Vice President, AP Instructional Design at TheCollegeBoard in Providence, Rhode Island

Job Description:

Vice President, AP Instructional Design




Advanced Placement & Instruction



Remote, with hybrid options available in New York City or Reston, VA



Type: This is a full-time position



About the Team



The College Board's Advanced Placement and Instruction division (260 staff) develops and administers coursework taken by more than 3 million students worldwide each school year, and the related subject-matter exams utilized by more than 4,000 colleges and universities for course placement and awarding of college credit. These include credit and placement examination programs like CLEP and ACCUplacer; Advanced Placement (AP) and Pre-AP courses in 40+ disciplines; and associated teacher professional learning programs.


The Advanced Placement Program is the largest offering in the division's portfolio, and currently has five departments: Curriculum and Assessment, which develops the course frameworks, designs the exams, and guides the grading and scoring process; Delivery, which manages the annual cycle of transactions with schools - from student registration to exam administration, scoring, and score reporting; Access, which focuses on expanding availability of AP and Pre-AP courses, participation among traditionally underserved students, and supporting teachers; Strategy, which measures and evaluates the program's components and leads the development and implementation of strategic initiatives; and Digital, which leads product development of the Bluebook digital assessment platform, manages the implementation of digital testing for AP Exams, and provides instructional resources via AP Classroom.


This Vice President will establish vision and strategy for the instructional design of AP courses, with a focus on relevance and student engagement while maintaining alignment with standards for college credit. To this end, the Vice President will develop and lead a new department within the AP Program, the Instructional Design department.



About the Opportunity



The AP Instructional Design department will lead the researching, prototyping, and developing of instructional and design requirements for new AP courses and for revisions to expand reach and relevance. This includes analyzing and identifying options for course content, the role of projects and project-based learning in the course or exam, requirements from colleges and state standards, and features that will enhance career readiness and active learning.


To do this you will develop and lead approaches such as, but not limited to, the following:

• Generate clear and nuanced options for new content by casting a wide net to surface competing priorities and opportunities; drawing upon relevant research and cognitive science; identifying and evaluating trade-offs between competing priorities; and applying deep personal expertise in curriculum design and instruction.
  
  

• Envision and build new instructional models that make AP more relevant and engaging to broader groups of students and makes good instruction easier for teachers.
  
  

• Develop and refine instructional components for new content and build a team able to do this well, ensuring exemplary design that can be applied at scale.
  
  

• Run the governance processes (including managing a Project Management Office) to develop and launch new content across AP divisions.
  
  

Your Instructional Design department will enact these responsibilities across four design phases:


Analysis phase. Your Instructional Design department will partner with the Strategy department and the College Board's Learning & Assessment division to conduct curricular and field research. You will generate options and identify trade-offs in various curricular and assessment choices we could make for content, instruction or teacher training and support.


Prototyping and testing phase. The Instructional Design department along with the Strategy department and the Learning Engineering department will develop prototypes based on the success of the research phase to inform requirements for the new content and lead the decision-making process on whether to move forward to content development.


Planning and project management phase. The Instructional Design department's Project Management Office (PMO) will partner with the Curriculum and Assessment, Delivery and Access departments to build a high-level, integrated launch plan and will then manage the project plan across departments to ensure the successful launch of new content.


Content review phase. Your department will partner with Curriculum and Assessment to review the content created by content experts and confirm alignment with the requirements. Additionally, in partnership with both Curriculum and Assessment and Access Departments, you will approve any refinements or changes to the requirements and jointly approve content for launch.



Specific Responsibilities include:



(While the role will evolve to reflect the vision and strategy of this Vice President, a possible breakdown of responsibilities is provided here.)


Curricular Research and Analysis (20%)

• Guide the work of curriculum analysts in evaluating higher education content scope and standards, secondary education state standards, and other considerations essential to defining options for AP course curricula and assessments.
  
