Paul Walker

Background

About Paul Walker

Learning and growth—throughout my life, these two things have become increasingly important to me. As a teacher for over eight years, I enjoyed helping young people to learn and grow. And now, as an education architect, I get to guide adults through their professional learning and growth. I have realized how important my own learning and growth are to me as well. I began my career as a middle-school Spanish teacher. That was such a fun role. After a few years, though, I felt like something was missing. What I needed was a new challenge. I made a slight career shift into teaching science and psychology at a therapeutic boarding school. This was a big, important step in my career growth. Not only was I now teaching multiple subjects, like biology, chemistry, physics, Earth science, and psychology (as well as wood working), I was now working at a school where personal growth was as important as academic learning. This role gave me the opportunity to get to know my students much better as I worked on a treatment team with therapists and residential staff to assist these young people grow outside of the classroom and meet their therapeutic goals. After five years, it was time for me to grow my career in a different way. At first, I wasn’t quite sure what that would look like. I did some job searching, as well as some soul searching. I realized that I wanted to continue helping others to learn and grow. So, I made another career shift into instructional design and training. In order to make that change, I needed some new skills. So, I did my research and I taught myself how to use Storyline. With my newly acquired skill, I began work as an education architect at Intermountain Health. In this role, my growth has become exponential. Not only did I utilize and strengthen my new skills in eLearning development, I also spent my first year obtaining certification as a principle trainer in Resolute Billing in Epic’s electronical medical records (EMR) software. At the same time, I studied and became a Certified Instructional Technologist through the Mager Consortium’s Criteria Referenced Instruction program. I continue to learn new skills as an education architect, including collaborating with stakeholders, subject matter experts, and project managers to create instructional materials relevant to important organizational projects. I regularly instruct courses on patient access and billing using Epic’s EMR software, as well as soft skills class on customer service. I am always looking for that next opportunity to learn and grow, and to help others do the same.