Instructional Systems Specialist

Summary

This position is located in the National Fire Academy, Emmitsburg, Maryland. The ideal candidate is an experienced instructional systems professional with expert knowledge of adult learning theory, instructional design, curriculum development, and program evaluation.

Duties

What will I do in this position if hired? In this position, you will serve as the Instructional Systems Specialist. Typical assignments include: Serving as a senior technical specialist and subject matter expert in adult learning, instructional design, curriculum development, and instructional systems for the National Fire Academy. Leading and coordinating the design, development, pilot testing, evaluation, and revision of training courses, curricula, and educational programs delivered through traditional, blended, online, synchronous, and asynchronous formats. Providing technical oversight and quality assurance for instructional products to ensure educational materials are evidence-based, instructionally sound, and aligned with National Fire Academy, United States Fire Administration, and federal standards. Serving as a Contracting Officer's Representative for instructional design and course development contracts, including developing statements of work, monitoring contractor performance, reviewing deliverables, and tracking project deadlines, budgets, and communications. Researching, recommending, testing, and supporting implementation of current and emerging educational technologies, including learning management systems, learning content management systems, web-based collaboration tools, AR/VR devices, gamification models, and related learning technologies. What else do I need to know? At FEMA, our mission is to help people before, during and after disasters, and every employee at FEMA has a role in emergency management. Every FEMA employee has regular and recurring emergency management responsibilities, though not every position requires routine deployment to disaster sites. All positions are subject to recall around the clock for emergency management operations, which may require irregular work hours, work at locations other than the official duty station, and may include duties other than those specified in the employee's official position description. Travel requirements in support of emergency operations may be extensive in nature (weeks to months), with little advance notice, and may require employees to relocate to emergency sites with physically austere and operationally challenging conditions.

Qualifications

Individual Occupational Requirements Basic Requirements: Degree: that 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 of the following five 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. Transcripts required The qualification requirements listed below must be met by the closing date of this announcement. To qualify for this position at the GS-13 level, you must possess one full year of specialized experience equivalent to at least the GS-12 level in the Federal government, which has equipped you with the skills needed to successfully perform the duties of the position. Experience may be obtained in the federal government, a state or local government, or private sector, and must demonstrate the following: Designing, developing, evaluating, and revising complex instructional programs or curricula for adult learners using instructional systems design principles, learning objectives, assessment strategies, and multiple delivery modalities such as classroom, blended, online, synchronous, or asynchronous instruction; AND Providing technical oversight or project management for instructional design or curriculum development projects, including coordinating with subject matter experts or stakeholders, reviewing instructional deliverables, evaluating training effectiveness, and ensuring products meet organizational standards, contract requirements, or accepted instructional design practices. Please read the following important information to ensure we have everything we need to consider your application: Do not copy and paste the duties, specialized experience, or occupational assessment questionnaire from this announcement into your resume as that will not be considered a demonstration of your qualifications for this position. Your resume serves as the basis for experience related qualification determinations, and you must highlight your most relevant and significant work experience and education (if applicable), as it relates to this job opportunity. Please use your own words, be clear, and specific when describing your work history. We cannot make assumptions regarding your experience. Are you qualifying based on your work experience? Qualifications are based on your ability to demonstrate in your resume that you possess one year of the specialized experience for this announcement at a comparable scope and responsibility. To ensure all of the essential information is in your resume, we encourage you to use the USAJOBS online Resume Builder. If you choose to use your own resume, it must contain the following information organized by experience/position: (1) job title, (2) name of employer, (3) start and end dates of each period of employment (from MM/DD/YY to MM/DD/YY), (4) detailed description of duties performed, accomplishments, and related skills, and (5) hours worked per week (part-time employment will be prorated in crediting experience). Federal experience/positions must also include the grade level, occupational series and dates in which you held each grade level. Are you a current or former FEMA Reservist/Disaster Assistance Employee (DAE)? To accurately credit your experience from intermittent positions and Reservist Deployments, you must list the dates (from MM/DD/YY to MM/DD/YY) of deployments that are relevant to your qualifying experience, along with the job title and specific duties you were responsible for during each deployment. Determining length of General or Specialized Experience is dependent on the above information. Failure to provide the above information in your resume may result in your application being found "not qualified. Experience refers to paid and unpaid experience, including volunteer work done through National Service programs (e.g., Peace Corps, AmeriCorps) and other organizations (e.g., professional, philanthropic, religious, spiritual, community, student, social). Volunteer work helps build critical competencies, knowledge, and skills, and provides valuable training and experience that translates directly to paid employment. You will receive credit for all qualifying experience, including volunteer experience. For additional information on crediting experience and/or education, please reference the OPM General Schedule Qualification Standards.

Education

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