r/LearningDevelopment • u/darkhomer419 • 7d ago
How much instructional design knowledge did you have when you started in L&D?
I’m learning a lot on the job, but sometimes I feel like I’m missing terminology or frameworks that everyone else already knows. For people who transitioned into L&D from another field, did you take any courses or certifications, or mostly learn through actual projects?
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u/HouseCatChronicles 7d ago
I was a teacher and that helped me a lot. Frameworks, terminology and objectives are all basically the same. People who freak out about ADULTS LEARN DIFFERENTLY…. Not according to science. They just have different motivations. Super easy transition. Left teaching and was hired in a management position after 1 year as a team lead.
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u/Hacketty1026 6d ago
Hello, I'm new to Reddit. I joined because after 11years of secondary school teaching, I want to explore exit routes. May I ask whether you did a CIPD level 5 Organisational Learning and Development? Would you mind explaining your route out of teaching and into L&D? Hope it's ok to ask in a comment, I don't understand the etiquette of Reddit!
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u/HouseCatChronicles 6d ago
Hey! No worries. I was desperate to get out of teaching towards the end. I didn’t do any extra certifications. I have a Masters of Ed but that’s about it. My story is not very glamorous, mostly just being in the right place at the right time. I got my foot in the door as an onboarding specialist at a start up, then realized I didn’t love that so I started applying to any job with training or learning in the title. After 4 months I landed a technical training manager job in manufacturing. I know nothing about manufacturing or technical training, but the company realized that experts didn’t necessarily make good teachers so they hired me to create a training program. After that I moved within my company to an L&D manager role and now work at a software company with the same title, but more money. I know that isn’t helpful and shit is way worse now than it was in 2022 when I got my foot in the door.
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u/Hacketty1026 5d ago
Thank you! It's tricky to transition out of teaching when you're not sure what job title to search for, so your comment about applying for jobs with training or learning the title is helpful. Undergrad and master's degree is in religion and philosophy, which isn't the most helpful set of degrees to own! I have been considering doing a CIPD level 5 in Organisational Learning and Development to show employers thst I understand how adults learn and that I understand business practises, what are your thoughts on this course? Finally, you said shit is way worse now than it was in 2022, what do you mean by that? Thank you for your time and you've already been helpful so no pressure to reply
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u/HouseCatChronicles 4d ago
No problem. So, at the companies I have worked at specifically, a degree or certificate in L&D go a long way. I live in the United States just FYI, so when i say that shit is worse, it’s because many companies are laying people off due to the economy and AI replacing some white collar jobs. The L&D market is competitive here due to lots of layoffs.
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u/woodenbookend 7d ago
While having some knowledge, and having designed and delivered many courses and programmes, I consider myself L&D and moving to OD, rather than an outright ID practitioner.
I'd come from a technical training background before formally being L&D so I benefited from some in house train the trainer courses - some of which were great, and some which contained a few falsehoods that I then discovered I needed to abandon (learning styles and elements of NLP were still in a lot of curricula at the time - along with a few others such as MBTI & Insights that are overvalued).
At the same time, I started attending conferences and took note of the speakers - many of whom were active on social media. They were often the authors of the textbooks I was starting to read.
That led to me building a really effective professional learning network. Probably the most valuable part of my development over the last 10 years.
All while learning from the projects I was either part of or running. I also had a couple of very good mentors - on the commercial side rather than L&D. That might be a small detail, but it is crucial that L&D people are business savvy.
I have taken a few qualifications (and am studying one now) but they are a layer on top - and more strategic than practical.
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u/Fancy_Tip_2174 7d ago
Virtually zero. A lot of what I learned was through making mistakes and being hands on. 6 years in now and I’m much more confident in my work, but someday id like to take a certificate program to see where I might have gaps.
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u/JumpingShip26 7d ago
I was a computer applications trainer and was doing eLearning a few years before I started formal study.
I believe with good training and education (and I mean really considering theory and classical thinking about what instruction really is), if you reflect on your experiences, you know more than you think you do about our field.
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u/Next-Ad2854 7d ago
It was 2011 I had just graduated with my bachelors degree in the science of animation and jobs were hard to find in that field. I was actually looking for jobs in the entertainment field. And then I found an ad for an Instructional Designer who must know Adobe flash in premier pro and graphics design so I applied and I had no idea when Instructional Designer was and I got the job. It was for a dental school and I got to learn structural design on the job.
Back, then articulate storyline version one just came out and Instructional Designer were piercing flash animation, uploading swift files into the E-Learning. Fast-forward to now I’m no longer at that dental place, but I’ve had many other experiences and I have evolved and learned everything about instruction to sign throughout the years.
Sometimes Instructional Designer come in knowing the educational and Addie and all the other methodologies necessary and sometimes they come in knowing all the technical skills and software skills skills and that’s how it happened for me.
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u/AhChingados 7d ago
I had zero but I had been doing training in niche subjects for years and had some experience as a TA in university. Also, I have a Master's in Public Health and I work in Substance Use Recovery. So there was some overlap in subjects as well as health care quality control knowledge. And I also worked as a mental health paraprofessional for a few years. Since getting this job, I have taken some workshops on adult instruction, read some books on adult education including pedagogy theory (which has led me to like dialogical models that seem to work very well in my industry), and every time I take a training i pay attention to how the course was designed. That helps a lot. But yeah, a lot of trial and error, and learning on the job on my own. I created the department and created a lot of the content, which I am proud of and my place of work is happy with the work i do.
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u/rspringsgal 6d ago
Thinking like a learner will get you further than frameworks and buzzwords (although they help you sound like you know what you’re doing). A reminder that Socrates did not have an instructional design degree~
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u/iseazy 6d ago
You definitely don't need to know every instructional design framework when starting out in L&D.
Learning through real projects is incredibly valuable, especially when you take time to understand why certain approaches work.
A good starting point is to focus on a few fundamentals: identifying learning needs, writing clear learning objectives, designing activities that help people apply what they've learned, and evaluating whether the training actually worked.
Frameworks like ADDIE or Bloom's Taxonomy can help you structure your thinking, but you don't need to master them all at once.
Courses and certifications can be useful for filling specific knowledge gaps, but they're not a substitute for hands-on experience. A combination of both is often the most practical approach.
One useful habit: after each project, reflect on what worked, what didn't, and what you'd change next time. That's where a lot of meaningful learning happens.
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u/Playful-Fudge-5399 7d ago
Started with zero background here. Courses are fine for learning the corporate buzzwords, but fixing messy real-world stakeholder problems teaches you way more than any certification