Teaching Assistant – Part Time, Remote
Company Location San Francisco, CA, US. Per the employer, this position is fully remote and candidates can live anywhere in the world.
IDEO U is an online school where anyone can learn to solve complex problems through design thinking. We’re part of IDEO, an award-winning global design firm that takes a human-centered, design-based approach to help organizations innovate and grow. We take a similar approach to online learning at IDEO U. We support and empower our students by giving them a unique set of skills and mindsets they can apply to their day-to-day work. We’ve designed a playful and collaborative online learning experience that enables individuals, teams, and organizations to see the world differently and solve problems in new ways.
We’re looking for Teaching Assistants to join our team! IDEO U Teaching Assistants are critical to the success of our online courses. Each course Teaching Team is made up of a Teaching Lead, Teaching Assistants, and volunteer Alumni Coaches. Together the Teaching Team supports our diverse, curious, and passionate learners in their journey through the course experience by: providing feedback on assignments, leading live virtual calls, and creating conditions for learners to collaborate and explore content deeply.
Learner-Facing Responsibilities (approx. 80% of your time):
- Engage directly with learners – answer content questions, provide feedback on assignments, and help learners understand how to apply the tools and mindsets in their contexts and organizations
- Support smaller sub-groups within the course where learners can collaborate
- Design and facilitate weekly, virtual discussion calls with learners
Teaching Team Responsibilities (approx. 20% of your time):
- Attend virtual weekly course drumbeats (meetings) with your Teaching Team to discuss hurdles, triage problems, and synthesize insights
- Capture top learners and assignments, best teaching practices, and high-level insights to share back with your course Teaching Team, other course teams, and the IDEO U team
- Design and experiment with new ways of supporting learners and driving engagement, in partnership with IDEO U’s Community team
- Attend cross-course Teaching Team kickoff, check-in, and debrief meetings (for each course run) to share and collaborate
- Provide feedback and input to the IDEO U Community and Content teams to drive new learning experiences, content, and Teaching Team design evolutions
Skills Desired:
- Digital fluency and comfort engaging virtually with globally distributed teams and learners
- Depth of content knowledge and experience applying these design thinking practices to real world contexts. You do not need to have deep expertise and applied experience in all courses as you will be staffed across a smaller number throughout the year.
- Experience coaching and providing feedback, and a desire to further hone coaching and teaching skills
- Strong synthesis skills to distill insights on content, learning experience, and platform in order to pass along to IDEO U’s Product, Content, and Community Teams
- High emotional intelligence and desire to engage empathetically with the Teaching Team (Teaching Leads, TAs and Alumni Coaches) and learners
- Growth and experimental mindsets, and a willingness to “go to the action” to problem solve
- A commitment to IDEO U’s mission of helping learners build creative leadership skills
- Availability to respond to learners and Teaching Team within 24 hours during the week and 48 hours during the weekend
- Hyper-communicativity. Working in a digital environment, you need to be willing to be (overly) communicative and responsive, so that our entire team can support and learn from one another effectively
Role Details:
- Contract role, remote
- Part-time, salaried per course taught
- 15 hours/week for 6-week courses
- 9 – 12 month contract (6 course commitment)
- Start Date: January/February 2020