Senior Educational Program Designer

If you’re passionate about building a better future for individuals, communities, and our country—and you’re committed to working hard to play your part in building that future—consider WGU as the next step in your career.

Driven by a mission to expand access to higher education through online, competency-based degree programs, WGU is also committed to being a great place to work for a diverse workforce of student-focused professionals. The university has pioneered a new way to learn in the 21st century, one that has received praise from academic, industry, government, and media leaders. Whatever your role, working for WGU gives you a part to play in helping students graduate, creating a better tomorrow for themselves and their families.

The salary range for this position takes into account the wide range of factors that are considered in making compensation decisions including but not limited to skill sets; experience and training; licensure and certifications; and other business and organizational needs.

At WGU, it is not typical for an individual to be hired at or near the top of the range for their position, and compensation decisions are dependent on the facts and circumstances of each case. A reasonable estimate of the current range is:
 

Grade: Faculty 507Pay Range: $80,700.00 - $121,000.00

Job Description

The Senior Educational Program Designer is a thought leader and advocate for new and emerging program design. They will lead and facilitate the design of competency-based higher education programs that emphasize students’ ability to acquire and demonstrate skills, rather than the amount of time spent learning. This person will use curiosity, empathy, and experience with convergent experience design to anticipate and investigate the impact of decisions made about program design across the entire enterprise of competency-based education. They are a systems thinker who can guide cross-functional teams in translating complex student and business needs into programs that provide efficient and personalized learning pathways. They will focus relentlessly on ensuring that program designs resonate with employers, learners, and policymakers, and will employ best practices and innovative practices for program design in the competency-based education context. The Senior Educational Program Designer will create designs that optimize: the value proposition for the learner; the resources required; student engagement; successful learning experiences; and financial sustainability. They will connect internal and external stakeholders for information exchange, problem-solving, and designing education programs to achieve impact.

Essential Functions and Responsibilities:  

• Break down complex problems and explore ways to delight users with tools that solve their problems efficiently and effectively
• Collaborate and partner with cross-functional teams of program development, academic, operations, and other stakeholders
• Design programs that deliver on the promise of competency-based education to provide efficiency, flexibility, personalization, achievement of goals, and fit with industry expectations
• Design programs that promote social mobility and equity
• Ensure that program designs maximize broad access, including for underserved students, industry relevance, learning, and financial sustainability
• Apply best practices in backward program design to the context of CBE (Competency-based Education) programs
• Quickly discover and prototype potential options, then weigh trade-offs between choices
• Anticipate, advise upon, and document the cost, scope, and implementation effort of competing program design options
• Apply a systems-thinking approach to help collaborators consider all elements of program design, such as enrollment, 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 program designs to industry and outside standard needs
• Select outcomes and design programs in meaningful ways
• Assess the sustainability of a program design at scale over its lifecycle
• Recommend tools and technologies that achieve scale while maintaining quality programming
• Set success metrics
• Thoroughly and beautifully document the resulting program design to guide development decisions that uphold the integrity of the design as well as provide a historical record for decisions that were made
• Establish a model for training/education for faculty, mentors, enrollment counselors, and all other stakeholders; work directly with students during the deployment of programs and courses
• Ensure the overall quality and effectiveness of training/education for faculty, mentors, and enrollment counselors
• Communicate solutions to stakeholders in a manner that simplifies complexity and generates excitement
• 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 support the team in achieving them
• Provide thought leadership for new and emerging techniques for competency-based education

Knowledge, Skill, and Abilities: 

• Experience designing products or solutions that benefit end users and society. 
• Extensive experience leading design thinking and product design sprints in person and with remote teams. Can demonstrate an extensive “bag of tricks” for empathetic design and facilitation challenges. 
• Proven track record devising and designing high-quality web and/or mobile products in collaboration with product management and engineering partners. 
• Good listener – weighs input from multiple perspectives when forming opinions and recommendations. 
• Collaborative and team-oriented work approach. 
• Excellent written, oral, presentation, and interpersonal skills. 
• Proficiency in technology-driven document and collaboration tools, including Microsoft Office suite, web conferencing, and cloud-based tools. 

Competencies:

Influences Others and Communicates Effectively: 

• Communicates to improve and promote teamwork, decision making, and problem solving. 
• Listens and responds effectively to the reactions and positions of others and encourages the expression of diverse ideas and opinions. 
• Adjusts message and style to fit the audience. 
• Provides timely and helpful feedback. 
• Communicates appropriately to win support with all audiences. 
    
• Works cooperatively with others across the organization to achieve shared objectives. 
• Represents own interests while being fair to others and their areas. 
• Partners with others to get work done. 
• Credits others for their contributions and accomplishments. 
• Gains buy-in, trust, and support of others. 
    

Manages Ambiguity: 

• Deals comfortably with the uncertainty of change. 
• Effectively handles risk. 
• Can decide to act without the total picture. 
• Is calm and productive, even when things are up in the air. 
• Deals constructively with problems that do not have clear solutions or outcomes. 
    

Being Resilient: 

• Is confident under pressure. 
• Handles and manages crises effectively. 
• Maintains a positive attitude despite adversity. 
• Bounces back from obstacles and setbacks. 
• Grows from hardships and negative experiences. 
    

Drives for Results: 

• Has a strong outcomes-based orientation. 
• Persists in accomplishing objectives despite obstacles and setbacks. 
• Has a track record of successfully achieving goals. 
• Pushes self and helps others achieve results. 
• Has a continuous improvement mindset. 
    

Organizational Learning: 

• Learns quickly when facing new situations. 
• Experiments to find new solutions. 
• Takes on challenges of unfamiliar tasks. 
• Extracts lessons learned from failures and mistakes. 
• Expands knowledge base through ongoing curiosity. 

Job Qualifications:

Minimum Qualifications: 

• Three or more years’ experience within the fields of product, interaction, and visual design/development. 
• Bachelor’s degree. 
• Background in online learning and/or development of educational products. 
• Background in metrics-driven, evidence-based decision making. 
• 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. 

Preferred Qualifications: 

• Master’s degree or Ph.D. in a relevant field. 
• 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. of
• Demonstrated understanding of the higher education environment. 
• Demonstrated success with change management, particularly stabilizing and structuring diffuse and ambiguous situations. 

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. 

This position requires occasional travel of up to 20%, including required attendance at designated company summits (typically one to two per year). Additional travel may include conferences, visits to company locations, and other business-related events as needed. Additional travel may be assigned as needed to support business requirements.

Position & Application Details

Full-Time Regular Positions (classified as regular and working 40 standard weekly hours): This is a full-time, regular position (classified for 40 standard weekly hours) that is eligible for bonuses; 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; retirement savings plan; wellbeing program; discounted WGU tuition; and 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.

How to Apply: If interested, an application will need to be submitted online. Internal WGU employees will need to apply through the internal job board in Workday.

Additional Information

Disclaimer: The job posting highlights the most critical responsibilities and requirements of the job. It’s not all-inclusive.

Accommodations: Applicants with disabilities who require assistance or accommodation during the application or interview process should contact our Talent Acquisition team at [email protected].

Equal Employment Opportunity: All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to any protected characteristic as required by law.