When you take an eLearning course or watch an instructional video, who do you think is behind it all? It might not be the coach you see on your screen. A great deal of the course development process rests on an instructional designer’s shoulders.
Going pro doesn’t happen overnight, but if you still have the passion and drive to study and practice, read our complete guide on how to become an instructional designer. We asked eLearning experts to share their insights to point you in the right direction.
Feel free to bookmark this article and come back for more insights. And make sure to download our Instructional Designer’s notebook, a collection of interactive guides, checklists, and tips on instructional design and eLearning.
If you have friends outside of the eLearning world, they are likely to ask you what on earth an instructional designer is. Here is the answer you can give them: An instructional designer is an eLearning expert who gathers information from subject matter experts and uses instructional theories and models to create engaging and effective learning experiences.
Then your friends might say: “Okay, but what is it exactly that they do?”
Instructional design is the art and science of creating learning experiences that help people gain the skills they need. The aim of the instructional designer is to identify knowledge and skill gaps, and find the most powerful ways to close them, whether through online courses, games, or training videos.
Instructional designers need to be experts in both how people learn and how to create content using technologies. They should be able to use authoring tools to create and deliver appealing learning materials and make training faster, easier, and more effective.
The roles and responsibilities of instructional designers are quite varied. They include:
If you’re going to become an instructional designer, the specifics of your job will depend on at least these two factors:
Let’s take a closer look at these factors.
Nowadays, everyone needs online learning: small companies, large enterprises, universities, and nonprofits. These fields have both similarities and differences. Check out this table to get a general idea of the instructional design specifics for each one:
| Corporate | Higher education | Government | Nonprofit | |
| Who your learners will be | employees, partners, customers | students | government and military personnel | board members, staff, volunteers, donors |
| What eLearning content you will design | onboarding, compliance training, hard skills training, soft skills training, product knowledge training | mostly in-person courses converted to an online format, academic subject courses | orientation, hard and soft skills training, etc. | courses on fundraising, grant writing, and accounting, governance training, etc. |
| Average salary | $86,327 | $62,068 | $85,478 | $78,025 |
| Main advantage of working in the field | high salary | work-life balance | interesting projects that affect many people | challenging projects steered toward societal good |
| Main disadvantage of working in the field | possibility of overwork | limited career opportunities | bureaucracy and hierarchy | limited career opportunity |
Apart from deciding what field you would like to work in, you should also determine how you would like to work. You can either be self-employed or work for a single company full-time (or part-time). Let’s see the specifics of these formats and their pros and cons.
A full-time job is something many instructional designers look for when they start out in the field. It may be comforting because you’re focused only on providing learning experiences for employees or students, and all other job-related duties lie in other departments.
However, you might find yourself quite limited in terms of choosing eLearning project topics, course development tools, and more.
Pros
Cons
A freelance instructional designer has more freedom in every respect: when and where to work, what projects to accept, which tools to use, and more. Still, any freelance job can be tricky. Although you have full control over your work and can take only the projects you’re excited about, it doesn’t necessarily happen like that – especially for beginners.
There just might not be enough interesting projects for you to earn a decent income from. So, you have to work on something less thrilling than you would prefer, and you have to perform the extra work of running your business (marketing, taxes, management, negotiations, etc.)
Pros
Cons
According to Glassdoor, the average instructional designer salary in America is $71,070 per year. Devlin Peck, an eLearning expert, provides a different number – $85,466 per year. Of course, ‘average’ means you can earn both much more than and much less. There are 5 major factors that can affect your income:
1. Level of education
According to the survey conducted by Devlin Peck, eLearning specialists with a master’s degree get the highest salary: with a master’s degree, you’ll generally earn $2,000 more than you would with only a bachelor’s degree.
2. Geography
Instructional design incomes vary depending on what country you live in and work in. The highest average salaries are in America ($85,466) and Australia ($89,905), while the lowest are in the UK ($52,012) and India ($11,535).
3. Size of the organization
According to Glassdoor, an average instructional design salary in small companies is $69,750 and $75,024 in large enterprises.
