learning, the guided practice, the we do part of that.

Shannon Boyer: 12:31

I see people either don't even know many times it's like they don't even know that that step is there, or that that's a thing or unintentionally cutting it out because they don't realize the importance of it. And then, I think, going to the application part again, for a lot of us, even seasoned instructors and teachers, there is sometimes an assumption that because we've told somebody what to do, that they will be number one, be able to go and do it and number two, intrinsically know that they should go and do it. And I think that that final step to implementation and application needs to be a lot more facilitated and explicit than we think it really does. It makes so much sense to us Like I've shown you how to do this, now go do it, but we actually have to say now, go do it. This is what I want you to do, this is how I want you to do it, this is how you can apply it to your life and facilitate that process.

Jackie Pelegrin: 14:11

So not making assumptions that someone knows what to do. Yeah, it's kind of like with that.

Jackie Pelegrin: 14:17

I just did a podcast episode not too long ago about adult learning theories and I came up with some myths common myths that happened and one of the myths was that adults don't like group work. Well, that's not always true. They do like to. They just want it to be meaningful and and and apply to what they're doing. So it's kind of interesting how, yeah, we tend to make those assumptions or common mistakes that we think, oh, all learners are going to be like that and they don't want that.

Shannon Boyer: 14:48

But yeah, I just had a conversation with someone this morning and it was exactly like that, because I was trying to talk to her about the importance of providing feedback and being available to your students, like having a live aspect of her course. Because, again, people are sold on this idea of, like, you create this thing. Once you put it online, it makes you millions of dollars and you never have to touch it again. You just lay on the beach, and that was. She was like this, that's what I want for my business, and I was like, well, but that's not what your students need. And her response was well, I don't like the interaction, I don't like that.

Shannon Boyer: 15:26

When I have to, you know, when there's a live aspect of a course, I just want to do it by myself, and so I think that's. You know, you've touched on another mistake, which is thinking that the way you prefer to learn is the way other people prefer to learn, or maybe even the best way to learn. Everybody learns in different ways, so it's really important that I think we need to look at what have you found beneficial in courses that you've taken? What has been lacking in courses that you've taken? I think that experience as a student is really critical, but we can't make the assumption that the way we prefer to learn is the way other people prefer to learn and making all our decisions based on that.

Jackie Pelegrin: 16:06

Right, oh, so true, absolutely. So into our next question. Kind of goes into that group component.

Shannon Boyer: 16:12

So how do?

Jackie Pelegrin: 16:12

you suggest. Course creators move from that one-on-one to more group content without losing that personal touch that sometimes can happen.

Shannon Boyer: 16:20

Yeah, perfect segue, because that was kind of like the conversation that I was having with this client. She had been working one-on-one with people and now wanted to go from one-to-one to one-to-many. That is a common journey for people in the online space. They start doing coaching and consulting one-on-one. Pretty soon they max out because they don't have any more hours in their day or they want to become more flexible, and then they go into that one-to-many situation, which is where you have that online course and then you can support people through more group live interactions. And so one of the things that I think is really critical when you're doing that is number one to make sure that you have the live component. I think that is a really critical piece. You know, we talk about AI, we talk about all these different kinds of online learning, but we can't take out the humanness of it. And referring back to that same client, what was really interesting is that we were going back and forth and at the end of the conversation she was like thank you so much, this has been really helpful. You know, she kind of decided she didn't want to do that live, but there were other things that I helped her with and gave her a different perspective on, and I replied back to her and I said that's the power of personalized feedback. Like you have just proven exactly what I've said. Like you don't want to do it for your students, but we've just proven here how meaningful and valuable it was for you and how much you were able to accomplish in a short period of time because of having my expertise look at your situation and your work. So that personal touch, those personal interactions, those personal interactions, that ability to access the quote unquote expert. There is just something about having the eyes of the expert I'm going to call the instructor the expert in this situation on your work and giving you feedback. Again, that's another thing that gets stripped away when we are moving into the online space or we're talking about some of the you know kind of courses that I work with is people are like it's too much work, don't want to do that. I got into this to be hands off and again I'm like no, you've been fed the wrong message. You are here to help people. You are here to serve people. You are here to help them achieve a goal and achieve an outcome. You are here to help them achieve a goal and achieve an outcome and that critical component of giving people feedback is so important.

