Upper School Maker, Design Engineering Instructor

Since 2014, Mount Vernon has been investing in the Maker, Design, Engineering Program, which has become a hallmark of the school and an integral partner to the design thinking and project-based learning pedagogies we employ in Preschool through Grade 12. With 4 dedicated maker labs and many auxiliary maker spaces, the school boasts state-of-the-art equipment and production space where students can craft and fabricate ideas that can become solutions today.

Influenced by books such as Make Space and programs such as the Standford.d School, Mount Vernon has been pioneering maker education for more than a decade and recently published Leveling Up Maker Education in collaboration with Mount Vernon Ventures.
The Role

This position has the opportunity to develop and deliver a wide variety of maker courses to students in Grades 9-12. This role is important because Mount Vernon believes each student needs a foundation in Maker, Design, and Engineering approaches, and these skills are critical to student success in other academic courses as they design and prototype for projects outside of maker-specific courses.

Strong candidates will have experience teaching Maker, Design, and/or Engineering courses, be a practitioner of Design Thinking, Inquiry-Based Learning, and Competency-Based Education, and be an active participant in the maker education community.

What Strong Candidates Look Like

Ideal candidates will be passionate lifelong makers, curious learners, and student champions. You might fabricate furniture on weekends, iterate prints until the tolerance is right, solder your own boards, write code that runs something in your house, or have spent years in a shop, studio, or engineering firm before you found your way to a classroom. A job, a side business, or a weekend obsession - all the same to us.

What matters is that you are a practitioner who walks the walk and can inspire students to do the same.

Responsibilities

• Facilitating hands-on, project-based learning experiences with several groups of 12 to 20 students and supporting students at seasonal after-school events
• Connecting project-based learning experiences to real-world community impact
• Designing, iterating, and delivering unit development and alignment across a variety of maker courses in collaboration with the MADE, Inquiry, Impact, and Innovation Diploma teams.
• Collaborating with Lower School and Middle School Maker teachers to build cohesive and vertically aligned curriculum and learning experiences.
• Maintaining comprehensive records of performance, progress, and goals using Mount Vernon tools
• Communicating with families, learning coaches, and outside providers
• Operating as a test kitchen for our newest, boldest ideas for doing school differently
• Maintaining the Upper School Maker Spaces, equipment, and inventory
• Partnering with Upper School teachers to help integrate MDE and fabricate/showcase student work
• Curating 2+ moments a year for students to exhibit their work
• Actively participating in professional growth opportunities, including weekly school/division/team meetings