How to Apply
A cover letter and resume are important submissions for the hiring team to get a sense of your experience. In the cover letter, in two pages or less, please let us know how this role aligns with your career aspirations and skill set. Submit both a cover letter and resume as one file (because of system limitations).
What You'll Do
The Center for Academic Innovation at the University of Michigan is seeking a qualified Learning Experience Design Lead to manage a team of Learning Experience Designers that provide end-to-end learning design support across the Center's online learning portfolio. In addition to providing team leadership and supervision, you will provide expertise in learning experience design processes, research-informed pedagogies, and thoughtful integration of educational technology. The Learning Experience Design Lead will report to the Associate Director of Learning Experience Design and work closely with the Director of Learning Design.
Who We Are
About the Center for Academic Innovation
Through curricular innovation, tools for student success and equity, and educational analytics, the University of Michigan Center for Academic Innovation is building the future of education. Our vision is a future in which education connects and empowers learners everywhere to reach their full potential throughout their lives. To realize our vision, we make it our mission to collaborate across campus and around the world to create equitable, lifelong educational opportunities for learners everywhere.
About Online Learning Team at CAI
The Online Learning group within CAI consists of five teams that collaborate with others across the Center and University to develop online learning experiences that support the future of education for a global community. We work with faculty and academic unit leaders to envision how they can expand the reach and effect, grow innovative teaching, and support greater access and lifelong learning through the design of integrated online learning experiences. Our teams focus on the following areas:
- Strategic sourcing of new opportunities for online learning;
- Develop internal and external partnerships that promote engagement with learning experiences;
- Provide program management services throughout degree program development and operations;
- Support end-to-end development of online learning experiences, including design management, learning experience design, and iteration of learning experiences after they have launched;
- Support learners' success and engagement in live courses and programs.
For more information, please visit our website: Academic Innovation.
Responsibilities*
Team Management
- Provide supervision and coaching of direct reports by managing workloads, ensuring consistency in processes and communication of organizational policies, providing regular feedback on individual performance and assessing performance through the annual performance review process.
- Foster a culture of continuous improvement and learning within the Learning Experience Design team by leading engaging team meetings, identifying impactful professional development opportunities and discussing career pathing opportunities with individual team members, and creating onboarding and upskilling programs.
- Lead and cultivate service practices across the Learning Experience Design team for ensuring optimal faculty and client experience, align diverse perspectives to make progress, and build partner relationships.
- Maintain a respectful work environment by setting clear expectations for behavior and leading personal and team conversations.
- Think about bandwidth and succession planning by assessing important processes, initiatives and individual roles within the Learning Experience Design team.
- Demonstrate organizational leadership by seeking to understand center-wide policies and processes and communicating policies and processes effectively to team members.
- Proactively communicate and offer guidance related to change management in support of effective transition as team members navigate organizational change.
Learning Design Process Management
- Lead development and implement efficient workflows for end-to-end learning design processes for non-credit and for-credit courses as follows:
- Support project scoping conversations and proposal reviews.
- Communicate project specifications and requirements to learning experience designers and design teams.
- Lead project kick-off processes and creation of norms that support design teams and external partners throughout the lifecycle of a project including needs analysis, persona development, learning outcomes, course mapping, assessment design, engaging content creation, quality assurance processes, and evaluation.
- Lead processes related to copyright accessibility compliance for cross-team collaboration and third-party vendors.
- Lead design processes for ensuring compliance with regulations around non-credit and credit-bearing courses
- Provide analytical guidance to project teams, recommend solutions to problems, ensure adherence to quality standards, and review project deliverables.
- Lead processes that preserve integrity of course design in situations where reuse of content occurs between non-credit and credit-bearing courses.
- Support on-time delivery of projects.
- Maintain high-level view and specialized knowledge of product requirements and platform features to provide team members with relevant pedagogical specifications, detailed documentation, and considerations around learner effort and assessment.
- Work with important partners at the Center including partnership development, marketing and communications, project management, media design, operations, program management, and program operations to ensure seamless implementation of learning design processes that lead to successful projects and outcomes.
Required Qualifications*
- Bachelor's degree in related field (education, instructional design, educational technology, or learning sciences) and five or more years of related learning experience design experience (instructional design, educational technology, educational project management, learning sciences, or consulting).
- 2 or more years of team management and supervisory experience, including assigning project work, managing process design and implementation, coaching direct reports, and performance management duties.
- Experience with educational technologies and programs, open educational resources, and learning management systems, such as Coursera, edX, FutureLearn, and Canvas.
- Working knowledge of standards for online non-credit and for-credit course design, including copyright and accessibility.
- Understanding of integrating learning theories, instructional design methods, and learner-centered design principles into online learning experiences.
- Exhibits a forward-thinking mindset by investigating emerging developments in learning innovation, such as generative AI, evaluating their potential, and identifying strategic opportunities for integration.
- Experience in leveraging the use of instructional technology to most effectively support course goals and learning objectives.
- Demonstrated expertise in applying a learner-centered approach to online course design.
- Demonstrated expertise in assessing project outcomes and making recommendations for improvement and iteration.
- Demonstrated initiative and customer service-oriented attitude.
- Demonstrated experience applying AI in learning experience design and in the management of team workflows.
Modes of Work
Positions that are eligible for hybrid or mobile/remote work mode are at the discretion of the hiring department. Work agreements are reviewed annually at a minimum and are subject to change at any time, and for any reason, throughout the course of employment. Learn more about the work modes.
Additional Information
Candidates must have legal authorization to work in the United States.
The mode of work for this position is Hybrid with a minimum of 4 days in the office per week, Monday through Thursday, with an option of remote work on Fridays. On occasion, you may be required and must be available to work onsite on Fridays if necessitated by our center's policy and domain leadership or by your job requirements.
The salary for this position will be based upon the selected candidate's education and experience.
Excellent benefits are available, for details, see http://benefits.umich.edu/
Salary Information
The general salary range for this position is $90,000 - $100,000. Candidates can expect to be paid a competitive and equitable salary. Factors used to determine salary include education level, experience, knowledge and skills for the position and salaries that are currently established within the unit. All candidates are encouraged to discuss salary questions to honor alignment and transparency throughout the recruiting process.
Organizational Statement on Harassment
We believe all individuals deserve to be treated with respect and dignity and have the right to work in a professional atmosphere that promotes mutual respect and a safe space for collaboration. Any concerns shared with any staff members and student employees in the Center for Academic Innovation will be reported to the Equity, Civil Rights, & Title IX Office to be reviewed and addressed, and the Center for Academic Innovation encourages reporting of any forms of harassment including sexual and gender-based harassment.
Background Screening
The University of Michigan conducts background checks on all job candidates upon acceptance of a contingent offer and may use a third party administrator to conduct background checks.
Background checks will be performed in compliance with the Fair Credit Reporting Act.
Application Deadline
Job openings are posted for a minimum of seven calendar days. This job may be removed from posting boards and filled anytime after the minimum posting period has ended.
Decision Making Process
Applications will be reviewed as received throughout the posting period and continue until the position is filled.
U-M EEO Statement
The University of Michigan is an equal employment opportunity employer.