Community Showcase: Kayleen Holt

Luis Malbas  
Hello, everybody, welcome to the training learning and development community. Happy Friday to you. Thanks for joining us. We have another member showcase today this morning with Kayleen Holt, who I'm very excited to talk with. Kayllen and I of course have talked in the past, but I've never had the opportunity to kind of ask her more of these, I guess a little bit more personal questions and get to know her a little bit more. So I'm, I have 11 questions loaded in and asked question area to go over with Kayleen. And if anybody wants to add any questions, feel free to drop them in there or drop them into chat as we go through. And before we get started, let me just give a shout out to some of the folks that are in already. Darcy is here. Hey Darcy Jo Magda, Julia Tiki Letty, thanks for joining us this morning. And we're just gonna get started. Um, okay, so kayleen I've only known you for a few months and see, I'm trying to figure out I think it was the maybe the women of l&d event that you were kind of introduced a little bit to TL DC. And then you participated and helped help drive the AI dc 21 conference, which did really, really well and stressful. Yeah, it was such a great event. I can't tell you just, in fact, I'm still kind of recovering from it. Because I'm, every day I have like a batch of new emails about that event, and I didn't realize it was going to be as impactful as it was. So yeah, I really appreciate you helping drive that one. So, so thank you for that. Um, so let me start with my first question. You used to be a teacher, right? Yes. And what would what did you What did you teach exactly what

Kayleen Holt  
I taught? Mostly High School, English and Spanish. Um, it's a little bit of middle school language arts. I even taught some Spanish and elementary but yeah, my license was secondary. I taught creative writing. That was really fun. So yeah, that is,

Luis Malbas  
that's new to me. I had no real No, um, no idea that you knew how to speak Spanish.

Kayleen Holt  
Well, I used to have been woefully out of practice. So if you start up a conversation with me, I'll probably give you a blank stare. I can do okay in text. So honestly, if you want to, to message me in Spanish that would maybe get my skills up letting I know you're here. So same to you. But conversations are, it's it's spoken languages a lot harder than than written, you know, you don't have the time to process it. And words kind of get run together. And you think, Okay, what was that you accents are also hard.

Luis Malbas  
Right? Right. No, definitely. Well, how did you evolve to becoming an instructional designer going from being a teacher?

Kayleen Holt  
Well, um, it was a pretty natural evolution for me. As I said, most of the time, I ended up teaching Spanish because it's a shortage field area. I taught English my first couple years, but then after that, everybody wanted me to teach Spanish. But I taught in these little rural schools that didn't have funds. And, you know, sometimes I didn't have textbooks or if I had textbooks, they were falling apart. I couldn't issue the textbooks really, or they were just badly designed. I had some really awful, awful supplies. And I didn't have much else, you know, the the school, you know, gave me some falling apart textbooks and said, Here you go teach. And so I ended up creating a lot of my own materials for teaching Spanish, in fact. And also, in that area, I didn't have the mandated curriculum that other areas had, like I had when I was teaching English. Um, I kind of had the freedom to come up with my own curriculum and my own lessons. And in a couple of schools I did a school wide. Well, in one school particular, I developed the school wide sequential foreign language learning program and implemented that. And it was really cool because, um, you know, in the early grades, I was just introducing kids to the idea that other languages exist, and introducing them to what some of those languages were. And so I even had a chance to kind of work with some sneeze, some subject matter experts because I don't speak a lot of languages. I studied French as well as Spanish and so I was able to teach them a little bit of those two languages. But then I brought in some friends who spoke you know, American Sign Language and Russian and German and some other things. Just teach the kids a few things in those languages to and then, you know start to focus in on Spanish once we got into about I think fourth grade and then moving on. So I taught from first grade through high school. in that school, it was a little bitty school. So, in one of the later schools I taught at the administration really wanted teachers to focus on how they are creators of meaningful and engaging work for students. That was the real focus is we weren't there to, you know, talk to talk at students from in front of the room or whatever we were there to give them meaningful and engaging work that help them accomplish goals. And so that's how I saw my role. And, and I started to realize that that's really what I enjoyed the most besides forming relationships with students, which was always wonderful. I loved the design and the creation. And there was never enough time to do it, right, because we just don't get enough planning time as teachers. And so when I left teaching, I started a small business where I was creating multimedia educational materials for language teachers, again, working with some other subject matter experts to to teach other languages than the ones that I know. So that was fun. It didn't explode, it didn't take off right away. And plus, I didn't want to charge astronomical amounts for the materials, because I know teachers are buying things out of their own pocket. So it didn't make me a lot of money. And after a couple years of doing that, my husband had a health challenge that took him out of work. And I needed to make more money, like quickly. And so I interviewed for a few different positions, teaching positions. And then I found this instructional design position that I interviewed for, and I chose to go with the instructional design job, and just kind of was really lucky to fall into that it was a junior ID role for a company that is basically a training vendor, they create learning products for other companies, mostly government agencies, federal government agencies. And so I worked with that company, while I worked as an employee for that company for eight years. And I'm still doing work for that company as a freelancer. And it's given me a ton of really useful experience. Because, you know, I always had between like five and seven projects going at a time. And so you multiply that over. All those years, I've touched a lot of projects, and I've been able to work with a lot of different clients learn so much, just a variety of different kinds of topics. It's been really fun.

