My career in education began through two fellowships in gradudate school; however, at the time I hadn't thought about working with faculty and curriculum after finishing my degree. Yet somehow it stuck—in large part because I love working with educators and other people who dedicate their careers to learning and development.
The core skills that I developed in higher education have translated to my work today. It turns out that any organization looking to invest and grow talent can use someone who knows how to create, evaluate and consult on educational opportunities:
I had over 11 years experience at Mizzou working with educational materials that ranged from noncredit modules to college courses to graduate programs designed for working adults. By "working with" I mean creating materials from scratch, evaluating curriculum of all types, consulting with instructors on ways to improve the courses they teach, leading teams in the design and development of courses, and teaching professional development courses.
At Mizzou Online I was the manager of a design and development team of 11 members (see "Coordinator of Educational Technology" position). I also mentored instructional designers across campus and within our central team.
I have always been a creative problem-solver who thrives in ill-defined domains and with challenges where there is no clear path. Finding solutions to these problems tends to require intense collaboration, communication with a wide range of people (from those who enter data to department and unit leaders), and the ability to adapt to changing circumstances.
My strong technical background has been incredibly helpful throughout my career. I tend to be a leader selecting and customizing the technologies that support the core functions of our team. This experience goes back to my first projects as an instructional designer and continues to this day—I just finished designing and implementing a paperless process for managing projects using DocuSign.
Matt Miller
4607 Harwood Drive
Des Moines, IA 50312
(573) 355-1179
mbmiller.matt@gmail.com
M.A. in English • May 2005
While a full-time graduate student living in Washington, D.C., I was awarded a fellowship and worked with GU faculty and staff at the Center for New Designs in Learning and Scholarship. I studied cultural studies and wrote my thesis on policy and representations of American Indians in musuems.
B.S. in English • May 2002
At Iowa State, I graduated with honors and distinction and also earned minors in Design Studies and Environmental Studies. I was awarded the annual critical writing award from the English Department in 2001 and also was a member of the ISU mock trial team. In my last semester, I was part of a group that was invited to present a proposal at the UN World Summit on Sustainable Development.
Course Design and Technology at the University of Missouri • July 2012 - March 2017
In 2012, instructional design support at the University of Missouri was consolidated under the Office of the Provost. This position allowed me to mentor to other designers on campus, pilot new processes for course development, and create faculty development opportunities like the Online Teaching Foundations program. I also did typical beginning-to-end course development with faculty across campus, frequently with graduate programs in departments just beginning to teach online.
Mizzou Online • November 2008 – July 2012
In 2008 I was promoted to the manager and leader of our 11-member design and development team. As a team we continued to develop self-paced university curriculum with faculty from departments across campus, implemented Moodle as the LMS for Mizzou K-12 Online's semester-based program, and designed a custom web application used by Mizzou students while they were on internships and completing fieldwork.
Mizzou Online • September 2005 – November 2008
When I began working at MU, online courses were only being developed in a few distinct pockets on campus. Mizzou Online worked largely with self-paced courses for undergraduate, graduate, and even high school programs. My position was the only instructional designer in a group of instructional editors and multimedia developers. I developed templates for course websites, helped select appropriate technology for course delivery, and worked with faculty as they developed online courses.
Project context: Online Teaching Foundations is a professional development program for instructors at Mizzou (graduate to faculty) and consists of a 6-week core course designed to help participants learn and practice the fundamentals of online teaching. Participants follow up the core course by participating in two electives of their choice.
My role: I championed the creation of this program, designed the curriculum, teach the core course, and now serve as the coordinator of the program. I collect and report data for the program at large, design administrative processes, continue to bring in more staff to teach sections and electives each semester.
Impact: Over the year I led the program, we had more than 70 participants that were in our target audience (81% of the second cohort were faculty and 43% had never taught an online course before beginning the program). These were impressive numbers for a program that required a significant time commitment from participants.
Examples of my work for this project:
Project context: Together, our instructional design manager and myself have been leading a highly collaborative effort to evaluate and redesign an online nursing program at Mizzou. This is the first project that will be the model for a new ET@MO service in program redesign.
