Learning Designer

Job Summary:

The Learning Designer is a member of the Learning Experience and Design (LXD) team, a fast-paced, learner-centered design and development team within Professional Education (PPE) at the Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE). Professional Education serves more than fifteen thousand educators in early childhood, K-12, and higher education around the world each year through a diverse portfolio of professional learning offerings. Reporting to the Director of Learning Experience and Design, the Learning Designer will serve as the primary learning designer on a variety of programs with an immediate focus on online programs, both asynchronous and synchronous. This role will also work on in-person and hybrid programs as needed. The successful candidate will also build out most content and may occasionally collaborate with external learning design consultants.

Job-Specific Responsibilities:

Learning Design

• Engage with key stakeholders to support design and development of pedagogically sound online and blended credit courses, and other technology-enhanced instructional materials, and to manage all aspects of learning design. Stakeholders include: PPE’s team of Portfolio Directors; communities of subject matter experts, including faculty and instructors (at HGSE and other Harvard schools); field-based experts including alumni of HGSE and other Harvard schools; and partner organizations.
• Collaborate with a diverse, distributed content generation team to translate design ideas and existing content into original scripts, animations, simulations, and written resources as core components of programming
• Ensure that programs meet standards (e.g. have clear learning objectives, involve interactivity, etc.), including accreditation requirements
• Develop training materials and documentation for teaching and course-delivery teams
• Bring familiarity with, or willingness to learn, key principles in learner-centered design (Backwards Design, Design Thinking, etc.)
• Conduct rapid prototyping of course elements; pilot with teaching team and target learners as appropriate
• Create feedback rubrics and implement automated feedback based on user input
• Contribute to program evaluation efforts to track usage, satisfaction, retention, and efficacy
• Collaborate with HGSE’s Teaching and Learning Lab (TLL) to co-develop programs

Digital Asset and Course Creation

• Develop and revise digital assets using HGSE-supported authoring tools (Articulate, iDesign, Adobe, Canva, etc.)
• Ensure sufficient interactivity and variation in modality of content to keep learners engaged
• Build courses on multiple platforms(with DesignPlus)
• Build courses on Harvard’s Learning Experience Platform (LXP), including adapting to new tools and features as needed
• Liaise with learning technologists to explore integrations of 3rd-party or custom tools

Project Management and Technical Expertise

• Develop workplan, key milestones, and list of deliverables for learning design and online course builds in collaboration with Portfolio Director and content experts
• Work to keep projects on task and on budget, elevating problem areas to senior leadership when required
• Provide project leadership on digital asset creation projects, identifying partners both inside and outside of the group, and maintaining clear communication channels with all stakeholders
• Research and evaluate new and emerging technologies, instructional design theories, and approaches and policies for potential application to instructional opportunities with a focus on trends and opportunities that can enhance the Professional Education environment