My journey into instructional design began with inspiration from my father, a university English professor who studied abroad in England. His dedication to education and global perspective encouraged me to dream big and pursue studies abroad.

After earning my undergraduate degree in Burkina Faso, I applied to The Ohio State University. I didn’t get in and I was deeply disappointed. But I didn’t give up. I kept going and was eventually accepted at West Virginia University, where I became a graduate teaching assistant and completed a master’s in Foreign Languages with a focus on French and TESOL. Later, I earned another master’s in Public Administration with a concentration in healthcare, hoping to work in hospitals or nonprofit organizations. When that path didn’t pan out, my wife suggested something new: instructional design.

That advice changed everything.

I discovered a field that combined my love for teaching and technology. I pursued a Ph.D. in Instructional Design and began working in the field, first at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, then at the University of Notre Dame, Purdue University Fort Wayne, and currently, at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. I also consulted in the corporate environment.

Over the past 10+ years, I’ve collaborated with SMEs, designers, institutions, and businesses on a wide range of learning projects. Along the way, I realized that one crucial skill was often missing from our toolkit: project management. I had to learn it the hard way, by trial and error.

That gap is what inspired me to write The Instructional Designer’s Guide to Project Management. This book is for instructional designers who manage courses, collaborate with SMEs, juggle deadlines, and balance multiple expectations, yet may not have formal project management tools to support them.

Instructional design isn’t just about content and pedagogy. It’s about leadership, planning, communication, and execution.

I hope my resources and book help you work with more clarity, less stress, and greater impact.

My Journey

Education

Ph.D. Instructional Design and Technology, University of Nebraska-Lincoln

Master of Arts, Public Administration, and Certification in Healthcare Administration, West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV

Master of Arts, Foreign Languages with a dual concentration in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) and French. West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV

Bachelor of Arts, Literature and Foreign Civilizations. Ouagadougou, Burkina

Professional Experience

Learning Designer: Gies College of Business, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, IL

Senior Instructional Consultant/Designer: Center for the Enhancement of Learning and Teaching (CELT), Purdue University Fort Wayne, IN.

Educational Technologist: Center for the Study of Languages and Cultures (CSLC), University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN

Instructional Design Technology Specialist: Office of Online and Distance Education, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, NE

Consultant/Contractor: I4 Instructional Design, Franklin University, Columbus, OH

Freelancer: Williams Group Lincoln, NE

Teaching Experience

Assistant Teaching Professor (Adjunct): Kaneb Center for Teaching Excellence, University of Notre Dame, IN

French Graduate Teaching Assistant: West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV

Awarded Grants

Brightspace Innovation Grant Purdue University. Funding for evaluating Brightspace Student Success System (a predictive analytics tool). Guieswende Rouamba, Marcia Dixon. $16,000 ~ Awarded 2020.

Open Educational Resources (OER) Grant. A Proposal for Raising OER Awareness and Implementation at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL). Funding for educating and raising awareness about OER at UNL. Marie Barber, Heath Tuttle, Andrew J. Cano, Michael Jolley, Sushma Jolly, Catherine Fraser Riehle, Bradley Severa, Stefanie J. Zahourek, Guieswende Rouamba. $50,000 ~ Awarded 2017

Graduate Student Assembly Special Projects Grants Program. Funding for designing a self-paced online professional development module (via Canvas) to equip GTAs with a knowledge of Universal Design Principles to develop inclusive face-to-face and online courses. $1000 ~ Awarded 2017

College of Arts & Sciences Instructional Improvement Fund. Funding for preparing graduate assistants to teach online: An online professional development training course for Arts & Sciences graduate teaching assistants and graduate students. Guieswende Rouamba and Michael Jolley, University of Nebraska-Lincoln. $10,000 ~ Awarded 2016

Publications

Duan X., Wang C. & Rouamba G. (2022). Designing a Learning Analytics Dashboard to Provide Students with Actionable Feedback and Evaluating Its Impacts. In Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Computer Supported Education - Volume 2: CSEDU, ISBN 978-989-758-562-3, pages 117-127. DOI: 10.5220/0011116400003182

Rouamba, G. & Dixson M. (2021) Evaluating the Creation, Adoption, and Implementation of a Scalable Predictive Model for Student Persistence Using Brightspace Student Success System (S3). [Unpublished]

Olmanson, J., Falls, Z., & Rouamba, G. (2017). Historical analysis: Tracking, problematizing, and reterritorializing achievement and the achievement gap. In African American Children in Early Childhood Education (Vol. 5, pp. 57-84). Emerald Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1108/S2051-23172017000000500

Olmanson, J., Abebe, F., Jones, V., Kyle, E., Lucas, L., Robbins, K., Rouamba, G., Liu, X. (2015). Caught in the tractor beam of larger influences: The filtration of innovation in education technology design. In ICEDT 2015 (Vol. 9 (7), pp. 1838–1842). Oslo, Norway: World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology.

Conferences

French, E., Rouamba, G., (2024). The Promise of Usability Testing: Advancing User-Centered Design and Limiting Barriers to Equitable Instruction. 2024 Online Learning Consortium Conference (Innovate), Denver Colorado.

Rouamba, G., French, E., Martiniak, R., (2023). Building with Intention: The Business of Scaling Better Design Practices [Presentation]. 2023 Faculty Summer Institute Full Program, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

Weibing, Y., & Rouamba, G. (2020). Re-Thinking assessment for online teaching: A series of Zoom presentations on remote Chinese teaching for Chinese language teachers [Presentation]. San Francisco State University.

Rouamba, G. (2019). Graduate student perceptions of an online college teaching institute for online teaching [Paper Presentation] Online Learning Consortium (OLC) Innovate, Denver Colorado.

Weibing, Y., & Rouamba, G. (2018). Students’ video production using Adobe Spark [Paper Presentation]. CALICO Conference, Champaign, Illinois.

Rouamba, G. H., & Rouamba, N. H. (2016). Using videos as an alternative to traditional assessment to enhance student learning and engagement in large classroom [Paper Presentation]. Online Learning Consortium (OLC) Accelerate, Orlando, Florida.

Rouamba, G. H. (2016). Tools and services you don’t know you have access to [Presentation]. Digital Humanities Boot Camp, Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Rouamba, G. H. (2015). Enhancing self-directed learning in blended and online courses [Paper Presentation]. Distance Teaching and Learning Conference, Madison, Wisconsin.

Rouamba, G. H. (2015). Voyageur: mobile application [Presentation]. University of Nebraska-Lincoln Spring 2015 Research Fair.

Rouamba, G. H. (2015). Interactive table: Course management in Blackboard [Symposium Contribution]. University of Nebraska-Lincoln Learning and Teaching Symposium

Daher, T., & Rouamba, G. H. (2015). Enhancing self-directed learning in blended and online courses [Workshop]. Winter Interim Workshop, College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources, University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Curriculum Vitae