Note: The job is a remote job and is open to candidates in USA. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, through the Veterans Health Administration and Veterans Crisis Line, provides 24/7 suicide prevention and crisis intervention services to Veterans, Service Members, and their families. The Instructional Systems Specialist develops, evaluates, and improves training programs and curricula, conducts instructional reviews and research, and advises leadership on training strategies and organizational performance issues.
Responsibilities
- Accomplishes broad and complex assignments associated with conceiving, developing, implementing, and evaluating VCL/PSOC training programs and curriculum for VCL external stakeholders
- Applies principles of organizational development to help build the capacity to design and develop training programs and curriculum focused on improving employee knowledge and understanding of evidence-based and best practice crisis intervention skills and agency processes and protocols
- Provides independent, critical reviews of entire courses or specific lessons, focusing especially on the inherent logic, completeness, and efficiency of teaching strategies and methodologies, finalizes changes with the course developer and submits them for final quality review in accordance with prescribed completion dates
- Constructs/develops practical exercises and examinations to meet and measure the specified training objectives
- Recommends course structural changes to provide the proper sequencing of objectives, adequate spacing of practice and reinforcement exercises, and an overall instructional design whose learning outcomes are logically consistent with the teaching purposes
- Analyzes organizational performance problems, new requirements and taskings to employees that are, or may become training issues, and recommends appropriate actions
- Develops and delivers presentations to executive leadership and department leads to introduce and seek approval of new or enhanced external training initiatives
- Reviews job and task analyses; task inventories; job and target population data; course participant's feedback and recommendations; existing course materials to identify training shortfalls and redundancies
- Determines appropriate strategies to correct problems identified and makes recommendations to senior leadership
- Serves as a subject-matter authority in the methodologies of adult learning, Interactive Multimedia instruction, Instructional Systems Design, Criterion-Referenced instruction, Competency Based instruction, and/or Experiential Learning Model instruction in the area of providing specialized training, e.g., curriculum development, instructional media, multimedia delivery systems, and audiovisual training aids, training devices, programmed instruction, testing and outcomes measurement, etc.)
- Assists in developing training and education strategies and products for the VCL program. Conducts comprehensive literature reviews and performs professional research in order to identify innovative techniques and tools that will facilitate the tailoring of training content to meet the needs of the Veteran's Crisis Line, Peer Support Outreach Center, and its external stakeholders. Provides ongoing pedagogical training, guidance, and assistance to other subject-matter authorities who are analyzing, designing, and developing training programs and products
- Performs other duties as assigned by management
Skills
- You must be a U.S. Citizen to apply for this job
- Open to current, permanent employees of the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) including Title 38, Hybrid Title 38, and VCS employees covered by VA/OPM Interchange Agreements and those eligible under CTAP. This does not include temporary, term, or intermittent appointments
- Applicants who are current Federal employees and have held a GS grade any time in the past 52 weeks must also meet time-in-grade requirements by the closing date of this announcement
- For a GS-11 position you must have served 52 weeks at the GS-9
- Degree which included or was supplemented by at least 24 semester hours appropriate to the work of the position to be filled. The course work must have included study in at least four (4) of the following five (5) areas:
- Learning theory, psychology of learning, educational psychology: Study of learning theories as they relate to the systematic design, development, and validation of instructional material
- Instructional design practices: Study of the principles and techniques used in designing training programs, developing design strategy and models, and applying design methods to the improvement of instructional effectiveness
- Educational evaluation: Study of the techniques for evaluating the effectiveness of instructional/educational programs, including developing written and performance tests and survey instruments, and determining reliability and validity of evaluation instruments
- Instructional product development: Study of the techniques appropriate for developing training materials, including identifying learner characteristics, specifying objectives, applying training strategy, validating training materials, and evaluating training
- Computers in education and training: Study of the application of computers in education and training, including selecting appropriate computer software
- You must have one year of specialized experience equivalent to at least the next lower grade (GS-09) in the normal line of progression for the occupation in the organization. In order to meet the minimum qualifications for this position, you must meet 3/5 of the following examples of specialized experience:
- Providing independent, critical reviews of entire courses or specific lessons
- Recommending course structural changes to provide the proper sequencing of objectives
- Analyzing organizational performance problems related to training issues and making appropriate recommendations
- Determining appropriate strategies to correct training course problems
- Developing and delivering presentations to executive leadership and department leads
- 3 years of progressively higher-level graduate education leading to a Ph.D. degree or Ph.D. or equivalent doctoral degree. Such education must demonstrate the knowledge, skills, and abilities necessary to do the work of this position
- Equivalent combination of successfully completed graduate education and specialized experience may be used to meet the total experience requirements. Only graduate level education in excess of the amount required for the next lower grade level may be combined with experience
- Requirements Analysis
- Planning and Evaluating
- Communications and Media
Benefits
- May be authorized upon supervisor approval after training per Agency policy: compressed/flexible work schedule.
- This is remote position. Selectees will work 100% of the time in a non-VA-owned space outside of the local commuting area of a parent station.
- A career with the U.S. government provides employees with a comprehensive benefits package.
- You and your family will have access to a range of benefits.
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