Episode 28: What Hiring Managers Want From Instructional Designers Right Now- By Kristen Bourgault

Summary: In this conversation, Jason Gorman talks with Kristen Bourgault, director of instructional design programs at Quinnipiac University, where she co-developed and has taught in a fully online master's and certificate program for the past 12 years. With 25 years in higher education and nonprofit settings, Kristen has been a persistent advocate for the legitimacy of online learning, a cause she says has required fighting for the entire span of her career. They discuss what got her hooked on instructional design as a student worker building courses in Web CT, why online education has always been treated as the ugly stepchild of the university, and how her initial excitement about ChatGPT forcing better assessment design gave way to harder questions when her own students used AI to shortcut assignments she thought were AI-proof. Kristen also shares what hiring managers are telling her they actually want in instructional design candidates, why her graduates leave the program unwilling to chase shiny technology, and what quality really looks like when a student comes back ten years later to tell you what stuck. Takeaways: • Online education has always had to fight harder than it should to be taken seriously. • The human relationship is the center of online learning, not the technology. • ChatGPT initially looked like it would force better assessment design, and in some ways it has. • When students shortcut assignments, it is a signal to redesign, not to police. • Making assignments easier and more connected actually produces deeper learning. • Hiring managers want AI literacy, core ID skills, and project management in equal measure. • Graduates who are taught to be critical of technology will not chase every shiny tool. • Online faculty and students are consistently under-resourced and overlooked by their institutions. • Quality shows up when learning immediately applies to a student's life and career. • Instructional design is a durable, evolving field that is not going away. Read the Blog: “The Ugly Stepchildren of the University:” Kristen Bourgault on Twenty-Five Years of Fighting for Online Learning to Be Taken Seriously (https://jackrabbitlx.com/lxopsshow-ep...)