Supervisor, Learning Innovation at Bridge International

Academics Group

The objective of the Academics group is to drive student achievement. To do so, we must know -- what is happening minute-by-minute for the typical child. The student’s daily experience, and thus the path to achievement, emerges from their relationship with the teachers and the content that is delivered in the classroom. Our team is collaboratively organised around these levers. We develop rigorous content pitched at the right level for students to be delivered by a teacher who is prepared to succeed in the classroom. Our Instructional Design department builds the content; our Leadership & Development department trains teachers and school leaders using scientifically-proven techniques; our Learning Innovation department looks at cutting-edge research to generate breakthrough learning gains. Underpinning all of this is the work of the independent Measurement and Evaluation group, which provides Academics with an empirical orientation toward improving that daily experience and, in turn, driving achievement.

About the Role

The Learning Innovation Supervisor is responsible for overseeing the day-to-day operations of the global Learning Innovation field team. The global Learning Innovation field team, comprised of Learning Innovation Officers in each country in which we operate, is responsible for guiding the improvement of lessons and learning materials by providing objective, daily feedback on teacher experience and pupil outcomes. In addition, the Learning Innovation field-team supports the design, execution, and evaluation of Learning Lab initiatives. Learning Innovation Officers are in schools each day observing lessons, collecting data, interviewing school staff, and providing ongoing feedback to the Instructional Design team.

The Learning Innovation Supervisor will manage the priorities of this team and ensure that each individual team member both achieves their targets and also submits a high-quality work product. This will involve providing feedback on daily lesson observations, meeting weekly with individual team members, and creating/monitoring weekly work-plans. This person will also continue to observe 5 lessons per week to ensure that they are grounded in the work and staying up to date on best-practices.

The Learning Innovation Department is hyper-focused on ensuring that lessons are driven by clear objectives, that teachers are fully supported, and that pupils are prepared for academic success. Being a part of this team means believing that our pupils' performance can always be improved through better- lessons. It also means being courageous enough to provide challenging feedback and holding all stakeholders accountable for educational excellence.

What You Will Do

• Support Instructional Design Field Officers to improve their practice through sustained feedback and targeted support
• Manage a large portfolio of work plans and balance a competing array of priorities
• Play a central role in what pupils learn on a daily basis through supporting a dynamic feedback loop with Instructional Design Writers
• Support a range of Learning Innovation activities

Your core tasks will be:

• Provide feedback on approximately 200 lesson observations each week
• Meet weekly with 8-10 Learning Innovation Officers spanning two continents
• Create and monitor weekly work-plans for each Learning Innovation Officer

Other tasks will be:

• Support a wide-ranging portfolio of Learning Innovation activities, including data collection, data entry, teacher guide creation, and editing of instructional design materials
• Monitor the weekly completion of the lesson observation catalogue
• Respond to daily communication from Learning Innovation field team
• Observe no less than 5 full lessons per week
• Collaborate with academic directors to align work plans with country-specific priorities

What You Should Have

• 2+ years of teaching experience in a primary or secondary classroom
• 2+ years of experience conducting teacher observations in a training or monitoring contexts
• Experience developing learning materials for children
• Experience managing a team
• Extraordinary attention to detail
• Intellectual curiosity and desire to challenge the status quo
• Ability to collaborate with a wide range of stakeholders
• Belief in data-driven decision making
• Clear communication skills – verbal and written
• Bias towards action
• Self-motivation and comfort creating solutions without a lot of support or structure
• B.S. or M.A.

You’re also

• A detailed doer – You have a track record of getting things done. You’re organized and responsive. You take ownership of every idea you touch and execute it to a fine level of detail, setting targets, engaging others, and doing whatever it takes to get the job done. You can multi-task dozens of such projects at once and never lose sight of the details. Likely, you have some experience in a start-up or other rapid-growth company.
• A creative problem-solver – Growing any business from scratch comes with massive and constant challenges. On top of that, Bridge works in often fragile, sometimes volatile low-resource communities and with complex government systems. You need to be flexible and ready to get everything done effectively, quickly, and affordably with the materials at hand.
• A relentless advocate – The children we serve and teachers we empower never leave your mind. You know them, get them, have shared a meal with them (or would be happy to in the future). You would never shrink back from shaking a parent’s hand or picking up a crying child, no matter what the person was wearing or looked like. Every decision you make considers their benefit, experience, and value.
• A malleable learner – You believe you can always do better. You welcome constructive criticism and provide it freely to others. You know you only get better tomorrow when others point out where you’ve missed things or failed today.
• A data-driven decision-maker – When making decisions, you don’t rely your intuition alone. You collect data, you analyze it and make decisions with clear justifications.
• A curious investigator – You ask why a lot. You don’t just take what you see and accept it. You wonder why it is that way, and are aware that the world we see is created by human choices and actions – and it could be different. You wonder, and see the world as wonderful even when you want to change a part of it that is unjust.