“What Does an Instructional Designer Actually Do?” (Explaining my job at Francis Tuttle to my mother)
by Amanda Dills, Sr. Instructional Design Specialist
Last month, for the first time since I started working at Francis Tuttle (back in January 2020), my mother came to visit me at the Rockwell Campus. (Let’s be honest, she really came to see my 3-year-old in the Childcare Center’s Halloween Costume Parade, but she also really enjoyed her tour of the different buildings and departments and seeing everything that Francis Tuttle has to offer.)
Later that day, after gushing about how lovely everything was — and of course how cute the costume parade was — she asked me, “So what is it that you DO exactly? I never know how to explain it to people.”
Now this is a question that I’m pretty used to hearing; I’ve worked in this field for over 15 years now, and in that time I’ve learned that a) most people have no idea what an Instructional Designer/Technologist actually does, and b) people with job titles like mine tend to have very different backgrounds and often do very different things, depending on the needs of their institution. Beyond that, what I do on a day-to-day basis as an Instructional Designer in education is very different than what another Instructional Designer who works for a corporation. So it’s a very, VERY fair question.
In the ID3 (Instructional Design, Development, and Delivery) department at Francis Tuttle, each of the four Senior Instructional Design Specialists supports a specific group of instructors, and we strive to be the “first line of defense” for any problem those instructors might be having, from issues with their computer to Canvas to questions about paperwork, training, grading, etc. This means that for me the very short answer to the “what do you do?” question is, “I help Healthcare teachers with lots of stuff,” but I realize that this answer is… less than helpful, lol. 🙂
So, in case you, gentle reader, have the same, “but what do you actually DO?” question – and let’s be honest, if you’re still reading this article, you probably do – here is ‘The Way I Explained My Job as a Senior Instructional Design Specialist at Francis Tuttle to My Mother.’
“I work with the Health Care Instructors (other designers support the other teachers), helping them with 3 main areas — Access, Training, and Design.
“ACCESS means making sure that all my teachers and their students can get to the online courses and resources they need. I make sure the correct courses load into Canvas from the registrar’s system and that the proper teachers and students are enrolled in each course. I also help out with other digital platforms that teachers and students need to access, like online textbooks.
“TRAINING means making sure that instructors and students know how to use those systems they have access to. I create tutorials and workshops and provide just-in-time training to our instructors on a variety of topics. The topics range from technical ones like “How to upload your syllabus” or “How to make a digital escape room” to pedagogical topics like Assessment. If a specific task is really tricky (or if it’s a process the teacher don’t have to repeat very often), I’ll sometimes also just do the thing for the instructor, rather than teach them how to do it. Which brings us into the final category of Things I Do: Design.
“DESIGN involves helping instructors create learning experiences for their students. It might take the form of curriculum design, which is helping teachers plan out new courses or lessons; it might be more like course building, which is helping them put those courses and lessons into Canvas. It might also include more artistic things like graphic design, web design, or multimedia design, either for the instructors or in cooperation with them. This is the part of the job that I really like because it is challenging and allows me to be creative, look at the big picture, and make things both for and with teachers.
“And that’s it. Just about everything I do on a day-to-day basis fits into a fairly even split between those 3 categories—Access, Training, or Design— but the work is always changing, depending on the time of year and the problems teachers have.”
Well, that explanation seemed to satisfy my mother, who said, “Oh yeah – Access, Training, and Design, that makes sense,” and then – in true Grandma fashion- went immediately back to gushing over her how adorable her grandson looked in his Halloween costume.
So, what about you? What do I hope that you, as a member of the Francis Tuttle community, might take away from reading this? Well, first of all, you should know that the Childcare Center’s Halloween Parade is adorable, and you should definitely go if you are able next year…
Second, I hope you have a little better understanding of the things we Sr. Instructional Design Specialists in ID3 do — and the specific challenges we can help you with. You can also check out our ABOUT page, here on the ID3 website, for an even more detailed list of the services our department offers.
Bottom line: Whether it’s Access, Training, or Design — or if you just have a general question and you’re not sure who to call — give us a shout, and we’ll help you out!