Instructional Support Grade 6-12 SEL Curriculum Writer & Professional Development Trainer (P/T)
Job Description
Youth Communication equips and empowers educators to engage struggling youth and build social and emotional learning skills, using our true, teen-written stories in youth-facing SEL curricula and educator professional development.
Our stories, developed in a rigorous writing program, are uniquely compelling to youth whose voices are missing from mainstream content. The stories model social and emotional learning and show teens how to make positive changes in their lives. When they read the stories, adolescents learn about the lives of others, their own strengths, and that they are not alone in the world with their challenges. The stories also give educators in our professional development sessions an important view of students’ lives, strengths, resources, and communities, which is critical if educators are going to be culturally responsive.
Our award-winning curricula and professional development are created around these stories. They turn classrooms and programs into dynamic and encouraging learning environments by helping educators and youth workers become more compassionate and effective at building the skills that teens need to lead successful, meaningful lives.
Job Description:
We are looking for an experienced educator to act as curriculum writer and professional development trainer. As a curriculum writer, they will use our existing curricular model to create lesson plans for these programs. They will a use a pre-determined list of stories/session goals to create and revise story-based sessions. As a professional development trainer, they will use our existing professional development agendas to deliver training to schools, afterschool organizations, and other community/education organizations. This position will report to the Managing Director of Education Programs; training duties will be assigned and feedback will be given by the Director of Training.
Responsibilities include, but are not limited to:
**General Duties**
- Models social and emotional competencies in the areas of self-awareness, self-management, relationship skills, social awareness, and responsible decision-making.
- Represents the organization and upholds its mission and educational philosophy.
- Communicates well with internal and external stakeholders, paying particular attention to cross-cultural communication and power dynamics.
**Curriculum Writing Duties**
- Creating approximately 20 lesson plans using pre-selected stories, learning objectives (both SEL and literacy), and collaborative learning activities. These plans include:
- A pre-reading activity meant to activate students’ prior knowledge and engagement;
- A reading and discussion of one of YC’s true, teen-written stories, including critical-thinking discussion questions about the social and emotional learning present in the story;
- A post-reading activity that applies lessons from the story to students’ lives;
- Reflection questions for teacher/facilitators; and
- A writing extension activity (e.g., letter to self, a true story from their lives, a speech).
- Incorporating best practices from anti-racist and culturally responsive teaching into lesson plans.
- Proofreading and revising of session plans—those they write as well as those of other curriculum writers.
- Assisting on other curriculum projects, including writing questions for teen-written stories, creating scope and sequence documentation, creating discussion guides for YC-published anthologies.
**Professional Development Training Duties**
- Training a wide range of educators and youth workers throughout NYC.
- Effectively facilitating our CRE workshops as well as our curriculum orientation and follow-up training series to support the effective implementation of Youth Communication curricula and CRE workshops.
- Engages in self-reflection and is responsive to coaching by Director of Training to improve facilitation skills.
- Collects evaluation and participation data for each training.
Qualifications:
**General Skills**
- At least 3 years working directly with teens as a teacher in urban secondary school setting within the last five years.
- Life experience similar to the NYC public school students we serve.
- The ideal candidate will have experience and knowledge of:
- Social and emotional learning within a strengths-based approach to working with youth.
- Anti-racist and culturally responsive teaching practices.
- Writing and asking critical thinking questions about texts.
**Curriculum Writing Skills**
- A degree in education with a focus on curriculum and instruction, strongly preferred.
- Experience writing lessons and curricula to be used in a middle or high school classroom.
- Excellent writing, editing, and proofreading skills, including attention to conforming to existing YC style and lesson templates.
- Experience running middle-/high-school advisory sessions, including creating lessons for advisory, strongly preferred.
**Professional Development Training Skills**
- At least one year’s experience delivering professional development to adult educators.
- A group facilitation style that is highly interactive, supportive, and compassionate.
- Comfortable planning trips and transporting training materials to workshop locations.
- Eager and able to follow our clearly scripted training plans and to modify when necessary.
Pay:
This position is a half-time position at $40-45 per hour (based on experience), Monday through Thursday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. (There is some flexibility to this schedule.) We are a hybrid workplace; we are in our Midtown West office on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