  


• Develop a summary of the leading options for the new content, delineating which objectives each option best serves.
  
  


• This work will be done for all new AP courses, for major redesigns focused on expanding the reach and relevance of the course, and as requested by the AP Curriculum and Assessment department, for AP subjects with specific needs for such analysis.
  
  

Prototyping, Testing, and Developing Requirements for New Content (20%)

• Develop prototypes of various components of a new AP course or a new AP resource for educators. These components could include a project; a sample course topic; a roster of course skills; a pedagogical / instructional approach for one segment of the course; an approach to integrating an industry-recognized credential; or an approach to AP teacher training.
  
  


• Test prototypes and secure feedback partnering with the Strategy department and the Learning Engineering department in the College Board Learning and Assessment division.
  
  


• Develop a set of high-level specifications or requirements for the new content and facilitate approval of those requirements from the other AP departments that will receive and act on those requirements to develop, launch, and manage the ongoing delivery of the new content.
  
  


• Guide the AP Leadership Team and the College Board's Office of the CEO through a process to reach a decision on whether to green light the new content for full development and launch in partnership with the Strategy Department.
  
  

Planning and Project Managing the Launch of New Content (20%)

• Guide a Project Management Office through the process of collaborating across all AP departments to develop a high-level project plan for the development and launch of new content or instructional approaches.
  
  


• Establish and manage project governance for development and launch of new coursework, ensuring appropriate visibility and collaboration and readiness across all teams, inside and outside of AP, on whom the launch will be dependent.
  
  

Reviewing and Approving New Content (10%)

• Review new content and confirm fulfillment of the content requirements, or to align on needed revisions to those requirements that become clear during the development or piloting processes, in partnership with the Curriculum and Assessment and Access departments.
  
  

Leadership, Team Management, Public Representation, and Field Work (30%)

• Effectively manage a high-performing, remote team of 10 curricular researchers, instructional designers, and project managers, ~5 of whom are direct reports, to enable growth and success in accomplishing annual goals.
  
  


• Provide the leadership necessary to deliver results across the team, including modeling and exemplifying the essentiality and value of collaboration across College Board teams and divisions.
  
  


• Build and drive a performance-based culture and actions to support an inclusive and engaged team.
  
  


• Establish critical forecasting and planning capabilities and anticipate and manage work volumes and budgets based on data.
  
  


• Represent the AP Program in presentations to teachers, professors, administrators, and policymakers, particularly at conferences and events where the focus is on curriculum and instruction.
  
  


• Partner with the Access department and State and District Partnerships colleagues to observe classrooms testing and implementing new content.
  
  

About You



You will be someone who relishes the opportunity both to 1) work at the macro-level in developing an overall vision and strategy for how the College Board should develop new AP courses and revise existing AP courses in ways that support teachers and students in focusing on what matters most in a particular discipline, and 2) adapt such vision and strategy in a flexible and creative way to the details and nuances of specific disciplines and subject matter. You will be able to work across a wide range of disciplines - the arts, humanities, mathematics, sciences, and world languages - to help your team craft detailed specifications that will enable content experts to design and develop relevant, engaging, college-level content for AP teachers and students efficiently and effectively. You will also be a stickler for detail and precision, with a focus on paring and shaping what will most enable a broad range of teachers and students to succeed in challenging coursework. You will be able to make tough decisions to remove content that is cherished by some, as you seek to remove from AP courses any valid perceptions of "mile-wide, inch-deep" while preserving alignment with colleges' requirements for credit and placement.


You will value deeply the input and expertise of the other AP departments and will collaborate with them to achieve these shared requirements for AP content and support their implementation.


You have:

• 15+ years of directly related experience in teaching and learning, and 5+ years in a leadership position directly supervising cross-disciplinary instructional design and academic leadership.
  
  


• Deep understanding of instructional design across disciplines, and relevant research on relationships between instructional design and student outcomes.
  
