Instructional what?

The 21st century can be a conflicted place when it comes to work and careers. In centuries past it was expected that your barber would moonlight as the local doctor, specializing in bloodletting and leach therapies to balance the humors. Or it was common for the parsons to double up as the village undertaker too, or the local jeweler to pull duty as a gun dealer. Perhaps the times of earlier centuries dictated multiple occupational skills over single occupational skills.

The nature of a post industrial America has, with its complex tools and processes and ever increasingly complex job roles, forced the widening of the line between the division of labor and occupations. So now it's rare to have the type of crossover that was seen in times before. Now everything from car mechanics to medicine men and women comes specialized. A mechanic can specialize in electrical systems inasmuch as a physician can specialize in nephrology - thanks to mankind having discovered enough about the complexities of our world to appreciate its granularity.

But all isn't necessarily lost to the ages. There's still some job sharing in the 21 century. Here's an example, instructional designers and corporate trainers. A lot of times on job websites and projects the terms are paired, if not used interchangeably, as if to increase chances of the post being found. But really the two couldn't be more distinct in their job tasks, skills, and objectives. 

Let's go back to the example of the singer/songwriter. There are some wonderfully blessed savants who do both very well (depends on how you define well - I won't go there). From back in my day, I viewed Lionel Ritchie and James Taylor as songwriting beast. Back in the 70's and 80's they could do no wrong. They wrote for themselves; they wrote for other people. They were the bomb. While they both could hold a note and had enviable tone they were probably more respected for the compositions they wrote.

Then there's Whitney Houston, Adele, and Audra MacDonald. All known and respected more so for their voices and the interpretations they bring (brought) to a songwriter's idea.

Summarily, songwriters write songs and singers vocally interpret them. The mastery behind each discipline is confirmed in the fact that higher ed outfits offer degrees in music composition like they offer degrees in voice.

So here we are with instructional designer versus trainer. Each job title says what it does. Instructional designers create instruction. Trainers train or deliver instruction. In the same way a songwriter develops an idea into a tune, constructing it out of sound, time, and words, an instructional designer develops an idea into instruction. She uses her best senses to construct meaningful instruction from disparate procedures, rules, and guidelines. Trainers are the deliverers of what instructional designers produce. Like the singer, the trainer interprets and follows the ideas of the instructional designer.

The important thing is that instructional designing and training (as a trainer) are two completely different disciplines. The art of instructional design can be learned in institutions. You can get a degree in it, like a B.A., MAEd, M Ed, etc. Expertise in training, however, is developed only from doing and experiencing the actual job or product at hand.

Say a brilliant surgeon comes up with an idea to decrease stroke risk during a particular surgery. He performs the procedure successfully tens of times, proving its effectiveness. A medical school approaches him about developing a three-day workshop on his procedure, training other surgeons. While this medicine man knows much about anatomy, medical tools, and what he does in the OR, he may know little about creating three days worth of instruction. Not to worry, that's where the medical school assigns him an instructional designer, with perhaps a specialty in medical communication.

Now we have a symbiotic relationship between two very different practioneers. 

In the end, the doctor operated as trainer, which is what he should be doing because he is the SME. And the instructional designer operated in her correct capacity - not delivering the training but giving the trainer scope, form, and function for the trainer to deliver. The two worked together to help the trainer deliver the message he wanted to deliver in a way that was clear, interesting, and cohesive for the trainee. An instructional designer is to a trainer, as a songwriter is to a vocalist, or a playwright is to an actor, or an architect is to a builder, or a ... ok you get the idea. Instructional designers develop pedagogic infrastructure for trainers. And trainers, who always ought to be subject matter experts in their discipline, interpret and follow that instruction to deliver the content their audience expects and the trainer wants.

Yeah it's true that in one trainer you could find decent or exceptional instructional designer skills. But maybe that's the exception and not the average. Just like in the arts, you could find in one artist both a decent songwriter and singer - kind of like Michael Jackson or Elton John. Those guys are (were) all-in-ones.

So if it's so clear that there is a line between instructional designers and trainers. Why do some job posts not recognize that? I've two ideas. 1) The organization assumes the trainer is always an expert in both disciplines or at least the trainer can put together an ok curriculum and can operate Articulate. 2) The organization doesn't understand what instructional design is exactly.

The field of instructional design has a duty to continually educate the public and employers on what the occupation really is about. Instructional designers have expertise in designing training to support what subject matter experts (trainers) want to say and do in their training events - instructor led or web-based. When hiring an instructional designer/trainer, an ad ought to read, "hiring for instructional designer/subject matter expert". Because that's really what's being asked for - a subject matter expert. Unless the firm is looking for subject matter in the art of instructional design itself, the prospective applicant may want to ask ... "a subject matter expert in what?".

In the training process, the function of speaking to and leading the learner, audibly or in text, should be the domain of the trainer role. In the same process, the function of developing curriculums, materials, validation, and basically providing pedagogical support to the trainer role ought to be the domain of the instructional designer.