Ready for change: teachers' perceptions of a workforce reform Open Access

The Next Education Workforce (NEW), an initiative of the Mary Lou Fulton College for Teaching and Learning Innovation (MLFC) at Arizona State University, partners with schools to reconfigure how teachers are organized in classrooms and engage students in academic content and activities (Basile, Maddin, & Audrain, 2023). In NEW schools, teachers are organized into teams that combine educators across areas of expertise and experience. NEW teachers share rosters of students and meet regularly to plan lessons and discuss students' progress and needs. The configuration of NEW teams varies across schools. In addition to general education teachers, team members can include instructional specialists, paraeducators, support staff, social workers, teacher candidates, and parent and community volunteers. Some teams have a formal lead teacher position. Educators across roles are deeply involved in classroom practices, familiar with routines and form relationships with students.

At the beginning of the 2022–2023 school year, 45 schools were in the process of implementing NEW models ^[1]. Some were whole-school models, while in others a subset of teachers is organized into teams. The latter is a rolling implementation aimed at building support within the school for teaming; pilot team(s) introduce the NEW initiative to their schools with the goal of expanding it to additional teams in subsequent years. The NEW's theory of action is that teachers working in teams will be able to engage students in classroom activities and other learning experiences organized around deeper and personalized learning – real-world tasks, collaboration and problem-solving – without increasing their workloads (for a discussion of deeper and personalized learning, see Audrain, Ruiz, Maresso Wyatt, Nailor, & Weinberg, 2023; Darling-Hammond et al., 2019).

Changing the organization of teaching and learning has implications for teachers, school systems and the teaching profession (Basile et al., 2023). To support participating schools, the NEW team provides professional development aimed at supporting teachers and school leaders. Schools and districts that partner with the NEW receive support that is tailored to their needs and where they are in the process of implementing NEW teaming models. NEW partner schools work with expert facilitators to help them work together as a team and provide deeper and personalized learning experiences to students. Schools or districts that are launching teaming models receive assistance identifying schools or teams within schools. NEW facilitators also support launching partner schools with practical issues related to implementation, such as how to reconfigure classroom and school spaces to facilitate collaboration and create schedules that allow teachers opportunities to share instructional and planning time (see Maddin, Audrain, Wyatt, & Salmacia, 2025). In partner schools at more advanced stages of implementation, NEW facilitators provide personalized virtual and on-site coaching and professional development resources to help teams redesign instruction and reflect on their practice. The NEW also provides opportunities for teachers and administrators to connect across schools and districts to share their experiences and practices with teaming.

We describe the results of a survey administered to participants in the 2022 Summer Institute, a professional development experience for teachers and administrators in schools that were engaged in or preparing to launch the teaming initiative during the 2022–2023 school year. The goal of the survey was to document teachers' perceptions of teaming and other elements of the NEW initiative. Teachers and administrators working in partner schools that participated in the Summer Institute received support and coaching as they implemented NEW models tailored to their schools' needs in the months that followed.

In an early literature review on the research on teaming, Armstrong (1977) asserted that team teaching was a ubiquitous practice in US schools. Yet “team teaching” encompasses organizational arrangements that span from a group of teachers working together closely with or without a designated leader to a group of teachers who plan together but do not share responsibility for students. Vembye, Weiss, and Hamilton Bhat’s (2024) more recent meta-analysis of intervention studies focused on collaborative models of teaching suggests that there are few extant studies of teaming that involved two or more general education teachers sharing the same space and responsibility for students ^[2]. The majority of the research on teacher teaming focuses on co-teaching, where general and special education teachers work together to plan and deliver instruction (Vembye et al., 2024; see for example Alsudairy, 2024). Another common form of teaming is between teacher candidates and mentor teachers (Rabin, 2020). NEW teaming models encompass and go beyond these more common forms of teaming.

Similarly, two national surveys of middle school leaders conducted in 1992 and 2000 suggested that teaming was increasingly prevalent in the middle grades, but most teams were departmentalized rather than oriented toward curriculum integration (Hackmann et al., 2002). The principals surveyed indicated that most teams were in the process of learning how to work together to be effective. Hackmann et al. (2002) concluded that administrators need to provide tangible forms of support such as common planning time and professional support aimed at nurturing collaborative relationships among teams (see also Trimble & Irvin, 1996). Subsequent case studies of middle schools engaged in interdisciplinary teaming also highlighted how team development was a process and that teachers needed to have time and professional development that supported teaming (e.g., Kokolis, 2007; Seed, 2006; see also Maddin et al., 2025). In their study of high-performing middle schools that implemented teaming, Wilcox and Angelis (2012) documented the importance of trust between teachers and school leadership, shared responsibility, autonomy and professional development aimed at capacity building alongside structures such as shared planning time that support teaming.