Shannon Boyer: 18:58

I took a course myself. It was an online course on Facebook ads. I decided I want to start doing Facebook ads and it was on demand. So it was just, you know, modules, lessons that I accessed on my own, pre-recorded, no live interactions, nothing. And it was very step by step and it was.

Shannon Boyer: 19:18

This was another course where they said we've stripped all the fluff, we're not going to waste your time, we're just going to give you what you need. And so I diligently went through step by step click here, do this. And then they said okay, now publish. And I was like what you want me to press publish? This is going to cost me money. I don't know if I have done it correctly. I don't know if I have a good ad. You've given me no criteria or quality to even do a self-evaluation to figure out if I have implemented what you've taught properly. I'm not pressing publish. I have no confidence in what I've quote unquote learned.

Shannon Boyer: 19:59

And so, again, it was a huge opportunity that had been missed there and assumptions that had been made that, because I trusted them enough to pay for the course, I was going to trust the outcome.

Shannon Boyer: 20:10

But it's not about that, it's not about trust, it's about I'm still learning and I'm not going to learn every single step perfectly the way you have presented it.

Shannon Boyer: 20:21

I need that feedback for, like, yes, you've done this part properly, but you haven't done that properly.

Shannon Boyer: 20:27

Or you know improvement can be made here and there, or you know improvement can be made here and there. So, yeah, I think, keeping the humanness, keeping the connection, building the relationships, taking the opportunity to get involved with students, and then making sure that you don't skip out on that important feedback point and that the feedback shouldn't always be written that important feedback point and that the feedback shouldn't always be written, you know, sometimes you can give someone a lot more effective and valuable feedback in another form instead of. I think back to my days in the college. Now, you know constructors were always complaining like it takes too much time to give feedback, like let's just do self-marking, multiple choice, because it's so much easier for us, but you're not getting the same outcomes. And so I think really you have to evaluate, like what is the outcome that you want and what's reasonable? They have to be balanced right what's reasonable for the expectations of the instructor along with what is necessary for the students to achieve that outcome, that promise.

Jackie Pelegrin: 21:35

Yeah, that's so important because you want to make sure you're giving the right feedback at the right time, but then not overwhelming instructors either. So, yeah, it's the right balance, absolutely yeah. And making sure that whoever's creating the course, you know that they still have that opportunity to have that freedom that they're looking for, but not so much. So right that they still have that opportunity to have that freedom that they're looking for, but not so much so right that they don't give the students what they need in the course. And keeping it student centered is so important. Yeah, even in that space, yeah.

Shannon Boyer: 22:02

Absolutely, absolutely. I was very lucky. Early on in my career I worked for a nonprofit. I started teaching, I left teaching. I worked for a nonprofit and the nonprofit, every single thing they did in, every single decision they made, was framed through the lens of what's in the best interest of the client. And so when I went back to teaching and I went to the college, I just naturally and subconsciously redirected that to what is in the best interest of the student and it was just. It framed my whole career and I really credit the success that I had and am continuing to have as keeping the student and what's in the best interest of the student at the forefront.

Jackie Pelegrin: 22:45

That's great. I love that. You talked a little bit about AI, so I thought we could touch a little bit on that, so is there any specific AI technology that you can recommend that you find helpful during the course creation process?

