Audience: Elementary educators

Illustration of a Next Education Workforce model on a blue background

Elementary instructional blueprint: Thematic learning rotation

Elementary instructional blueprints suggest ways teams of educators with distributed expertise might deploy themselves to better deepen and personalize student learning.

Illustration of a Next Education Workforce model on a blue background

Elementary instructional blueprint: Authentic assessment work time

Elementary instructional blueprints suggest ways teams of educators with distributed expertise might deploy themselves to better deepen and personalize student learning.

Implementation briefs: Teacher Preparation and The Next Education Workforce

This collection of implementation briefs is a companion piece to Teacher Preparation and the Next Education Workforce (Thompson et al., 2020) and goes deeper into several facets of the initial team-based models with teacher candidates, including: role descriptions, readiness conditions for district partners, financial models, and implications for teacher preparation.

Next Education Workforce Teams in All-Remote Environments

In this resource, you’ll find several recommendations for how all-remote teams might deploy their educators to best meet the needs of students.

Elements of the Next Education Workforce

There is no one-size-fits-all Next Education Workforce model. The diverse contexts, assets and needs of each school inform the design and implementation of each model. However, all Next Education Workforce models share several common elements. This document describes the Elements of the Next Education Workforce found across dozens of schools that have launched successful team-based models.

The critical importance of the Next Education Workforce

Hear from MLFTC Dean Carole Basile about why Next Education Workforce models are critically important, especially today.

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SPARK School educators work as a team

This clip features four educators from SPARK School. In it, they describe the impact of teaming with distributed expertise on both educators and students.

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SPARK School implements Student-Selected Mindfulness Time

Several times a week, for a 20-minute period, SPARK students engage in Student-Selected Mindfulness Time. In this clip, a fourth-grade SPARK student and an MLFTC teacher candidate describe the activities students engage in and how they make their choices.

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SPARK School: School profile

At SPARK School at Kyrene de las Manitas, 120 students in multi-aged grade bands (third through fifth grades) work with a core team of six educators: one teacher executive designer, two certified teachers and three teacher candidates. The prototype school-within-a-school was developed during a design process collaboratively led by the Kyrene School District and ASU’s MLFTC Design Initiatives. In this resource, you’ll find out how they’re implementing a Next Education Workforce model.

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SPARK School: Spotlight on the schedule

At SPARK School at Kyrene de las Manitas, 120 students in multi-aged grade bands (third through fifth grades) work with a core team of six educators: one teacher executive designer, two certified teachers and three teacher candidates. The prototype school-within-a-school was developed during a design process collaboratively led by the Kyrene School District and ASU’s MLFTC Design Initiatives. In this resource, you’ll explore their schedule.

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SPARK School: Learning space layout

At SPARK School at Kyrene de las Manitas, 120 students in multi-aged grade bands (third through fifth grades) work with a core team of six educators: one teacher executive designer, two certified teachers and three teacher candidates. The prototype school-within-a-school was developed during a design process collaboratively led by the Kyrene School District and ASU’s MLFTC Design Initiatives. In this resource, you’ll see their learning space layout.

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Whittier Elementary: School profile

In Fall 2020, Whittier Elementary in Mesa, Arizona will create two team-based learning communities with 170 students in grades four through six. Each “house” will include 85 students and will be guided by an educator team comprising three certified teachers and two MLFTC teacher candidates. In this resource, you’ll find out how they’re implementing a Next Education Workforce model.

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Whittier Elementary: Spotlight on the schedule

In Fall 2020, Whittier Elementary in Mesa, Arizona will create two team-based learning communities with 170 students in grades four through six. Each “house” will include 85 students and will be guided by an educator team comprising three certified teachers and two MLFTC teacher candidates. In this resource, you’ll explore their schedule.

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Personalized learning resources

Exploring a new topic can be exciting. We want to help make sure your exploration is productive, with targeted searches from reliable sources. This list, while not comprehensive, offers good resources for planning and implementing personalized learning.

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Deeper learning resources

Exploring a new topic can be exciting. We want to help make sure your exploration is productive, with targeted searches from reliable sources. This list, while not comprehensive, offers good resources for planning and implementing deeper learning.

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Levels of Student Autonomy

Levels of Student Autonomy is a simple system that supports student independence and personalized learning. The resource below explains how you might implement this system in your learning space.

Dr. Nicole Thompson, Division Director of Teacher Preparation at Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College

Dr. Nicole Thompson, Division Director of Teacher Preparation at Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College

Brent Maddin talks with Dr. Nicole Thompson, Division Director of Teacher Preparation at Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College, about equity, paid teacher candidate residency models, and Principled Innovation.

Brent Maddin: What is the Next Education Workforce?

Brent Maddin: What is the Next Education Workforce?

Host Brent Maddin shares how MLFTC is working with schools and other partners to 1) provide all students with deeper and personalized learning by building teams of educators with distributed expertise and 2) empower educators by developing new opportunities for role-based specialization and advancement.

Conversation with Ron Beghetto

Ron Beghetto: Against technological macaroni art

Brent Maddin talks with Ron Beghetto, Professor and Pinnacle West Presidential Chair at ASU’s Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College, about creativity, beautiful risks, and how we can improve education for all learners.

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Whittier Elementary: COVID addendum

Whittier Elementary in Mesa, Arizona serves 4th through 6th-graders in a single multi-grade “house.” Together, six content area teachers (two of whom serve as lead teachers for the team), one special educator and four MLFTC residents support 160 students. The team launched in Fall 2020, in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic. In this resource, you’ll find out how they have adapted their planned instructional model while still taking a Next Education Workforce approach to working as a team and supporting their students.

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SPARK School: COVID addendum

At SPARK School at Kyrene de las Manitas, students in multi-aged grade bands (3rd through 5th grades) work with a core team of six educators: one teacher executive designer, two certified teachers and three teacher candidates. In this resource, you’ll find out how the team at SPARK School has adapted their instructional model as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic while still prioritizing deeper and personalized learning for the students they serve.