Director, AI Teacher Community

Macmillan Learning is piloting a new kind of professional learning community for higher education instructors - one built around AI teaching practice, backed by a credentialing pathway, and designed to prove itself with evidence before it scales. As Director, you'll be the second person on this work and its operational hub: building the curriculum, standing up the community, recruiting and training its first facilitators, and getting the artifact and peer-review pipeline running before the Fall 2026 pilot launches. You'll partner closely with the VP who owns this initiative, shaping both the day-to-day work and the strategy behind it.

Macmillan Learning is building two connected initiatives: the AI Teaching Community, a facilitated professional learning community for higher education educators with a credentialing pathway, and the AI Mentor, an AI-powered reflective practice coach that the VP owns directly. Year one is a validation year for both. The team is running a pilot, instrumenting it before it starts, and bringing evidence to an investment decision at the end of the year.

As Director, you'll help build that evidence base from the ground up. You'll work in a space where a lot of the plan gets written as the project unfolds, and where your judgment about what the curriculum, the community, and the data should look like will shape what Macmillan Learning decides to do next.

What You'll Do

Curriculum and credential design

• Build the evidence-based AI teaching curriculum, turning briefs into delivered modules, and prepare the async module set for content creators.
• Apply evidence-based practices - including backward design, scientific teaching, inclusive teaching, and universal design - to every module you build.
• Own the credential framework: badge structure, artifact requirements, rubrics, and the peer-review process, adjusting it as pilot evidence comes in.
• Prepare curriculum documentation for external credential recognition review.

Community architecture and facilitator development

• Recruit, train, and support the founding facilitator cohort.
• Turn the facilitator guide outline into full session protocols.
• Design and deliver facilitator training, and build the facilitation ladder that becomes the community's growth loop.

Community operations and member experience

• Own the member onboarding sequence and the first-week experience through Session Zero.
• Manage the enrollment application, including research consent and artifact license consent.
• Run the community's recognition and status systems.

Artifact pipeline and peer review

• Build the artifact pipeline end to end, from metadata completeness to review assignment outside the author's own circle.
• Recruit, train, and calibrate the peer-reviewer bench, including outside faculty reviewers, so a badge means the same thing from one cohort to the next.
• Curate and grow the artifact library, and adjust the metadata schema based on what members actually submit.

Strategy, evidence, and cross-functional partnership

• Partner with the VP on strategic goals, planning, and the year-end recommendation to scale, narrow, or stop.
• Run data collection against the initiative's five success measures, keeping measurement ahead of the pilot rather than behind it.
• Represent the initiative to partners in Product, Marketing, Engineering, and Sales, and be ready to speak for this work in any room.

What You'll Bring

• A master's degree in education, instructional design, learning sciences, educational technology, or a related field, plus eight to ten years of directly related professional experience.
• A track record of designing, implementing, and evaluating curriculum at program scale, not just course scale.
• Experience with faculty or professional development - facilitating adult learners and coaching instructors on their own teaching.
• Fluency in instructional design models and design thinking, including approaches like ADDIE and backward design.
• Experience owning a project end to end in conditions where the plan wasn't written yet.
• Working knowledge of the evidence base in teaching and learning, and the ability to hold that standard under deadline pressure.
• Strong written and oral communication skills, and the ability to manage up, sideways, and down in a respectful, collaborative way.

Nice to Have

• A doctorate in education, instructional design, learning sciences, educational technology, or a related field.

Salary: $140,000

Physical Requirements:

Requires periods of close concentration. Must be able to multi-task, concentrate in an open office work environment. . Must be able to work more than 40 hours per week as needed.

Work Location: This is a remote position with preference to those in the Austin, TX area. Remote work is NOT available for those in the following locations: Alaska, Arkansas, Hawaii, Mississippi, South Dakota, West Virginia, Wyoming.

Benefits

Regular full-time and qualifying part-time employees and their dependents are eligible for Macmillan benefits, effective on the employee's date of hire. Macmillan also offers health benefits coverage to qualifying same-sex and opposite-sex domestic partners (may require additional documentation) of active employees.

• Competitive pay and bonus plan
• Generous Health Benefits (Medical, Dental, Vision)
• Contributions to your 401k retirement account through Fidelity
• Generous paid time off, sick time, discretionary days. and paid holidays (International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, Juneteenth, Indigenous People's Day, and more!)
• Employee Assistance Program, Education Assistance Program
• 100% employer-paid life and AD&D insurance
• And much more!

BFW Statement:

Macmillan Learning is a privately-held, family-owned company that inspires what's possible for every learner. We envision a world in which every learner succeeds. Through our content, tools and services, we aim to make that a reality. To learn more, please visit macmillanlearning.com, join our Macmillan Community, stay connected to our Learning Stories blogs, or see us on LinkedIn, Facebook, or X. Macmillan Learning is a division of the Holtzbrinck Publishing Group, a global media company headquartered in Stuttgart, Germany.

EEO Statement:

At Macmillan Learning, we believe diverse perspectives and backgrounds enrich our mission to improve lives through learning. We actively seek candidates who reflect a wide range of identities, experiences, and communities. We are an Equal Opportunity Employer and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, age, ethnicity, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity or expression, disability status, physical ability, neurodiversity, genetic information, protected veteran status, family and economic status and background, geographical status and background, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state, or local law. You can read more about our Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion initiatives here.

Employer Clarification:

The successful candidate for this position will be an employee of Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishing Group, LLC d/b/a Macmillan Learning. Bedford Freeman & Worth Publishing Group, LLC has developed an affirmative action program in compliance with the NY Department of Education's guidance. Portions of the affirmative action program are available for review by applicants and employees by contacting Human Resources at Macmillan Learning.