Senior Lead Educational Program Designer

Western Governors University•Salt Lake, UT

2d•Onsite

About The Position

As a thought leader and high-impact contributor to new and emerging product design, the Senior Lead Educational Program Designer leverages proven leadership skills to drive the design of competency-based higher education products that emphasize students’ ability to acquire and demonstrate skills, rather than the amount of time spent learning. The educational product designer will use curiosity, empathy, and experience with convergent experience design to anticipate and investigate the impact of decisions made about product design across the entire enterprise of competency-based education. A systems thinker, this person leads cross-functional teams in translating complex student and business needs into products that deliver efficient, personalized learning pathways, which provide learners with pathways to opportunity and resonate with employers, learners, and policymakers. The Sr. Lead EPD leads highly complex, university-wide initiatives to improve key results in program design. The educational product designs created through this person’s leadership will optimize: the value proposition for the learner; the resources required; student engagement; successful learning experiences; and financial sustainability. This role will function as a consultant to all levels of leadership and represent program design to relevant stakeholders and academic departments. If you are experienced in and passionate about leading teams through influence to design elegant, workable solutions to difficult problems in education, we want to talk to you!

Requirements

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.

Nice To Haves

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.

Responsibilities

Accountable for the design of 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.
Assess and maximize the sustainability of a product design at scale over its lifecycle.
Serve as an expert advisor on tools and technologies that achieve scale while maintaining quality programming.
Leads highly complex initiatives to improve key results and sets success metrics.
Deliver thorough and beautiful documentation of the resulting product design to guide development decisions that uphold the integrity of the design, as well as provide a historical record for decisions that were made
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
Performs other related duties as assigned.