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At Westwood High School in Mesa, Ariz., educator teams guide the learning of 9th- and 10th-grade students. For the 2024–2025 academic year, Westwood transitioned from a traditional six-period schedule to an eight-period block schedule. This resource explores their innovative approach to restructuring instructional time.

Westwood High School in Mesa, Ariz., serves approximately 3,200 students in grades 9–12. This resource explores Westwood’s implementation of the Next Education Workforce model, highlighting their teaming structures and their approaches to innovation, coaching and schedule.

Read this FAQ for an example of how a team-based model is funded to inspire possibilities within your system’s own context.

This guide offers a step-by-step collaborative planning process designed to promote deeper and more personalized learning. Explore how Westwood High School educators implement differentiated roles, team-based support and flexible schedules to bring their vision of seminar learning to life.

At Mountain View High School, each core team of educators collectively supports 90–120 students. Core teams are composed of three to four educators, each of whom specializes in one or two content areas.

All 9th-grade teachers at Mountain View High School, located in Mesa, Ariz., are members of educator teams. Each core team of educators serves 90–120 students and includes three to four content area specialists. Explore how they organize their time with students.

Explore some of the ways an educator team grouped and regrouped 100 students over the course of a single day.

Explore how 100 ninth grade students are supported by a core educator team that includes a Spanish teacher, biology teacher and a dual-certified English and world history teacher.

Explore some of the ways an educator team grouped and regrouped 100 students over the course of a single day.

Learn more about how one school system leveraged bus drivers as literacy tutors between driving shifts.

This study leverages longitudinal administrative data on teacher leave within a single district. We use a two-way fixed effect design to examine the relationship between Next Education Workforce model participation and teacher engagement.

This survey explores how Next Education Workforce team teachers compare to their district colleagues not on a Next Education Workforce team regarding teacher self-efficacy, job satisfaction, teacher-student interaction, and career plans.

Space matters, but not having the money to invest in learning space design shouldn’t stop you from launching team-based models. This continuum is a tool to support decision-making for a phased approach for transforming learning spaces. We believe there is a continuum on which each team-based learning environment sits. Where it sits is usually a function of the level of investment the school or school system can make in shifting learning spaces in ways that have a positive impact on educators and students.

We’ve proposed lists of resources on deeper learning, personalized learning, and deeper and personalized learning in a virtual setting. These lists, while not comprehensive, have been curated to help educators target their searches.

These two activities invite team members to gain a deeper understanding of one another, including backgrounds and context for teamwork.

When a child enrolls at Jefferson Elementary, they are assigned to a community circle composed of at least one child from each grade level. Explore this resource to learn more about the program and its impact on learning for students and for staff.

Two to four times per week, Skyline High School teacher academy students assume the role of community educator at their feeder school, Stevenson Elementary.

To gain an understanding of a variety of medical conditions and how they affect the people who face them, the 4–6 grade teaching team assembled ten community educators to participate in interviews with their students.

How Paulo Freire’s team of educators grouped and regrouped 68 middle school students over the course of a day.

At Kyrene de las Manitas, teams of educators incorporate dynamic student groupings into a shared roster of students.

Explore some of the ways an educator team grouped and regrouped 100 students over the course of a single day.

These five tips will help community educators prepare and feel ready to enter any learning space, have a successful experience and make lasting, meaningful connections with learners. This resource expands on helpful tips around translating industry expertise, managing the learning space, working with students during the visit and more.

Educators in Next Education Workforce models are more satisfied, collaborate more and believe they have better teacher-student interactions than educators in traditional staffing models.

Explore how educator teams use cloud-based spreadsheets to fluidly and transparently group students by interest and skill.

Leverage special educators’ knowledge and skills to increase the effectiveness of educator teams.

Learn to implement self-organized learning environments, an instructional approach in which students explore complex questions in self-organized peer groups.

Kyrene de las Manitas Innovation Academy in Tempe, Arizona serves about 400 students in Grades K–7. In this resource, explore the schedule and the school’s implementation of a Next Education Workforce model.

Kyrene de las Manitas Innovation Academy is committed to engaging students in a dynamic learning environment that promotes academic excellence and prepares them to be innovators and leaders of tomorrow. In this resource, you’ll learn how they’re implementing a Next Education Workforce model.

At Kyrene de las Manitas Innovation Academy, about 400 students in Grades K–7 in multi-aged grade bands work with core teams of up to six educators: one teacher executive designer, two team teachers and one to three teacher candidates. Read on to learn about key elements of their learning space.

