A Day in the Life of a Senior Instructional Designer

Four years ago, I created a video called the day in the life of an instructional designer at MIT. I wanted to create this content because I heard from folks asking to describe my day-to-day and what it’s like to work in higher education as an ID. It was quite tricky to map out this content as each day brings a new challenge and depending upon the quarter will change things. For instance, my summers are incredibly busy because I’m preparing for the new programs to launch in the fall. Even though it was difficult to do this, it seemed to help thousands of you.

Maybe you are like me and have grown in your career. You are now staring down the pathway to become a senior instructional designer or a similar promotion. Perhaps you are thinking of making the leap to the next chapter. What does the day in the life of a senior instructional designer look like? Some things are the same as an ID and others are completely unique. Let’s attempt to break down this position and what you could be in store for.

In the last video, I mentioned that my job revolved around 5 themes:

Learning design
Project Management
Relationship Management
Research
Technology

Imagine these 5 themes as a pie chart. Depending upon the day, the percentages of these could change. For the majority though, the focus was on learning design (designing the learning experiences), project management, and relationship management. The core of the job revolved around designing learning experiences, but in order to do this effectively, I had to manage these projects with ensuring everything was on track for timelines, deadlines, budget, deliverables, etc. Relationship management, the most underrated skill as an ID, was key as I worked with SMEs and faculty members on a daily basis. There was a balancing act of making sure everyone was on the same page and allowing me to move forward with designs. Research came from piloting programs and diving in to data for ideas and course revisions. Technology came from the actual building of the learning experiences, which usually happened at the end of the project’s life cycle.

Now, as a senior instructional designer, the themes differ even more and I would add extra bullet points of leadership and strategic thinking. I’ll get to those in a second. Let’s first revisit the job functions. I would say that now, the majority of my time is spent on project management and relationship management. Even though I still design learning experiences, they are far and few between. In actuality, I’m overseeing the design process, ensuring that they meet the level of quality and creativity one would expect from an MIT online course. I’m also hyperaware that I represent my division’s brand at MIT and everything must follow guidelines and protocols that align with our vision.

To this extent, I would also add that research has kicked up several notches. I’m responsible for staying up to date with trends and educational findings. If there is an innovative and groundbreaking method that could impact a process, workflow, design, or something else, I need to know about it. This is also why I am so immersed in the AI space. While many updates online about AI are just noise, a few discoveries could impact our world. Looking at you Sora. I’m also staying on top of the latest with learning sciences and strategies. If there is a direction that I believe we should incorporate as a team, I’ll be bringing this up.

Research also intersects with one of the new bullet points, strategic thinking. I always perceived these as some buzz words that seems to be on every job posting. What does it actually mean to be a strategic thinker? For me, it’s to analyze a situation and to find solutions and to plan ahead. For instance, let’s say that we want to research a new proposal and to see if this could map out to a successful program. I need to map this to a type of confidence interval to say that the program has a chance to do well. This means learning more about the program’s topics, what products already exist, what people are saying about the field, where the field is going, etc. This usually involves working with additional product team members, marketing, and faculty. After this, it involves thinking about who is the person or team to teach and develop the program and organizing every detail about the new project.

This has been a fascinating learning curve as some of my suggestions have been turned into courses. I’ve also read proposals that I honestly thought were not going to do well and I pushed back on them. One program comes to mind where I swore up and down that it wasn’t going to work. In my opinion, it was too long, and it was going to be too challenging for learners. Seeing how much the team believed in the project though made me curb my feelings and trust them instead. Believing in the team was the best idea I’ve ever had since that program is one of our highest rated programs now. Yes, it’s longer in nature and yes, it’s challenging, but it attracted the right kind of learners who loved the program. This is all to say that I’m involved in many calls and meetings that ask for my input and help with thinking things through.

I think the biggest change has been with leadership. I’d say this goes into two categories with serving on committees and having direct reports. I’m not a fan at all of the term “thought leadership,” but it does fit with a part of my job. I have to serve on committees and meetings to share what I think about an idea or process. This could mean that I’m representing my division to share opinions on behalf of the team or I’m there as an individual to help with instructional design or online learning components. Since I manage several programs, if anyone has an internal question about them or pitching a new idea, I’m roped in.

With leadership comes leading people and honestly, I love it. One feeling I have learned over the years is to appreciate other’s perspectives. I could see a topic in one way, and then another person on my team will mention their point of view. It could be something I would have never thought about before and this process has helped me to develop more as a leader. I’ve also truly enjoyed helping team members to grow. Whatever their goals are, I do my best to support them and find new ways to find projects that align with these goals.

Of course, this does come with some challenges too. The most significant challenge for me was figuring out how to add these responsibilities into my schedule. For the first month, I felt like I was performing a completely different job and it slowly became a new normal. Now, I don’t think anything of it, but that’s certainly a heads-up for you first time leaders!

If I were to add one more theme into my list of responsibilities, it would be becoming the “go-to” person for knowledge or putting out fires. It was an odd transition going from being the person to report to my boss about a problem to being like wait, I’m now the one who has to solve this kind of problem. This isn’t to say that my boss isn’t available for talking things through, but I’m the decision maker for a variety of items. It takes some getting used to, but now it’s a natural part of the job.

And that folks is the day in the life of a senior instructional designer! Your role could be different from mine, but these have been my experiences over the last 3 years. I hope you found these insights helpful

If you are a senior instructional designer, is there anything else you would add to this list? Did anything surprise you when you took on the role? Leave a comment down below!

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