Introduction
Instructional designers in a higher education environment wear many different hats on a daily basis. The designer understands there are differences in how adult students learn as opposed to the way children learn. You will rely upon and apply this knowledge to the best of your ability in designing effective, engaging, learning experiences for the student while aiming for ease in facilitation for the instructor. Let’s take a look at what a typical instructional designer may face on any typical work day in the higher education world.
Training
If you are hired as an instructional designer in a higher education institution, your role at some point in time may involve acting as a trainer. Often times, one challenge you will face as a designer training faculty who are not comfortable with technology, or, the learning management system (LMS) selected by the institution. This is where the instructional designer may need to step in and create learning modules for training faculty on how to use the new LMS, or, provide one-on-one training. Even if your institution requires faculty to complete a training course for certification to teach online, there will be instances where certified faculty have forgotten their training on how to accomplish a specific task within the LMS. They will need assistance from the instructional designer to walk them through step-by-step how to complete the task at hand. This may involve meeting with the faculty member in person, emailing step-by-step screenshots and instructions on how to troubleshoot and fix an issue, speaking over the phone to walk the faculty member through step-by-step, or, if necessary, through video conferencing to screen share with the faculty member and show them how to complete the necessary steps to achieve the desired task.
Take into consideration there may be some obstacles to assisting faculty. Time constraints and physical location may play a large role in which resolution style will work for you and a faculty member. The instructional designer may be located stateside, while a faculty member may be teaching oversees. In this event, time zones could become a great challenge in conducting a phone or web conference.
Training is always something an instructional designer must be prepared to be involved in. You must be able to communicate step-by-step instructions adequately to the faculty you are working with. In this instance, there is a need for excellent verbal, written and visual communication skills on the part of the designer. The communication skills you have learned about in previous chapters will be invaluable to you. Be sure to practice those communication skills on a regular basis and, when the time comes, you will be ready. In the box below, you will find a potential training scenario that you may face as an instructional designer. Think about how you might handle and resolve this issue. If the faculty member were located across the world and they are having urgent problems wit