Research and Policy Partner, Team Learning and Development
Job Description
Start Date: Immediate
Role Type: Full time
Title: Partner, Team Learning + Development
Location: Flexible in US; fully remote team
Who We Are:
Transcend supports communities to create and spread extraordinary, equitable learning environments.
We fulfill this mission by focusing on two key priorities:
- Supporting communities to have extraordinary and equitable school designs: We partner with communities to design, implement, and spread innovative schools and school model components; and facilitate sharing between schools/communities.
- Building an ecosystem that enables innovation: To create broader ecosystem conditions that positively impact communities on design journeys, by growing actors’ proximity to insights, voices, and evidence from work with communities and by learning from their perspectives and experiences.
To learn more about our work, check out this recent podcast by our founders.
The Opportunity:
Transcend is now five years into our journey of directly supporting school communities with design work and building ecosystem conditions for powerful, sustainable change. While we continue to lean into our core values of “perpetual beta” and “results for kids”, now more than ever we have more of a perspective about the methods, tools and resources that most help communities navigate design journeys towards extraordinary and equitable learning.
In the next 5 years, we want to significantly increase the number of communities that can embark on successful redesign journeys. Two critical aims are implicated in this aspiration:
- Ensure that our staff and contractors reach the highest level of expertise in their direct work with school partners. This includes expertise in facilitating design journeys, creating school designs and implementation tools, leveraging equity lenses and tools throughout the process, and much more.
- Build the capacity of leaders in the field, well beyond the team at Transcend, to work directly with school communities to expand our reach to impact more communities.
In order to meet these two aims, we need to build a truly world-class training and development plan for School Design Services (SDS). This role will:
- Develop an integrated vision and strategy for how adult learning and coaching happens at Transcend in ways that align with our core beliefs, DEI commitments, understanding of learning science, team composition, etc.
- Create a vision and strategy for a “Transcend Design Institute” that trains non-Transcend individuals to extend our reach and embed capacity-building skills in our team.
- Build our SDS teams ‘competency map’ and learning system for our current team, with a vision and plan to engage and develop these competencies in folks in our extended orbits as well (independent contractors, Design Institute participants, etc.).
- Coordinate, and sometimes lead, spaces where dedicated capacity building occurs (e.g., a weekly “Learning Series” for staff). This does not mean you would be leading the content of those spaces alone every week; it would more often look like determining the sequence of content that is brought to those spaces and coordinating with various Transcenders deeply experienced with the content to lead the spaces in engaging ways.
- Design engaging and memorable training experiences and tools that can be accessed and leveraged by individuals and teams across Transcend, and beyond.
- Facilitate learning with the folks who directly manage Transcend coaching staff and contractors, to help them better build capacity among their teams.
- Fully build out our foundational onboarding experience, to lay the groundwork for future and ongoing learning and development.
- Give input and feedback on the methods/activities that Transcend uses to support adult learning with partner teams, supporting consistency and high quality between a) the adult learning that happens for Transcend coaches and b) the adult learning that happens for school design teams facilitated by Transcend coaches.
- Collaborate as a member of Transcend’s Product & Capacity Team, which is charged with supporting the holistic building of capacity, resources, and networks that folks need to support school partners on their design journeys.
Who You Are:
You are a visionary and a doer –someone who loves to inspire adults, and support them in their learning and growth! You relish seeing adults improve their skills, mindsets, and knowledge, and you are steeped in a variety of ways to support a diverse array of adults to do just that. As an experienced senior leader, you are exceptionally adept at conveying complex concepts in ways that are digestible and compelling. In addition, you hold people with care; and deliver honest feedback with clarity, integrity, and love. You are accustomed to people telling you, “Wow – that experience you created is one of the best professional (or personal) growth experiences I’ve had!” You are also well aware that you should not be in the spotlight of every professional learning activity; in fact, you’re convinced that the best learning is often facilitated by people who bring rich experience with a particular skill or mindset or activity, and one of your superpowers is helping orchestrate situations where others shine. You can spot oppressive dynamics in capacity building in a variety of forms, and you are committed to making capacity building more inclusive, equitable, and liberatory. You see value in each individual experience and relationship, and yet are also fired up about the prospect of supporting capacity building at a greater scale.
You believe deeply in the power of education to change lives, and you can’t wait to bring your experience to bear – and to keep growing yourself – to help build the capacity of others to support communities in reinventing school in America.
In this role, you will get to contribute your:
- Experience in facilitating transformative professional learning for small and large groups of educators, including senior leaders in the field.
- Extensive knowledge and skill in various ways to facilitate excellent, inclusive adult learning for a diverse array of adult learners. This includes a clear perspective on what strong adult pedagogy looks and feels like, and an ability to align resources and experiences to that. You’re able to adjust your approach to meet the group size, skill/competency level, virtual/live setting, and any other relevant factors for differentiating an adult learning approach.
- Skills (and ideally previous experience) to construct systems and processes around organization-wide professional learning (e.g., competency maps, onboarding processes, differentiated growth pathways, etc.).
- Unwavering belief in adults’ ability to learn and grow.
- Ability to manage multiple projects that move quickly; multitasking and prioritizing effectively.
- Hunger for feedback and growth based on a personal commitment to excellence and constant learning – thriving on feedback from multiple sources, and fast-cycle iteration to arrive at the best possible product.
- Ability to effectively build and nurture strong relationships and communications with a diverse range of stakeholders and at all levels of the organization, including Transcend teammates, independent contractors, partners, and other folks in the field.
- Commitment to Transcend’s mission of transforming education, with a passion for creating extraordinary and equitable learning environments.
- Commitment to advancing diversity, equity, inclusion in your approach to quality learning experiences.
- Desire to live into Transcend’s core values, and be a supportive leader and teammate.
Perks and Benefits:
Transcend is committed to providing our colleagues with a competitive benefits package. Transcend offers medical, dental, and vision coverage options, org-wide holidays, paid time off, paid parental leave, professional development opportunities, and fully remote work. We’re also proud of our values-grounded, equity-focused, and fun(!) work environment, incredible colleagues, and a dedication to our work and to one another.
Join Us!
Transcend is an equal opportunity employer. We are building a diverse team that values diversity, equity, and inclusion, and we encourage candidates from historically under-represented groups to apply.
