Organization: Overcoming Obstacles
Position Type: Independent Contractor (Work for Hire)
Location: Remote
Compensation: Competitive and open to discussion based on your experience and project scope.
About Overcoming Obstacles
Overcoming Obstacles is a nonprofit organization dedicated to ensuring that all young people learn the communication, decision making, and goal setting skills they need to succeed in school, work, and life. Our free K-12 life skills curriculum has been used by hundreds of thousands of educators to reach more than 185 million students in over 190 countries.
We are seeking an experienced Curriculum Writer to help expand and strengthen our curriculum by developing engaging new lessons and reviewing existing content to ensure it remains current, effective, and relevant for today's students and classrooms.
Position Summary
The Curriculum Writer will collaborate with our team to create high-quality instructional materials that align with the mission of Overcoming Obstacles. This role includes creating and writing original lessons and activities, revising existing curriculum, and ensuring that all content is engaging and relevant for students.
This is a contract, work-for-hire position. All work created under this agreement, including drafts, lesson plans, activities, assessments, and supporting materials, will become the exclusive property of Overcoming Obstacles.
Responsibilities
- Develop original K-12 life skills lessons.
- Review and revise existing curriculum to ensure it remains relevant, engaging, and aligned with current educational research and classroom practices.
- Create engaging classroom activities, discussion prompts, teacher guidance, and student assessments.
- Ensure lessons are developmentally appropriate and reflective of the experiences and challenges students face at each grade level.
- Collaborate with the Overcoming Obstacles team to incorporate feedback and revisions.
- Maintain consistency with the organization’s writing style, instructional approach, and formatting across all curriculum materials.
- Meet agreed-upon project deadlines.
Qualifications
- Bachelor's degree in Education, Curriculum & Instruction, or a related field (Master's degree preferred).
- Experience developing K-12 curriculum or instructional materials.
- Demonstrated ability to develop age-appropriate curriculum that reflects students' needs across elementary, middle, and/or high school grade levels.
- Classroom teaching experience strongly preferred.
- Excellent writing, editing, and research skills.
- Strong understanding of instructional design and effective classroom practices.
- Ability to create engaging, student-centered learning experiences.
- Ability to work independently while collaborating effectively with a project team.
Preferred Qualifications
- Experience writing curriculum for multiple grade levels.
- Experience creating teacher-facing instructional materials, lesson plans, and classroom activities.
- Familiarity with state or national educational standards.
- Experience incorporating educator feedback into curriculum revisions.
Work Arrangement
- Remote contract position.
- Flexible schedule with agreed-upon project deadlines.
- Compensation is competitive and open to discussion based on your experience and project scope.
Selection Process
Candidates selected to move forward in the hiring process may be asked to complete a paid curriculum writing exercise.
Finalists will receive an existing Overcoming Obstacles lesson and will be asked to either revise the lesson to improve its relevance and effectiveness or develop a new lesson using our curriculum framework. The exercise is intended to reflect the type of work performed in this role and allows us to evaluate instructional design, writing style, creativity, classroom practicality, and the ability to work within an established curriculum model.
Candidates who complete the exercise will be compensated for their time, regardless of the hiring decision.
Work-for-Hire Notice
This position is performed as an independent contractor under a Work-for-Hire and Confidentiality Agreement. All curriculum, lesson plans, activities, written materials, revisions, research, instructional content, graphics concepts, and other work products created during the engagement shall be considered works made for hire and will become the exclusive property of Overcoming Obstacles.
How to Apply
Please submit the following to [email protected]:
- A résumé or curriculum vitae.
- A brief cover letter describing your curriculum development experience.
- Two or three samples of curriculum or instructional materials you have developed.
- Two professional references.
We welcome applicants who are passionate about helping students develop essential life skills.
Work Location: Remote
