Associate Instructional Designer

How the Learning Doctrine defines this role

The Zeraki Learning Doctrine identifies a coordination problem: students, teachers, parents, tutors and tools need shared guidance and timely evidence across the learning cycle. The unit you help design is that complete cycle, including activity away from the application.

The mandate

Contribute clear, tested instructional requirements to assigned parts of Zeraki Learning’s five functions. Help the team turn evidence into the next action and develop toward ownership of a small, complete learning loop.

Your accountability and decisions

You own the quality, clarity and follow-through of your assigned research, instructional drafts and test cases. Within an agreed brief, propose options and explain their educational rationale. Initial specifications and material changes to progression, assessment or support receive specialist review arranged by the CPTO.

The PM coordinates the shared backlog and owns product coordination. In the PD capacity, that colleague owns the user experience under the Head of Product Design. Engineers own technical implementation. You contribute the learning rules and evidence requirements, raise risks and revise work after review.

Your scope is supported delivery across a defined part of the learning cycle. You are not expected to set product-wide learning architecture or independently approve complex instructional decisions. Neither you nor the combined PM/PD line-manages the other.

What you will do

1 Investigate the whole learning cycle

The research follows learning across people, places and time.

• Help observe how work is assigned, attempted, checked and revisited across school and home. Include teachers, parents and tutors where relevant to the question.

• Record where the process loses continuity: an unclear next action, unsuitable method, missing help, unavailable device or evidence that reaches an adult too late.

• Map existing alternatives, including notebooks, teacher routines, WhatsApp, tutors and explanation tools. Describe the job each currently performs.

• Separate observation from interpretation. Help frame a small test and identify what result would change the proposed design.

2 Contribute to the planner

The output is an achievable next action on a workable schedule.

• Draft session, day or holiday plans within an agreed brief, using objectives, prior learning evidence, available time and access constraints.

• Specify what the learner should do, when to review it and what should happen after missed work, repeated errors or a change in circumstances.

• Include manageable units of work, paper-based activities, breaks and a clear return point. Avoid assuming that students can plan and monitor everything independently.

• Connect longer-term goals to immediate actions and understandable progress evidence, with appropriate teacher or parent support.

3 Contribute to the method selector

The method should fit the learner’s current need.

• Draft choices between retrieval, worked examples, mixed practice, explanation, prerequisite review, rest and help from another person.

• Distinguish the higher-level choice of method from the hints and scaffolding inside a task. Identify what evidence should trigger a change.

• Use subject specialists and an instructional reviewer to check objectives, prerequisites, difficulty and curriculum fit.

• Explain the rationale and uncertainty behind each recommendation; revise it using observed learner responses.

4 Design supported execution across contexts

Zeraki performs some learning work and guides the rest.

• Draft digital diagnosis, practice or feedback activities where software is useful, including clear instructions and expected learner responses.

• Specify what should happen on paper, in class, through discussion or with a tutor, and how the learner returns to the shared plan afterward.

• Help define an in-context route when a learner gets stuck: a hint, explanation, simpler task or handoff, with an understandable next step.

• Check that a proposed activity can work with shared phones, weak connectivity, limited supervision and realistic teacher workload.

5 Help close the feedback and evaluation loop

Evidence should arrive in time to change the next learning decision.

• Draft checks for retrieval, independent performance, recurring errors and retention after a delay. Include signals for missed work, stalled progress and help requests.

• Distinguish task completion, learner self-report, assisted answers and verified performance. Do not treat an activity record as proof of mastery.

• Help specify how new evidence changes the plan, method, difficulty or support, using the reviewer’s agreed rules.

• Support pilots and testing; record missing evidence, implementation problems and what the results can reasonably show.

6 Help coordinate the supporting actors

Each signal needs an appropriate recipient and a practical response.

• Draft role-specific requirements: what a student needs to do, what a parent needs to notice and what a teacher or tutor needs to address.

• Help specify shared plans, progress signals, help requests and follow-up. Check who owns the next action and how its completion becomes visible.

• Prefer light-touch parent oversight and manageable teacher intervention. Explore existing communication channels where appropriate.

• Test what happens when the intended helper is unavailable or does not respond; raise unresolved gaps rather than assuming a handoff completes the loop.

7 Translate the logic into working product behaviour

• Prepare reviewed rules, examples and acceptance criteria covering normal progress, missed work, repeated errors, delayed checks and unresolved help.

• Review prototypes and implemented flows with the PM/PD and engineers, then confirm that corrections preserve the instructional intent.

