Top 12 Curriculum Designer Skills to Put on Your Resume

In today's crowded hiring landscape, a curriculum designer’s resume has to do more than list tools. It needs to signal craft, clarity, and the ability to turn objectives into learning that actually sticks. Surface the skills that prove you can architect meaningful experiences, measure impact, and iterate with intent. Make your expertise unmistakable.

Curriculum Designer Skills

1. Instructional Design
2. Curriculum Development
3. Learning Management Systems (LMS)
4. Adobe Captivate
5. Articulate Storyline
6. Assessment Design
7. SCORM Compliance
8. Moodle
9. Canvas
10. Blackboard
11. Educational Technology
12. UX/UI Principles

1. Instructional Design

Instructional design means shaping learning experiences on purpose—aligning goals, content, methods, and assessment so people learn faster, deeper, and with less friction.

Why It's Important

When design is intentional, content lands. Objectives match activities, practice supports transfer, and learners know what good looks like. That’s how understanding sticks and performance moves.

How to Improve Instructional Design Skills

1. Start with needs: Learners, context, constraints, risks. No guessing.

2. Write outcomes: Specific, measurable, time-bound. Map to Bloom’s levels so rigor isn’t accidental.

3. Backward design: Build assessments first, then instruction. Keep a straight line from objective to evidence to activity.

4. Use evidence: Active learning, multimedia principles, retrieval practice, spaced repetition. Less telling, more doing.

5. Design for all: Apply UDL and accessibility from the start—clear structure, alternatives, captions, keyboard paths.

6. Prototype, test, iterate: Pilot micro-lessons, gather data, tune quickly.

7. Feedback that teaches: Timely, specific, actionable. Build it into the flow, not just the end.

8. Evaluate impact: Kirkpatrick levels or similar. Track outcomes, not just completions.

How to Display Instructional Design Skills on Your Resume

2. Curriculum Development

Curriculum development is the choreography of goals, scope and sequence, content, learning activities, and assessment—kept aligned with standards and tuned to real learners.

Why It's Important

Without a coherent plan, courses drift. With it, learners encounter the right challenge at the right time, build durable skills, and can show what they know in authentic ways.

How to Improve Curriculum Development Skills

1. Know your audience: Prior knowledge, access, language, time, supports. Design for equity.

2. Clarify scope and sequence: Spiral core ideas, interleave skills, and prevent content bloat.

3. Align end-to-end: Outcomes → assessments → activities → materials. No orphan tasks.

4. Build active experiences: Cases, labs, scenarios, discussions, creation—less passive consumption.

5. Use authentic assessment: Products, performances, and problems that mirror the real world.

6. Integrate tech purposefully: Tools that remove friction or unlock practice—not gadgets for their own sake.

7. Pilot and improve: Try a unit, collect data, refine rubrics and pacing.

8. Version control: Keep change logs, align updates with training for instructors.

How to Display Curriculum Development Skills on Your Resume

3. Learning Management Systems (LMS)

An LMS hosts courses, enrolls learners, delivers content, collects data, and anchors the day-to-day learning journey for instructors and students alike.

Why It's Important

It’s the hub. Good structure and smart configuration turn content into a guided experience, with visibility into progress and the power to personalize.

How to Improve Learning Management Systems (LMS) Skills

1. Design for clarity: Consistent modules, predictable navigation, and clean naming. Reduce clicks.

2. Accessibility first: WCAG-aligned pages, alt text, captions, contrast, keyboard paths.

3. Make it interactive: Quizzes, discussions, simulations, H5P activities that prompt action.

4. Use analytics: Track engagement, trigger nudges, spot at-risk learners early.

5. Personalize pathways: Release conditions, mastery-based unlocks, remediation loops.

6. Integrate well: LTI 1.3/Advantage, SSO, grade passback. Avoid tool sprawl.

7. Mobile-ready: Responsive content and short, chunked activities.

8. Governance matters: Roles, permissions, data privacy, archival and sunsetting plans.

How to Display Learning Management Systems (LMS) Skills on Your Resume

4. Adobe Captivate

Adobe Captivate enables responsive, media-rich courses, simulations, and scenario-based learning with fine-grained control over interactions.

Why It's Important

When you need branching, software demos, quizzes, and polished interactivity that play nicely with LMS tracking, Captivate delivers.