4. Instructional design field
The field you work in has a great influence on how much you get paid. Take a look at Devlin Peck’s data on average salaries in instructional design fields:
5. Professional experience
Glassdoor states that the average salary of an instructional designer with 0-3 years of experience is $63,653, while the wage for those with over 15 years is $84,528. According to Devlin Peck, IDs with 0-3 years of professional experience receive the lowest salary of $71,961, and those with 16-20 years receive the highest average salary of $110,737.
Professional experience can be an essential factor during your job interview. You might even get the position without it, but this would definitely have an impact on your salary. So, how can you get course development experience? There are at least 3 ways to do this:
University projects
If you’re getting a master’s degree in instructional design, you have plenty of opportunities to get your first professional experience. You’ll be involved in different eLearning projects for organizations, and your final project is likely to be a course on some topic.
Volunteering
If you’re currently working in a different field, you can volunteer at your workplace to create an eLearning project. That way, you’ll be creating a course about something you know about – which is great – and you’ll get a chance to check whether instructional design is right for you.
Networking and consulting
Find other instructional designers on LinkedIn and follow them. They might post job vacancies from time to time. Or, you could participate in an eLearning project as a consultant. Besides, networking is a crucial part of the eLearning world, so you might want to start doing that right away.
There are 4 main paths to instructional design: the direct path, transitioning from teaching, transitioning from a position as a school administrator, and getting there from a noneducational sphere. Let’s look at each of them:
The direct path is for people who want to get into the eLearning world right after they graduate from university. If you’re currently finishing your bachelor’s degree and thinking about getting a master’s in instructional design, check out the best academic courses listed later in the article.
What’s important to keep in mind is that, unlike teachers, school administrators, and other professionals, you don’t have any professional experience yet. So, it would be great if you could get that while attending university.
Teachers and university professors have lots of teaching experience, know teaching models, strategies, and much more. But this could be both a great advantage and a limitation. You see, instructional design differs from traditional teaching. You have different learners, different tools, different models, and your role is different too. It’s important that you realize this, acquire new knowledge and skills, and adapt your previous experience and knowledge to your new profession.
Download our comprehensive journey map “Transitioning from Teaching to Instructional Design.” It includes everything you need to start out in your new career: all the basic instructional design theories and models, practical guides, checklists, ID volunteer opportunities, job interview questions, and much more!
School administration might be a great background for instructional design – especially if you’re looking for freelance work. You already have the necessary organizational skills, such as learner management or curriculum design, that some eLearning specialists might find complicated. However, to create online courses, you’ll need to study instructional design theory and upgrade your design skills.
The fact that you don’t have any prior teaching experience might be your advantage. First of all, you will not mix teaching knowledge and skills up with those of instructional design – you’re like a blank page, and you can fill yourself only with relevant information.
Also, you are likely to have worked somewhere, which makes you an expert in that particular field. So, you can become an instructional designer who specializes in that sphere. Let’s suppose you used to build cars. Imagine how preferable you would look among other learning designers who don’t have such experience and apply for an ID job at Mercedes or Volkswagen. Study ID theory, practice, network, and you’ll be great.
No matter which path you take, following these steps will be of great help:
Let’s say you’ve realized that your dream is to become an instructional designer and you want to make it come true as quickly as possible. The first thing you need to do is learn the basics of eLearning, study instructional design models, theories, and strategies, and get certifications to prove your competence. There are two basic ways to do that: university programs and nonacademic courses.
Check out these five university programs. All of them are focused on innovative eLearning approaches and modern technologies, methods, and techniques.
If you don’t feel like taking a full-fledged master’s program, you can take an online course. We’ve collected five great instructional design courses for you to check out. If you want to learn more about each of them and see some other courses, check our article.
For those who want to study instructional design theory on their own, we’ve prepared the basic info on various ID models. Check them out:
The first handy design tool you should have in your eLearning arsenal is the ADDIE framework.
The ADDIE model has been around since the 70s and tackles the five stages each eLearning project goes through (which gives rise to the acronym). They are:
Make sure to read about the ADDIE model in more detail.
The SAM model is a more recent instructional design model, created by eLearning pioneer Michael Allen. It’s built to help you design meaningful, memorable, and motivational learning experiences.