Shannon Boyer: 22:58

all of these different tools are multiplying daily and I am not an expert in those at all, but it's interesting because I do use it in my business. Now it's come so far in such a short period of time. It's amazing. I mean, you can go back to fairly recent podcast episodes that I've done, maybe even just a year ago, where I was suggesting people don't use it because it's going to, you know, just water down and make your course generic instead of having it be uniquely you and highlighting your expertise and keeping that special sauce yours and just so many other things that were going wrong. You know, a year, a year and a half ago, um, but things are changing just so quickly, um, it's not even, it's not even funny, um, and so what I've actually done in my own business is I've created my own custom GPTs, um, and what I do? Yeah, I have Chester, the course creator, and Lester, the lesson planner, and I use them within my own business. So, tester, the course creator, I use myself with my one-on-one clients because I feel like it needs the knowledge that I have to use it properly and to get the outcome that I'm looking for for my clients. But it really I've programmed it with certain frameworks and principles and structures and things that I believe in and use with my clients, and so that's a tool that I've created that I use myself and then Lester the lesson planner I give my clients access to through my online community. They have gone through the course mapping and the module outlining process. It takes them through the lesson planning process so that they can then take that on to making their slides and creating their videos and things like that. So the reason I did that twofold I've trained them so that my clients slash students have to input the content.

Shannon Boyer: 25:09

One of the problems with using ChatTPT is that it provides so much content that looks good, sounds good, is very appealing, that it almost makes us like discount what we know or what we thought or where we were going with something Like it's just too easy, it just looks too pretty, and so that's why a year ago I was saying don't use it, because I was seeing people just start to go with whatever it said, and it's really hard to have that critical lens that you need to have when using an AI tool when it's presented so beautifully for you. And so that's what I've done is I've trained my tools that the students slash. Clients have to input content, they have to be the one putting in the knowledge, the expertise, and then what it really does is help them with the organization of it, helps them brainstorm different guided practice activities, applications, things like that. So I really see it as a tool and that it needs to be used as a tool.

Shannon Boyer: 26:12

I know other people frame it as an assistant or a co-creator. I like to use me as the co-creator more so when I use Chester with my clients, I was kind of like equate it to like a DJ mixing table. I don't know if that's what they're called, but if you can envision, like the two records you got, the DJ and the two records, the GPT is really like that mixing table. So I bring in all of my expertise in curriculum development and they bring in their expertise, like the subject matter expertise, and then the GPT is what mixes them and really makes two heads better than one Really brings those two things together.

Shannon Boyer: 26:54

Because before this when I was working with my clients one-on-one, it was a difficult process and I'm sure some of your students and listeners have experienced that when you're the curriculum expert and you're working with the subject matter expert and there's this gulf of uh, you know, knowledge that's that's missing. They don't really understand your process, you don't 100 understand their expertise and you're trying to co-create something together. Um, it can be sometimes a very challenging process, so this just facilitates it. It just facilitates it because it creates the mixing space for those two things to come together really seamlessly. It still needs all the critical thinking and makes the decisions from the you know, curriculum development perspective, and then I want my students making the decisions, my clients making the decisions from their expertise and their perspective.

Jackie Pelegrin: 28:02

I like that. That's great. Yeah, we have our own AI tool that we use in curriculum development and it's a closed system AI, so that way we don't have to worry about the curriculum getting out into the worldwide web and the chat GPT and it's interesting, we have this phrase that we use. It's called the first draft principle, so, and it's something that students know about too, because they get there, they're going to be introduced to the tool. There's some different GPT models that they use for healthcare and for education, and so it's really neat. But I always let them know this is the first pass. You're still the, you know, you're still the expert. I'm taking your survey data and I'm putting it in and I'm getting a first draft of a program description and competencies. But you have to massage it. You have to be the ones to really finesse it and make sure that it meets the outcomes and that it makes sense. So yeah.

Shannon Boyer: 28:55

I agree yeah absolutely you have to make sure that it makes sense, and I think that that's why probably the next step will be more of those tools for evaluating that first draft right and like making sure that you, like you have you checked that the organization makes sense, because sometimes, although it's really good at organizing, I've had it switch things around and I'm like, why did you switch those two things around? That makes no sense the way you did it. And it comes back. It's like you're 100% correct. The way you're doing it is much better than the way I did it. So, yeah, I think we're think that will kind of be. The next step is having more of those systems of evaluation for the outputs that we get from these AI models.

