What Does an Instructional Specialist Do?
Designing a course is often harder for a new professor than doing research because doctoral programs train people to research far more than they train them to teach. Instructional specialists help faculty plan courses, write fair exams and try new teaching methods, and in veterinary and medical schools they often build the hands-on skills labs too.
Also known as: Instructional Specialist Coordinator, Veterinary Education Specialist, Senior Instructional Specialist
Instructional Specialist Duties and Responsibilities
The primary responsibilities of an instructional specialist include:
- Consult with faculty on course goals, assignments and grading rubrics before a term begins.
- Observe classes on request and give instructors private, practical feedback.
- Lead workshops on active learning, test writing and inclusive teaching.
- Review course evaluations and exam results with departments to find where students struggle.
- Build clinical skills labs and simulation exercises for veterinary or health science programs.
- Coordinate the program assessment reports accreditors require, gathering evidence from each course.
- Pilot new teaching approaches with volunteer instructors and measure the effect on learning.
- Mentor graduate teaching assistants through a teaching certificate program.
- Maintain a library of sample syllabi, rubrics and teaching guides for faculty.
- Advise curriculum committees on sequencing courses and avoiding overlap between them.
Required Skills and Qualifications
To succeed as an instructional specialist, you will need the following skills and qualifications:
- Course design methods such as backward design
- Assessment and rubric writing
- Tact when giving feedback to senior faculty
- Workshop facilitation
- Exam and evaluation analysis in Excel or SPSS
- Knowledge of accreditation standards in your field
- Canvas, Blackboard or another learning management system
- A subject background, such as veterinary or health sciences, for specialist posts
Education and Training
To become an instructional specialist, in most universities you will need a master's degree in education, instructional design or your subject to qualify for a post. According to BLS, instructional coordinators also typically bring 5 years or more of related experience. Many come from teaching.
Salary and Job Outlook
Typical pay: $60,780 - $98,820 per year, with a median of $77,440.
The range covers the middle half of earners nationwide. Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025, Instructional Coordinators.
BLS projects employment of instructional coordinators, the group that includes instructional specialists, to grow about 2 percent from 2025 to 2035. School districts account for much of the group's roughly 23,100 yearly openings, so university posts are a smaller slice. And, as long as new faculty arrive with little teaching training, universities will need specialists to make sure their courses work.
Outlook source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Employment Projections, 2025 to 2035, Instructional coordinators.