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• Photo: NGLC grantee Montessori for All, Austin, TX

Engineer

Scientist

Journalist

Teacher

Far-off career dreams? Maybe.

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But right now, these are authentic learning roles, being deeply practiced by students in next gen learning schools.

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Why not learn in ways that spark deep curiosity, engagement, and reasons for skill-building?

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Why not all kids -- not just the lucky ones?

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Why not now?

NGLC for Prospective Co-Director Candidates

Innovation happens everywhere.

NGLC Breakthrough Schools

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Everyone needs to feel that they are part of the pilot.

NGLC Regional Funds

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Two NGLC Core Convictions:

Schools, districts, and organizations need to be the change they seek for kids.

Transformation Design

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Always interrogate your first idea. It likely reflects the schema you grew up with.

NGLC Equity Pauses

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Two More NGLC Core Convictions:

“Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.”

-- James Baldwin

NGLC seeks a Co-Director to help us -- and our educator and community partners -- face the things that need changing.

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Next gen learning and school (re)design:

What is it? How does it work?

Ecosystems and policy environments:

How can this change be enabled, rather than obstructed, by the surrounding ecosystem?

Districts and whole communities:

How can change happen effectively and at scale?

Total grants to innovative educators since 2010: $100 million

Number of states with NGLC-catalyzed projects: >30

Students served in NGLC-inspired schools: >1,000,000

NGLC’s Original Theory of Change rested on three sequential domains of innovation ...

2010

2016

2021

… that are now all coming into play simultaneously

We now call this: Next Gen Learning’s Scope of Work (SOW)

It reflects the domains’ interrelatedness and the nature of the work to be done.

Educators and others working to fundamentally reimagine learning goals, processes, structures

Educators and communities, often in partnership, working to catalyze effective, liberatory next gen learning (NGL) at the “enterprise” level -- schools, clusters, networks, districts

Ecosystem and policy leaders working to reshape the environmental landscape schools operate within,

to encourage and support the most promising work emerging from the other two domains

NGLC’s -- and everyone’s -- most important work happens here.

What’s ahead for 2021-2025:

Two Crucial Strands of Work

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What’s the work we want to do in this space?

1. Expand and deepen our work with school districts/communities in ways that hit the center of this diagram and incorporate all of our Core Practices.

Catalyzing Core Practice: Grant Challenges

Powering education stakeholders to reimagine all three domains

Learning/Enabling Core Practice:

Community of Practice Design

Enabling communities & schools to go far

by going together

Amplifying Core Practice: Spread

Broadening interest and participation through storytelling, curation, “smart starts,” and amplifying the voices of the change-makers

NGLC 2020 Vision, Mission, and Strategies

What’s ahead for 2021-2025:

Two Crucial Strands of Work….

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What’s the work we want to do in this space?

• How will we listen more deeply and learn more humbly from Black leaders and other activists working to dismantle White supremacy, within and beyond public education, so that we can become more effective allies in this generational struggle?
• How do our current investments of funding, energy, and time contribute to an educational system that continues to sort, divide, and under-serve by race? Which of those practices must we eradicate completely and which ones might be productively reset?
• How can we make sure that "next gen learning" doesn't widen achievement and opportunity gaps but instead is a force for equity and justice in public education?
• How will we amplify the voices and power of Black students, families, and colleagues as creators of better ways for schools to teach, kids to learn, and communities to redefine student “success”?

NGLC Message to Our Community, June 2020

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2. Strive to be an anti-racist organization and make next gen learning an anti-racist movement

… while operating in alignment with this core conviction we’ve developed over the years:

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Being the change we seek for kids

Moving from 20th-century, white-dominant-culture, hierarchical schemas about learning and organizing towards more enabling, emergent approaches built on the sciences of learning and human motivation

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NEXT GEN LEARNING CHALLENGES: SUPPORTING THE EDUCATORS WHO ARE REIMAGINING PUBLIC EDUCATION

• Beginning to diversify the team
• Practicing radical inclusion
• Adding practitioner-experienced leadership capacity
• Bringing “enabling driver” managing to asset development
• Clarifying organizational structure to support ambitious vision

2021 Restructuring: setting ourselves up for success by...

• Project integration, cross-learning, avoiding silo-izing
• Potential future directions for growth, both earned and grant revenue-supported
• Establishing place-based exemplars of ecosystem-enabled school and district transformation -- i.e., the complete theory of change in action

While strongly considering...

NEXT GEN LEARNING CHALLENGES: SUPPORTING THE EDUCATORS WHO ARE REIMAGINING PUBLIC EDUCATION

We are asking: How might we reimagine ourselves to fulfill this vision?

Our revised structure: complementary co-directors, heading a fluid organization designed to effectively and rapidly advance liberatory next gen learning

(Andy Calkins)

Managing Next Gen Learning Ecosystem Strategy, Projects, & Tool Development

(Carlos Beato)

Managing Next Gen Learning Innovation and Practice, Projects, & Tool Development

Ensuring excellence in program delivery, tools development, internal flow, org learning, NGL “practice ambassador”

Ensuring excellence in R&D design, messaging, and engagement of external audiences, partners, & resources

(Shared)

Transformation Design Infusing DEI/Social Justice

Integrated Work & Learning

Fundraising & Org Dev

Co-Director (CB)

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NGL Innovation & Practice

Primary Program Focuses

• Managing strategic growth, R&D of NGL Practice-related work
• Managing grants and personnel implementing existing NGL Practice work and/or designing prospective work (Mass IDEAS school redesign, Consulting services, Learning Excursions, DEMOlab)
• Managing tool development and marketing for NGL Practice-oriented initiatives

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Primary Org Dev Focuses

• Fundraising (primarily NGL Practice-focused but supporting Ecosystem-focused as well, both grant & earned revenue)
• Ensuring excellence in practice-oriented program execution, internal flow, org learning

Co-Director (AC)

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NGL Ecosystem Strategy & Dev.

Primary Program Focuses

• Managing strategic growth, R&D of NGL ecosystem-related work
• Managing national and place-based district and community development work and external partnerships (Transformation Design)
• Managing national and place-based NGL ecosystem and policy- development work and external partnerships (MI ecosystem, All in This Together, Assessment for Learning Project, Full Spectrum, Prepared)

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Primary Org Dev Focuses

• Fundraising (primarily NGL Ecosystem-focused but supporting Practice-focused as well)
• Ensuring excellence in ecosystem-oriented program execution, messaging

Shared

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Primary:

• Sharing R&D on how districts/ communities transform to NGL
• Infusing DEI lens into all we do
• Integrating NGLC learning, assets, networks through the Thrive Network (coming, 2022)
• Ensuring, with Senior Program Officer, optimum learning & collaboration across NGLC

Org Dev:

• Co-managing fundraising, finance (w/Senior Program Officer)
• Co-managing metrics for impact and success both internal (org) and external
• Co-managing internal learning agenda, team processes
• Co-managing NGLC advisory group

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Areas of Joy

Math �(3 years)

Science �(3 years)

English �(4 years)

Social studies

(2 years)

P.E.

Required Attendance: # days in school

What is.

What

should be.

Problem-solver

Communicator

Collaborator

Entrepreneur

Self-directed lifelong learner

Contributing community and global citizen

Creative & critical thinker

NEXT GEN LEARNING CHALLENGES: SUPPORTING THE EDUCATORS WHO ARE REIMAGINING PUBLIC EDUCATION