Armstrong (1977) also noted the need to assess the extent to which teachers take up teaming and use the affordances of a team configuration to change their instructional practices. More recent studies of teaming highlight similar issues (Caskey & Carpenter, 2012; Ronfeldt, Farmer, McQueen, & Grissom, 2015; Saunders, Goldenberg, & Gallimore, 2009). The NEW teaming initiative is aimed at creating structural and organizational conditions that reduce isolation among teachers and foster collaboration around instruction (Darling-Hammond, Wei, Andree, Richardson, & Orphanos, 2009; Rosenholtz, Bassler, & Hoover-Dempsey, 1986). In schools highlighted on the NEW website when the 2022 Summer Institute took place, the most common elements of NEW teams were shared rosters, inclusion and collaborations with teacher candidates, instructional aides and community educators. NEW teams were also inter- or intra-disciplinary within general education by including subject matter specialists or elective teachers.

When teachers interact with a greater number and range of colleagues around professional practice, they are more likely to coordinate their instruction, work together to solve problems of practice, experiment and improve their practice (Rosenholtz et al., 1986; see also Elmore, 1996; García-Martínez, 2021; Hargreaves, 2019). As an external partner, the NEW team can enable change by collaborating with schools and engaging in a cycle of communication and support (Cuban, 2020; Hubbard, Mehan, & Stein, 2006; McLaughlin, 1990). By encouraging schools to use teaming to reorganize instruction organized around deeper and personalized learning, the NEW team is avoiding the pitfall of “content-free process” (McLaughlin, 1990, p. 15). In other words, the NEW is promoting a structural change (teaming) focused on facilitating instructional change (deeper and personalized learning).

The Summer Institute is an annual professional development experience for educators working in partner schools and districts that are implementing NEW models at their schools (Audrain et al., 2023). Because the dominant style of classroom organization and management in US schools has been a single teacher in an isolated “eggcrate” classroom (Tyack & Tobin, 1994), reorganizing teachers into teams does not guarantee they will work together productively. Teachers need professional development in how to collaborate to support student learning (Troen & Boles, 2012; see also Krammer, Rossmann, Gastager, & Gasteiger-Klicpera, 2018). In the 2022 Summer Institute, teachers and school leaders participated in a mix of virtual and in-person sessions over four days on team collaboration, centering equity and inclusion, instructional planning, teaming to support diverse learners and authentic assessment.

Led by MLFC professionals, local school leaders and administrators, and representatives from national organizations, group sessions highlighted the range of pathways to teaming and encouraged participants to adapt these strategies in ways that were appropriate for their schools' needs and populations. While many of the sessions were focused on the needs of schools in the early stages of implementing teaming, another group of sessions addressed topics that were particularly relevant for schools in more advanced stages of implementation, such as authentic assessment and interdisciplinary planning. School Spotlights highlighted schools in the process of implementing NEW models. Question and answer sessions with partner schools featured in School Spotlights allowed participants to engage in informal conversations with teachers and school leaders who were in the process of implementing the teaming model. Participating teams also had scheduled time to work together. During these hands-on work sessions, participants discussed and planned how to create a cohesive culture through shared decision-making, how to navigate conflict and how to support each other in the teaming model. Teachers were encouraged to set clear goals for their students and vary how students can reach the goals and demonstrate their learning. The sessions also emphasized incorporating real-world tasks into instructional units to increase students' interest and motivation.

While short but high intensity (Coburn, 2004), the Summer Institute encompassed many of the strategies that support effective implementation, such as teacher-focused professional development, the opportunity to learn from other schools that were at different stages of implementing teaming, school leaders' participation and sessions that focused on practical issues. Two hundred seventy-nine teachers and school leaders from four school districts and one charter network attended the Summer Institute in 2022. The NEW team continues to hold annual Summer Institutes for partner schools that follow the same general format as the 2022 Summer Institute (Next Education Workforce, n.d.).

