A Day in the Life of an Instructional Designer at MIT
“What does an instructional designer actually do?” A quick Google search will pop up some amazing videos, podcasts, and blogs about a day in the life of an instructional designer from a corporate perspective or a freelance perspective. I didn’t see the same types of results though for higher education, and I have an educated guess as to why: it’s ridiculously hard to describe the typical day.
You see, I’ve been meaning to cover this topic for almost a year, however, I couldn’t think of the right way of conveying my day-to-day. Since I’m an ID in higher education, my life revolves around the seasons of the year or different quarters. One would assume that my day job would be relatively slow in the summer, but in reality, it’s my busiest time. I’m wearing my creative thinking hat to design all of my programs and to put the finishing touches on them before they go live in the fall. This then naturally means that my mentality in the fall changes where I put my design skills on the back burner and instead focus on logistics with uploading the content to the LMS, QA testing the functionalities, making sure the programs are properly staffed/trained, etc.
So, trying to describe the typical day is quite challenging. This post is my best effort though of capturing a snapshot of my life as a Senior Instructional Designer and Program Manager at MIT. I will note that your day-to-day could be completely different in another institution. There are so many factors that need to be accounted for that could change an instructional designer’s responsibilities. For instance, a few items that can and will change the role is budget, scope of the projects, size of the immediate team, and other factors. My team is relatively small so I have to wear many hats and that’s what you are going to read more about. What I’m going to describe might be different for you, but at least this will give you a general sense of an instructional designer’s responsibilities within higher education.
Now with that all out of the way, here is the day in the life of an instructional designer at MIT.
Research
Since I’m talking about MIT, research has to be involved. I’m not talking about advanced robots or finding the cures to viruses though. When I say research, I’m referring to the idea of a new program, the relevancy of the topic to the workforce, and the effectiveness of the designed material from the learner’s perspective.
Let’s first talk about how research is involved with coming up for the concept of a new program. There are programs out there on every single topic imaginable. How do you decide which ones to pursue? That’s where research comes into play. An idea will be brought forward from an internal member of the team or from an instructor, director, or dean. At this point in time, the idea needs to vetted. The program concept could be incredibly interesting, but if the target population for the program aren’t using education to solve the problem, no one is going to enroll. To determine the likelihood of enrollment, different points of data are utilized from Google and EMSI/Burning Glass. Experts in the field and other educators are also contacted to gauge the interest of the program’s concept. This has been a fascinating part of the job because I love connecting with others and hearing how they are currently approaching problems that I can then bring back into the program’s design. For instance, when I was developing a course on Critical Thinking and Decision Making for engineers, I used my network and connected with different kinds of engineers who the program would be designed for. This allowed me to gain a sense of how engineers viewed the concept of critical thinking and how their employers communicated the importance of critical thinking.
There is a fair amount of research at the end of the design phase of a program too. For my programs, I conduct a pilot program before they go live. To do this, I use a research approach called, “Explanatory Sequential Mixed Methods Approach.” In basic terms, this means that I collect survey data at the end of each week in a program. Once I’ve collected this data, I look for discrepancies I can’t explain and then form these into interview questions. I’ll then host focus groups or individual interviews to dive in deeper into these topics, which then helps me form my overall conclusion of how I’m going to change the design.
To give you an example of this, I can stick with the program of Critical Thinking and Decision Making. I designed this program in early 2020. Other countries were beginning to work remotely and I could sense that it was only a matter of time until this happened in the United States. I had a premonition that this was going to happen globally so I designed a problem where the learners had to envision themselves as a manager who had to use their critical thinking skills in order to determine when it would be safe to let employees go back to work. I interviewed the pilot program’s learners afterwards and they were amazed at how relevant this problem was to their role as they experienced remote life at the exact same time as completing the program. Many of these learners served on committees who had to tackle this problem in the real world and this problem absolutely resonated with them. Needless to say, this research process has made me grow leaps and bounds when it comes to creating the course assessments, activities, and exploratory content.
The final comment I have on research is writing research papers and presenting at conferences. This is fairly common in higher education and if you enjoy writing or public speaking, it’s a fun part of the job. You can read a white paper written by my colleagues and I on scenario-based learning with one of our programs here.
Design
The term “design” is in instructional designer after all so it’s safe to say that designing has to be in the typical day. How much you design will certainly change depending upon your organization and even your style. Personally, I like to design everything so when you click through each page and see the readings, activities, and assessments, I had a hand in creating them. The same can be said for creating the learning outcomes and program description. Someone has to think about what the learner’s journey is going to be like from reading the “Welcome” page all the way until they submit their final assignment. This process of being able to map out every single item the learner is going to experience is a part of being an instructional designer.
