Scrolling Twitter on my coffee break I ran into this question,
As I hear about instructional designer a, what it the difference or similarities to faculty developers? As faculty and instructional designers, we also led faculty developed for blended and online. You? #OLCAccelerate
— Tanya Joosten (@tjoosten) November 20, 2019
I couldn’t figure out how to reply in 280 characters, so here we are. I’ve worked in higher ed for the past 8 or so years, in both instructional design and educational development (which for now I’ll equate to faculty development although there are probably distinctions that could be drawn out between those) roles. There is a lot of overlap between those roles, but they are still distinct in my mind and experience.
Educational Development
I worked in a centre for teaching and learning at a Canadian university. Our unit serviced every faculty, and coordinated institutional programs like the blended learning initiative. Generally, in that position and in positions for ed development I see in Canada, a PhD is a requirement. As someone whose highest credential is a master’s degree, with no intention of pursuing a PhD, it was very unusual that I obtained the position, but I think given the work on the blended learning projects it was my ID background that gave me an edge. Overall the work as an ED involved consultations, work on blended learning projects, running workshops and mini courses, coordinating events like the Festival of Teaching, committee work, and while I didn’t pursue publishing I know my colleagues did. The focus of this work tended to land on teaching practices and trying to engage faculty and instructors in developing their skills and teaching portfolios. There were some faculty who I saw regularly to work on their materials, and others would come for a consult or two just to focus on one specific problem they wanted to solve (ed tech was my specialty in our group of EDs so lots of those questions).
Instructional Design
Any instructional design position I’ve held has not been in a centre for teaching and learning, so that may heavily influence my experience. Looking at ID positions in Canadian post-secondary typically require a minimum of a master’s degree, but some postings look at undergrad degrees plus experience. Much of my work as an ID has been focused on online and some blended. I’ve not had to deal strictly with face-to-face or web-enhanced courses in these roles. Overall the work involves work on course and program projects. While ED focused on teaching practices with elements of course design, the ID roles have focused on full end-to-end course developments seeing the design of a course through. For program development we go all the way from curriculum mapping to course design, to prototyping course materials, to creating some specific course elements (our paradeigma). While I hear from colleagues who do ID in different settings, I have not been in an ID role where I had to load and run the LMS in addition to all the other elements of the project. The ID roles have included project management more than the ED role did.
The number of faculty or instructors I work with in a term is significantly less than when I was an ED, however, I find overall in the ID roles I’m able to see the fruits of my work with instructors.