Leaving the Classroom: A Transitioning Teacher Podcast

A Day in the Life of a Corporate ID with Margie Bowling

Episode description: In this episode, I talk to Margie Bowling. Margie is a former middle school science teacher who now works as an instructional designer for a life sciences company, providing solutions for the life sciences community. She discusses how she transitioned to the corporate world using IDOL courses Academy.

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Enjoy the podcast transcription:

Kristi Oliva
Welcome to leaving the classroom. This is a podcast for teachers who are ready to transition out of the classroom and into a new career. Each week I'll share stories about what I've learned moving from education to the corporate world. I'll answer the most common questions and share my best tips to help you get started. If you are considering leaving the classroom, this show is for you. Hello, everyone. Welcome to leaving the classroom. I'm Kristi Oliva. I'm so glad you're here. Today's topic is a day in the life of a corporate ID and I have a special guest here to talk about it. Today. I have with me Margie Bowling, member of idol closers Academy and a corporate instructional designer. Welcome, Margie.

Margie Bowling
Hello. Glad to be here. Thanks for inviting me.

Kristi Oliva
Yeah, no problem. Thanks for coming. And so let's just start off, why don't you tell us a little bit about your journey in joining IDL and what you did before you became an instructional designer.

Margie Bowling
I was a middle school teacher, I taught science and and then I also taught as a science paraprofessional in the elementary school, when my kids were little. And then I also was a business analyst for a short period of time, where I wrote user manuals. And that's where I really loved. And I came to really come to grips with instructional design. When I was reading user manuals, I took a period of time off to raise my kids. And around 2013-14, I found instructional design online. I'm like, Oh, this is what I want to do. But I didn't know how to do it. How do I get there? And years go by, of course. And I contact a bunch of people, career counselor and everything. And I finally found IDOL courses Academy in like,2020. Yeah. 2020. And I joined in May, I guess it was the fourth cohort. So what was that? That was? Yeah. 2020. So I was right after you. And then in January of 2021, I landed my first corporate role as an instructional designer. And I work now for a life sciences company. And all we do is provide learning solutions for the life sciences community.

Kristi Oliva
So your current title is instructional designer at that position. And so did you find it difficult to transition from? I mean, you were working as a middle school teacher, you also took some time off? How did how difficult was that for you to make that transition?

And you didn't quite I didn't know how to do it, I jumped back and you fall back into it, you know, I fell back into teaching. And I was there. So I, I certainly commiserate with all those teachers out there. For three months. I was in a job for three months. And 2017, I had a principal who was a bully, and I had to get out, I was losing hair. I lost a lot of weight. And it just wasn't healthy. I was afraid during the school day, I was afraid of my principal, I didn't know what he was going to do. So bullying happens everywhere, not just in education, or in corporate, but also in education, you don't hear about it very often. So I got out and took time off to regroup and found a part time job in between there just to make ends meet. But IDOL really was a lifesaver to me. So I just did everything that Robin laid out as best as I could and making that portfolio, which I still need to update by the way. So it needs to be updated again. That's why I'm back here because I still want to improve I still want to grow. But yeah, so it was a very challenging transition.

Kristi Oliva
Yeah, well, I'm glad that you were able to make that I know that a lot of us we get scared of of that challenge. And we get scared of what does that look like so good for you. So I know that there is no typical day as an ID, but it's one of the biggest questions we get is like what do you do each day? What does that look like? So can you walk us through maybe just some of the things you do day to day or what a typical day does look like for you if you would call it typical.

Margie Bowling
Okay. Some days I have zoom meetings. I fortunately I am blessed but I do not have a lot of them. I can work out of my home, which is wonderful. My typical day I do mostly storyboarding in my company, we call it scripting. But it's the same thing. I take content. And I scripted I storyboard it, and I put it in elearning, or ebooks for right now. So I'm taking content that is very complicated. So far, I have worked with good practices, all different kinds of good practices from good clinical practices, laboratory practices, manufacturing practices, and taking that compliance information, trying to make some assemblance of user understanding of it from the novice point of view, and make sense of it, and order it and structure it. So that's a lot of what I do. Now, I've mostly worked in Word for my scripting, I just started a whole new project. Now I'm working in PowerPoint for my scripting, which is a different concept a little harder to track your changes, but it's works out pretty well. I have not done a lot with storyline. But this project I'm currently working on is going to be programmed in Storyline. We have our own proprietary authoring tool here that the company that I work at. So I don't do a lot of the authoring or the developing side, I just do mostly the scripting, and I work with artists, I work with medical writers, I work with subject matter experts. And in the programmers come back and forth. I work with editors as well. So all of us work together as a team. And from that teamwork, we create these learnings and ebooks. So right now my content is is more like on demand or off the shelf. But my company also does other other kinds of things. We work in all different avenues and departments now with from animation and video to workshops. So I may have some day working on workshops for sales reps and things like that. So there's lots of different opportunities out there. But that's currently what I do. And I'm excited about it because I get exposed to a variety different ways that I can incorporate my skills as a teacher and as the educator and instructional designer to make sense of content for people of all different backgrounds.

