Job Analysis

Job Analysis

I am reviewing job descriptions obtained from University of South Florida, University of New Hampshire, Worcester Polytech Institute, University of Illinois, and Purdue University in order to help me develop a plan to obtain employment as an assistant professor. Below, I report on the likely job tasks, working conditions, required skills, and average starting salary of the positions named in the job descriptions. After that, I will present where I am at and what I need to do to prepare myself to be a competitive candidate for similar positions after graduation.

Likely Job Tasks

From the job descriptions, the following were the recurring job tasks for an assistant professor:

• Teach undergraduate and graduate courses (face-to-face, online, and blended formats)
• Recruit and supervise graduate students
• Research
• Seek external funding
• Support undergraduate and graduate programs
• Support college initiatives
• Support the field

Working Conditions

Professors work in a very social environment. They interact daily with students, fellow faculty, and administrators. The work is quite variable: teaching, grading, lesson preparation, researching, advising, participating in committees. It is definitely not a 9 to 5 job. Some work may need to be done in the evening or on weekends. Professors can have a lot of autonomy. They may be quite constrained on time with all the responsibilities that must be met. Work can occur on campus, from home, or in the field depending on research, conference, and consultation needs.

It is quite likely that I may take a job in another state. The positions I am examining are located in Florida, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Illinois, and Indiana. Many of the programs in the field of instructional psychology, technology, and design are located in the East and South United States (if I plan on staying in the United States). The likelihood of relocation is important to consider when preparing for a faculty appointment.

Required Skills

From the job descriptions, the following represent the prerequisites of candidates applying for the position of assistant professor:

• PhD in instructional technology and design or related field
• Have an established record of teaching, researching, and service preferred (many would like to see research and presentation record in relevant journals and conferences)
• Expertise in relevant theories and research methodologies (specific expertise sought from the job postings: human performance, K-16 education, engagement, educational assessment and policy, technology development and integration, and cognitive psychology
• Robust Technical Skills

Average Salary for Assistant Professor

Location	Salary	Cost of Living (compared to Provo, UT)
University of South Florida	$71,367	slightly higher
University of New Hampshire	$82,006	slightly higher
Worcester Polytech Institute, MA	$83,020	over twice as high
University of Illinois	$83,790	slightly higher
Purdue University, IN	$88,178	comparable

*Information obtained from glassdoor.com and cityrating.com

From the above analysis, it is evident that living in the Provo area is pretty nice. I was quite surprised to see the Purdue position as having a comparable cost of living but also having the highest average salary. Brigham Young University’s average salary was listed as about $77,000 for an associate professor. University of South Florida’s salary does not seem as competitive when compared to the starting salaries of the other universities. Perhaps it has a better health care package or something to offset the difference. This information, however, was not available on glassdoor.com. Obviously, when seeking employment, it will be important to take these factors into consideration when deciding which position to take and where to live.

Preparation

Strengths

Below are some of the experiences and skills I already have that will help me be prepared to be a competitive candidate for an assistant professor position in instructional psychology and technology:

• Experience teaching at the university level with three years of undergraduate teaching experience
• Great familiarity with the K12 system from experience working as a tutor and substitute teacher
• Ability to analyze and help improve writing from my writing education background, and tutoring and teaching experience in writing (which will be useful when mentoring students in their theses and dissertations)
• Technical writing skills developed from my graduate program in English with a technical writing emphasis (which will be helpful in doing instructional design and in research writing)
• Mentoring experience from my work as a mentor for the Teaching Academy at UVU, a faculty development program for full-time and part-time faculty
• Experience in instructional design and technologies through higher education teaching experiences (working with LMS and designing my own courses for blended formats), and through my work as a program developer for High Performance Tutoring, a K-16 private tutoring company based in Salt Lake City.

Needed Education, Skills, and Experience

Below is a list of skills, education, and experience I still need to obtain to be qualified as an assistant professor of instructional psychology and technology:

• A doctoral degree
• Technology skills – while I have some experience with Photoshop, Flash, and other development software, I am weak in internet development skills and technology
• Publications – I need to establish myself as a researcher to prove my abilities to contribute in scholarship as a professor
• Conference presentations – I need to participate in conferences so that others can get to know my interests, strengths, and research experience, and to be able to network
• Education in research methodologies – I need more education in qualitative and quantitative research if I am going to be able to effectively contribute to educational research
• Education in instructional theory of my interest – I need to be able to contribute uniquely as a member of a community of faculty researchers
• Teaching experience in instructional psychology and technology courses
• Skills in grant writing

Education Plan

Following are specific plans that I have to develop in education, experience, and skill:

• Working as a teaching assistant in our department (this winter semester and beyond).
• Going to AECT conference next year in California.
• Going to the Sloan-C conference on blended learning in Milwaukee next summer as part of a research team with Dr. Graham from BYU.
• Working towards publishing a journal analysis article with Dr. West from BYU this winter, and a chapter on blended learning theories with Dr. Graham this winter as well.

