Example Career: Instructional Coordinators

Career Description

Develop instructional material, coordinate educational content, and incorporate current technology in specialized fields that provide guidelines to educators and instructors for developing curricula and conducting courses. Includes educational consultants and specialists, and instructional material directors.

What Job Titles Instructional Coordinators Might Have

• Curriculum Coordinator
• Curriculum Director
• Curriculum Specialist
• Instructional Systems Specialist

What Instructional Coordinators Do

• Plan and conduct teacher training programs and conferences dealing with new classroom procedures, instructional materials and equipment, and teaching aids.
• Observe work of teaching staff to evaluate performance and to recommend changes that could strengthen teaching skills.
• Confer with members of educational committees and advisory groups to obtain knowledge of subject areas and to relate curriculum materials to specific subjects, individual student needs, and occupational areas.
• Research, evaluate, and prepare recommendations on curricula, instructional methods, and materials for school systems.
• Conduct or participate in workshops, committees, and conferences designed to promote the intellectual, social, and physical welfare of students.
• Advise teaching and administrative staff in curriculum development, use of materials and equipment, and implementation of state and federal programs and procedures.
• Advise and teach students.
• Organize production and design of curriculum materials.
• Recommend, order, or authorize purchase of instructional materials, supplies, equipment, and visual aids designed to meet student educational needs and district standards.
• Interpret and enforce provisions of state education codes and rules and regulations of state education boards.
• Address public audiences to explain program objectives and to elicit support.
• Prepare grant proposals, budgets, and program policies and goals or assist in their preparation.
• Develop tests, questionnaires, and procedures that measure the effectiveness of curricula and use these tools to determine whether program objectives are being met.
• Develop instructional materials to be used by educators and instructors.
• Update the content of educational programs to ensure that students are being trained with equipment and processes that are technologically current.
• Prepare or approve manuals, guidelines, and reports on state educational policies and practices for distribution to school districts.
• Inspect instructional equipment to determine if repairs are needed and authorize necessary repairs.
• Develop classroom-based and distance learning training courses, using needs assessments and skill level analyses.
• Coordinate activities of workers engaged in cataloging, distributing, and maintaining educational materials and equipment in curriculum libraries and laboratories.

What Instructional Coordinators Should Be Good At

• Written Comprehension - The ability to read and understand information and ideas presented in writing.
• Oral Comprehension - The ability to listen to and understand information and ideas presented through spoken words and sentences.
• Oral Expression - The ability to communicate information and ideas in speaking so others will understand.
• Written Expression - The ability to communicate information and ideas in writing so others will understand.
• Deductive Reasoning - The ability to apply general rules to specific problems to produce answers that make sense.
• Speech Clarity - The ability to speak clearly so others can understand you.
• Problem Sensitivity - The ability to tell when something is wrong or is likely to go wrong. It does not involve solving the problem, only recognizing there is a problem.
• Inductive Reasoning - The ability to combine pieces of information to form general rules or conclusions (includes finding a relationship among seemingly unrelated events).
• Information Ordering - The ability to arrange things or actions in a certain order or pattern according to a specific rule or set of rules (e.g., patterns of numbers, letters, words, pictures, mathematical operations).
• Speech Recognition - The ability to identify and understand the speech of another person.
• Near Vision - The ability to see details at close range (within a few feet of the observer).
• Fluency of Ideas - The ability to come up with a number of ideas about a topic (the number of ideas is important, not their quality, correctness, or creativity).
• Category Flexibility - The ability to generate or use different sets of rules for combining or grouping things in different ways.

What Instructional Coordinators Should Be Interested In

• Investigative - Investigative occupations frequently involve working with ideas, and require an extensive amount of thinking. These occupations can involve searching for facts and figuring out problems mentally.

What Instructional Coordinators Need to Learn

• Education and Training - Knowledge of principles and methods for curriculum and training design, teaching and instruction for individuals and groups, and the measurement of training effects.
• English Language - Knowledge of the structure and content of the English language including the meaning and spelling of words, rules of composition, and grammar.
• Psychology - Knowledge of human behavior and performance; individual differences in ability, personality, and interests; learning and motivation; psychological research methods; and the assessment and treatment of behavioral and affective disorders.
• Administration and Management - Knowledge of business and management principles involved in strategic planning, resource allocation, human resources modeling, leadership technique, production methods, and coordination of people and resources.
• Mathematics - Knowledge of arithmetic, algebra, geometry, calculus, statistics, and their applications.
• Customer and Personal Service - Knowledge of principles and processes for providing customer and personal services. This includes customer needs assessment, meeting quality standards for services, and evaluation of customer satisfaction.
• Personnel and Human Resources - Knowledge of principles and procedures for personnel recruitment, selection, training, compensation and benefits, labor relations and negotiation, and personnel information systems.
• Sociology and Anthropology - Knowledge of group behavior and dynamics, societal trends and influences, human migrations, ethnicity, cultures and their history and origins.
• Communications and Media - Knowledge of media production, communication, and dissemination techniques and methods. This includes alternative ways to inform and entertain via written, oral, and visual media.
• Computers and Electronics - Knowledge of circuit boards, processors, chips, electronic equipment, and computer hardware and software, including applications and programming.
• Clerical - Knowledge of administrative and clerical procedures and systems such as word processing, managing files and records, stenography and transcription, designing forms, and other office procedures and terminology.
• Therapy and Counseling - Knowledge of principles, methods, and procedures for diagnosis, treatment, and rehabilitation of physical and mental dysfunctions, and for career counseling and guidance.
• Law and Government - Knowledge of laws, legal codes, court procedures, precedents, government regulations, executive orders, agency rules, and the democratic political process.