Luis Malbas  
Yeah. So. So you were so you're working in academia, and then you kind of moved into this other? I mean, was it just a surprise to find this thing called instructional design?

Kayleen Holt  
Yeah, absolutely. When I have that small business, creating the materials for language teachers, I made up business cards, and I thought, What do I put on my business card? And I thought, well, I'm Designing Instruction. So I guess that makes me an instructional designer. And then I googled it and found out that's a real job. Really? I was surprised by that. Oh, okay. That's, and I started reading up on what an instructional designer is and what they do. And I thought, yeah, this is this is what I want to do. And so when I saw the job posting, in, which wasn't by chance, because I was looking for instructional designer job postings, as well as teaching. I already had kind of a, some insight into what that role is. And I was looking at things like, you know, Addie and Kirkpatrick and all of these terms that were listed in job descriptions that I hadn't used before, as a teacher, but then when I started looking at what it is almost like, Oh, yeah, okay. Okay. I know what that is. I just hadn't called it that before.

Luis Malbas  
Yeah, yeah. Okay, so you, so the transition went smoothly?

Kayleen Holt  
It did. I was very fortunate to have some really strong support. One of the women I still work with at scissortail. My current company was, in my interview when I was hired at that Junior ID role. And she is a former teacher. And so she was kind of a champion for me because she she knew how translatable the skills were, and when the other person in the interview was trying to, he admitted later purposely trip me up with terminology. She would translate for me. Yeah, it's just like, you know, like Okay, ganya is not events. It's kind of like Madeline Hunter, you know, those sorts of things. And so I was really grateful to her. And she she was one of my mentors in that position. And I had some other really great mentors that taught me a lot. Right away. So yeah, my transition was, honestly really Smith.

Luis Malbas  
Oh, my gosh, I am like, really curious about that now, because I would love to hear like somebody talk about translating those concepts from, you know, from being, you know, a high school teacher into, into being an instructional designer, I think that'd be really, really helpful to, to hear about that stuff.

Kayleen Holt  
Yeah, there's a list somewhere. I'm thinking it Sarah stebic. I'm not sure I'm saying her name. Right. But I think she has a list. I know that I've seen one of the terms because that to me, was the biggest challenge was just getting the terminology. Right. And, and, of course, learning the adult learning theories that I hadn't been taught before. Things like that. But honestly, terminology was a big part of it.

Luis Malbas  
Right, right. All right. So now, how about your passion for accessibility and for inclusion? You know, like, I remember, I think that I would just, I was just on a broadcast. And I brought up the idea that I wanted to produce an event about accessibility, inclusion, and you like, jumped on it really quick. And I don't mean that you messaged me a few times saying, Hey, we got to do this. We got to do this. And I'm like, yeah, yeah. Okay, so it looks like we've got kayleen here is really interested in this one. So I better make it happen. Where did that come from? Where did that passion for, for accessibility inclusion come from?

