Designing Instructional Design Courses

Labor | By: Sumit Arora (02/09/12) Views: 87

Most people draw a blank face when you ask them about Instructional Design (ID). The truth is that although relatively unheard, good ID is behind every successful teaching or training experience that one has. Instructional Designers are responsible for effective, efficient, and appealing courses, training manuals, online training courses, and classroom sessions.

Instructional Designers earn a respectable salary and are employed by multinational organizations for their corporate training programs. If you want to start as an Instructional Designer, then you can follow several approaches:

Build your knowledge base: Even if you do not have a degree or certificate in Instructional Design, you can start you career by studying about the job. Study learning theories, ID principles, and technical know-how to communicate with graphic artists and programmers. You can study more about ID through the following resources:

Take online Webinars, seminars, and courses on ID.
Enroll in training magazine networks.
Read books and other published material on instructional design.
Participate in learning circuits and other forums on training design.
Read websites on instructional design and follow blogs.
Register in certificate programs on instructional design.

2. Self networking: The best way to start your career is to build a good, old-fashioned network. To build a network, you can:

Join a professional conference on instructional design such as ASTD, the eLearning Guild, SALT (Society of Applied Learning Technologies), and ISPI (International Society for Performance Improvement).
Attend local chapters or meetings of professional ID organizations to meet people in your area.

3. Networking through social media: Now-a-days social medias are popular tools to build a network so much so that local people also use Facebook to connect with others. You can catch the latest developments in the field, search for jobs, and promote yourself using these tools:

Facebook: You can follow elearning and instructional design groups in Facebook. You can start discussion forums and follow resources and build a network of people sharing the same interest.
Twitter: Twitter is an easy tool to network, learn more about the ID field, and find ID jobs. To find people to follow on Twitter, use its search function and type relevant terms such as ‘elearning’ or ‘instructionaldesign.’
LinkedIn: If you want to find career opportunities in instructional design field, then LinkedIn is a very good tool. The tool will automatically link you to people sharing the same interest in the field, once you enter your profile.

4. Job search: Sometimes, it is best to rely on old-fashioned ways to search for a job in ID. Hire a consultant who can find appropriate jobs for you or register in an online job portal. You can search for ID jobs by typing in relevant search criterion such as instructional design, elearning, training, educational technologist, and multimedia. Some professional job portals in the US are ASTD Job Bank, Indiana University Bloomington, Instructional Design Central, SALT, and the eLearning Guild’s Job Board.