Jackie Pelegrin: 29:40

Absolutely yeah, because I was kind of getting an outline for some different models and I was doing one on Mayer's 12 multimedia principles and chat GPT started. It started hallucinating and it and it confused Merrill's first principles of instruction with Mayer's 12 principles because they had principles in it and Mayer and Merrill are, so you know, similar that when I started looking at them'm like wait a minute. It started with the five mirrors, five principles, and then it started going into a mayor's like multimedia principles, like coherence, and I'm like, wait a minute, no, this is not right. So it melded the two together and I'm like, okay, try this again. And then it was like, oh yeah, you're right, it didn't.

Jackie Pelegrin: 30:23

So I'm like yeah my little virtual assistant didn't didn't quite get it the first time.

Shannon Boyer: 30:29

Yeah Well, and that's why I always laugh when you know there's one in particular that I always one company in particular. It's always up on my Instagram and they're like use our GPT to create a course in five days, make millions. And it's like, but if you don't have the expertise to be able to do exactly what you just did in that situation and not take it at face value and understand like, oh, wait a minute, there's like issues here and there are much bigger issues that that happen with it as well You're just, you're not, you're just gonna get garbage.

Shannon Boyer: 30:58

And also, I think, like people talk a lot about, you know nothing new under the sun that people want to take courses from us because of the way we present it, because of our background, knowledge and our experience and the our perspective and and the twist that we're putting on things, and you want to make sure you don't lose that, because then otherwise it's just everything.

Shannon Boyer: 31:20

Everything is the same. So I think, like finding ways to really keep that uniqueness and in your case I would say say um, something like going back to what you said earlier of still leaving that space for the instructor to have their perspective and their experience come through is really critical. So you want to be creating a course that can be duplicated and that the consistency is there and any kind of accreditation. You know processes are still being adhered to and students can depend that whether they go to this instructor or that instructor, they're receiving the same quality of education. But I believe that it's really important to still leave this space within those courses for the instructor's expertise and perspective to shine through as well. Otherwise you might as well have a robot up there teaching it. It needs to keep the humanness.

Jackie Pelegrin: 32:16

Yeah, that's something that GCU has is we have a centralized curriculum, so they have a master course shell and then all the sections get built out. With that and with with thecampus instructors, they get more flexibility and autonomy. Online not as much, but they still they're expected to add, you know, to that, add a little bit of their flavor to that. But it's nice because, like you said, from one course to the next in that program the student knows what they can expect, where things are going to be, and so they know they're going to get, you know, not always an assignment, but they know they're going to get discussion, questions and online and they know they're where things are going to be housed and it's not different from one course to the next, because that can be challenging for students yeah, if they don't know what to expect and so it's really interesting.

Jackie Pelegrin: 33:03

But I always say to the faculty that are working on the curriculum with us I'm like just because we package it up for you in this nice little bow doesn't mean that's all you do. And you just work, you know, try to enhance it and add to it. So it's so important I do that with my classes too. I add to it and make sure it's got a little bit of Jackie in it.

Shannon Boyer: 33:25

Yeah, absolutely, I mean, that's what they created. Yeah, absolutely, I mean that's what makes it interesting and engaging and keeps students, you know, motivated and wanting to persist with the course, because it's really important that you know, we focus on the standardization of quality without losing the I don't even know how to phrase it but there's a different level of quality that the person teaching it brings and we can't leave that out.

Jackie Pelegrin: 34:07

Right, you don't want to stifle that creativity in that sense that's great.

Shannon Boyer: 34:12

Well, and I will just go so far as to say also that that's a lot of like the motivation and professional satisfaction that the person teaching it gets as well is being able to have that creative. I think course creation is such a creative outlet and, you know, allowing them to have that creativity and put themselves in it and share that part of themselves, it's really important for the instructor as well as for the student.

