Hi there, I’m Emily! 👋 Welcome to Hired Humanities, a biweekly newsletter devoted to helping humanities students build careers on their own terms.
Hello, dear readers! Last time, I shared my plan to dedicate the next few issues of Hired Humanities to unpacking the roles I’ve held since leaving academia. I’m continuing on that promise this week with a closer look at instructional design.
I’m particularly excited to tell you about my role as an instructional designer because it's a great fit for former academics who love teaching and a growing field with plenty of financial opportunity. According to Inside Higher Ed, demand for instructional design has grown over 20% since 2004, and instructional designers earn an average salary of $84,421.
Read on to learn more about the field and how to get started building a career in instructional design.
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What is it?
Wikipedia defines instructional design as “the practice of systematically designing, developing and delivering instructional products and experiences, both digital and physical, in a consistent and reliable fashion toward an efficient, effective, appealing, engaging and inspiring acquisition of knowledge.” Sounds just the stuff you do when teaching your undergraduates, right?
Not exactly. If you take a closer look at this definition, you’ll find that goals of instructional design aren’t quite the same as college-level humanities courses, especially around the efficient piece. While humanities professors teach students how to problematize knowledge, instructional designers aim to help learners internalize and apply what they’ve learned quickly. That’s not to say that instructional design is about dumbing down concepts; instead, it’s focused on continually improving and developing the instructional processes so that they have the greatest impact.
As with PR, instructional design is a broad field with different roles and applications. Instructional designers — i.e. the people designing the instructional experiences— can find work both in education and in a wide range of industries, including tech. Many universities are hiring instructional designers to expand their online course offerings, while large companies may have instructional designers on-staff to build out their training and learning and development (L&D) programs. Additionally, many freelance instructional designers work on a project basis with major companies and institutions.
How I got there
I found instructional design largely by chance. After several years of working in PR, I realized that I missed teaching and was starting to think about roles and industries that would allow me to exercise that muscle more. Around this time I connected with another former Classicist who worked at a learning-tech startup in San Francisco. Eventually, an instructional design position at the company opened up, and they encouraged me to apply as I had expressed interest in returning to education.
What was the day-to-day like?
As an in-house instructional designer at the startup, I primarily designed courses for our customers in our web app. My day-to-day work schedule was highly dependent on the mix of projects I had on my plate, but I spent quite a bit of time on customer calls, conducting needs analysis for their courses and learners, or reviewing deliverables with them. I also spent time training customers on the web-app and advising them on curriculum design best practices and managing teams of external instructional designers.
How to get started
Get familiar with the methodology and technology
If you’re a graduate student who has taught, you’re likely familiar with many instructional design concepts, but knowing how to talk about these concepts like an instructional designer is key when you’re looking for jobs in the field.
Start by familiarizing yourself with instructional design methodology. One of the most popular models is ADDIE, which stands for analysis, design, development, implementation, and evaluation. Additionally, if you’re like me and didn’t have great TA training in graduate school (uh, what’s a learning objective again?), it doesn’t hurt to pick up some books about learning design. One of my all-time favorites is Design for How People Learn.
While instructional design isn’t limited to online training, many jobs require experience with digital platforms like Adobe Captivate and Articulate. Adobe offers reduced education pricing for Captivate, but if you don’t have the opportunity to use a learning design platform for your current teaching engagements, you can familiarize yourself with the software via YouTube tutorials.
Build your portfolio
If you’re currently in a graduate program and are teaching, you’re in a great position to start building your instructional design experience. Are there ways you can apply instructional design methodology to your curriculum, or can you get creative with different activities? If you don't have the authority or bandwidth to do these things (we are in a pandemic, after all), try thinking about how you’d translate your class into an asynchronous online format.
When it comes to building a portfolio, try gathering your syllabi and teaching materials in a Google Drive or Dropbox folder so you can easily share them if people want to see examples of your work. If you want to go the extra mile, creating a personal page where you can share more information about your research and courses is a great way to start building an online presence. Check out my friend Ida’s site for a great example of how to do this.
Certificates and additional degrees
As demand for instructional design has grown, more and more certificate and graduate programs are cropping up online. Overall, I don’t think it’s necessary to have a specific instructional design degree to get started in the field. There are a ton of great free or low-cost tutorials online, and if you’re still part of a university, you may even be able to audit courses or get guidance through your school’s teaching center.
If you are interested in exploring instructional design programs, be sure to do your research ahead of time and analyze the cost and time investment. Ask what their placement rates are and what type of career support you’d receive.
A Parting Note
Thanks for tuning in this week! Please don't hesitate to drop me a line if you have questions or feedback. And, if you think someone else in your life would love to receive this newsletter in their inbox, feel free to spread the word.
Cheers,
Emily
P.S. Have a burning career question you’d like to see covered in a future issue of Hired Humanities? Submit it here.✨
Reading List
A few of my favorite links
🎧 I found this episode of HBR’s podcast, Women at Work, during a recent catchup-listening session particularly insightful.
🔎 We’ve been celebrating Women’s History Month at work and I’ve loved exploring the National Women’s History Museum’s collection of biographies.
🐟 This article about fish farming from the New Yorker takes a closer look at the local impact of a global industry.