How to Improve Adobe Captivate Skills

1. Go beyond basics: Variables, advanced actions, and multi-state objects for dynamic behavior.

2. Design responsively: Fluid boxes, device previews, touch-friendly targets.

3. Systematize: Master slides, themes, and shared actions to speed production and enforce consistency.

4. Accessibility: Alt text, focus order, captions, transcript support, meaningful tab sequences.

5. Assessment done right: Question pools, feedback by choice, remediation branching.

6. Optimize media: Compress audio/video, preload smartly, watch slide load times.

7. Package for the real world: SCORM 1.2/2004 or xAPI exports; test in a staging LMS.

How to Display Adobe Captivate Skills on Your Resume

5. Articulate Storyline

Storyline is a flexible authoring environment for interactive, scenario-driven e-learning with powerful triggers, layers, and variables.

Why It's Important

It lets you prototype quickly, build engaging interactions, and ship courses that look great and track cleanly.

How to Improve Articulate Storyline Skills

1. Master the core: Scenes, layers, triggers, variables—combine them to create believable scenarios.

2. Interaction patterns: Branching dialogues, drag-and-drops, hotspot explorations, timed challenges.

3. Reusable systems: Templates, component libraries, shared styles, and a design system to keep teams in sync.

4. Accessibility: Alt text, focus order, contrast, keyboard navigation, transcripts.

5. Performance: Compress media, limit heavy timelines, test on mid-range devices.

6. Light scripting: Use JavaScript sparingly for edge cases; document and test across browsers.

7. QA discipline: Content checks, interaction maps, and bug logs before packaging.

How to Display Articulate Storyline Skills on Your Resume

6. Assessment Design

Assessment design is the craft of measuring learning in ways that are valid, fair, and instructionally useful—before, during, and after instruction.

Why It's Important

Good assessments sharpen teaching and make learning visible. They guide decisions, not just grades.

How to Improve Assessment Design Skills

1. Align ruthlessly: Every item maps to a stated outcome and level of complexity.

2. Mix methods: Quizzes, projects, portfolios, presentations, simulations. One angle rarely tells the whole story.

3. Formative first: Low-stakes checks, exit tickets, quick polls, practice with feedback.

4. Transparent criteria: Rubrics that describe quality, not just points.

5. Authenticity: Performance tasks that mirror real decisions and constraints.

6. Peer and self-review: Structured protocols to build metacognition and judgment.

7. High-quality feedback: Timely, specific, focused on actions learners can take.

8. Integrity and security: Randomization, item banks, clear collaboration policies.

9. Use the data: Item analysis, misfit items, and iteration after each run.

How to Display Assessment Design Skills on Your Resume

7. SCORM Compliance

SCORM ensures e-learning packages launch, track, and report reliably across compliant LMSs. It’s the interoperability backbone many organizations still depend on.

Why It's Important

Standards save time. Compliant content installs cleanly, captures progress accurately, and avoids costly LMS-specific rewrites.

How to Improve SCORM Compliance Skills

1. Know the flavors: SCORM 1.2 vs 2004 (1st–4th editions), what each reports, and suspend_data limits.

2. Author smart: Use tools with robust SCORM exports; set completion, success, and scoring rules deliberately.

3. Package correctly: Clean imsmanifest.xml, unique IDs, tidy metadata, and coherent launch files.

4. Test thoroughly: Validate in a sandbox like SCORM Cloud and then in your target LMS environments.

5. Track the right data: Commit statements at logical checkpoints; handle resume states gracefully.

6. Think beyond SCORM: Learn xAPI and cmi5 for richer, modern tracking when ecosystems allow.

7. Document quirks: Note LMS version differences and required player settings for smooth deployments.

How to Display SCORM Compliance Skills on Your Resume

8. Moodle

Moodle is a flexible, open-source LMS with deep activity types, strong community plugins, and fine-grained control.

Why It's Important

It’s endlessly configurable—great for complex programs, competency tracking, and rich assessment workflows.