Jackie Pelegrin: 34:38

Right, that's so true. So, as you know, I have a lot of listeners that are either in the program here at Grand Canyon University in instructional design or they're novice instructional designers. It's funny because my podcast it was meant to be for my students to give them that opportunity to have, in a way where you know if you go to a class on campus, sometimes the instructor will have a guest speaker come in, and so this was that opportunity to kind of mirror that for my online students and give them a little bit of taste of that and have some experts come in. But now I've got listeners all over the world, which is I never, never thought it would have, you know, grown to that. But it's nice because now I have novice instructional designers or others that want to go into course creation or become learning developers and things like that. So what kind of advice can you share with those that are currently in the master's program and they're looking to go into instructional design or maybe into what you're doing?

Shannon Boyer: 35:33

Yeah, I think that that's probably the best advice that I can give is just keep your options open.

Shannon Boyer: 35:40

There are so many different ways that you can apply your knowledge and what you have learned. So many different opportunities, your knowledge and what you have learned, so many different opportunities. Industries um, yeah, just the sky is the limit when it comes to job opportunities. And, um, just as we've been talking out through most of this um program about that human factor and what makes you unique, um, continue to hone in on that and come up with I I don't know if I can call it your style, because we've also talked about, you know, using the frameworks and everything like that but you want to have kind of that signature style and be able to present that and have that be what is valuable about you as we're moving forward in this AI age that we really don't know what's going to happen. But, yeah, so that's my best advice, I think, is don't pigeonhole yourself. Keep your options open, keep your eyes open there's so many opportunities and then make sure you keep your secret sauce, special sauce, and continue to develop your signature style. I would call it I like that.

Jackie Pelegrin: 36:49

That's great. It reminds me of one of my students I'm teaching the Capstone class right now for my students and one of them she actually inspired me to actually update some of my branding and stuff, and so she has a consistent style for her portfolio website and then it carries over into her Instagram and her LinkedIn and so that that whole entire brand and and so her last name is Nix, and so she's like Nix Bad Design is her. She'll probably know who I am when she listens to this because she's probably gonna be on my podcast too. But yeah, it's Nix Bad Design. So she uses her last name to say Nix Bad Design, and I'm like, oh, my goodness, I love that. And so it just yeah, it kind of reminds you of you know, sometimes your students can be good models for that and you're like, oh yeah, that's great, I love that.

Jackie Pelegrin: 37:37

So yeah, it's really great she found her niche and she found you know that that really good tagline and everything. And so yeah, I agree that secret sauce, I love that.

Jackie Pelegrin: 37:47

And making sure that you're unique and you can bring something to the table. One of my former coworkers who's who's looking for different type of job and she might actually go into this field, of course, creation and because she's done teaching in the past and she's also done copy editing and things like that. But she said that when she was taking these courses on how to kind of rebrand herself, they said you, you need to be the, the bandaid for their, their sore. That's interesting.

Shannon Boyer: 38:18

Yeah.

Jackie Pelegrin: 38:19

So there's all these little things that it's like oh yeah, this is a good reminder. So that's kind of what you're talking about with that secret sauce make it something that they want and they can only get with you.

Shannon Boyer: 38:29

Yeah, exactly.

Jackie Pelegrin: 38:32

Great Well, thank you so much for all this insight, shannon. I appreciate it. It's wonderful. I know my listeners will appreciate all this great information because, like you said, keep your options open and you never know what they could do. They could be entrepreneurs like you or go into something like Fiverr and do consulting work. So the options are so great now, especially with being able to have that online component, and you can do work all around the world now and have clients from everywhere, so it's great.

Shannon Boyer: 39:04

It's true, absolutely true. Thank you for having me. It's been a pleasure. Thank you.

Jackie Pelegrin: 39:07

Thank you for taking some time to's been a pleasure. Thank you. Thank you for taking some time to listen to this podcast episode today. Your support means the world to me. If you'd like to help keep the podcast going, you can share it with a friend or colleague, leave a heartfelt review or offer a monetary contribution. Every act of support, big or small, makes a difference and I'm truly thankful for you.