Matthew Nishimoto, Ph.D.

At the intersection of professional learning & development, process leadership, and creative design, lies my passion—leading an organizational culture of learning focused on the elevation of individuals within their roles, accomplished through the crafting of meaningful learning solutions that transform vision into outcomes. 

Every solution I create is built on three core principles:

  1. The design is learner-centric

  2. The decisions are solution-focused

  3. The approach is outcome-driven.

  • 20+ Years of Practical Teaching Experience

    Over two decades of teaching experience from K-12 through University level in multiple contexts—online, in-person, and blended—with a wide range of learner profiles.

  • Professional Developer & Learning Coordinator

    Crafted professional development including eLearning, Instructor-Led Workshops, and Mentoring Programs. Coordinated the vision-driven learning opportunities at international conference events.

  • Academic, Author, Lecturer

    Ph.D. and an M.Ed. in the fields of education and organizational leadership. Published in peer-reviewed academic journals and professional publications. Successful experience as a lecturer, presenter, public speaker, and round-table moderator.

  • Learning Leader & Advocate

    Held/hold positions in multiple professional organizations—Director of Education, Education Coordinator, Executive Board Member, National Council Member, Recruitment Communications & Online Resources Officer

Portfolio

Outline Storyboard - sample page

  • Outline storyboards are text-only outlines of learning. These storyboards breakdown the learning into individual slides/screens. This process also sets up file naming conventions

    This type of storyboard is utilized when the basic design (sequence, approach, assessment) must be approved prior to deeper design (layout, graphics, interactives). The outline storyboard also can address sequence issues early on in the planning phase rather than later in the more time-consuming design phase. Further, utilizing a outline storyboard can facilitate progress oversight and project management.

  • This particular page is from a FERPA (Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act) compliance training for graduate assistants and administrative assistants in a college. This storyboard utilized a template based on academic research in interactivity-passivity in instructional design.

    I developed this template to focus on three elements: passive content, interactive content, and assessment. Generally, two out of the three of these elements will expand at the expense of the other. Using this template during the design phase, it is ensured that there is a balance of the three across modules and the entire course.

  • Microsoft Office (could also be authored in Google Docs or other word processing programs)

Visual Storyboard - sample slides

  • Visual storyboards are text and graphic layout outlines of the learning. These types of storyboards are used to visualize and contextualize the proposed product prior to development and implementation.

    Visual storyboards are especially useful for team projects wherein parts of the the project are assigned to various departments or individuals (e.g., graphics, marketing, communications). It is useful when the team, SME, stakeholders, and/or clients need to approve specific content and layout considerations.

    Visual storyboards can also be used to more specifically estimate development timelines and budget.

  • Tables outside of the slide area are used for a variety of reasons, first being text content. This is especially useful for slides/screens where content is overlaid or overlapping such as rollover text (see the first slide in the sample).

    An outside table is also used for development instructions. This may seem a redundant or “overplanning” action, but delineating animations, actions, transitions, and advancement triggers in the design phase will ultimately save time in the development phase as issues can be addressed before time is invested in creating these effects.

    Finally, a dedicated and centrally located table is used for slide reference/identification, stakeholder comments, and approvals. This table is the most useful for team communication. The stakeholder or SME simply inputs their comments in the space provided then communicates to the team “See my comments on LET_1.4” through email, text, or a professional communication platform like Slack. The use of this table and process attaches feedback and comments to the specified slide in issue. These comments are not lost in emails or texts. When development begins, there is a record of comments, questions, and concerns directly on the storyboard to facilitate structuring.

  • Microsoft Powerpoint with iSpring Suite

Information Deck

  • Information Decks are meant to share information without the need for a presenter. They are usually text-heavy with explanatory visuals such as charts, graphs, and visual flows.

  • This particular information deck is intended to address timeline concerns of instructional design clients; to familiarize clients with basic types of instructional design, the average length of modular training, and the average timeline for development.

