Learning Designer

King’s Digital is a truly collaborative team. We partner with academics and professional services staff across the university, and with our external partners to design, develop and deliver a wide range of educational programmes in line with King's Education Strategy.

We produce online master's degrees, short courses, bespoke executive education courses, and increasingly, stackable micro-credentials. You will be joining us at an exciting time as we seek to realise our strategic ambition of being a UK leader in online and blended education, specifically in the areas of learning design, development, and partnerships.

We are a dynamic team with ambitious growth targets in a priority area of development for King’s. We proudly foster a supportive culture and community which prioritises both individual and collective wellbeing. We actively work to protect and improve the wellbeing of all staff; be it physical, mental or social, and recognise this as central to our work and success.

King’s offers a wide variety of support to employees, including flexible working arrangements, paid maternity/shared parental leave, menopausal support, an active wellbeing programme, training and development opportunities and much more. All of our staff benefit from a generous pension contribution as well.

As part of King’s trial of hybrid working, all team members can work remotely for part of the week if they wish.

Learning Designers in King’s Digital work collaboratively with both academics and creative designers to create effective and engaging online courses. They play a crucial role in shaping the learning experience of our online students: ensuring that the content is presented in a clear and memorable way, with meaningful interaction to prepare students for success on their course and in their careers.

We are looking for someone with a sound understanding of pedagogical theory and evidence, who is keen to apply their experience creating e-learning to substantial postgraduate programmes and innovative short courses for professionals. The role will involve improving existing modules and creating new ones. The ideal candidate would be naturally curious and keen to apply their analytical and creative skills to varied subjects, including social sciences, law, business and health.

This post will be offered on 2-year fixed-term contract.

This is a full-time post.

The role is primarily based at King’s Strand Campus though you may be required to travel to other campuses on occasion.

Working in collaboration with faculty and the King’s Digital project teams, the Learning Designer designs online or blended courses that are engaging and pedagogically effective. It is the Learning Designer’s responsibility to ensure the content and activities reflect the academics’ educational aims and maximise student engagement and learning to support the development of students’ academic and professional abilities.

The role holder will be expected to:

• Apply learning design principles, adult learning theory and learning sciences evidence to ensure the high pedagogical quality of King’s Digital programmes, modules and short courses.
• Design a learning pathway or sequence of content and activities that will help the students achieve the learning outcomes set by or agreed with the academic lead.
• Make design choices resulting in resources and activities that are:

• Work with academic leads, course facilitators and other subject matter experts in a collaborative, consultative fashion, supporting them to develop effective learning outcomes, and helping them adapt or create content, activities and assessment that is suitable for online learning.
• Establish rapport and communicate respectfully and productively with academics and project team members both in person and online, including written communication, voice calls, meetings and workshops.
• Identify material and learning outcomes that may be suitable for varied educational formats, including interactive lessons, asynchronous discussion forums, live webinars, individual or collaborative student activities, audio, video, animation or educational games.
• Take into account the features and constraints of the King’s Digital learning platform, preferred software and accessibility requirements when designing lessons and activities (currently Moodle and Teams, but previous experience with specific software is not essential)
• Provide consultative advice to faculty on designing and facilitating online courses.
• Manage own workload in the context of project plan timeframes and deadlines, maintain accurate project progress documentation and keep project managers abreast of key decisions, milestones and problems
• Advise and assist with the introduction of new learning design initiatives, through attending or facilitating workshops, reading relevant literature, and collaborative project work with the team.

The above list of responsibilities may not be exhaustive, and the post holder will be required to undertake such tasks and responsibilities as may reasonably be expected within the scope and grading of the post.

Essential criteria

Desirable criteria

The selection process will include an assessment and a panel interview. Candidates must include a cover letter for their application to be considered.

The interviews are estimated to take place in early to mid-May 2024.

About sustainability at King’s and opportunity to join the sustainability champion scheme

At King’s we strive to deliver research, education and service to society that responds to the  United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs), supporting the worldwide effort to build a better future for our people and planet.

At King’s Digital, we take our role in minimising the negative and maximising the positive impacts seriously and seek to embed sustainability at every level within the department. While working for us, you will have the opportunity to support sustainability through participation in the  Sustainability Champions programme .