An online anonymous survey approved by ASU's Institutional Review Board was administered using Qualtrics during a designated half-hour session on the final day of the Summer Institute (Audrain & Nailor, 2022). The survey items aimed at tapping into the elements of the NEW were adapted from existing survey instruments (e.g., Deneckere et al., 2011; Holt, Armenakis, Feild, & Harris, 2007) or created by an ASU faculty member working with NEW staff members and piloted and validated during the 2020 and 2021 Summer Institutes (Audrain et al., 2023; Weinberg & Audrain, 2020, 2021). Items were grouped into four sets of constructs aimed at assessing educators' experiences and perceptions of (1) teaming; (2) readiness for change; (3) context of work; and (4) deeper and personalized learning. Most were Likert-scale items with a five-point scale ranging from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (5). We created indexes for each construct that ranged from one to five by averaging items. Means closer to five indicated strong agreement across the items within each construct, described below ^[3]. The Cronbach's alpha for the constructs ranged from α = 0.72 to 0.96. The items for each construct, descriptive statistics and a reliability analysis are available in the Appendix.

Fourteen yes/no survey items documented the Summer Institute participants' prior experiences with collaboration by listing different forms of collaboration and asking educators to report if they had engaged in them. An open-ended question asked teachers to describe their past experiences with teaming. We used these questions to create a count of the types of collaboration central to the NEW initiative.

Two sets of Likert-scale items, team support and team culture, were aimed at assessing participants' readiness to engage in teams. Five items for team support asked participants to report their perceptions of their autonomy and resources to work as a team. For example, did they feel their school leaders trusted teams, and did they view their teams as empowered to make real-time adjustments. Seven team culture items asked participants to assess the extent to which they felt that team members trusted each other and worked well together, felt like they were part of a team, were empathetic, and promoted the resiliency of both individuals and teams. Because most schools were at the early stages of implementing the NEW teaming initiative, the team support and team culture items were asked twice. Participants assessed (1) their past experiences with teaming and (2) how they anticipate teaming will work in the NEW model.

Two measures of readiness for change assessed the extent to which participants felt their schools were ready for change (organizational readiness for change) and if they perceived that change was worthwhile, would benefit them as individuals, and provide career opportunities for them, asked as three separate items (personal readiness for change). Examples of the four organizational readiness for change items included two items asking participants to assess if the school or students would benefit from change, respectively.

There were four sets of questions asking participants to share their perception of the context of their work. Four items related to teacher autonomy asked participants about the degree of autonomy they had at work (e.g. are they trusted to make sound decisions about instruction). Leadership support (12 items) asked participants about their perceptions of school leadership, such as if they feel respected by the school's administration, if they trust administrators, and if they feel comfortable raising issues and concerns. Five questions were asked about the participants' perceptions of the adult-student relationships at their school and the care, respect and recognition of individuals' cultures. These included separate items for the following: do adults care about students, treat them with respect, want them to do well and listen to students. Finally, participants were asked to respond to four items asking them about the student cultures in their schools (e.g., do students care about other students, and do they get along well with other students).

Participants were asked if their prior instructional practices provided personalized learning experiences for students via items such as I create opportunities for students to identify their strengths and needs; I set clear, specific and meaningful goals with students. Another set of items asked the participants to self-report their teaching practices related to differentiating instruction through separate questions asking them if they differentiate content, products and processes for each student. Six items asked teachers to assess the extent to which their colleagues provide rigorous instruction for students (e.g., teachers at this school expect students to use facts and evidence, and teachers at this school want students to think about different ways to solve problems). Two open-ended questions asked participants about changes they made related to student agency in the prior academic year and the changes they planned to make in the upcoming academic year.

One hundred fifty-three teachers who attended the Summer Institute responded to the survey. After eliminating 25 teachers because of missing information, our final sample comprised 128 (84%) of teacher respondents ^[4]. The majority of the teacher participants were White women. Although 16% of the teachers did not respond to the question about race/ethnicity, the participants largely matched the demographics of Arizona's teacher workforce (Bennett, Silva, O’Reilly, Gummer, & DuPlanty, 2021) ^[5]. The majority of the teachers received their teaching certification through degree programs. Over half of the teachers had nine or fewer years of experience. 58% taught in the elementary grades, and 25% taught middle school grades. Finally, participants were asked what their immediate professional plans were; 91% of the teachers planned to stay at their current schools. See Table 1.