Kayleen Holt  
Well, first of all, it's just because I am an empathetic kind of person, I like to help people. That's why I'm in this career in the first place. And I, I care about how learners experience the the products I design. But, and so even before I developed disabilities in my own, which I'll talk about a little bit, I was trying to learn more about what that looked like for people, for people who, who experienced a course in different ways than I did. For example, one of the things we did and the company, the company that I started out in, we went to the I'm going to get the name of it wrong, Oklahoma Foundation for the Blind. I think that's the name, but it might have changed. Um, they have a facility in Oklahoma City, which is where is near where I live, where they employ blind people, and it was amazing to go tour that facility and talk to these people and see what all they could do. They, you know, the the chalks that they put behind the wheels of aircraft. They make them like there's a contract for federal government, they make them at that facility in Oklahoma City. And I'm going I see this blind man running a saw. And I'm like, oh, my goodness, I, I am scared to go near a saw. And I can see where my hands are and where the sunlight is. But it was amazing. It just really was. And it opened my eyes to the ways that I had been ablest and my thinking of what people with disabilities could and couldn't do. And so I started following people on Twitter who have disabilities, I also I've made a concerted effort in the last, I don't know, five years, maybe more of trying to follow people who are not like myself, and learn more about people who are not like myself, and you know, I, I would say, you know, I could just make friends with a lot of people who are not like myself, but I live a very isolated life because of my disabilities. And so a lot of that happens on social media. And so I follow you know, people of color people in the LGBT community and people in the disabled community and try to learn more about them. So besides all that, as you know, I have my own disabilities, and I've talked about those before. But for folks who don't know, there are a couple of them. One of them began in probably 2008 2009. I developed an allergy to chocolate, and you think, Well, that doesn't sound like a disability. That just sounds like it sucks. And it does, but that I'm not sure exactly when but it went airborne. Which means I can't be around chocolate and working in an office environment. That was a challenge because people like to have, you know, m&ms or Snickers or whatever. And, and grab that throughout the day. And so my company tried to accommodate for that. They tried to keep the chocolate out of the office. But it's really dependent on individual people to to comply with that. And when some people don't think it's as serious as it is, or some people think, well, I'm way down the hall from her, there's no possible way this will affect her. It's a problem. And I ended up having to go home so many times. And then in 2011, I was on a work trip, and on an airplane bent down to get my laptop bag out from under the seat in front of me. And another laptop fell from the ever had been on my head. And this was, you know, 10 years ago, we're not talking about the sleepy sleek little laptops we have now. And this one was not a new one, it was a dinosaur. And so it's basically like having a brick dropped on your head from above. And, you know, at the time, I didn't really think it was a big deal. I thought, Okay, I'm gonna have a headache. I'll take some Tylenol, I'll be fine. Then by the next day, I it was clear that had a concussion. Yeah. And went to my doctor. And he said, Well, you know, a week or two, take it no rest, you'll be fine. So two weeks went by I was not fine. I was having really bad vision issues. Like not just blurry vision, but things would move. Like if I looked at a, at some text, the text would be wiggly and wavy. I was having trouble word finding.

Lots of other lots of other things and of course, constant head pain. And so he said, Well, some people it takes about 12 weeks to recover, and especially for women over 40. And I had just had my 40th birthday, and said, Okay, so 12 weeks came in with still still no good, I ended up being out of work for close to six months. Because I could not read I couldn't it made me physically ill to look at text. I could read for maybe 510 minutes at a time. But then that was it. And you know how hard it would be to do this job if you can't read and look at screens. So anyway, I eventually went back gradually kind of took on my responsibilities. It ended up where I couldn't, I couldn't I was a senior ISD and project manager by that time. And I had a lot of projects going a lot of responsibilities. And it was too much at that point in my recovery. It was more than I could handle. And so I was practically begging them to demote me. Yeah. And that didn't work out. And so that is what led me to freelance work is that I needed to take a step back and be able to manage my workload better be able to work from home because driving was also something that made it worse. So I did that I have I've since found treatment that has helped a lot has taken care of most of those symptoms, there are still some things that I have to do to to mitigate the symptoms. I no longer have a headache, I had a constant headache for like eight years. Oh, that's terrible. Oh, that's, that's gone. So that's good. But I still have frequent migraines and other things I have to deal with. And as far as the food allergies, that has progressed or regressed to where I not only have airborne allergy to chocolate, but also to coffee, and bananas, and pumpkin and now all things caffeinated. Or anything with caffeine in it. So my husband has had to give up drinking Dr. Pepper at home. So I know that he really loves me. Yeah, it's hard. It's an isolating life. And it is one reason why I'm so thankful for, for remote work and for just the plethora of virtual tools we have available now. And it says like, Yeah,

Luis Malbas  
no, no, totally. Absolutely. In fact, I mean, that's something that I've really been seeing a lot of lately is you know, people just talking about how they've had to go back to the office and just really noticing the stark differences in the quality of their life. Like between having, you know, had to work from home for a year and then all of a sudden they're back in their office and they're like, Oh, I don't I you know, I forgot how much I really really disliked you know the commute or dislike having to share the microwave with everybody in the in the break room or having to go into you know, the office bathroom with other people and you know, it's that that's a topic that is like, at the top of my I just think about that stuff all the time. So 25 years, you've been an instructional designer.

Kayleen Holt  
Well now 25 years I've been in education, education. Okay, I told design so I started. Yeah, I taught for nine years. And then the all the rest of it is instructional design.

