Job Opportunity for Learning Experience Specialist, Schools Program at Quest Alliance in Bengaluru

At Quest Alliance we transform learning ecosystems through education technology, capacity building, and collaboration to build 21st-century skills for learners and facilitators.

We are a not-for-profit trust that focuses on research-led innovation and advocacy in the field of teaching and learning. We engage with educators, civil society, government institutions and corporate organizations to demonstrate and enable scalable and replicable solutions in school education and vocational training.

At Quest you will get the opportunity to apply your skills and contribute to addressing issues around quality education and skills training. The organization gives you the space to learn and grow in a fun and engaging environment.  We have an eclectic group of people working at Quest drawn from diverse disciplines including Education, Technology, Design, Youth Development and Business. 

Quest is a believer in self learning which guides all its work and learning experience design. 

About the Program

As part of the schools program there are two implementation strategies: scale and depth. Scale entails a teacher led approach where the main focus is on capacity building of the teachers via the MasterCoach modules and then handholding them to complete the MasterCoach program and implement the learning in the school. They key strands of the scale approach are:

• Implementation of the Mastercoach modules for teacher professional development
• Teacher recognition
• Developing a community of practice of teachers for self initiated learning and innovations

The depth approach is the facilitator led approach where the focus is on school transformation and engaging with different stakeholders simultaneously: learners, teachers, headmasters and parents. The key strands of the depth approach are:

• School visioning and planning to integrate the program strands into school processes
• Setting up STEM clubs for student led learning
• Parent Engagement 

About the Role

We are looking for an experienced Learning Experience Specialist who can anchor the depth strategy for the schools program. This will entail the following:

• Conceptualisation of the model school approach and its documentation
• Developing any required curriculum and learning tools
• Capacity building design and delivery of Quest and partner team and school stakeholders
• Handholding of Quest and partner teams to implement the depth strategy in schools 

The role will also be to support the development of the concept and design of the teacher recognition process along the lines demonstrated in the Anandshala program. You will also support the development of the teacher CoP as a continuation of the MasterCoach journey. 

You will also be part of the core program strategy group and work closely across the states and thematic teams to deliver on your role and contribute to program design, strategy and implementation.

Role Description

1. Learning Experience Design

The program is looking to work with about 200 schools spread across 9 states to integrate program elements into the school processes. These are being called the model schools. These are spaces to do a deeper intervention as well as innovate and learn from to develop relevant scale strategies for the program.

You will be responsible for:

Model school conceptualisation and approach

• Work closely with the ed-tech team to design the approach and learning resources for STEM Club
• Anchor the development of the school visioning, planning and review processes and necessary tools and resources needed for it
• Anchor the conceptualisation of the parent engagement approach based on the resources already available in the program
• Ensure that the existing curriculum – digital student facing content, career game are getting integrated into the approach 

Capacity Building for Model School Approach

• Design the capacity building plan for the different stakeholders – Quest team, partner team, teachers and headmasters 
• Hold the yearly calendar and deliver on the trainings with support from consultants and state teams
• Identify and manage consultants for capacity building as and when required
• Anchor the content task force engagement plan and operationalisation for model schools

Monitoring and Review 

• Support the monitoring tool development for the model school approach
• Review data dashboards for the model schools data and share reflections and insights with the team which can contribute to partner reviews
• Give insights from the lens of contextualisation of learning experience 

Content Review and Feedback

• Make regular school visits, interact with teachers, students and facilitators to collect feedback on the approach
• Make classroom observations to observe the implementation on the ground
• Identify areas of innovation and further improvisation 

As part of the depth – model school approach – you will have to work very closely with the ed-tech team and the state teams. Regular communication and being part of state reviews and coordination spaces will be an important part of your role. 

If new projects come in which have a component of direct implementation then supporting the strategy and implementation of same would also be expected from this role. 

2. Team Building and Development

You will be working with a team of content and training associates/officers. Some of these will report directly to you while some will be based in state teams. You will have to anchor the team and invest in their growth and development. 

Your responsibilities would include:

• Ensuring each of your direct team members have a professional and personal development goal and plan to execute it
• Ensuring that your dotted line reportees have integrated the model school approach into their professional development goals
• Ensuring cross learning across all the state teams
• Identifying opportunities for learning and growth for the team members 

3. Supporting School Implementation 

• Provide technical input to internal team on instructional design, STEM content, and pedagogy support
• Design the agenda and flow for school based events – career days, hackathons, parent teacher meets, teacher orientations 

Requirements

Required skills and Experience: 

• Minimum 8 to 10 years of work experience, in implementing school transformation approaches in the government school context
• Hands-on experience with working on gender, coding/ computational  skills/ STEM and life and career skills for school students
• Prior experience in content development and implementation and teacher capacity building
• Willingness to learn and influence prevalent practices in education ecosystem
• Relevant education qualifications for handling pedagogy, STEM, gender and life skills content
• Excellent interpersonal, written and verbal communication skills in English
• Excellent IT skills
• Willingness to travel extensively
• Ability to train, build capacity of, and manage relationships with partner NGOs
• Ability to work independently as well as collaboratively with other teams