We used the 14 yes/no questions that asked teachers if they had engaged in different types of collaboration in the past to assess teachers' experience working in teams prior to participating in the Summer Institute (Table 2) ^[6]. The types of collaboration central to the NEW initiative are indicated in italics. Except for co-teaching during a teacher education program, fewer than half of the teachers surveyed had participated in these forms of collaboration. For example, 31% of teachers worked on teams that shared rosters of students, while 78% of the teachers worked on grade-level teams, which is consistent with the findings of prior research on teaming. On average, participating teachers reported engaging in between two and three of the types of collaboration most often used on NEW teams before attending the Summer Institute. An additional open-ended question asked teachers to describe their prior forms of collaboration. Of the 108 (84%) teachers who responded to the open-ended question, 22 had experience with NEW teaming models, suggesting that most participants were working in schools that were at the early stages of implementing teaming models. Some participants were joining teacher teams that had been formed in the first years of the initiative.

In Table 3 we report the means on the index variables for NEW practices. For the constructs for culture and support for teaming, the first set asked educators to report on their past team experiences, while the second asked teachers what they anticipated experiencing with NEW. While on average participants reported positive past experiences on teams, they also felt that the teaming they would engage in during the upcoming school year on NEW teams would be more effective. The index for past team culture was 3.86 out of 5, while the index for past team process was 3.65 out of 5. Teachers also anticipated that their teams' cultures and processes would be better on NEW teams; the means on the index variables for team culture and processes with NEW teams were 4.40 and 4.20, respectively. Paired samples t-tests indicated that the differences in the means for both constructs were statistically significant at p < 0.001.

The individual and organizational readiness for change indexes also reflected teachers' optimism about the NEW initiative at their schools. The measure for organizational readiness for change was 4.65 out of 5, and the standard deviation indicates teachers' responses were clustered around the mean. Teachers' responses on the context of work items suggest that Summer Institute participants were also optimistic about the working conditions at their schools. Participating teachers perceived that they had a substantial amount of autonomy to make curricular and instructional decisions and that they were supported by their schools' leaders. They also felt positive about the adult-student relationships at their schools, although they were less confident about the relationships between the students at their schools. For all four indexes, the means were at or above 4 out of 5, and the standard deviations suggest that there was strong agreement among the teachers surveyed about these features of their school contexts.

The indexes asking teachers about the extent to which they have provided deeper and personalized learning experiences for their students suggest some of the capacities the NEW initiative can build upon (Table 3). Yet the deeper and personalized learning indexes also indicate possible challenges and directions for future professional development experiences. On average, participating teachers agreed that they engaged in a set of practices associated with personalized instruction, such as setting clear and realistic goals for students, allowing students to identify strengths, self-assess and pursuing personal plans for learning. Similarly, most teachers agreed that teachers at their schools provided rigorous instruction by expecting students to use facts and evidence to support their ideas, think about different ways to solve problems, search for a diversity of perspectives and opinions, and encourage students to provide constructive feedback. The means for both indexes were 4.08 and 4.18, respectively, indicating relatively high engagement in these practices among the sample of teachers, but also room for further development in these areas.

However, on average, the teachers tended to disagree that they engaged in practices associated with differentiating instruction by adapting the content, process and products of lessons based on each student's interests, learning profiles, or academic progress. The mean for the differentiated instruction index was 1.88, which is substantially lower than the indexes for both personalized and rigorous instruction. This could indicate that it is more difficult for teachers to differentiate instruction than personalize instruction to the extent that the former requires teachers to have multiple versions of lessons, whereas the latter requires adapting existing lessons. The comparatively low mean for differentiation could also reflect how the questions about differentiation were worded because they asked teachers if they differentiated for “each student.” Teachers might answer these questions differently if they were asked if they differentiated for their students more generally or for groups of students.

Ninety teachers (70%) responded to two open-ended questions asking teachers about the changes they made to implement deeper and personalized learning, and the changes they planned to implement in the upcoming year. Many reported that they incorporated more choice and student voice in their teaching. Some teachers created learner profiles to get to know their students and meet their learning and interpersonal skills development needs. Other strategies teachers started to implement included using a workshop model, inquiry-based or project-based learning, and creating smaller groupings of students for instruction. In general, teachers planned to continue implementing these strategies and to create opportunities to bring in community educators during the upcoming academic year. For example, one teacher responded that they were planning to “allow more inquiry time in the afternoon, use ‘street data’ to understand student needs outside benchmarks, and more student choice with more time to reflect with stronger community connections to make their learning more real world connected.”