Luis Malbas  
It's just there is there. What do you think is the most important lesson that you've learned in your career so far?

Kayleen Holt  
That is a hard question. I saw that question this morning, I thought, Oh, do I, I think the hardest lesson for me to learn has been to say no. And that's also a really important one is because like I said, I'm a helper, I want to help people, I will go out of my way to help someone who needs it. But sometimes that comes at the expense of my own personal health or sanity. And so I've had to set boundaries. And and just learn to say, No, I can't take that on, I'm sorry, or and refer people when I can to someone else who can help them. And besides that, it's learning to trust myself and my own instructional design instincts, because they're good. Yeah. You know, just having that confidence.

Luis Malbas  
Believe in yourself. Yeah, I'd actually read recently, somebody had said that probably their best piece of productivity advice is to learn to say no. And I agree with that. My problem is, I don't know how to ask for help. That's what kind of like sort of on the opposite end of things is like, yeah, just take it all on. But

Kayleen Holt  
yeah, and I guarantee you have a community of people who will help you Louise.

Luis Malbas  
I asked for help over. Oh, Lady saying working with kaylene is so enlightening, despite all the obstacles, she's always there to help. She's bright and structured, and just sharp on everything she does.

Kayleen Holt  
Daddy? Yes, Lenny is someone that I worked with, in a previous job. And she's just amazing.

Luis Malbas  
Yeah. Well, Darcy has this great question. Darcy's asking, what's your TLD? superpower?

Kayleen Holt  
my superpower Oh, boy. Um, that's

Luis Malbas  
a good one. I might have to put that in the in the regular my template of questions

Kayleen Holt  
is a good one. And I didn't have any time to think ahead about that. I'm really honestly, I think that the amount that I care is probably the the biggest strength I have as an instructional designer, because I like to put myself in other people's shoes, and I want to help them be successful. That is, that's why I'm in this. And I think it's something that makes me a better ID. And yes, great question.

Luis Malbas  
Yeah. So it's kind of like that empathy piece that you're talking about? Mm hmm. Yeah, it's important. Mm hmm. And so as far as instructional design is concerned with your favorite part of, of what you do, what do you what do you what would you say you like the most about being an instructional designer?

Kayleen Holt  
Well, I'm gonna sound like a broken record. But I love helping people that really is my favorite part is helping people be the best versions of themselves. And I love the fact that I get to do that, while always learning something new.

Luis Malbas  
And sort of same on this end here, too. Like, it's one of the reasons why I love doing this is just because I know that you know, I'm contributing something. And,

Kayleen Holt  
exactly, I want to make the world a better place somehow. Which is one reason I especially love working with organizations that do something to make the world a better place. Like right now I'm working with while I just finished a project with a nonprofit who's focused on helping people in communities recover after a traumatic events like mass violence events. I have a client who focuses on mental wellness education. I have another client who is focused on medical quality in Oklahoma. So just lots of, um, I guess altruistic?

Luis Malbas  
Yeah.

Kayleen Holt  
And when I worked with ledi, we were helping to make the world a safer place. It just, it those kinds of things are important to me, and, and part of my mission statement is, you know, my mission is to help you achieve yours. And I really believe that even when I was working for other companies, and they had mission statements, I didn't necessarily always get behind. I would always think about what is the mission of this organization that we're developing training for? And how can I

Luis Malbas  
do that? Yeah, no, and that's impressive, I have to say, just because I know that it has it takes, especially for causes, you know, when you're trying to do something, it can take an emotional toll on you, you know, because you have to, you know, you really want to be able to help, and then you're really you're owning the effort. And so it can, it can be draining, so that's impressive that you do that.

Kayleen Holt  
Yeah, absolutely. Well, it's one of the reasons that I burned out as a teacher, honestly, is because you know, people, people, some people seem to think that teachers who leave the career just don't care enough. And I honestly think that it was because I cared Too much that I had to leave, because it was so detrimental to my own mental and physical health. Because I was, I was putting in so many extra hours trying to do the best job possible. I was taking home a lot of them concern and care about the students. I had some students and some really heartbreaking situations. And it just I took it to heart. And I think that's one of the reasons I decided to leave, right?

Luis Malbas  
Yeah, no, I did work at a school for a short time that. And it was the same thing for me it was there were too many situations there that we're really heartbreaking. And so I eventually just had to, I just had to leave and move on pretty much for my own mental health.

Kayleen Holt  
Yeah. And when you know, I had to work a second job to pay the bills. It didn't help with any of that, you know, it just adds to the stress and everything. It's true.