Smith Junior High is located in Mesa, Arizona and serves about 900 students in grades 7-8. Each core educator team serves about 150 students and includes certified teachers with expertise in a specific content area one of whom serves as the lead teacher for the team. In this resource, you’ll view an example schedule at a glance, as well as three sample student schedules.

Smith Junior High is located in Mesa, Arizona, and serves about 900 students in grades 7-8. Each core educator team serves about 150 students and includes certified teachers with expertise in a specific content area, one of whom serves as the lead teacher for the team. In this resource, you’ll find out how they’re implementing a Next Education Workforce model.

Community educators can be found simply by asking around your own social networks and community. However, there are also resources made specifically to locate and connect with industry experts who are ready to support your learning environment.

Activating a lawyer for unit planning support is a great example of a community educator contributing to the distributed expertise of a team. Learn how.

The Living Library brought more than 35 community educators — from stay-at-home parents to investment bankers — to connect with high school students struggling to see the importance of learning math.

Lead Teachers are educators who guide the educator team in sharing responsibility for all elements of student support, instructional planning, and delivery; lead the team in maintaining high expectations for student learning; and ensure the team functions at a high level to serve all learners by strength and need. This description of the Lead Teacher role is intended to be customized based on the unique needs of each school district.

This protocol helps educators make strategic decisions around how to best leverage the distributed expertise of team members. Additionally, it can help to identify other educators who may need to join the team and in what capacities.

Interest-based student groupings are groupings driven by student voice and choice. This planning protocol is an opportunity for team members to explore ways to leverage your team of educators to provide student voice and choice within a lesson or across a unit. In it, you’ll identify a lesson or unit appropriate for interest-based student groupings, draft student choices and work together to plan team deployment.

Skills-based student groupings are groupings based on formative student learning data. This planning protocol is an opportunity for team members to explore how you might leverage your team of educators to differentiate instruction for learners. In it, you’ll identify the objective(s) of your choice, draft a check for understanding and work together to plan team deployment for skills-based student groupings.

In this activity, you will reflect on the connections you make between race, class and education; share those connections with your team; and listen as team members share. This activity is an opportunity to gain an understanding of each other’s lived experiences and build empathy and trust.

Through this activity, educator team members reflect on their preferences for managing conflict and work together to agree on norms for healthy conflict as a team.

This activity offers team members an opportunity to reflect on and share what it takes for them to feel balanced, how they prefer to process information, what they need most from their team members and more. After reflecting and sharing, team members will work together to create norms for communication and working styles.

This activity invites team members to gain a deeper understanding of one another, including backgrounds and context for teamwork. In it, you will create a map that captures key life experiences and then share your map with your educator team.

This activity invites team members to gain a deeper understanding of one another, including backgrounds and context for teamwork. In it, you will respond to questions about your background, education, hobbies and more, and then share responses with your team.

In this activity, you will create and share with your educator team a visual representing your social identity. Social identity is the story others tell about you and where you fit into society or the groups to which you belong (e.g., your race, ethnicity, gender identity).

In this activity, you will create and share with your educator team a visual representing your personal identity. Personal identity is the story you tell about yourself that creates your self-concept and makes you unique (e.g., your skills, your hobbies, adjectives that describe you).

In this activity, you will engage in an adaptation of the National Equity Project’s constructivist listening protocol. Together, with one or more members of your educator team, you will practice deep listening and construct new meaning about your identity and your lived experiences.

In this activity, you will reflect on a possible definition of equity, identify your equity imperative and share with your educator team. An equity imperative is a call to action representing an urgent and deeply felt need to address inequity. An equity imperative empowers you to answer the question, “What do I stand for and why?”

In an effort to shift the ownership of learning from educator to student, SPARK School at Kyrene de las Manitas has implemented a system for students to reflect on their learning and progress, identify the academic support they need and schedule time to meet with the appropriate educator(s). This resource guides educator teams through steps to implementing student-selected support.

The educator team at Kyrene de las Manitas Innovation Academy co-plans project-based units that support deeper learning. The 10 tips appearing in this document are drawn from their approach to planning. To get started, consider how your team might implement these tips.

An asset map is a visual way to identify resources within your community. The act of creating a map of expertise can help you discover connections you already have, organizations you’d love to know about, and talents and resources near your school or available virtually.

Explore this resource to learn six tips for engaging a community educator in schools, community-based organizations and anywhere that learning happens.

The Creighton Academy in Phoenix, Arizona serves about 300 students in grades K–6. Every student is a member of a covey: a multi-age group of 55–60 students. Students work with educators specific to their coveys and educators who work across coveys. In this resource, you’ll see the layout of their learning space.

