Learning Design Lead

The Role

The Learning Design Lead will work with a collaborative team to drive evidence-based instructional design at Newsela. You will support the team in aligning and operationalizing learning science principles (discipline and non-discipline specific) to create guidelines for instructional resources, as well as manage the creation of internally-authored materials and the curation of externally-authored curriculum. You will work with the Curriculum and Instruction team in building design frameworks, developing guidance, and creating universal tools to be applied across all internally and externally-created curricular materials, to include discipline-specific criteria that align with the learning sciences and Newsela’s pedagogical vision. Additionally, you will provide data-informed suggestions to help organize, and construct, modular content. You will identify opportunities and develop strategies for leveraging existing capabilities (where possible) to meet the needs of all learners, including students with identified needs, emergent bilingual, and gifted and talented students. You’ll also collaborate across the Product and Learning teams to build a shared vision, understanding of the user needs, pedagogical grounding, and cross-product implications for instructional/programmatic overlays.

Why You’ll Love This Role

As a member of our growing Curriculum and Instruction team, you will apply learning design principles across a set of resources that will help build the future of education, enhance how districts and teachers engage students; and develop and apply approaches that allow educators and learners to engage seamlessly across Newsela products. More specifically, this role will allow you to support a team in structuring how Newsela is reshaping content products for districts, schools, and teachers nationwide. You will get to play a crucial role in the evolution of learning materials, helping to make our content more accessible and meaningful to students. You’ll have the opportunity to help us refine our content production process as we scale, and will collaborate across teams to build and apply a shared vision and methods for learning design in a quickly growing organization. 

Why We’ll Love You 

You have 7+ years experience in education, 2+ years developing teaching and learning resources, and 2+ years leading collaborative teams. You have extensive experiences in designing and executing on innovative learning design at different scales. You know the C3 Framework for social studies inside and out, including knowledge of inquiry-based learning curriculum and instructional design. You have experience designing and supporting use of C3-aligned materials. You also have experience in educational leadership, demonstrating successful designing and managing of complex programming, including experiences in designing and/or implementing professional development or training for curriculum and instructional design. You’re excited to ground your work in data to build high-quality instructional materials and apply best-in-class learning design and curriculum theory principles to positively impact teachers and students nationwide. You can clearly articulate the range of needs presented by a national user group, and can direct curriculum development with that spectrum of needs in mind. You also have formal training in pedagogy or learning design, with an emphasis in social studies; Masters Degree required, PhD/EdD preferred.

About Newsela 

One of the fastest growing tech companies in K-12 education, Newsela was founded on the principle that while every child may have unique learning preferences, they all deserve a rich learning experience that ignites a love of learning. We built our platform based on learning science research to deliver the most engaging, authentic content to modernize how teaching happens in the classroom. Along with interactive assessments and tools, we provide teachers with digital content at five reading levels -- from +100 of the best sources -- that is relevant to the diverse backgrounds and interests of their students. Since we started in 2013, we’ve established a presence in 90% of U.S. K-12 schools and over 2.5M teachers and 37M students have registered with Newsela.