In this episode, the instructional designers from CONHI’s Academic Innovation (Jinnette Senecal, Celia Coochwytewa, and Aaron Kraft) and special guest Babette Kraft, springboard off a recent Educause Review article to discuss the diverse job titles, roles, and responsibilities of instructional designers, instructional technologists, learning designers, and related professions across varied institutional environments. We explore the positive and negative implications for the lack of a universal definition for the field and how educational programs relate to this ambiguity. To wrap up, we contemplate ways for aspiring or novice instructional designers to develop relational professional knowledge, leverage existing networks, and evaluate the type of workplace culture that will best meet their needs.

Resources from the episode:

• EdTechs and Instructional Designers—What’s the Difference?
• Instructional Design in Higher Education: Defining an Evolving Field
• Don’t Forget, Instructional Design Is About Problem Solving
• Instruction By Design Season 01 – Episode 03: How can instructional designers help you?
• Online Learning Consortium Research Center for Digital Learning & Leadership – Instructional Design/Learning Design
• ID2ID – Cross-Institutional Peer Mentoring Program for Instructional Designers
• Quality Matters Instructional Designers Association (QM IDA)
• EdSurge Loop

Guest Profile:

Babette Kraft is an Instructional Designer Sr. Specialist for World at Work, the leading non-profit professional association in compensation and total rewards. At Arizona State University, she worked for the Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College managing the online Leadership and Innovation (EdD) and Learning Designs and Technologies (Med) programs. Babette taught English as a Second Language for nearly a decade. She worked in East Asia, in the classroom with technology and online, teaching young learners and adults. During this time, she developed curriculum, multimedia instruction, and created learning blogs and podcasts. She holds a Bachelors Degree in Philosophy with a minor in Religion and a Bachelors Degree in General Studies with a minor in Japanese from University of North Texas, a certification in Teaching English as a Foreign Language from Bridge-Linguatec, and a Masters Degree in Organization, Information and Learning Sciences from University of New Mexico.

Instruction By Design is produced by Arizona State University’s College of Nursing and Health Innovation. To learn more about the podcast or subscribe, please visit http://links.asu.edu/IBD_Podcast. You can reach us via InstructionByDesign@asu.edu or @IBD_Podcast.