Career studio / Instructional Design
Build evidence for the Instructional Designer role
New coordinators submit incomplete project handovers. Design a short learning experience that teaches a concrete handover skill and tests transfer using a realistic task.
Your outcome: Learning design brief, storyboard, practice activity and assessment rubric.
Start with the right expectations
Who this is for
Clear writing and interest in how people learn and practice.
This path develops a demonstrable work sample for the named role. It does not replace employer-specific experience, professional qualifications or supervised practice.
Plan your study time
Use a flexible six-week project schedule: one week for each of the first four stages and two weeks for the portfolio and review. Allow roughly 3–5 hours per week for the case work, in addition to course study. This is a planning suggestion, not a measured course duration or a promise of job readiness.
Read the course access notes before starting. Free viewing or reading does not automatically include certificates, graded assessments, software licences or paid cloud resources. Core case work can be documented with a free editor and spreadsheet; optional implementation tools may have additional requirements.
Your course sequence
Start in the order below. Use the course outline to select the sections relevant to the stage tasks, and complete foundation exercises before moving on. Full provider courses can be substantially longer than this project schedule. These are course resources, not a claimed count of individual lessons.
Resource 01 / MIT
Free MIT Course: Educational Technology and Learning Design
Purpose: Build the foundations. Connect your notes to the case tasks below rather than only collecting completion marks.
Access: Free Video
Certificate: Free video viewing; no MIT certificate or academic credit
Resource 02 / Cambridge English
Assessment for Learning: Free Teaching Course
Purpose: Develop the role-specific method. Connect your notes to the case tasks below rather than only collecting completion marks.
- Explain how information from a classroom task can inform the next teaching decision, including what needs more practice or a different explanation.
- Choose an assessment technique by the learning purpose and the evidence it can produce, rather than by convenience alone.
- Recognise the distinction between multilevel and level-based assessment and identify questions to ask when considering an exam context.
Access: Free Video
Certificate: Free video viewing; certificate not included
Resource 03 / Google
Google Tech Writing for Accessibility: Free Self-Study Course
Purpose: Strengthen practical application. Connect your notes to the case tasks below rather than only collecting completion marks.
- Recognise how permanent, temporary and situational barriers affect the way people use documentation.
- Write concise alternative text that explains an image’s purpose in its surrounding context.
- Measure foreground and background contrast instead of relying on how colours look to you.
Access: Free public self-study lessons and exercises using a browser, editor and contrast checker. No account or paid tools required.
Certificate: No completion certificate provided.
Learn, make, check
Keep a decision log as you work. For each stage, capture the assumption, your work product, a check and the change you made after that check. The acceptance criterion is the stopping condition for the stage.
Stage 1 / suggested project week 1
Analyze the performance gap
Understand: A learning objective should connect to work people need to do.
Make: Define the target handover behavior and evidence of current difficulty.
Check before moving on: Distinguish missing knowledge from unclear process requirements.
Study companion: Free MIT Course: Educational Technology and Learning Design. Use its relevant lessons and examples; the independent WikiFree task is not a provider assessment.
Save as evidence: a dated work product and a short note explaining one choice, one alternative and one remaining uncertainty.
Stage 2 / suggested project week 2
Align the design
Understand: Objectives, practice and assessment should test the same skill.
Make: Write three objectives and map each to an activity and scoring criterion.
Check before moving on: Avoid assessing recall when the objective is performing a task.
Study companion: Assessment for Learning: Free Teaching Course. Use its relevant lessons and examples; the independent WikiFree task is not a provider assessment.
Save as evidence: a dated work product and a short note explaining one choice, one alternative and one remaining uncertainty.
Stage 3 / suggested project week 3
Create the experience
Understand: Learners need examples, practice and useful feedback.
Make: Build a short storyboard with a worked handover, flawed example and correction task.
Check before moving on: Provide text alternatives and readable structure.
