Context & Conditions:

In the summer of 2006 I completed an internship for Proficient Learning, LLC, a company specializing in training for pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. My internship was directed by Ms. Erika Robertson, Vice President of Instructional Design for Proficient Learning, and Dr. Mahnaz Moallem. The project that I worked on was a workshop for newly hired pharmaceutical sales representatives. My role was to design and develop both a face-to-face and CBI version of the workshop. I was given a book that provided some content knowledge but subject-matter expertise was also provided by the president of Proficient Learning. 

Scope:

For both the face-to-face workshop and CBI I developed separate design documents which contained: the course goals, learner characteristics, a description of instructional materials, performance objectives, instructional strategies, summary of media and materials, and evaluation procedures. Robert Gagne’s Nine Events of Instruction and Hannafin, Land, and Oliver’s Open Learning Environment were referenced to sequence the instruction. Various learning styles were also addressed and the workshop was designed with the adult learner in mind. Donald Kirkpatrick’s Foul Levels of Evaluation was the proposed method of summative evaluation. 

 
The design document is what guided my development of the materials. For the face-to-face workshop I developed an instructor guide, a participant guide, a pilot test evaluation form, and public seminar evaluation form. For the CBI I developed a rough storyboard of the first three modules and a proposed screen design. 

Role:

I completed the project by myself for the most part with some guidance and support from time-to-time from Ms. Erika Robertson, the Vice President of Instructional Design. I worked as an instructional designer when developing the design documents, instructor guide, participant guide, and evaluation forms. My instructional developer skills were called upon to complete the CBI storyboard and CBI screen design. 

Reflection:

This project gave me the opportunity to apply what I was learning in the classroom in an authentic environment. I accepted the position in an attempt to learn more about the instructional design work environment in business and I definitely did learn a lot. Working within a tight budget with strict deadlines and expectations definitely fine-tuned my instructional design skills and taught me to prioritize needs on a daily basis.