The SAM model is an alternative to the ADDIE model and aims to fix some limitations of its predecessor. The main difference is probably that, with the SAM model, there’s more creativity and freedom in the project creation process, while ADDIE has a strict structure that makes you follow each step. Here’s how you’ll create your eLearning project if you choose SAM:
Collect background information on learners’ prior knowledge, weaknesses, strengths, and other factors. Brainstorm ideas on every aspect of your project. By the end of this phase, you are to come up with a potential design for every content area.
Design and prototype your project and send it to other people for review. Based on the feedback, fix the weaknesses.
Finish your online course and implement it. Collect feedback from your learners, evaluate the training program, and fix issues if necessary by returning to the iterative design phase.
Gagné’s Nine Events of Instruction, when used together, form a framework for a successful learning process. The idea is that once you complete each step, your learners are likely to be more engaged in learning and subsequently retain new knowledge and skills. Consider these events when designing an eLearning course:
Don Kirkpatrick suggests 4 levels of training evaluation: Reaction, Learning, Impact, and Results.
Here’s what to do if you decide to evaluate your course with this model:
Level 1: Reaction
Collect learners’ feedback on the course.
Level 2: Learning
Measure how much new knowledge learners gained from your course.
Level 3: Impact
Assess how much an employee’s behavior changed after the training program.
Level 4: Results
Analyze quality, efficiency, productivity, and customer satisfaction ratings to evaluate the overall impact of your course on the organization.
Make sure to learn about this and other training evaluation models.
The original Bloom’s taxonomy included these 6 categories:
However, in 2001, a group of cognitive psychologists and education specialists offered a revision of this taxonomy that proved to be more effective. Instead of nouns used by Benjamin Bloom, they used action words – verbs and gerunds – that describe the learner’s cognitive processes. They also changed the sequence and replaced the “Synthesis” category with the “Create” step. Check it out:
1. Remember
Recall facts and basic concepts.
Define, duplicate, list, memorize, repeat, state.
2. Understand
Explain ideas or concepts.
Describe, discuss, explain, identify, locate, recognize, report, select, translate.
3. Apply
Use information in new situations.
Execute, implement, solve, use, demonstrate, interpret, operate, schedule, sketch.
4. Analyze
Establish connections among ideas.
Differentiate, organize, relate, compare, contrast, distinguish, examine, experiment, question, test.
5. Evaluate
Justify a stand or decision.
Appraise, argue, defend, judge, select, support, value, critique, weigh.
6. Create
Produce original work.
Design, assemble, construct, conjecture, develop, formulate, author.
The Waterfall model is a sequential linear adaptation of the ADDIE model that includes these 6 steps: feasibility, analysis, design, implementation, testing, and maintenance.
The model is based on the idea that each following step is easier than the previous one, as is the case with a waterfall: water falls faster and faster until it hits the ground. The course development happens quickly because once you finish a step, you don’t come back to it, so you don’t spend extra time running through content, visuals, and other project components. However, this might affect the overall course quality.
David Merrill suggested 5 instructional design principles that will help you create a truly effective learning experience:
Principle 1: Problem-Centered
Engage learners by letting them solve real-world problems:
Principle 2: Activation
Activate learners’ existing knowledge and use it as a foundation for new knowledge. Ask them about their relevant experience and knowledge, and make up examples and tasks that connect both with these experiences and new information.
Principle 3: Demonstration
Learners need to see everything: learning outcomes, new knowledge application examples, etc. Your task is to show it to them using media that will engage them.
Principle 4: Application
Let learners apply what they’ve learned. Provide them with guidance on how to use new knowledge and skills, and give them an opportunity to practice them.
Principle 5: Integration
Help learners integrate new knowledge into their world. In order to do this, let them demonstrate new skills to others, reflect on them, and encourage learners to transfer what they have learned into their lives.
AGILE is another course development model that focuses on one eLearning module at a time. You move to the next one only after you’ve finished the previous one. This results in a higher quality course because you pay more attention to details in each segment.
So, here’s what you should do according to the AGILE model:
Align
Set goals and objectives.