How to Improve Moodle Skills

1. Structure well: Topics or weekly format with clear labels; use the Book module for longform content.

2. Activate learning: H5P, Lesson, Assignment, Workshop, and Database for creation and critique.

3. Assessment strength: Quiz engine with banks, randomization, and question behaviors.

4. Control the journey: Completion tracking, restrict access, and activity prerequisites.

5. Mind the visuals: Consider Grid or Tiles formats; keep pages lightweight.

6. Use analytics: Course reports and insights to tune pacing and supports.

7. Mobile ready: Test with the Moodle app; chunk content and simplify navigation.

8. Govern roles: Capabilities, cohorts, and backups that respect privacy and retention policies.

How to Display Moodle Skills on Your Resume

9. Canvas

Canvas is a modern, intuitive LMS known for clean course organization, speedy grading, and strong integrations.

Why It's Important

It streamlines course builds and feedback loops, making it easier to deliver engaging, accessible learning at scale.

How to Improve Canvas Skills

1. Modules rule: Organize by modules with prerequisites and requirements to guide flow.

2. Polish pages: Consistent page templates, concise copy, embedded media, and clear CTAs.

3. Assess smart: Rubrics, SpeedGrader comments, audio/video feedback, and New Quizzes where appropriate.

4. Foster community: Discussions, Groups, and Peer Review to spark interaction.

5. Integrate tools: LTI apps (Google, Microsoft, video, simulations) with grade passback.

6. Accessibility check: Use the built-in checker and fix issues before publish.

7. Read the signals: Course analytics, message students who… to nudge at the right time.

How to Display Canvas Skills on Your Resume

10. Blackboard

Blackboard (including Ultra) offers robust content management, assessment tools, and enterprise controls.

Why It's Important

For institutions with complex programs and policies, it’s a sturdy platform that supports deep assessment and wide-scale delivery.

How to Improve Blackboard Skills

1. Go Ultra where possible: Cleaner navigation and modern workflows reduce cognitive load.

2. Build tidy structures: Learning modules, logical folders, and consistent naming.

3. Gradebook mastery: Weighted categories, rubrics, and transparent policies.

4. Stronger assessments: Question banks, pools, random blocks, timed settings.

5. Live and social: Discussions, announcements, and integrated web conferencing to keep momentum.

6. Accessibility at scale: Use tools like Ally reports; remediate proactively.

7. Mobile-friendly: Short pages, labeled links, and compressed media.

8. Integrations: LTI tools and content libraries—document the setup for repeatability.

How to Display Blackboard Skills on Your Resume

11. Educational Technology

EdTech spans platforms, content, data, and devices that, when paired with sound pedagogy, remove barriers and expand practice.

Why It's Important

Done well, technology personalizes learning, opens access, and gives timely feedback. Done poorly, it distracts and overwhelms. Design is the difference.

How to Improve Educational Technology Skills

1. Start with outcomes: Let goals choose tools—not the other way around.

2. UDL mindset: Multiple means of engagement, representation, and action/expression.

3. Right-size content: Microlearning, spacing, retrieval. Short, potent bursts beat long, hazy lectures.

4. Leverage AI thoughtfully: Draft, differentiate, and create feedback at scale—with human oversight, bias checks, and transparency.

5. Interoperability: LTI, QTI, and Caliper for smoother ecosystems and cleaner data.

6. Privacy and ethics: Data minimization, consent, and clear guidelines on academic integrity.

7. Train the humans: Ongoing PD, playbooks, and communities of practice keep adoption healthy.

8. Measure impact: Define success metrics, gather evidence, iterate or retire tools.

How to Display Educational Technology Skills on Your Resume

12. UX/UI Principles

UX/UI principles guide how learners find, understand, and act. Interfaces should fade into the background so content and tasks take center stage.

Why It's Important

Intuitive, accessible design slashes confusion time and boosts learning time. Less friction, more flow.

How to Improve UX/UI Principles Skills

1. Know your users: Interviews, quick surveys, and personas to anchor decisions.

2. Clear information architecture: Logical hierarchy, scannable headings, minimal dead ends.

3. Visual hierarchy: Contrast, spacing, and typography that guide the eye without shouting.

4. Consistency: Reusable patterns, predictable controls, stable layouts.

5. Feedback everywhere: States, progress, confirmations, and gentle error messages.

6. Progressive disclosure: Show what’s needed now; reveal the rest when relevant.

7. Accessibility: WCAG 2.2 alignment—keyboard access, captions, alt text, color-safe palettes.

8. Usability testing: Short, frequent tests with real learners; fix what they trip on.

9. Performance: Fast loads, compressed media, graceful failure offline or on spotty connections.

How to Display UX/UI Principles Skills on Your Resume