The Creighton Academy in Phoenix, Arizona serves about 300 students in grades K–6. Every student is a member of a covey: a multi-age group of 55–60 students. Students work with educators specific to their coveys and educators who work across coveys. In this resource, you’ll explore their schedule.

The Creighton Academy in Phoenix, Arizona serves about 300 students in grades K–6. Every student is a member of a covey: a multi-age group of 55–60 students. Students work with educators specific to their coveys and educators who work across coveys. Here, you’ll learn how they’re implementing a team-based model.

At Sousa Elementary School in Mesa, Arizona, an educator team consisting of one lead teacher, three certified teachers, one special educator and three MLFC residents supports a multi-age group of 104 first and second graders. In this resource, you’ll see the layout of their learning space.

At Sousa Elementary School in Mesa, Arizona, an educator team consisting of one lead teacher, three certified teachers, one special educator and three MLFC residents supports a multi-age group of 104 first and second graders. In this resource, you’ll explore their schedule.

Riverview High School serves 90–120 students in grades 7–12. Many of these students have left their assigned district schools due to disciplinary reasons or are transitioning out of juvenile detention or residential treatment centers. In this resource, you’ll see the layout of their learning space.

At Stevenson Elementary School, 75 third graders work with a core team of educators that includes a lead teacher, certified teachers and MLFC residents. In this resource, you’ll see the layout of their learning space.

At Whittier, approximately 170 students in grades 4–6 will be part of multi-age learning communities called “houses.” Each house includes about 85 students and is guided by an educator team. In this resource, you’ll see the layout of their learning space.

Approximately 900 ninth grade students at Westwood High School in Mesa, Arizona are distributed across six Academy Teams. In this resource, you’ll see the layout of their learning space.

In this document, you’ll read about how two school leaders and one district-level leader make strategic shifts in funding and time to cover the costs of their new staffing models.

This resource, created in collaboration with MLFC’s Principled Innovation Team, proposes a quarterly, one-hour protocol intended to help teams reflect together and build the “muscles” of empathy, awareness and resiliency. The protocol guides the team through sharing quarterly wins, reflecting on an intentional set of questions, debriefing and identifying next steps.

Design principles are four to seven ideas that align with the school’s mission and vision and act as a guiding light for the school-level team implementing change. This tool suggests steps a team might take to prepare for a design session on co-creating design principles, offers a protocol for facilitating the session and proposes next steps for taking design principles from draft form to final state.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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 MLFC Design Initiatives. In this resource, you’ll find out how they’re implementing a Next Education Workforce model.

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 MLFC Design Initiatives. In this resource, you’ll explore their 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 MLFC Design Initiatives. In this resource, you’ll see their learning space layout.

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 MLFC teacher candidates. In this resource, you’ll find out how they’re implementing a Next Education Workforce model.

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.

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.

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.

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 MLFC teacher candidates. In this resource, you’ll explore their schedule.

This list, while not comprehensive, offers good resources for planning and implementing deeper and personalized learning for a virtual setting.

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 MLFC 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.

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.

Stevenson Elementary School is a Title I school located in Mesa, Arizona that takes a dynamic approach to serving about 700 students in preschool through 6th grade. The school’s Next Education Workforce model wraps teams of educators around students in grades K-6 with the goal of providing deeper and personalized learning. In this resource, you’ll explore their schedule.

Stevenson Elementary School is a Title I school located in Mesa, Arizona that takes a dynamic approach to serving about 700 students in preschool through 6th grade. The school’s Next Education Workforce model wraps teams of educators around students in grades K-6 with the goal of providing deeper and personalized learning. In this resource, you’ll find out how they’re implementing a Next Education Workforce model.

Stevenson Elementary School is a Title I school located in Mesa, Arizona that takes a dynamic approach to serving about 700 students in preschool through 6th grade. The school’s Next Education Workforce model wraps teams of educators around students in grades K-6 with the goal of providing deeper and personalized learning.

As schools build teams of educators with distributed expertise, and especially as they increase the number of community educators on their teams, scheduling becomes an increasingly complex task. Here, you’ll find five actionable steps for building schedules for remote community educators that are responsive to student and team needs and maximize community educators’ skills and talents.

As we begin to adopt Next Education Workforce models, we inevitably find that some of the routines and procedures that worked in a one-teacher, one-classroom setting need to be adjusted. In this resource, you’ll find a list of some of the routines and procedures our partners redesigned as they’ve worked to implement Next Education Workforce models.

Who are the groups of adults that might be leveraged to support students? Explore the specific roles those adults might play in the learning space.

Community educators are talented adults from the community who bring additional capacity, insight and expertise to learning environments. Read on to learn about community educator roles; knowledge, skills and dispositions; policies and practices; and more