Science Curriculum Specialist (New Orleans) at NOLA Education, LLC | Star Academy

Job Overview:Were seeking a sharp, standards-driven Science Curriculum Specialist for grades 69 to serve as the educational backbone of our content development team. In this role, you will bridge the gap between science standards, engaging content, and hands-on kits, ensuring every lesson is both rigorous and fun. This position is all about creative instructional design vision rather than script writing we have curriculum writers for the detailed scripts. Instead, youll craft high-level blueprints for lessons (think essential questions, learning objectives, and a slide/session flow) and make sure everything from the initial concept to the students experience holds up to scrutiny. We need someone who can look at a lesson and say, This is engaging, this is accurate, and this teaches exactly what its supposed to.As our Science Curriculum Specialist, you will work collaboratively with curriculum writers, a kit engineer (our hands-on activity designer), and media developers to shape each module. Youll ensure our discovery-based learning framework is embedded in every session, tying concepts across physical, life, earth, and chemical sciences to real-world applications. You wont be authoring scripts, but your pedagogical expertise and creative vision will guide those who do. This is a highly collaborative and creative role where youll validate and enhance curriculum modules before, during, and after theyre written maintaining academic accuracy, aligning to NGSS standards, and keeping the experience engaging and cross-disciplinary. If youre excited about making science meaningful beyond the textbook and being part of an innovative, growing team, this role is for you.Key ResponsibilitiesStandards Alignment: Ensure all instructional content tightly aligns with national and statescience standards (especially NGSS) as well as internal learning goals. Maintain up-to-datealignment documentation, including standards mapping, vocabulary lists, and learning goaltrackers for each product.Instructional Accuracy: Review and vet lesson scripts, storyboards, and slide decks forconceptual clarity, correct pacing, and pedagogical soundness. Identify any gaps orinaccuracies in content and propose improvements or stronger instructional techniques toaddress them.Hands-On Kit Integration: Collaborate with our kit designer to evaluate and shape hands-onactivities and science kits for each module. Make sure each experiment or build directlysupports the lesson objectives and standards. Provide feedback on prototypes and suggestrefinements to improve student understanding, usability, and excitement.Curriculum Design Blueprint: Develop high-level instructional blueprints for lessons andmodules. Outline essential questions, learning objectives, and the session flow for example,mapping out a 30-slide lesson in a concise 57 slide framework that guides our scriptwriters.Ensure the planned flow is logically sound and engaging from start to finish.Cross-Functional Collaboration: Work closely with curriculum writers, editors, andmedia/content developers at every stage of development. Serve as a strategic partner duringplanning meetings and content review sessions, ensuring the instructional intent is clear andconsistently carried through in the final product. (Youll actively participate in creativebrainstorming and rip-and-tear sessions to help solve challenges and refine ideas in realtime.)Real-World Connection: Infuse real-world context and cross-curricular links into everymodule. Help design activities and examples that connect science concepts to everyday lifeand, where possible, to other subject areas (math, ELA, social studies), so that learning isinterdisciplinary and relevant.Quality Assurance: Lead the final academic quality checks on each curriculum module. Beforea lesson goes live, confirm that all content is scientifically accurate, terminology is correct andage-appropriate, and the material meets our high standards for rigor and creativity. Ensure thatevery student-facing experience delivers on its promise and aligns with our discovery-basedlearning framework.Innovative Curriculum Development: Contribute to the broader curriculum strategy bybringing new ideas and insights. Youll be involved in evolving our curriculum beyond traditionalmodels brainstorming new approaches, improving our methods, and ensuring we stay aheadof the curve in science education. Your expertise will help shape the future direction of ourproducts in a meaningful way.Workload & Process:Standards Review & Instructional QA (35%): Roughly one-third of your time will be spentauditing existing content for standards alignment. Youll identify whether standards are fully orpartially met, break down which components are addressed, evaluate the Depth of Knowledge(DOK), and assess overall academic rigor. All findings will be documented in our standardstracking system for future reference and decision-making.Script and Storyboard Collaboration (35%): Another third of your time will be dedicated toworking closely with content writers and editors to ensure new scripts and storyboards alignwith standards. Youll help determine the extent of alignment, clarify instructional intent, andsupport the development of assessments that accurately measure student understanding.Kit Instructional Support (30%): The remainder of your time will focus on partnering with the kitengineer to review and shape new hands-on activities. Your goal will be to evaluate how wellproposed activities meet educational standards and build out a bank of instructionally soundexperiences that can be deployed when new content demand arises.