The Blake School seeks an enthusiastic and dedicated Instructional Technology Coach for the 2023-24 school year. This unique position requires an educator with a deep knowledge of design, building, digital media and tinkering. This candidate has a passion for igniting student curiosity and loves inspiring teachers to move outside of their comfort zones. 

This position encompasses many roles—mentor, project planner, software guru and teacher-leader—promoting a growth mindset with teachers and students. As a teacher-leader, a primary focus will be to increase teachers’ fluency with educational technologies to advance Blake’s mission. The Instructional Technology Coach is part of a team along with our Technology Integration Specialist and Teacher Librarian. Together they manage a space for students to explore, play, build and create. This position is based out of the Middle School library in a developing makerspace. Duties will include co-leadership in the makerspace, co-teaching and classroom instruction, coaching teachers, providing professional development opportunities, and resolving educational software issues for faculty and students. This role works with Information Support Services to manage interactive classroom technology in classrooms and provides hands on A/V support for school-wide events on the Blake campus.

Blake is particularly interested in candidates who will enrich the diversity of identity, lived experience and thinking that makes a community strong and empowers students to engage across differences.

The search committee will begin reviewing resumes on Feb. 20. Blake covers the travel and lodging costs for finalist candidates visiting from out of town.

Essential Functions and Responsibilities :

• Assist teachers in their continued use, exploration and adoption of academic technologies and instructional design techniques through coaching and collaboration
• Collaborate with colleagues to support library, technology integration and technology department initiatives
• Demonstrates understanding of best practices to meet the needs of all learners
• Co-lead the makerspace to promote and support the use of instructional technology, creation and computational thinking for both independent projects and classroom collaboration
• Offer activities and clubs during the school day centered around design, tinkering, engineering, computational thinking or applied science
• Coordinate and support general A/V needs for events by communicating with organizers, providing training and ensuring equipment is set up and ready for use
• Troubleshoot classroom A/V equipment including ultra short-throw interactive projectors, audio and video resources

Additional duties and responsibilities as needed and assigned.

Abilities and Attributes:

• Authentic empathy, warmth and collegiality
• Confidence and humility, together with a sense of humor and warm personality
• Ability to perform hardware and software troubleshooting and technical support
• Ability to lead, work independently and collaborate as a member of a group with a growth-oriented mindset 
• An inspirational, pragmatic, diplomatic and patient leader who is passionate about making and design to support creative, engaged learning
• Evidence of ability to work with diverse populations

Preferred Qualifications:

• Multiple years of experience as a classroom teacher 
• A proven commitment to the development of young people as individual learners 
• Experience working with teachers and mentoring teachers
• Enthusiastic learner of new and emerging technologies and pedagogies
• Experience planning curriculum and developing student learning outcomes for design and engineering, in partnership with teachers of other disciplines
• Working knowledge of and previous experience with A/V systems and equipment
• Experience with post-production and filming
• Experience with macOS, G-Suite for Education and Canvas or other learning management systems
• Experience in a school or educational setting

Working Conditions:

• General indoor school environment-may be noisy at times with frequent interruptions
• Work may be sedentary and may require standing and walking for up to 80% of the time
• The working environment does not generally include hazardous or unpleasant conditions caused by fumes, dust, etc.
• Position requires occasional weekend and/or evening work, dependent on school wide events

About The Blake School

The Blake School is a pre-kindergarten through grade 12 independent school located on three campuses in the Minneapolis, Minnesota metropolitan area and is widely recognized as a national leader in independent, college preparatory education. Blake serves approximately 1,400 students in a non-sectarian, coeducational environment. The School is large enough to provide a significant breadth of academic, athletic, artistic, and social opportunities within three intimate school campuses, where every child is known by the adults with whom they work. Committed to attracting and retaining faculty and staff who believe in the importance of developing character in their students as well as challenging them academically, Blake provides a dynamic course of study that is thoughtfully designed. The School is resolute in its efforts to create a pluralistic community that welcomes and supports students and families from many backgrounds.

Connections working at The Blake School