Senior Lead Educational Program Designer

About the role

The Senior Lead Educational Program Designer at WGU plays a pivotal role in driving the design of competency-based higher education products that emphasize students' ability to acquire and demonstrate skills. This role requires a deep understanding of educational product design, systems thinking, and the ability to translate complex student and business needs into efficient, personalized learning pathways.

Responsibilities

• Design products that deliver on the promise of competency-based education to provide efficiency, flexibility, personalization, achievement of goals, and fit with industry expectations.
• Resolve program design problems requiring broad-based consideration of variables at the program and college level, and collaborate with discipline and practice leadership on implementing ideas for new and revised programs.
• Lead cross-university coordination of program development, academic, operations, and other stakeholders in educational product design.
• Champion product designs that promote social mobility and equity.
• Ensure that product designs maximize broad access, including for underserved students, industry relevance, learning, and financial sustainability.
• Apply expert-level skill and experience in best practices in educational product design to the context of CBE (Competency-based Education) programs.
• Break down complex problems and delight users with tools that solve their problems efficiently and effectively.
• Anticipate, weigh, and document the cost, scope, and implementation effort of competing design options.
• Plan systems-thinking approaches that consider all elements of product design, such as enrolment, learner engagement, curriculum, instruction, evaluation, assessment, etc.
• Collaborate on the identification of student personas and ensure pathways efficiently meet their needs.
• Conduct industry and outside standards research and align product designs to industry and outside standard needs.
• Exercises independent judgment and creativity to redefine policies and procedures at the program and college level to meet key results.
• Achieve key results by setting success metrics and delivering thorough and beautiful documentation of the resulting product design.
• Innovate through thought leadership in program design and have industry-level impact with measurable results.
• Establish a model for training/education for faculty, mentors, enrolment counselors, and all other stakeholders.
• Manage change and communication about solutions to stakeholders in a manner that simplifies complexity and generates excitement.
• Lead and promote exceptional change management around new program initiatives with senior stakeholders.
• Plan and facilitate meetings and brainstorming sessions that are organized and productive.
• Advocate for high standards of excellence in providing delightful and rewarding user experiences, and proactively lead the design team in achieving them.
• Provide thought leadership for new and emerging techniques for competency-based education.

Requirements

• Minimum Qualifications: Master’s degree in related or equivalent work experience or a compatible field. Five or more years of experience within the fields of product, interaction, and visual design/development. Three years of experience in online learning and/or development of educational products. Portfolio or work samples showcasing product design prowess, creativity, and depth of thought, coupled with fluency in best practices for interaction design, visual design, and prototyping. Experience working effectively on cross-organizational teams. Three years of experience contributing to the management of P&L budget.
• Preferred Qualifications: Terminal degree in applicable discipline with preference for the fields of Education, Business, IT, or Health Professions. Background in metrics-driven, evidence-based decision making. Experience creating cross-contextual learning experiences that are born mobile, social-by-design, gamified, or non-linear with student-driven pathways. Proven record of developing and producing quality assessment and learning experiences using established development and production processes and methodologies. Experience using Design Thinking methodologies. Demonstrated understanding of the higher education environment. Demonstrated success with change management, particularly stabilizing and structuring diffuse and ambiguous situations.

Qualifications

• Physical Requirements: Prolonged periods of sitting at a desk and working on a computer. Must be able to lift up to 15 pounds at times. Travel up to 15-20% for college-specific business.

Benefits

• Medical, dental, vision, telehealth and mental healthcare
• Health savings account and flexible spending account
• Basic and voluntary life insurance
• Disability coverage
• Accident, critical illness and hospital indemnity supplemental coverages
• Legal and identity theft coverage
• Retail savings plan
• Wellbeing program
• Discounted WGU tuition
• Flexible paid time off for rest and relaxation with no need for accrual, flexible paid sick time with no need for accrual, 11 paid holidays, and other paid leaves, including up to 12 weeks of parental leave