Teaching Versus Instructional Design

I will ask up front that you forgive that this will be longer than my typical article. I am writing this primarily for teachers looking to transition into corporate instructional design. I feel strongly both about ensuring Learning & Development (L&D) is more than a content development function and supporting our teachers who have one of the most impactful jobs in society.

To give you a little background on me, I have been a Manager and Director of corporate L&D departments for the past several years. Prior to that, I was an Instructional Designer, Learning Specialist (generalist), and a Trainer. I know the field deeply; I've been in it for 20 years, and I am in a role that hires and manages Instructional Designers.

From the first time I hired an Instructional Designer a little over five years ago to today, a majority of the applicants were K-12 teachers looking to transition out of the classroom. Five years ago, that number was about 50-60% of the applicants. Today, it's closer to 70-80%+ of the applicants. It would take a whole other article (or book) to expound on why so many teachers are leaving the classroom. Setting that aside, I want to provide a little insight into the difference between the roles and what you can do, as a teacher, to better position yourself if you truly want to be an Instructional Designer & Developer (IDD).

There are a number of bootcamps and certifications programs promising teachers to show them how to use their existing skillset to quickly transition into the "highly paid" field of instructional design (which is also a subject for another article). However, it isn't as simple as learning an authoring tool or rewording your resume to change "teacher" to "educator" and "collaborated with resource teacher" to "partnered with SME." You are going to need to do a lot more to stand out from the dozens or even hundreds of other teachers who are applying for the same roles as you.

First, I want to explain why the skills are transferable but not identical by highlighting some of the wording I frequently see on the resumes and LinkedIn profiles of transitioning teachers. I'll use an example of a student, Adam, who is struggling with reading.

Conducted Needs Analysis...

As a classroom teacher, you will, of course, do more than double down on reading instruction for Adam. You will do the type of investigation, or needs analysis, appropriate for a K-12 student. Perhaps that will involve assessments to determine if Adam is dyslexic, investigating if he has enough to eat and a safe home to go to at the end of the school day, or if he is being bullied. At the heart of all this, we can at least assume that we do need Adam to learn to read. In other words, the "terminal objective" is societally agreed upon - we want kids to learn to read. Additionally, you can be fairly confident that the person for whom you are developing a learning plan (the audience) is Adam.

As a corporate IDD, when you get a training request, you cannot safely assume that the learners need to do what is being requested or even that the correct audience has been identified. Let me give an example. Sales are down for a product, so you are asked to create training on the product for your U.S. sales team. Your first step would likely be to translate that into "the U.S. sales team needs to sell this product" and do a needs analysis of why they aren't selling it. Much like the teacher's needs analysis, you may uncover ancillary problems.

However, you may also discover that the U.S. sales team doesn't actually need to sell more of the product at all (the objective isn't agreed upon). Instead, the issue is with ecommerce and poor sales in another region. The U.S. sales team has strong selling skills, and the product has a good value proposition that they know and articulate well to customers. You'd be wasting time designing and developing more training for the U.S. sales team. Instead, you may need to work with the ecommerce team on search engine optimization (SEO) and the EMEA (Europe, Middle East, and Asia) Product Managers on building brand recognition in their regions.

Corporate L&D is, first and foremost, a business problem solving function. If your needs analysis points away from training or toward a different objective or audience, a good IDD with the appropriate support and resources likely won't be designing or developing the requested training.

Collaborated/Partnered with SMEs to...

Let's say, as a teacher, your investigation led to the realization that Adam has a reading learning disability. You may work with your reading resource teacher to get Adam the assistance or specialized reading approach he needs to become a successful reader. This partnership with your resource specialist (aka SME) is different from the type of SME partnership you would do in the corporate world, however. You do, presumably, know how to read, and you also know how to teach reading - at least for most students. You need some help here because Adam has special needs.

As a corporate IDD, I can tell you that you will not be skilled at the large majority of the processes and topics for which you are asked to design and develop training. You may know absolutely nothing about them going in. Imagine partnering with a SME to develop a plan to help Adam learn to read, and you actually don't know how to read yourself or have never heard of reading before today.

For example, I've worked almost exclusively in fields related to health other than four years in aerospace. However, the training I've designed and developed has been on widely varied topics most of which I initially knew little to nothing about. When I was an IDD or Trainer, I was asked to create training on topics as diverse as solid phase extraction (SPE, a laboratory process related to chromatography), rescue breathing for preterm infants with Down Syndrome, complex databases, billing codes, solar panels on satellites, and therapeutic practices.

While you don't need to become a SME yourself, you will need to learn about many different topics and how to partner with a SME to draw out details of what learners need to do (at the right level) and how they need to do that. You need to do this well enough to be the person who designs and develops the Orton-Gillingham program, to use Adam's reading disability example.

Long story short, the skills you have built over years of teaching are transferable, but the two jobs are not the same. Positioning them as the same comes across as disingenuous or unaware to hiring managers and Talent Acquisition professionals. So, what do I recommend for teachers aspiring to transition into work as an IDD?

1. You can call yourself an "educator" instead of a "teacher" on your resume, but please don't put "instructional designer." You were not an IDD. You were a teacher. Be proud of that. List what you actually did using the correct terminology for the profession.
2. Create a "transferrable skills" section on your resume and explain how what you did is transferrable.
3. Do not use eLearning modules you created in a boot camp or certification program in your portfolio without some significant redesign. I've seen 10 portfolios from 10 different applicants all coming out of the same certification program that look similar enough to make me wonder if they are simply dropping content into templates. While this may not be the case, it is how it reads to me and other hiring managers with whom I've spoken. Not every eLearning should follow the same format of welcome>navigation>objectives>short story>more information>quiz questions or similar. The design and approach should change based on what you are trying to do.
4. Consider applying for trainer roles rather than, or in addition to, IDD roles. It is easier to convince a hiring manager that "teacher" is quickly transferrable to "trainer" without much scaffolding. Additionally, many people are hired into trainer roles in corporations without any training background, so the competition will be different. SMEs are often made into trainers in corporations. It is easier to transition from corporate trainer to IDD once you have your foot in the door of the corporate world.
5. This is one of the most important recommendations: get an internship or contract role if you can. If you can afford to do an unpaid IDD internship, it can be another foot in the door. Having a job title at the top of your resume that is truly IDD rather than rewording of "teacher" often makes a big difference.