Jobs

Innovations Specialist – Now Hiring

Educating children for the future requires creating an environment ripe for exploration, creativity, risk-taking, and innovation with hands-on materials and real-world problems. 

Bay Farm Montessori Academy seeks a person with boundless energy and enthusiasm, curiosity and creativity, a deep understanding of children and learning, and the organizational and collaborative skills to become the next Innovations Specialist in The Shop. The right person for this position will have an optimistic outlook, a passion for teaching in a hands-on learning environment, and understand the importance of the maker movement, design thinking, innovation, and creativity in education today.

The Shop is the innovative heart of the school, where Kindergarten through Middle School students bring their learning and ideas to life in a collaborative, challenging culture with just the right amount of nurture in a highly adaptable space equipped with tools and technology. The Shop curriculum teaches students flexibility and the ANY-century skills to navigate the ever-changing world. This adaptability, combined with excellent collaborative planning and teaching, fosters creative exploration and invention – a foundation for an innovative growth mindset.  

Montessori students are a natural fit for experiences in The Shop. As Montessori students, they develop independence, autonomy, and a zest for learning every day. The future Innovations Specialist will further this development by celebrating risk-taking and failure as the necessary steps to success. 

Experience in The Shop begins with kindergarten. In this setting, our children learn to safely use hand tools and manipulate building materials, applying them to projects that support challenges and innovations associated with their in-class learning. This experiential learning builds in complexity and cross-curricular connections through each plane of development, creating middle schoolers adept at using various methods, tools, and technology to solve problems, invent solutions, and bring their ideas to life. 

Key Expectations:

• Lead Kindergarten through Middle School students through weekly innovative, design-thinking projects integrated with the curriculum
• Honor and respect the Montessori philosophy
• Collaborate with classroom teachers and specialists to identify opportunities for connections and partnerships
• Support in-depth middle school STEAM applications in collaboration with the Middle School teaching team
• Plan excursions that connect children to the real world
• Promote The Shop as an asset to the community by seeking opportunities to engage the larger public with the space
• Willingness to take on multiple roles within the school
• Manage materials and the prepared environment
• Be a positive force in the school community
• Foster and steward a culture of mutual respect, equitable practice, and joy in and out of the classroom
• Cultural competency skills to collaborate effectively across difference
• Exhibit strong working knowledge of student cognitive development and learning preferences
• Identify and support students’ social, emotional, and academic needs
• Provide timely feedback to students and collaborates with faculty to offer specialized support in pursuit of each student’s learning goals
• Implement a wide array of pedagogical tools and strategies in appropriate and effective combinations  
• Facilitate and design effective group/collaborative work and productive dialogue among students and teachers
• Communicate effectively with students/families about classwork, learning goals, and student progress
• Collaborate and plan actively for learning with teachers and students both within the content area and with interdisciplinary teams
• Implement backward design to align all lessons, activities, and assessments
• Foster student growth through structured opportunities for reflection and Presentations of Learning
• Showcase student work within the community and prepares students to exhibit and communicate effectively

Responsibilities Include:

• Instructional responsibility in the content area and Design Thinking model
• Oversight of the development and progress of each child
• Assessment of all students’ progress in both written and verbal reports
• Opportunity for student reflection and growth goal setting
• Communication with parents
• Common school-day duties like lunch and recess coverage

Required Qualifications:

• Minimum of a Bachelor’s Degree or demonstrated professional competency
• Teaching experience with K-8 students
• Experience with inquiry-based learning and project-based learning
• A passion for learning and the ability to motivate and inspire students
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills
• Commitment to building a diverse, equitable, and inclusive school community
• Personal traits appropriate for nurturing children’s growth – must be energetic, creative, flexible, patient, collaborative, and have an inexhaustible sense of humor.