Welcome to the site of my Professional Portfolio! Thank you for your interest in my professional experiences and career. I have worked in the Central Pennsylvania Area for over 20 years, in a variety of positions serving people across all ages.

 

Career Summary:

• D.Ed. in Administration and Leadership; Higher Education, Master’s Degree in Adult Education

• 25 years experience in the field of education

• Skilled developer of face-to-face and e-learning courses/trainings

• Professional public speaker and trainer of staff, faculty, and students

• Excellent skills as an academic researcher

• Excellent skills in utilizing existing networks and University systems to create connections that bring projects and programs to a successful result

• Expert project and relationship manager

• Supervised and managed staff and 15 student and wage payroll workers

• Led organizational development efforts at both the college and unit levels

• Able to multi-task in a fast-paced environment

 

I am proud of the work I have done at Penn State both personally and professionally. Click through the pages to learn more about my career.

 

Instructional Development Philosophy

My Development Philosophy and Teaching Philosophy is based simply on customer service and a learner-centered approach.

While there are a lot of approaches and models of Teaching, Instructional Design, or Curriculum Development, I don’t choose to select just one. Not every situation can be put into one model or approach. I feel that listening to the stakeholder/instructor/teacher, hearing their problem, or hearing about their motivation to make a change in their program or class is of primary concern.

After assessing the situation and the learner only then can I in partnership with the customer begin to look at the various models or approaches that might best fit the situation. My background in Adult Education often creates a situation where I use usually fall back on a model that draws heavily from adult learning principles that emphasize learner initiative, self-management, and experiential learning. A learner-centered approach reaches out to the audience to create effective and efficient learning.

I prefer to focus on the concepts of the sequencing of instructional activities and strategies that best reach the learner. I work with the customer to define learner-focused performance objectives and then proceed to the selection and implementation of instructional strategies and learning activities appropriate for those objectives.

I work with instructors on creating scenario-based practice questions or exercises along with assessments that measure student achievement of those objectives. I pride myself that my prior experiences have included the development of flexible, highly interactive, and engaging courses and programs—despite differences of instructors in the kind of content focus or level of learning. I have a wide variety of experience recommending instructional strategies and multimedia elements tailored to the specific course content.

I implement quality assurance standards and processes geared toward ensuring that each course or program meets the expectations of the relevant stakeholders.

 Contact:

Heidi A. Watson-Held, D.Ed.

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Cell: 814-883-5008
Emails: haw6@psu.edu, hwatsonh@purdue,edu, hacwatson@gmail.com