Finally, teachers' responses to open-ended questions asking them about the types of professional development experiences they needed after the Summer Institute indicated that they needed additional training and time focused on helping them work effectively as teams. While some teachers wanted professional development focused on instructional practice, many identified the social aspects of teaming, such as how to manage conflict and using time effectively, as areas for subsequent professional development.

The findings of the Summer Institute survey suggest that the NEW was successful in recruiting partner schools and teachers who were interested in the NEW initiative and looking forward to implementing the teaming reform at their schools. Most participating teachers were positive about their teaming experiences in the past and optimistic about teaming in NEW models. While this data does not allow us to assess how the teachers implemented the NEW initiative after they participated in the Summer Institute, teacher buy-in is a key element for the successful implementation and longevity of a reform (Cuban, 1984; Hargreaves, 1993).

The higher means on the indexes for anticipated team cultures and processes compared to past team processes and experiences could reflect the experience of participating in the Summer Institute and have implications for university partners that plan to organize similar professional development experiences for teachers and school leaders. The time and concrete tasks related to team building and teaching strategies related to deeper and personalized learning likely helped increase teachers' confidence in their own teams, the teaming process and how their teams would work together. As Troen and Boles (2012) observed, teachers need professional development in how to work as a team. Teachers are less likely to successfully team if they are placed on teams with the assumption that positive team dynamics will develop organically without support. While the Summer Institute provided a starting point for many teams, teachers also reported that they needed time and support during the academic year to build relationships and develop practices that will allow them to effectively work within their teams. Teachers may also need additional support in differentiating instruction, which could be more challenging for teachers than personalizing instruction. University partners should also consider how their work with schools can be sustained beyond summer professional development opportunities. While summer is an ideal time to engage teachers in more in-depth and focused work on team building and improving instruction, follow-up professional development experiences are needed to build on this foundation.

The Summer Initiative survey could also be viewed as both retrospective and prospective. The survey items assessed participants' experiences and perspectives when most participants were at the early stages of implementing the teaming model. The survey may also help reinforce practices promoted by the NEW initiative. For example, by asking participants questions about the autonomy and trust in teams, the survey also highlighted conditions that teachers should expect as participants in the initiative. Notably, the Summer Institute was also attended by school leaders such as principals and coaches who took the same survey, so the survey may have also served to communicate expectations to school leaders as they support and work alongside teachers to implement the teaming initiative ^[7]. Other similar university partnerships should consider how to balance reforms aimed at increasing teacher collaboration and autonomy with leadership support (Powers, Brown, & Wyatt, 2020).

There are some limitations to the analysis. The Summer Institute was attended by teachers and school leaders who largely self-selected into participating in the NEW initiative, so the teachers' strong support for many of the elements associated with the initiative is not surprising. Yet as we suggested above, this could also be viewed as a strength of the initiative. The NEW team emphasizes building a constituency for the initiative within schools and providing professional development experiences aimed at supporting its refinement and expansion, another important consideration for university-based partners.

A key feature of the NEW initiative is that it is adaptable. NEW professional development activities such as the Summer Institute consistently emphasize that the elements of the NEW initiative should be adapted to participants' school contexts and that the work is messy and often requires retooling or refining. As the NEW initiative moves forward, it will be important for the NEW team in the MLFTC to assess the extent to which reorganizing teachers in teams results in changes in instructional practices that are in turn reflected in student outcomes. This requires assessing a broader set of academic and social outcomes beyond the narrow measures associated with state-mandated accountability policies. Likewise, if the NEW initiative expands beyond a relatively small group of schools, future studies should also assess the conditions that support the implementation and expansion of the model and how implementation varies within and across school contexts.

This study was reviewed and approved by the ASU University Institutional Review Board (IRB ID: STUDY00016134) on June 21, 2022. The protocol was determined to be exempt under Federal Regulations 45CFR46 for research conducted in educational settings and involving surveys, interviews or observations.

We would like to thank R. Lennon Audrain, Brent Maddin, Natalie Nailor and Lisa Maresso Wyatt for their support on this project.

The supplementary material for this article can be found online.