Kristi Oliva
Sounds super interesting and I like they are seems like you're getting to use a lot of your science background in your current job.

Margie Bowling
Yes.

Kristi Oliva
So how does this job like if somebody wanted to find a job similar to this and similar to yours? How did you go about your job search?

Margie Bowling
I went through a career counselor first and I do recommend that they're the ones that know what what is out there. But LinkedIn was huge. He gave me advice on on what I needed to do. So in LinkedIn, you need to find people that work in industry that you want to go into. So you need to establish connections with those people look at what they what their organizations are, what what are their interests, and join those organizations. And there's algorithms you can join so many and then you have to wait a couple days and then you join some more and you wait a couple more days and join as many as you can read as much as you can research as much as you can. That's another thing I do a lot of in my in my work is I do a lot of research. So LinkedIn was pretty much the big catalyst for me and and then I found emails and I started from their LinkedIn accounts, I just reached out to those people. And just you know, said hey, you know, this is Margie bowling, this is what I'm interested in. And this is my portfolio. This is my resume and come connect with me. But I also need encouragement. I reached out to other idol course Academy members and got their advice, their encouragement, because it's very challenging. You can get so discouraged when you want to move forward and you feel so stuck. So you do need support. You need support from others, family members and friends to get where you want to go. But don't give up hope. It's just roadblocks, know the roadblocks. You can move.

Kristi Oliva
Yeah, and I love that. I know we have that community aspect. It's not just like, you know, taking it's not like a typical online course where you feel really siloed like it really is a true community. So what would you say would be the top three skills that you brought with you as a teacher that serve you the best as a instructional designer now?

Margie Bowling
Well as a teacher, you plan curriculum. That to me, that's the big one for me for what I do is in writing I do a ton of writing and research. So you plan curriculum, you find out all the different modalities of of how you want to present the information to your students. So you gather all that you gather all that information you gather the different types of media that you want to use. And then you chunk that information into different organizational components. So you break it down, I feel that as a writer, you have to know how to break your content down into smaller chunks, that makes sense, that are structured that are organized that flow well. And then you take that information and and you apply it. So that's the biggest one. You're you're planning your curriculum. So you're writing it. And that's what I do. Just seems intuitive to me. And also, I do a lot of self checks, writing of learning objectives, all that you did as a teacher, and that just comes more naturally to you. And it's interesting to me that it so many still don't get the concept of how to write a learning objective. You know, they they write, oh, you will learn or you will understand and oh, oh, my goodness, no. How do you demonstrate how you understand how do you do something? How can you demonstrate this? What are you going to be able to do at the end? Not I'm going to learn.

Kristi Oliva
Yeah, that's one of my biggest pet peeves, too. And I think we bring that over as teachers that we know it's not specific, has to be measurable. We know we have to be able to measure. Did they accomplish that or not? So that's a good one. That's a good one. Well, thank you so much for being on here. What's the best way to get in touch with you? If somebody wants to contact you and ask you some specific questions about what you do?

Margie Bowling
Probably my LinkedIn account, that's probably the best way you can just do a Google search. Probably just Margie bowling. I'm out there. Just connect with me that by LinkedIn, and I believe my email is in my LinkedIn account, and you can email me as well. So you do those are fine.

Kristi Oliva
Awesome. Well, thank you, Margie, for joining us. I really appreciate your insight. It's always so fun to learn about different instructional design roles. So thank you for sharing your experience with us.

Margie Bowling
Oh, again thank you for inviting me and I wish to all those I of course Academy people out there.

Kristi Oliva
Great success. Awesome. Thank you. Do you want to leave the classroom and become an instructional designer like Margie at IDOL courses Academy, we help you build your professional portfolio, revise your resume, prepare for interviews and give you valuable feedback on what you design. Sign up for IDOL courses Academy using my code CLASSROOM100 and get $100 off enrollment today. It's time to take control and make the career change that will change your life. It changed mine. See you next time.

Send your stories or your questions to [email protected] or share them with me on Instagram  @leavingtheclassroom.