• Keep evidence and decisions traceable. Verify AI-assisted work and follow approved research, safeguarding and data-handling procedures.

How you will work with the team

You report to the CPTO. Your combined PM/PD colleague reports to the CPTO for product management and the Head of Product Design for product design. Neither role line-manages the other. The CPTO arranges the specialist review needed for Associate instructional work.

Your operating rhythm

• Weekly: review progress and blockers with the PM; discuss instructional work with the assigned reviewer; review whether evidence is leading to an appropriate next action or intervention.

• Every two-week sprint: contribute to refinement, testing, reviews and retrospectives for assigned work. Raise incomplete decisions before they delay implementation.

• Each three-month planning cycle: help prepare evidence and instructional requirements for agreed priorities, within the team’s capacity.

• Quarterly: review results, work quality and development goals with the CPTO, including where you are ready for greater independence.

What good collaboration looks like

You bring a clear educational reason for a design choice and remain open to better evidence. You explain uncertainties early, use examples that engineers can test, and recognise when a problem belongs to another discipline. When instructional quality, usability and delivery cost conflict, you make the trade-off visible so that the appropriate owner can decide.

What success looks like

These expectations are calibrated to supported delivery. The CPTO will agree the initial assignments, measures and review arrangements during onboarding.

First 90 days

• Understand Zeraki Learning’s purpose, existing journeys and the main constraints students, teachers and parents face.

• Complete research or observation work with guidance and produce a useful synthesis with traceable evidence.

• Map one scoped learning loop from plan through activity, evidence, supporting response and re-planning; deliver reviewed requirements for an agreed part of it.

• Participate in implementation testing or a small pilot and document what needs to change.

• Agree a development plan covering applied learning science, assessment design, research and digital product delivery.

First six months

• Consistently deliver agreed assignments to the review standard, with fewer repeated errors and less avoidable clarification.

• Contribute to a complete pilot that connects the next action, method, execution context, evidence and supporting actors.

• Use learner evidence to improve at least one aspect of an assigned experience, such as feedback, task difficulty, help or return after interruption.

• Demonstrate sound judgment about what you can resolve independently and what requires review.

First 12 months

• Own a small learning loop with progressively lighter supervision, including interrupted work, delayed checks and the route to help.

• Produce clear specifications and evaluation summaries that colleagues can use without reconstructing the reasoning.

• Show how your work improved the learning experience and distinguish measured learning results from usage or satisfaction signals.

• Demonstrate the capabilities required for consideration for Instructional Designer I.

How you will be measured

Quarterly objectives will assess whether your assigned work helps close a learning loop: a clear next action, suitable method, feasible execution, usable evidence and an appropriate response. Reviews also consider instructional quality, delivery, responsible research and growth toward independent judgment.

The measures will fit your assigned scope. Pages written, questions produced and sessions completed describe activity; the stronger evidence is whether the work meets its objective and helps the team improve a learning experience. Learner outcomes are shared results, interpreted alongside delivery conditions and the quality of the evidence.

What you bring

Experience and foundations

• Typically 0–2 years of relevant experience. Internships, teaching practice, university projects, research assistance and strong independent work can demonstrate readiness.

• A relevant foundation in instructional design, education, learning sciences, educational psychology or an equivalent body of demonstrable work.

• An ability to explain why a learning activity should help a particular learner achieve a particular objective.

• Clear writing, careful observation and basic confidence working with spreadsheets, simple research records and structured documentation.

• Willingness to learn product discovery, user stories, prototyping, testing and the practical constraints of software development.

Skills and attributes

• Curiosity about how students learn and why apparently sensible activities sometimes fail in practice.

• Attention to detail in instructions, questions, feedback and evidence records.

• Analytical discipline: you distinguish what you observed from what you inferred and ask for help when the evidence is weak.

• Reliability and openness to feedback, including revising work after a challenging review.

• Respect for students, teachers and families, with sound judgment about privacy and responsible research.

Experience that will help

Classroom teaching, tutoring, assessment writing, learner research, curriculum work, EdTech projects or familiarity with Kenyan secondary education will be useful. A polished commercial portfolio is not expected. A small number of thoughtful examples can show how you reason and learn.

What this opportunity offers

You will work on real learning problems alongside product and engineering colleagues, spend time with the people using the product, and see your designs through to implementation and evaluation. The role provides a practical route from a learning-science foundation into instructional product work.

Progression to Instructional Designer I depends on demonstrated independent ownership of scoped learning outcomes, sound instructional judgment and reliable delivery. Time in role alone does not determine progression.