Let me stress this important point though in that an instructional designer should not be doing this alone. One question that I answer every week is, “Do I need to be an expert in XYZ subject to design a course on it?” The answer is a resounding no. Leadership courses are my sweet spot, but I’ve worked on courses about 3D printing, AI, and Cybersecurity. I’m not the expert on any of those topics. This is why it’s so important to develop meaningful relationships with subject matter experts (SMEs). The SMEs, in my case, are usually professors, recent graduates, and industry experts. Working with SMEs is an essential part of the design process to ensure that what you are describing in the program actually makes sense. A humungous part of my role is to be transparent with learners in showing how the content aligns from the learning outcomes, to the assessments, to the activities, and to the readings and videos. I want learners to understand the purpose of why they are doing something in the program and to never experience feeling like the content isn’t going to beneficial in the real world. Working with SMEs can help to illustrate these points.
Speaking of SMEs, one additional part to my role is partnering with the multimedia team and filming the SMEs. In my programs, professors and industry experts are filmed to share their knowledge and to provide both perspectives of academia and industry. Before these filming sessions, I outline the topics with SMEs to ensure that we touch upon each item for the designed week. Some SMEs ask for help with scripting these ideas while others come prepared with PPT decks. During the filming sessions, I’m attentively listening to how they share their knowledge and provide feedback along the way. Sitting in on these sessions has been vital to my job. I’ve had some SMEs completely forget to talk about certain topics or bring up brand new topics that we didn’t discuss. Some SMEs were nervous on camera and needed a bit of extra coaching to get them through the day. Whatever somebody needs as far as for feedback, guidance, and coaching, that’s why I’m there.
Communication
As much as I would love to say that design is the core of my role, I could make an argument that communication is the most significant component. My life revolves around Slack, Zoom, and Outlook. Even before working remotely, I still used the tools constantly. When I’m creating a program, I’m in touch with everyone at all times. I’m only one cog in the machine after all. There are other departments who need to be included in the design process such as marketing, multimedia, engineering, and customer support. I also obviously need to keep in close contact with my SMEs and my team members. If anything unexpected happens during the program’s progress, I have to inform the appropriate stakeholders. For instance, if the program’s progress is delayed, I would need to tell the marketing folks right away about the issue. If a SME wanted to use a specific simulation, I would need to ensure that it worked with our platform and consult the engineering team, run the numbers by marketing and finance, provide FAQs to customer support, and more. Everyone appreciates being in the loop and I try to do this as much as humanly as possible.
Another significant part of my role is public speaking. This isn’t typical for an instructional designer, but it has transformed my position. Public speaking is such a valuable ability and I beg you to start working on this skill. I mentioned before about presenting research at conferences, but that’s only every so often. Where I use my public speaking skills the most is with running meetings, presenting to different departments, performing a demo for another organization, sharing information with other universities, and other events. One unexpected bonus about public speaking has been my interactions with learners. The other day, one of our programs kicked off and someone had to run the webinar to welcome new learners. I volunteered because I was excited to welcome them into the program and to talk more about what they were going to experience for the next couple of months. I’m confident in saying that the more you grow in the instructional design space, the more you’ll need public speaking skills.
Management
Last, but not least is management. I will openly acknowledge that this is an unusual part of an instructional designer’s role, and others may experience something different, but managing projects and relationships is a typical part of my day. As you read earlier in this post, my title does have the term “Program Manager” in there for good measure. Once the programs have been designed, it’s my task to ensure they run smoothly. This includes checking the build within the LMS, hiring the staff, fixing bugs, responding to escalated questions, and other similar instances. Essentially, all maintenance and operations of programs are my responsibility.
Managing relationships is going to round out this list. By relationships, I mean creating partnerships with SMEs, vendors, and online program managers (OPMs). From everything I’ve discussed so far, maintaining relationships with SMEs is key to the job. Without a healthy relationship, the project could fall off the rails quickly. If you are new to working with SMEs, this video will help you. In regards to vendors and OPMs, it’s extremely common in the ID field to work with other organizations. They can be incredibly beneficial if you lack the people power or the time for projects. Throughout my career, I’ve found myself being in the position of overseeing projects and providing feedback before signing off on them. It’s like being the middle person between two organizations and making sure that everyone is thrilled with the end result. Working alongside vendors and OPMs has been quite the learning process. They don’t report to you and you don’t report to them, but you are in the projects together. Without a mutual level of respect and a healthy balance of giving and receiving feedback, your projects will fall apart. From connecting with many vendors and OPMs over the years, my advice is to do your research when it comes to working together. Figure out their strengths and where they can help you. Be kind, be honest, and build the necessary rapport to make well developed products together.
Folks, that is it. That’s the day in the life of Instructional Designer at MIT. It’s impossible to showcase exactly what your role might be like as an instructional designer within higher education as each organization is different, however, I hope this provides some insight into my world.
Stay nerdy out there.
Mentioned Links:
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Trainings and Business
Want to take your higher education instructional design skills to the next level? Check out Instructional Design Institute.
Thinking of corporate instructional design? Check out IDOL Courses Academy
Thinking about making your own online courses / creating your own business? Check out Kajabi.
Recording a podcast or conducting interviews online? Check out SquadCast.
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