Get Set
Plan how you are going to develop your eLearning project.
Iterate and implement
Develop the project following the plan.
Deploy
Test the module.
Evaluate
Collect feedback, analyze, and assess the module. Fix any issues.
If you want to deliver good knowledge and skills, and keep your learners engaged and motivated, you need to understand them. Realize how they absorb the information, what drives them to better learning results, and, conversely, what can be a distraction.
If you’re going to promote training in the workplace, start exploring the psychology and behaviors of the average adult learner. Of course, there’s no single learning approach that works for everyone, though there are some generic aspects common to all people that you should know about:
To delve deeper into how adults learn, you can also explore existing adult learning theories, including Transformational, Experiential, and Individualized (Centric) learning, as well as Andragogy.
So, now you’ve got the necessary theoretical ID background. If you’re hoping to move further toward a career as an instructional designer, you need to gain some technical skills. You can start by studying our list of 50+ tools for instructional designers. Of course, you might not need them all, but you’ll be able to choose one or more tools for your current tasks.
For example, you might try iSpring Suite. This is an authoring toolkit that allows you to build interactive courses containing different types of eLearning content quickly and easily. You can enhance slides with tests and drag-and-drop activities, add video and audio narrations, build realistic dialogue simulations, and record and fine-tune screencasts and training videos with the integrated video studio.
Experience this eLearning demo to see what a course created with iSpring Suite looks like:
If this kind of content is exactly what you need, our guide on how to create online eLearning courses and Michael Sheyahshe’s webinars will walk you through the whole process.
Still not sure? Explore some other amazing courses made with iSpring Suite or download a free 14-day trial and test drive all the features right now.
The next important step you need to take is to start practicing. Armed with all the necessary theoretical knowledge and an authoring tool, you can start creating sample e-courses. And why not present some of your samples in your resume?
Having a good ID portfolio is the quickest way to get the job you’re dreaming about. It’ll provide your potential employers with an overview of your skills, educational background, creative abilities, and subject matter expertise. Check out some tips from Christy Tucker, Learning Experience Design Consultant and the owner of Syniad Learning, LLC:
Check out our step-by-step guide on building an instructional design portfolio. And take a look at these portfolio examples to get ideas on how to create your own personal portfolio.
Tracy Parish → | |
Another vastly important piece of this puzzle is the human element. To become a good instructional designer and develop in your profession continuously, you need to learn from those who walked a similar path and came out on top. There are 3 principal ways to do this:
We’ve compiled the top lists for each of these resources. They all give insights on how to create better learning experiences, use authoring tools, and manage eLearning projects. Check them out!
At some point, you’ll need to go to a job interview, where a hiring manager will decide whether you’re the right fit based on your answers. So, you’ll need to be prepared. Here’s what a hiring manager needs to know about you:
If you want to learn more, read our article on 11 instructional design interview questions and how to answer them.
An instructional designer should always stay up to date with two things: trends in instructional design and trends in eLearning technology. In fact, it’s hard to separate them, since they are interdependent. However, the first is more about popular approaches to ID like video-based learning or mobile learning, while the second is focused on emergent technologies like virtual reality and artificial intelligence.
When keeping updated on ID and eLearning trends, you may look into new areas and skills that you want to upgrade and find new ways to make learning experiences even better.
Jeff Dalto, Senior L&D Specialist at Convergence Training
There are four sources of “trendy” knowledge you shouldn’t ignore:
You may try all this, but you need to be wary of marketing hype and the seductive qualities of the latest new things. There are a lot of unfounded learning myths out there already, and excitement over the newest trend has a tendency to add to that.
So be open-minded to new trends, but also be skeptical; make sure the claims line up with what you know about how people learn and look for supporting data. Learning researchers like Dr. Will Thalheimer (and others) are great at helping you separate what’s real from what’s snake oil in the learning profession.
A career in instructional design is exciting, but beginnings can be difficult and confusing. We hope our guide will help you start your career and move toward the top of your field, step by step. Remember to download our Instructional Designer’s notebook, a collection of interactive guides, checklists, and tips you’ll need in your new profession.
Good luck!
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