The theme I would like to take for my dissertation and education at BYU is in improving higher education, specifically with online learning, blended learning, and other best-learning and teaching practices in higher education, I also want to focus on faculty development. I hope to get involved with helping faculty implement the best learning and teaching practices that are emerging in educational research. I think there are some exciting opportunities to study this at BYU in the coming years. Having a blended learning initiative at a university level is becoming more of a reality. I would like to get involved in helping that happen and studying change, implementation, and faculty attitudes and experiences. I plan on doing the three-article dissertation in the above-mentioned areas so as to take up as many publication opportunities. I plan on taking these ideas and presenting them at conferences as well.

So, where did instructional design come from?

My goal here is to address the question, “What is an instructional designer?” To many, the field of instructional design is ambiguous. I aim to discuss a basic history of the field of instructional design, the current trends, and the roles instructional designers have today in order to demonstrate what this field addresses and what instructional designers do.

My degree is in Instructional Psychology and Technology. This degree is a blending of two movements: one in instructional media and the other in instructional design. Instructional media concerns itself with the design and effective use of technologies that improve and make possible different kinds of instruction. Interest in instructional media grew in the early 1900s when schools began collecting charts, slides, photographs, films and other material to complement school instruction. Understanding how to use and create effective media became a part of this movement, especially during World War II, when the U.S. military sought to design films to successfully train personnel. It is quite possible that the effective use of these films gave the United States an important advantage in the war. In the 1950s, instructional media attention turned to television and computers. Instructional television gained widespread support for a time, and then faded. The use of computers to deliver instruction, on the other hand, had a slow start but a more lasting effect. The internet has helped the computer have a greater impact as an instructional medium. Today, great work is put into online education, which expands the boundaries of the classroom, providing education in a more flexible and accessible way.

Instructional design, on the other hand, is concerned with how to effectively design instruction to achieve desired goals. Like instructional media, instructional design has its important roots in the military training films of World War II. During this time, the military brought in psychologists and educators to design training based on research to increase effectiveness of military instruction. These researchers were also used to develop assessment instruments to help pair the strengths and talents of trainees with appropriate roles. After the war, research continued on developing principles to help guide the effective design of instruction. Programmed instruction presented the principles of small steps, consistent positive reinforcement, and self-pacing to help guide the design of effective instruction. Robert Gagné developed the idea that effective learning happened in steps, beginning with getting attention to reinforcing what was learned. These steps are known as the Nine Events of Instruction. In the 1960s, emphasis was placed on evaluating instruction, which led to trying out instruction on learners to determine if the design achieved its goals.

Eventually, this work built up to a systematic way of designing instruction. One of the most popular models of this system is the ADDIE model (Assess, Design, Develop, Implement, Evaluate). While this model has been a long-time standard in the field, others have tried to develop other systems to handle the more complex tasks of designing computer-based instructional material. One model gaining traction today is Andy Gibbon’s layers model, which looks at instructional design much like the blueprints of a building, where certain experts have domain over parts of design and construction, like framers, plumbers, electricians, and interior designers. Domain experts in modern instructional design would include experts in content, pedagogy, data base management, software development, and graphical design. This perspective on design encourages expertise in specific domains as well as developing a design system where one layer can be manipulated without great expense to the workings of the other layers. Instructional designers often take the role of managing the work of all these experts as well as being the expert on instructional strategies. The work of instructional designers continues to evolve alongside the development of instructional media, learning and teaching strategies, and design systems.

My interests lie in the expanding and quickly evolving field of online education. As mentioned earlier, online education makes education more accessible and flexible. I have taken several online classes in my master’s program at Utah State University in Logan, Utah. Students were attending class from Idaho to Greenland. We participated in asynchronous discussion led by our instructor. I have also designed my own courses as a freshman composition instructor to take greater advantage of computer and Internet technologies. The Internet allows us to do much of the content learning at home, allowing class time to be used for practice and workshops. Students have found this hands-on form of instruction to be very valuable and helpful to their learning.

Researchers and designers have come to the consensus that online instruction cannot simply be a transfer of traditional face-to-face instruction to the internet. Nor should it be that way. As we seek to improve education, online education has caused us to rethink learning and instruction in productive and exciting ways. I hope to conduct further research in this area, specifically with how to blend online education with traditional formats. These methods provide different strengths, the blending of which have produced more effective learning than with either method alone. Research is needed to identify what is causing these blended methods to work so well. I hope to help identify these causes and work on developing theories that can guide the effective design of future blended instructional experiences.

