Staff Spotlight: Angela Liang Xiong
This month, we’re spotlighting Learning Designer Angela Xiong! In the blog post below, Angela tells us more about herself and her work with Distance Learning.
How long have you worked here? How did you come to join the DL team / get involved in distance education?
I have been working at Northwestern since June 2020. My transition to becoming an instructional designer as my profession started in 2003, when I was in graduate school majoring in instructional technology. My dissertation research focused on the comparative study of how culture influences online collaborative behaviors.
After two years of part-time online teaching, I was hired by different universities successively, where I was involved in technology integration, training and workshops, and online course/program development. I witnessed how distance education in higher ed was evolving and experienced how I, as a change agent, initiated the change by collaborating with faculty members to develop innovative online courses/programs for adult learners.
Describe your typical “Day in the Life.”
Typically, I start my day with fifteen minutes of morning yoga. Then I grab a cup of hot tea and begin checking emails and my daily calendar to identify my busy vs. focus time of the day. My schedule is different every day depending on my prioritized tasks and time reserved for meetings.
During my busy time, I either check in with my team members to finalize meeting agendas, coach faculty developers during course development meetings, provide status updates to stakeholders, or work on requests from faculty developers during consultation sessions. During my focus time, I either work on grades for the course design or online teaching workshops, build Canvas sites, research new technologies or strategies used in course development projects, or browse LinkedIn posts to generate some ideas for distance learning blogs.
What’s something about your job that might surprise readers?
There are many roles for learning designers, but the most critical role is to be a relationship builder. To be specific, a learning designer must take the time to establish rapport with faculty developers, stakeholders, and team members to get to know them professionally and understand them better.
What’s your favorite resource or tool that not many people know about?
I am excited to learn new tools and research how they can help students learn. I recently explored two open-source, multiplatform flashcard programs: Anki and Quizlet. They can be a powerful learning activity in a course to help students learn new concepts and terminologies faster and more efficiently. Plus, the tools’ usage statistics can help instructors evaluate how students are mastering key concepts in the course materials.
Tell us something you’re passionate about.
I am fortunate to have a cross-cultural heritage. Respecting and valuing the diversity of people is deeply in my mindset and guides me in my design practices and at my workplace.
I am especially passionate about being a cultural exchange ambassador between China and the U.S. With globalization, understanding the two countries’ cultural norms, values, beliefs, and customs, as well as ordinary people’s daily lives, can help each other bridge the gap, bring more opportunities for collaboration, and make the world a more peaceful place to live. My past experiences in this area have included: hosting delegations to visit Chicago and major corporations, translating business documents, teaching Chinese in college, tutoring my children in Chinese, helping Chinese teachers with technology integration, and writing research papers focusing on online collaborative behaviors among culturally diverse learners.
This year, I plan to help my father donate his historic memorial book to the libraries of Northwestern University, the University of Chicago, and the Chinese American Museum of Chicago, as well as his overseas friends’ libraries. The story opened a new chapter of friendship between China and the U.S. The book, written by my dad, depicts the lives of his grandfather and 120 other young Chinese students who were sent to the U.S. to receive training in Western engineering and technology for the Chinese Educational Mission in the late 1800s. After they returned to China 15 years later, they served the Qing Dynasty and contributed their talents and knowledge to railways, coal mining, business, and education. The book, titled Commemorating Collection: The Legacy Left for us by Mr. Hong Rong and Young Chinese Students: Exploration, Patriot, Pragmatic, and Tolerance, vividly describes the legacy of this historical event. As a proud descendant, this is also my living motto, guiding me to live life to the fullest.
The Distance Learning team is part of the Northwestern School of Professional Studies (SPS). To keep up with news, staff spotlights, online education insights and more, subscribe to the DL newsletter (The DL Digest), follow us on our departmental LinkedIn, and check out the rest of the Distance Learning blog!