My role: In collaboration with our instructional design manager, I designed the overall process that included data gathing, gap analysis, structured interview design, idea generation (using "design thinking" methodologies), and overall management and coordination of the activities of the working group of nursing faculty. We are currently overseeing and checking in on progress on the individual projects generated from our work.
Impact: Our process has led to 11 distinct projects such as individual course redesigns, support functions for faculty who teach in the program, and changing the on-campus requirements of the program. Most of these projects will be funded and many will begin in the Fall 2016 semester. Because of the breadth of the data we gathered as a group, we are confident that each of these projects addresses a "gap" in the program and will lead to a better experience for students and faculty. Some members of our working group are also writing a journal article about program redesign in nursing as a result of their experiences.
Examples of my work for this project:
Project context: While consulting with a department that was increasing its cohort size from 45 to 60 students, I wrote a questionnaire and presented these findings to the department. The goals of the survey were to: 1) identify faculty who want to to change their teaching methods to accommodate more students, especially those who are interested in using technology, 2) identify teaching and technology support targeted at the needs of the department, and 3) identify courses and other program functions that are of most concern when taking on new students.
My role: It was my idea to use this survey instrument to accompany our meetings with faculty in the department. The survey data suggested several potential practices and tools such as identifying leaders with technology already among the group, utilizing other personnel and staff for certain program requirements, etc.
Impact: To be seen. We just delivered the results of the survey to the chair about a month ago and prior to a faculty retreat.
Examples of my work for this project:
Project context: Our team was presented with a challenge to improve the process of managing student assignments while they are on internship. This was particularly challenging because every student has different internship lengths and start dates, and the assignments were designed to help them reflect on their experiences at critical points during this fieldwork.
My role: I served as the creative lead and overall project manager of a team of faculty and staff within the department, Web programmers from Mizzou Online, and a multimedia specialist who blocked out a prototype. I established the design goals for the final product (a small Web application with a simple one-page front-end) and ensured that it met these goals. Most of the code in the final site is my own. During the first semester of implementation, I also trained staff on their roles working with this system and helped to to make revisions to process and the site itself.
Impact: There are now 3 other colleges working with Mizzou Online to develop similar sites based on this model. Many of these internships must accommodate 400–500 students per year. I was invited to speak about this project with the Provost's staff as well as to all of the Deans for MU Colleges.
Examples of my work for this project:
Project context: While reviewing a rural sociology course, we were unsure how to work with somewhat disconnected but engaging lesson components about the concept of environmental justice. I proposed that a somewhat nonlinear approach could be used, and ideally it would follow a 5-E (or "learning cycle") model in which the definition of a concept is not presented first (as the original lesson was designed). Instead, students are engaged with a problem or situation, they explore other ways in which the as-yet-unnamed phenomena show up in society, then the definition of the concept is explained, and finally the lesson asks students to elaborate and evaluate on the original problem following their exploration.
My role: I served as creative lead for an internal team of multimedia specialists, a designer, and developer. The design was the first responsive page this team had developed (e.g., the content automatically re-fits itself to both desktop and mobile devices).
Impact: The developer was ultimately unsure if the remainder of her course would fit this model; however, we have used the page template in at least one other course. The real impact of this projects was from a team standpoint; those involved with the project were able to solve a problem in a novel way and gain the confidence of building content for mobile devices.
Examples of my work for this project:
Project context: Our team was approached by two faculty writing a grant to develop modules for teachers and principals to learn how to respond to a suicide in their school. I developed a prototype module that reformulated the expository materials into a linear training unit (produced in Articulate) with graphic organizers, quizzes and checkpoint questions, and a scenario to frame the "why" for the materials in the module.
My role: This was a unique project that involved only myself and the subject matter experts (the two faculty working on the grant and one graduate student). I led the project from initial concept to content development to graphic design and assembly of the final prototype module.
Impact: The grant was not funded; however, we used the prototype module to show as an example of our team's work and were able to develop online modules for the MU Fire and Rescue Training Institute in the years to follow.
Examples of my work for this project:
Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions about my resume or any of the items in this portfolio.
Matt Miller
4607 Harwood Drive
Des Moines, IA 50312
(573) 355-1179
mbmiller.matt@gmail.com