For more on this subject, see Robert A. Reiser's "A History of Instructional Design and Technology," in Trends and Issues in Instructional Design and Technology (3rd Ed.), Pearson, 2012. 

Design Tool: PBWiki

This is a review of PBWiki, a web-based wiki tool provided by PBWorks. If you are unfamiliar with wikis, you essentially have a basic website, blogging, and collaboration space rolled into one. Wikipedia is probably the most well known wiki. What started out as a place to share a document and simultaneously edit the document online with other people who are using other computers, has now become a tool to share files, organize and present content, and communicate and collaborate. Both educators and businesspeople have taken to wiki providers, like PBWorks, to share and collaborate online.

Obviously this type of service can be found in many different forms. LMS’s are becoming more and more like wikis (and then provide a lot more, like quizzes and gradebooks). However, if you are looking for something like an LMS but more basic, PBWiki is a great choice. This could be used by instructional designers needing a simple space to share and collaborate on files, organize content into folders, and hold threaded discussions. I see its main use as being a basic way to deliver educational content for a project.

How to get it

You can access PBWiki for free, though more space and features are provided if you upgrade to various paid accounts. Here are the package options for educators:

Basic Edition (Free)	Classroom Edition ($99 per year)	Campus Edition ($799 per year)
Allow up to 100 accounts to your space (or you can make it public and anyone can access)	100 controlled accounts	1000 controlled accounts
Control what kind of access users have: ·       Editors (can create and delete) ·       Writers (can create) ·       Viewers (can look at pages)	Greater security (you can allow only certain users to access certain files or folders)	Same features as Classroom Edition
2 GB of online storage space	40 GB of online storage space	Unlimited online storage space
Basic customization (can change space colors)	More customization (get the school logo on the page)	Campus dashboard to maintain multiple workspaces and users
		Premium support

If I wanted this kind of system for my school, I’d probably go with something like Canvas, which has a lot more features, like quizzes and gradebook. But for something simple and accessible, PBWiki is a great option.

How it's used

Here is an example of what PBWiki looks like:

This is the home page of a course workspace I created. You can edit this page, create new pages, organize those pages by folders. You can create easy navigation in a box to the right to other pages. You can link within pages. This is what makes PBWiki much like a basic website. It allows you to deliver and share content. As a free user, I can’t restrict things on the page level (like keep students from editing my pages, but I haven’t had any try).

Here’s an example of the edit page. It provides a basic content editor. This also allows you to insert tables, links to websites, and links to other wiki pages and files in your workspace. You can also switch to an html editor, which allows you to do some more customization. If you have a Flickr account, you can upload files there, write in the html code for an image, and include the image in your page (Sorry, no easy upload photo tool). You can upload videos from sites like YouTube, as well as audio files (there is an upload tool for these).

One of my favorite features about PBWiki is the discussion board feature (pictured above). This feature is right below the main page. There is a comment box to begin a discussion. Discussions are threaded (at a basic level—you can’t really do threads within threads within threads). Comments are date- and user-stamped. You can clear comments later. It just provides a great way to discuss the content of pages, which is useful when working asynchronously.

This last image is of the space where you can upload files, create new pages, and organize content within folders. The nice thing about PBWiki is that the history of your pages are saved, and you can revert back to previous versions at any time. If you ever need help learning the features, PBWorks provides a great support system—though, really, this is quite intuitive to use.

Conclusion

Once again, PBWiki is great if you want an easy way to deliver content; share and manage users, files and pages; and collaborate through writing and discussion. Canvas does provide these types of features and more, but a free account on Canvas only gives you 250 MB of storage space. The greatest downside to Canvas is that the content of Canvas is not searchable. If you are using Canvas as a major content delivery system for instruction, you need an easy way for users to find material. You don’t want them to get frustrated trying to hunt for a page they need. PBWiki not only presents pages and files effectively and in one place, but everything in the workspace is searchable. It searches pages as well as discussion threads. The content within uploaded files are not searchable, but the titles will be picked up by the search. This is huge! The downside to PBWiki that it is not easy to link it to an LMS (meaning, it doesn’t have great LTI capabilities). You can export your content into a zipped text file, but I still need to explore how you can link up or export this resource for use in other systems.

Anyways, to sum up, if you are looking for an easy-to-use, free collaboration space or a content-delivery system, PBWiki has some great features. 

Here’s the url for this nifty source: http://pbworks.com