Instructional design is a growing career in education and corporate training. Jobs include creating online courses, developing assessments, and writing course content. Contract and remote positions are common.
Instructional design is a relatively new and growing career. People in this field usually work in education, but instructional design jobs are available in the corporate world as well. Regardless of the industry, most instructional design work includes assessing students’ educational needs and developing programs to meet those needs. Many instructional design jobs are in the area of online education, but instructional designers sometimes work in the publishing industry, creating print materials as well.
Some instructional designers create and structure online course content. They may work with a professor or other subject matter expert who writes the course content. The instructional designer organizes content in a variety of ways to better facilitate learning. The instructional designer usually considers the specific needs of the students who will be taking the courses so that he can design the lessons accordingly. For this type of instructional design career, web or graphic design experience is often the most important skill.
Other instructional design careers focus on creating assessments. These jobs require instructional designers to analyze course materials and create an appropriate testing system to measure student learning. The instructional designer is responsible for choosing the appropriate type of assessment tool and structuring it to capture the most important points of the course. Experience in teaching or assessment development is useful for this type of career.
Instructional design jobs in some industries may focus more on writing than design. In these jobs, the instructional designer creates original course content that is reviewed and edited by subject matter experts for accuracy and appropriateness. Further work in this area will involve repurposing content to another type of media. Most often this involves adapting printed materials for newly created online courses. Solid writing experience and a degree in education are the most important requirements for these instructional design jobs.
While many instructional design jobs are in school and higher education, these careers can also be found in the corporate world. Instructional designers can develop courses for corporate training programs, many of which are online. People who work in corporate training departments as instructors may have an easier time transitioning into this type of instructional design career. Some works of this type combine classroom teaching with instructional design in a single position. These jobs usually take place in large companies that have in-house training and development departments.
Instructional design jobs can be permanent, but contractual positions are common. In a contract position, the designer works for a defined period on a specific project and the work ends when the project is completed. Some instructional designers are able to work from home, as most of the work is done in an online environment.
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