Study companion: Google Tech Writing for Accessibility: Free Self-Study Course. Use its relevant lessons and examples; the independent WikiFree task is not a provider assessment.
Save as evidence: a dated work product and a short note explaining one choice, one alternative and one remaining uncertainty.
Stage 4 / suggested project week 4
Evaluate and revise
Understand: A course is improved using evidence of learning and transfer.
Make: Define an assessment review and a follow-up workplace check.
Check before moving on: Do not claim learning gains until actual learner evidence exists.
Study companion: Google Tech Writing for Accessibility: Free Self-Study Course. Use its relevant lessons and examples; the independent WikiFree task is not a provider assessment.
Save as evidence: a dated work product and a short note explaining one choice, one alternative and one remaining uncertainty.
Stage 5 / suggested project weeks 5–6
Present your portfolio
Assemble the four work products into Learning design brief, storyboard, practice activity and assessment rubric. Write a README explaining the problem, your assumptions, the decisions you made, tests actually performed and what remains incomplete.
Give a five-minute walkthrough: one minute for the problem, two for the work and evidence, one for trade-offs and one for the next improvement. If you have not implemented a proposed system, label it a design or prototype rather than a deployed solution.
Acceptance: a reviewer can locate each work product, reproduce the key reasoning and identify the limits without a private explanation from you.
The portfolio brief
New coordinators submit incomplete project handovers. Design a short learning experience that teaches a concrete handover skill and tests transfer using a realistic task.
Deliver: Learning design brief, storyboard, practice activity and assessment rubric.
| criterion | points |
|---|---|
| Named receiving owner | 2 |
| Open work and next action | 3 |
| Evidence links and acceptance | 3 |
| Review date and escalation route | 2 |
Use these small inputs to make the reasoning visible. They are not a representative dataset, a real client engagement or evidence of production performance. Where the brief requires additional sample records, create them yourself, label them synthetic and explain why you added them.
The ZIP includes the case CSV, four stage worksheets, course sequence, decision log, test log, portfolio README template, review rubric and reference reasoning. It is a starter kit for your work, not a completed application, professional report or proprietary project file.
Check your reasoning
The objective is to create a complete handover, but the quiz only asks for definitions. What is misaligned?
Write your answer and assumptions before opening the reference.
Read the reference reasoning
The assessment does not test the intended performance. Add a task that asks learners to create or repair a handover and score it against an explicit rubric.
Portfolio review rubric
| Criterion | Points | Evidence required |
|---|---|---|
| Problem and scope | 4 | A clear user, need, boundary and assumptions |
| Role-specific work | 8 | 2 points for each of the four stage acceptance checks |
| Reasoning and validation | 4 | Independent checks, actual results and uncertainty |
| Communication and reproducibility | 4 | A usable README, source links and reviewable work products |
Aim for at least 16/20 as a self-review target, with no missing stage acceptance check. This is a WikiFree practice rubric, not an industry credential or a hiring assessment.
Interview practice
How did the assessment influence what you chose to teach?
Answer using the case: context, your action, evidence and limitation. Describe this honestly as a self-directed project. Do not present fictional organizations, invented interviews or practice results as paid work experience.
Your progress
Use this checklist as a personal study aid. Progress is stored in this browser when local storage is available; it is not an account record or a certificate.
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Questions before you start
Will this path qualify me for a job?
It helps you study relevant foundations and produce a work sample. Employers may require additional skills, qualifications and experience. Review actual role requirements before applying; no job or certification is guaranteed.
Are all tools and certificates free?
The linked learning routes were selected for free viewing or reading. Follow the separate access and certificate notes on each course. Paid tools and cloud deployment are optional; document a local design when implementation resources are unavailable.
Can I follow this on a phone?
You can read the path and many learning resources on a phone. Coding, detailed spreadsheet work, design tools and mobile-app development are easier or require a suitable computer. The page is designed to reflow; that is not a claim that every physical device has been tested.
Questions & discussion
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