  


• A near-obsessive attention to detail in content, recognizing the impact of specific words and phrases on what and how we signal our instructional priorities and values.
  
  


• Creativity in finding information and in developing answers to questions about what is and should be taught and learned in college-level instruction in a broad array of disciplines.
  
  


• An openness to feedback from peers, staff, and senior management; you are curious rather than defensive, eager to understand others' perspectives.
  
  


• A proven track record of developing, coaching, training, and retaining top talent with high levels of engagement.
  
  


• The ability to empower others and effectively delegate work with accountability.
  
  


• Excellent communication, negotiation, and interpersonal skills.
  
  


• Ability to thrive in a fast-paced, high-stakes, and dynamic environment and lead through change.
  
  


• Exceptional strategic thinking, analytical and planning skills - you can build a strategy, connect the dots, and build towards the future.
  
  


• Experience as a highly collaborative leader with ability to influence others and build strong relationships across internal and external stakeholders.
  
  


• The ability to communicate effectively with subject-matter experts across disciplines.
  
  


• Experience leading high-visibility projects from start to finish with measurable results.
  
  


• Fluency with data and confidence in making data-driven decisions.
  
  


• A passion for education and the impact that educators have on students.
  
  


• The ability to travel, at least once a month.
  
  


• Eligible to work in the United States of America.
  
  

About Our Process

• Application review will begin immediately and will continue until the position is filled.
  
  


• While the hiring process may vary, it generally includes: resume and application submission, recruiter phone screen, hiring manager interview, performance exercise and panel interview, finalist interview and reference checks.This is approximately an 8- to 10-week process.
  
  

About Our Benefits and Compensation



The College Board offers a competitive benefits and compensation program that attracts top talent looking to make a difference in education. As a self-sustaining nonprofit, we believe in compensating employees equitably in relation to each other, their qualifications, their impact, and the relevant market.


The hiring range for a new employee in this position is $184,000 to $270,000. The College Board differentiates salaries by location so where you live will narrow the portion of this range in which you can expect a salary. Your salary will be carefully determined based on your location, relevant experience, the external labor market, and the pay of College Board employees in similar roles. College Board strives to provide our best offer up front based on these criteria.


Your salary is only one part of all that the College Board offers, including but not limited to:

• A comprehensive package designed to support the well-being of employees and their families and promote education. Our robust benefits package includes health, dental, and vision insurance, generous paid time off, paid parental leave, fertility benefits, pet insurance, tuition assistance, retirement benefits, and more.
  
  


• Recognition of exceptional performance through annual bonuses, salary growth over time through market increases, and opportunities for merit raises and promotions based on increased scope of responsibility.
  
  


• A job that matters, a team that cares, and a place to learn, innovate and thrive.
  
  


• You can expect to have transparent conversations about benefits and compensation with our recruiters throughout your application process.
  
  

About Our Culture



Our community matters, and we strive to practice and improve our culture daily. Here are some headlines:

• We are motivated to positively impact the educational and career trajectories of millions of students a year.
  
  


• We prioritize building a diverse and inclusive team where every employee can thrive, and every voice is heard.
  
  


• We welcome staff to join any or all six of our affinity groups: ARISE (Alliance for Asian Retention, Inclusion, Success, and Engagement; DIASPORA (Alliance for Pan-African Success and Achievement); Pride (alliance for LGBTQ+ staff and allies); Resilience (alliance for Native staff and advocates); SALSA (Staff Alliance for Latinx Success and Achievement); and WIN (Women's Impact Network).
  
  


• We value learning and growth; we offer formal and informal ways to lead through your superpowers, sharpen your strengths, and meet your development goals.
  
  


• We know that our impact is strongest together. Our College Board Cares program offers all staff up to $1,000 annual match against partner non-profit organizations.
  
  


• We offer a transparent approach to promotions and merit raises, annual performance-based bonuses, and how to grow your career here over time.
  
  

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