Luis Malbas  
So what are some things you wish you had known when you had started out in your career? Is there anything that if you can go back and talk to yourself as this Junior instructional designer and say, kaylene?

Kayleen Holt  
Well, I think the biggest thing is just having the competence. Like, you know, you you've got this girl, you did all of this when you were teaching, it's it's just a little bit different world. There are a few new things to learn, but you've got it, you know, and like I said, I, I was really fortunate to have some great mentors and some really good experiences when I started out. So I don't have any regrets. Like sometimes I think, Oh, I wish I had, you know, started freelancing earlier. Well, I needed the corporate experience. First, I needed that. You know, I wish I had started my business earlier. But I learned so much from from working with the other people that I worked with, so I am really happy with the trajectory I've taken.

Luis Malbas  
Nice, very nice. So if you weren't an instructional designer or an l&d professional, what do you think you would be?

Kayleen Holt  
I think I would probably be an artist or a writer. I that's what I do when I need to recharge as I go and get my acrylics and my canvases and I paint. Yeah, I love it. I don't know, honestly, like ever make a career out of it a because I don't know if things would sell and be I don't know if I would make enough money. But it's fun. I've also had several novels in the works over the years that I've never finished one of them's

Luis Malbas  
Wow, to do that. That's great. That's great. That's good. You know, and that's why I love these conversations, because I find this, this, this, this this stuff out. And it's really, really important to me. So if there is one thing that people should know about you, what is it?

Kayleen Holt  
Well, I think I've mentioned it several times, but I think you know, if I had a legacy to leave or something, I want people to know that I genuinely care. I am. Like I said, I live kind of an isolated life. I'm also an introvert so it's harder for me, really poster child introvert. It's harder for me to reach out to people I don't generally, you know, call people up just to chat. But if I call you a friend, that means I genuinely love you. And I think about you. And if you needed my help, I would do anything I could to help you. And even if I don't know you if you need help, I'm going to try to help you.

Luis Malbas  
Mm hmm. That is great. kayleen that is so wonderful to hear. Um, okay, well, we've done our 30 minutes, I'm going to go ahead and wrap it up. Where can people find you online? Is it okay, if I paste in your LinkedIn profile?

Kayleen Holt  
Absolutely. LinkedIn is a great place to find me online. Also it at Twitter, you can find you know, kailyn Holt, and I write a blog that you can find out new stuff every week. And that's at my website, which is scissortail CEUs. Calm, but you can also get there by kayleen. Holt calm, which is really easy to remember.

Luis Malbas  
I'm going to paste in the scissortail thing. Everybody. Caitlin's blog is great. Thank you post really wonderful articles. In fact, also you did one on accessible powerplay PowerPoint templates edit. Yeah, there it is. Yeah.

Kayleen Holt  
I was writing about accessibility all throughout July because it was Disability Pride Month. And I thought I was gonna finish up with last week. But that post ended up being really long and I need to I'm not finished yet. So I'll continue that on Monday.

Luis Malbas  
Yeah, your blog is a fantastic resource. I mean, I remember when I first met you, I'm like, Oh my gosh, she is she's really incredible here. It's, you've got some, some great stuff. So well, kailyn Thanks for sharing your time with us and letting us get to know you a little bit better. I really appreciate your support in the community. And I hope that we can probably put together another event soon. It's it's, I think you have so many incredible ideas and the fact that you care about people it really comes through especially like having done you know the little work that I have done with you It's obvious it's almost, um, I don't want to say surprising, but it just is. You're like, Wow, she legit cares about people. So it's,

Kayleen Holt  
I'm glad that comes across.

Luis Malbas  
Yeah, no, it's great. And Luis, it's

Kayleen Holt  
obvious that you do too. Thank you so much for everything you do for TL DC.

Luis Malbas  
Thank you so much. kaylene. Alright, everybody have a great weekend. We do have. I have some new sessions for our TLD cast to post for next week. I don't have them in the schedule yet. But you'll see them in the newsletter on Monday. I think we've got jack Pierce is going to be coming back next week with with something really, really interesting. She wants, he wants to talk about learning in the flow. And we have another member showcase to getting all my specifics about the next community day. Down here. We had a great member meetup yesterday. And that helped sort of solidify some of the things that I was thinking. So you'll see the community day announcement probably over this weekend. So another another bigger event coming up within the next month or so. So with that, everybody, thank you so much. Enjoy your weekend, and we'll see you next week. Hopefully. Thanks again, Caitlin. All right. Bye. Thank you, everyone.

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