Before embarking on a new career path, it is always good to research the required skills and education, earning potential, and career and advancement opportunities in your chosen field. If you are interested in starting a new career in Instructional Design, here’s what you need to know before you take that leap.

Get to Know Instructional Design

In simple terms, Instructional Designers create learning experiences with the goal of helping learners learn new skills and apply their knowledge to perform their job more effectively.

Not only do they lay out a curriculum, but they also develop all course materials including presentations, handouts, participant guides, and modern learning materials like podcasts, immersive learning, and eLearning modules.

Instructional Designers start by assessing the needs of the learners they are developing the learning experiences for.

They select the most appropriate theories, models, frameworks, and technologies to design a learning experience.

Using the Instructional Design principles, they develop resources to impart learning and training objectives.

Once the learner engages with the learning experience, Instructional Designers evaluate how well the learning experience facilitated the transfer of knowledge.  

The goal of Instructional Design is to maximise learning experiences and outcomes for learners.  

Is there a demand for Instructional Designers in Australia?

Australia is currently seeing a high demand for Instructional Designers.

The COVID-19 Pandemic led to embracing of remote learning, with many schools continuing to expand their online offerings even post pandemic. Most teachers were not trained for virtual teaching and worked with Instructional Designers to modify their curriculum and methods. Instructional Designers can help design face-to-face, hybrid, or virtual courses maximise learning outcomes.

It is commonly assumed that Instructional Designers work in schools or institutions of higher education, and many do. However, there are also opportunities for Instructional Designers to work in corporate settings. With the rapid rate of technological change, many businesses are seeing widening skill gaps in their workers. Because the technologies that businesses use in everyday operations is constantly changing, ongoing training programs for employees are becoming more and more common.

Currently, there are almost 1,000 Instructional Designer jobs available in Australia alone

What is expected salary range for Instructional Design?

The typical salary for an Instructional Designer in Australia is around AU$95,000. According to Payscale, this can range from AU$62,000 to as high as AU$129,000. Salary typically varies based on years of experience and location.

Because of high demand and upward industry trends, there is also freelancing and self-employment opportunities for the enterprising Instructional Designers.

Qualified and experienced Instructional Designers can command a healthy day rate of $600 – $1200 per day in contracting and consulting roles.

What kind of education do you need to be an Instructional Designer?

If you already hold another degree and are looking to transition into Instructional Design, you have a few other options.

• You may complete a Certificate IV in Training and Assessment, which prepares you to serve as an instructor in the vocational education and training sector.
• Diploma of Training Design and Development may prepare you for a career in Instructional Design as it is designed to help you analyse, design, and evaluate training products and programs.
• You can enrol yourself in a Professional Diploma in Human-centred Learning Design from Learning Dev Academy. This course is specifically designed to help learners acquire the knowledge, skills, and attributes required to thrive as a professional Instructional Designer.

What kind of skills should an Instructional Designer have?

Instructional Designers should be creative to create visually appealing resources that clearly communicate complex concepts and ideas.

It is also helpful to have curiosity for learning and passion for knowledge, and even better if you yourself are a subject matter expert of a specialised area.

IDs are required to have an in-depth understanding of different learning styles and models. It is also vital to have good project management skills, organisational skills, time management skills, and strong communication skills.

To be successful as an Instructional Designer, especially in a world where hybrid and virtual learning is ubiquitous, you need to be technologically savvy especially where it concerns learning technologies, communication technologies, and virtual reality.

This is where enrolling in Professional Diploma in Human-centred Learning Design from Learning Dev Academy can be beneficial for you. The diploma offers innovative and project-based learning to help you acquire the Instructional Design skills in 15 weeks.

It also offers complimentary bonus courses to help you develop other cross-functional skills such as Project Management, Change Management, collaborating with Subject Matter Experts, Cultivating a culture of Feedback, and Quality Assurance for Learning and Development

How to get started in Instructional Design

Once you’ve developed the necessary skills to become an Instructional Designer, you can begin looking for jobs. While having the appropriate education might be enough to land you a role, most employers will want to see that you have some experience in the field.

Build a portfolio by freelancing

If you are taking a course to develop your Instructional Design skills, you will probably begin to cultivate a portfolio of work. You may also advertise your skills on freelancing platforms or submit proposals to freelance Instructional design postings. Smaller institutions or independent instructors may be more likely to take a chance on someone with less experience for an agreeable price. Once you’ve done some work, you will have an easier time booking larger clients or getting a full-time job with a corporation or learning institution.

Look for entry level positions

Some companies may offer entry level positions that only require you to have the appropriate education and won’t look for extensive work experience or a portfolio of professional work. You can usually filter results on job boards by experience require and find positions for which you may meet the requirements. For these positions, compensation will most likely be towards the lower end of the expected range, but it is a good way to eventually work your way up to higher paying positions.

Seek out mentors

One of the strongest arguments in favour of seeking out a formal education in Instructional Design is the ability to connect with seasoned professionals in the field. They may be able to recommend you for open opportunities.

Current trends to follow in Instructional Design

Technology and education are inextricably linked, and as new technologies emerge your job as an Instructional Designer will be to incorporate them into the courses and learning materials you create. Therefore, it is important that you always stay up to date with the latest developments in learning methods and educational technologies. Here are some you should be aware of in the current educational landscape:

Gamification

The best way to make sure learners retain the information they are learning is to make what they are learning matter to them. An easy way to do this is to tap into the natural human instinct for competition. Whether you are using more traditional learning materials like textbooks or emerging technologies like Virtual Reality or video learning, introducing an element of challenge to the learning experience can help get learners engaged with the course content. A game or challenge also usually ends with a reward, which can be highly motivational.

Mobile learning

Most learners, from children to teenagers to adults, not only have access to mobile devices, but they also probably have their devices on them almost constantly. Making educational content available via their mobile devices helps make the learning materials more accessible and makes learners more likely to engage. Mobile platforms also provide more opportunity for interactive learning like gamification.

Microlearning

Sometimes, learning a new skill or subject can seem like such an overwhelming task that learners are discouraged before they even begin. Microlearning is the process of compartmentalizing a problem to resolve it step-by-step. Instructional designers can build microlearning into their course materials to help learners acquire new skills and information by breaking it down into more digestible chunks.

Think a career in Instructional Design might be right for you? You can start acquiring the skills and training you need today. Find out more here.