Irish Instructional Designers: A Word of Caution
August 20, 2011
JobBridge, the Irish National Internship scheme, has a listing for an internship as an instructional designer. Based on the ad, if you were to take this role, you would learn nothing about instructional design. In fact, in my opinion, this is someone who has a contract for an instructional designer that just doesn’t want to pay for it.
What this post is about: This is a caution on internships for instructional designers. I write it based on a listing brought to my attention by a colleague. If you are considering a career in instructional design, or wanted to gain experience – I believe this particular internship would not benefit you in any way. Furthermore, given the straitened times we live in, I believe it is a useful example of what to avoid if you are seeking to go down the internship route (which – if done properly – as a training/development exercise – could be very useful for you).
What this post is not about: This is not a discussion on the JobBridge scheme in its wider sense. This comes literally on the back of one listing for an instructional design internship, to which I take exception.
Here is a summary: While it is hard in the job market – you really need to be careful of the internships being offered. Read the descriptions carefully, and figure out what the point of the internship is. Interpret the listings provided with an eye to understanding what you need to learn and what they can teach you.
Here begins the post
Unfortunately, I am writing this post as a reaction to a JobBridge listing. If you haven’t heard of it:
“The aim of the National Internship Scheme is to assist in breaking the cycle where jobseekers are unable to get a job without experience, either as new entrants to the labour market after education or training or as unemployed workers wishing to learn new skills. The scheme will also give people a real opportunity to gain valuable experience to bridge the gap between study and the beginning of their working lives. ” (http://www.jobbridge.ie/default.aspx)
As confused as this mission statement is, most people make some sense from it. However, this listing for an instructional designer has been brought to my attention (please click for a larger image in a new window):
JobBridge Instructional Design Internship Listing
The Text on the page is as follows:
Description
You will gain experience in various aspects such as our Sales Excellence Programme and Food Safety Level 2 Programme. You will design and develop engaging, interactive, high quality learning solutions with an eye toward quality.
Skills Requirements
We are looking for an Instructional Designer with a Bachelors degree or equivalent with a strong academic record. Advanced degree a plus.
Please Note:
This is an Internship. An allowance of €50 per week will be paid in addition to your current Social Welfare payment.See eligibility criteria above.
Department
Multimedia
Mentor
The Organisation will assign a mentor to support you during the Internship.
Duration
9 Months
Number of Positions
1
Contract Type
Other
Days, Hours & Start Date
Days per week: Flexible
Hours per day: Not specified
Hours per week: 40
Start Date: TBC
Experience Required:
No Experience Required
Education Requirements:
Third Level – Bachelors degree or equivalent with a strong academic record. Advanced degree a plus.
In short: We are seeking an instructional design intern that is interested in learning about what our company does.
If you work in instructional design, or are considering changing career, here is what is wrong with this listing:
- Instructional Designers develop educational materials. That is their core focus. These materials may be delivered using technology (as in this case), or in person, or blended between them. In the past 5 years, the development and delivery of these materials has grown at a huge pace – both in terms of the theory behind such delivery and the approaches people might take to provide them. None of this is addressed in this role.
- Instructional Designers will always benefit from having some insight to the subject matter that is being taught. However – it is not an essential. Instructional Designers work with Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) – and it is these SMEs who provide the expertise on the subject matter and may advise on various approaches to dealing with content. This means ”gain[ing] experience in various aspects such as our Sales Excellence Programme and Food Safety Level 2 Programme” is useless to you in your instructional design career – unless the company were going to employ you (which they probably won’t, given that the role is an internship. Within the JobBridge guidelines “The host organisation currently may not have vacancies in the area of activity in which the internship is offered” (http://www.jobbridge.ie/toolkit/generalguidelines.pdf - PDF)
- An internship for instructional designers needs to focus on one or more of the following
- (for eLearning) Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), learner engagement with electronic content
- Educational/Learning Psychology; pedagogy; curriculum development, etc.
- Development of multimedia for learning
- Scripting, copywriting, writing for the web and usability
- Analysis of unfamiliar content with the aim of developing objectives, assessment and engagement for learners
- The Instructional Design Cycle/project management methods (e.g. ADDIE)
- Evaluation, quality metrics and development of Return on Investment metrics
- Perhaps (but not necessarily) Rapid eLearning software and its use (e.g. Adobe’s Learning suite, Camtasia, Articulate, Lectora, etc.)
As you can see yourself – none of this is addressed.
The only argument that might see this role as an actual instructional design internship is that you will be able to maintain experience as an instructional designer. Frankly, Stewart Curry’s blog post on unpaid internships does more justice to address this argument than I could (and you should read it if you haven’t).
While you may think the experience is worth it to continue doing what you love, may I suggest:
This company does not appear to be an eLearning development organisation(Updated) From what I can sniff out (Whois lookup on the email address, then search), the company in question provides eBusiness consultancy. Therefore, eLearning may well be part of the services they provide. However, the ad gives no indication of this, save perhaps if you read “our Sales Excellence Programme and Food Safety Level 2 Programme” as course titles. As I’ve pointed out, this is not experience you can use in your wider career -you will not be learning any “best practice” techniques or be at the leading edge of technology, development or pedagogic approaches- Furthermore, what they appear to need is a contractor to come in and do some eLearning development for them. JobBridge has helpfully cut the cost of that, as the company (for some unknown reason) is claiming that the role is an “internship”.
- You’re not going to learn any new tricks here. You may develop some new tricks – but will the “internship”/employment contract stipulate that the company owns those tricks?
- You may be better off as your own intern – try to pitch to some companies for work. Get yourself on Twitter/Google+/Facebook, etc. Place ads. Talk to the local Chambers of Commerce. See if you can get some real work that will help you stretch your own legs as an Instructional Designer.
There is no proof from this listing that the company knows what eLearning or instructional design is – so you could well end up doing “what you are told”. Read those guidelines (particularly the last page on Compliance/”Monthly”). All they need to do if you annoy them is not fill out a form, and JobBridge will decide you aren’t holding up your end of the bargain. Of course it would be easy enough to prove that you are in a court of law – but do you have the time/money/energy to go through that if you’re currently without paid employment?
Finally – an April 2010 factsheet issued by the US Department of Labor (using American spelling because that’s their title) lists 6 criteria that determine exactly what an unpaid intern is. These stress the importance of education, and also the fact that an internship could be a strain on the business – because “The employer that provides the training derives no immediate advantage from the activities of the intern; and on occasion its operations may actually be impeded; “
In short – the Americans wouldn’t put up with this, and I don’t see why we should.
[...] at their crafts and don’t usually do politics but know a lot about business. This post on the work of an instructional designer (sounds a fascinating career area by the way) and the potential for exploitation points to other [...]