    Canva was chosen as the authoring tool due to the ease of sending a clickable link rather than forcing a client to download a PPTX or PDF. It is compatible with mobile devices, so the link can be shared via text messaging or easily sent/clicked on a communication platform such as Slack.

  • Canva

    As mentioned above, Canva was chosen due to the ease of sending a clickable link and compatibility with mobile devices (rather than the alternative of sending a file, PPTX or PDF).

Branching Support Module

  • Support Modules are usually part of a larger course or training but are focused on supporting the learner rather than assessing them. These modules could be comprehensive lists of available resources to assist learners their role, providing helpful ideas to inspire innovation, or even encouragement to provide a sense of well-being or to ease a transition to a new role or workplace.

    A branching support module provides further individualized support by helping the learner identify areas of needs then providing guidance in those areas.

    As with this example, branching support modules work well with developmental action plans for the learner.

  • This e-learning module was part of a large online induction program created for a very specific audience: new guitar educators in the K-12 classroom setting.  The goal of the program was in the name itself, STRINGEd or Support, Training, Resources, & Induction for New Guitar Educators.  Besides support, the program awarded a microlearning badge at the conclusion for teachers to use toward teaching evaluations and in certain states, relicensure.

    For the entirety of the induction program modules, time constraints were a concern: new teachers have notoriously time-exhaustive schedules. For this reason, the design allowed for self-pacing as well as the ability to complete modules in any order. Lengthy assessments or expectations of time-consuming engagement were avoided or optional.

  • Module revised for this portfolio and is an embedded SCORM in Amazon AWS (currently migrating).

    The original course was authored in Adobe Captivate and managed on a Moodle LMS

Training Module

  • Training Modules, especially e-learning training modules, are arguably the most recognizable design and product in instructional design (possibly only equaled by instructor-led training designs).

    An eLearning Training Module is generally online, asynchronous, self-paced, and auto-assessed.

    Although this type of training may be considered strict, straight-forward, and inflexible, these attributes lend well to compliance, policy, and procedural training.

  • This is a sample from a compliance training created for Graduate Assistants (instructors) in a College of Education.

    This sample training module represents the introductory and concluding sections of training. These were chosen to showcase that training modules require initial understanding, importance justification, and concretely defined terms in the introduction section as well as summary conclusions, final summative assessments, learner feedback opportunities, and additional and/or referential resources in the final section.

    Each section is roughly 5-8 minutes so that progression could be tracked (and returned to later by the user). The total course including the omitted content was roughly 25 minutes total.

    This could be considered a singular module at that length and developed that way. The decision to break up the content into smaller topic submodules was to allow progression tracking and due to graduate students’ concerns of time management that were expressed during the needs assessment. Also, this was not the only compliance training that was required, so this allowed the GAs to “jump around” content between different modules and learn on their terms.

  • Original training developed in Adobe Captivate and hosted on the university LMS

    Current sample adapted to ‘SquareSpace Courses’

Needs Analysis Summary

  • The Needs Analysis Summary consolidates the key issues, roles, data, findings, and recommendations into a short one to two page document.  Recommendations for the learning design are delineated (or it may be concluded that training is not the appropriate solution).

    The Needs Analysis Summary is typically the first formal document produced when starting an instructional design project. Prior to this, the only existing materials would be meeting notes and the raw collected data.

    A needs analysis differs from a needs assessment in that the assessment addresses whether there is a need based on the issue, where as the analysis explores why the issue exists.

  • This summary is qualitative in nature. A quantitative summary would include visual charts and graphs visualizing the data that supports the findings.

    Other summary formats follow a “who, what, when, where, how, and why” layout or step-by-step recounting of what occurred in the needs analysis. These tend to be long-winded and take several pages. Generally, those reviewing project (clients, project leaders, etc.) want a succinct summary: that the issue is understood, data has been gathered about it, and conclusions are based on the data using solid methods of analysis.

  • Microsoft Office (could also be authored in Google Docs or other word processing programs)

Contact me

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