JEA is seeking applicants for the second phase of its ongoing curriculum initiative, which involves leading a national journalism professional learning community and maintaining full-fledged curriculum materials – including learning outcomes, lesson plans/activities, applicability to Common Core State Standards, formative and summative assessments and evaluation guides – for one of 11 content areas: Design, Editing, Entrepreneurship, Law and Ethics, Leadership and Team Building, Multimedia Broadcast, News Gathering, News Literacy, Photojournalism, Web and Writing.

Curriculum leaders are expected to meet the following ongoing responsibilities:

• Keep curriculum up to date on JEA website with an emphasis on any industry and technology trends

• Create and collaborate with a professional advisory board, including media professionals and higher education professors

• Collaborate with JEA committees and programs such as Certification, Write-offs, Digital Media and others

• Lead sessions at national conventions and/or summer Advisers Institute

• Lead professional learning community in content area with an online chat at least once per quarter

• Participate in cross-module PLCs with an online chat at least once per quarter

It must be stressed that all curricular material must be original, and JEA must obtain reprinting rights for any examples used as part of the curriculum. The distribution of these materials greatly limits the ability to claim fair use of copyrighted materials, so a strong or exclusive emphasis on original content is key.

Any teacher/adviser member is eligible to apply for a one-year curriculum leader position. Leaders must be detail-oriented, able to work individually and as part of a team and able to meet deadlines consistently. In addition, curriculum leaders must be proficient with Google Drive. Familiarity with WordPress content management system is a plus. All lesson plans and related materials must use templates from JEA to ensure applicability to standards and conformity across modules.

Curriculum leaders will receive a $1,000 stipend to help offset their expenses and in consideration of their time. JEA currently does not provide subsidies for curriculum leaders to attend the National High School Journalism Convention. For curriculum leaders who continue their role through 2015-2016, funding has been allocated to provide travel and lodging to the JEA Advisers Institute, July 6-9, 2015.

If you are interested in applying for a curriculum leader position, please review the related module and carefully consider the responsibilities outlined here before submitting an application. If you have questions, contact Kelly Furnas (furnas@ksu.edu) or Sarah Nichols (sarahjnichols.sjn@gmail.com). The deadline to apply is July 1.