Practical guide for K–12 teachers entering EdTech- from classroom to Curriculum Lead

Transitioning from the classroom to the world of educational technology is an exciting step for many teachers. If you're moving into a role such as a Curriculum Designer or Curriculum Lead, your classroom experience is highly relevant—but you’ll also need to learn how to operate in a new professional environment, with new tools, terminology, and workflows.

This guide introduces essential edtech concepts, key terminology, and collaborative practices, helping educators navigate the transition confidently and effectively.

1. Understanding How Work Gets Done: From Lesson Planning to Agile Sprints

In schools, lesson planning often follows a term-based cycle. In edtech, work is usually structured using an Agile methodology, designed for fast, iterative delivery.

Example:

Instead of planning an entire course up front, a curriculum team might release the first module, gather user feedback, then adjust the second module accordingly.

Key Concepts:

• Agile: A framework where teams work in short development cycles, called sprints, allowing rapid iteration (Scrum.org, 2022).
  
  
• Sprint: Typically a two-week window where a set of defined tasks is completed.
  
  
• Retrospective: A team meeting after a sprint to reflect on successes and identify improvements for the next cycle.
  
  

Tip: Think of a sprint like planning and delivering a week’s worth of lessons, followed by a staff meeting where you reflect on what worked and what needs tweaking.

2. Speaking “Tech”: Jargon You’ll Encounter

As a Curriculum Lead, you’ll interact with developers, product managers, designers, and QA testers. Each group brings specialised language.

Common Terms and Examples:

• User Story: A short, specific statement that describes a feature from the user’s perspective.
  Example: “As a student, I want immediate feedback on quiz questions so I can learn from my mistakes.”
  
  
• Acceptance Criteria: The detailed conditions that define when a task is “done.”
  Example: “The feedback must appear within three seconds and include a green tick or red cross.”
  
  
• MVP (Minimum Viable Product): The simplest version of a feature that delivers value.
  Example: A quiz module that only includes multiple-choice questions before adding more types.
  
  
• Bug: An error or unintended behaviour in the system.
  Example: The “submit” button doesn’t work on tablets.
  
  
• JIRA/Trello/Asana: Tools used to track tasks, issues, and progress.
  
  

According to Atlassian (2023), writing a clear user story and attaching precise acceptance criteria helps development teams understand educational goals without needing to translate ambiguous pedagogical language.

3. Design Meets Delivery: Curriculum in a Digital Space

You’re no longer just designing for your own students—you’re creating content for thousands of users with different devices, needs, and learning contexts.

Key Curriculum Design Considerations:

• Learning Objectives: Still essential, but often mapped to backend systems that track progress and performance.
  
  
• Adaptive Learning: Edtech platforms may use data to personalise what learners see based on past performance (Johnson et al., 2020).
  
  
• Assessment Engines: Tools that power quizzes, provide auto-feedback, and track user responses.
  
  
• Metadata and Content Schema: Structural tags behind the scenes that help the platform “understand” your content and organise it effectively.
  
  

Example: In a classroom, you might group tasks by topic. In edtech, you also need to tag each task with learning objective codes, skill levels, and prerequisites so the platform can serve them intelligently.

4. Collaborating Across Teams: Letting Go of Full Control

In school, you might handle everything—lesson planning, delivery, assessment. In edtech, collaboration is distributed across specialists:

• Designers handle visual layout and user interface.
  
  
• Developers code functionality and build interactions.
  
  
• QA testers ensure quality and flag issues.
  
  
• Product managers balance business goals with educational outcomes.
  
  

You’ll need to communicate clearly and document decisions, especially when working asynchronously with remote teams.

Example:

Instead of saying, “Add a question here,” you’ll specify:

“Insert a multiple-choice question with four options. Randomise answer order. Provide immediate feedback including explanation text if the answer is incorrect.”

This level of clarity prevents misunderstandings and reduces rework, aligning with best practices in cross-functional teams (Beck et al., 2001).

5. Working with Digital Tools: Your New Toolbox

• Slack / Microsoft Teams: Real-time messaging and collaboration.
  
  
• JIRA / Trello / Asana: Task tracking and sprint planning.
  
  
• Confluence / Notion: Shared documentation spaces.
  
  
• Figma / Miro: Tools for collaborative visual design and whiteboarding.
  
  
• GitHub: A platform developers use to manage and share code—relevant if you’re reviewing interactive content.
  
  

Example: Instead of a shared Google Doc for lesson planning, you might use Confluence to write specs and link JIRA tickets for the engineers.

6. Accessibility and UX: Designing for Everyone

You’ll also be expected to think about how your content performs across devices, abilities, and contexts.

Key Terms:

• WCAG Compliance: A set of global standards ensuring digital content is accessible to users with disabilities (W3C, 2023).
  
  
• Responsive Design: Content should adapt to mobile, tablet, and desktop screens.
  
  
• Cognitive Load: Avoid overwhelming users—clear instructions, white space, and clean design help support learning (Sweller, 1994).
  
  

Example:

You might design a drag-and-drop activity, but a developer will ask, “How will this work with screen readers?” You may need to design an alternative version that’s keyboard-navigable and screen-reader friendly.

7. Cultural Shift: What to Expect in the Workplace

Finally, expect cultural differences between school environments and tech companies:

• Pace: Tech moves fast. Launch first, refine later.
  
  
• Feedback: You may be expected to evaluate content performance based on metrics (e.g., completion rates, time-on-task).
  
  
• Iteration: Unlike teaching where you refine before delivery, in tech, you may release an MVP and improve based on real-time data.
  
  

As Fullan (2016) argues, change management in education requires adaptability—an essential skill when navigating evolving product demands in edtech environments.

📅 A Sample Day as a Curriculum Lead in EdTech

09:00 AM - Sprint stand-up meeting with developers and product managers

10:30 AM - Reviewing new UX wireframes for a literacy lesson

12:00 PM- Writing or refining JIRA tickets with clear user stories

02:00 PM - Reviewing bug reports from QA and clarifying content logic

03:30 PM - Planning next sprint’s deliverables and coaching content writers

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Conclusion: From Teacher to Curriculum Technologist

As a K–12 teacher, you already have pedagogical insight, classroom empathy, and instructional design know-how. These remain your superpowers. What changes is the context, the scale, and the tools.

You’ll need to:

• Learn the language of developers and designers.
  
  
• Write clearly, document rigorously, and iterate quickly.
  
  
• Balance pedagogy with technical feasibility and user experience.
  
  

With curiosity and clarity, your transition from classroom to edtech will not only be successful—it will be transformative, for you and for the learners you now reach at scale.

📚 References

Atlassian. (2023). JIRA Software Guide. [online] Available at: https://www.atlassian.com/software/jira/guides

Beck, K., Beedle, M., van Bennekum, A. et al. (2001). Manifesto for Agile Software Development. [online] Available at: https://agilemanifesto.org/

Fullan, M. (2016). The new meaning of educational change. 5th ed. New York: Teachers College Press.

Johnson, L., Adams Becker, S., Cummins, M., Freeman, A. and Hall, C. (2020). The NMC Horizon Report: 2020 Higher Education Edition. EDUCAUSE.

Scrum.org. (2022). The Scrum Guide. [online] Available at: https://scrumguides.org/

Sweller, J. (1994). Cognitive load theory, learning difficulty, and instructional design. Learning and Instruction, 4(4), pp.295–312.

W3C. (2023). Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) Overview. [online] Available at: https://www.w3.org/WAI/standards-guidelines/wcag/

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