Community educators
Add expertise and capacity to learning environments with community educators
Leverage the expertise of family and community members in roles like academic tutors, mentors, reading volunteers, attendance champions, teaching artists and more. In team-based strategic staffing models, community educators often work as part of extended teams, where they leverage their knowledge and skills to complement the work of professional educators in support of learning.
Supporting both sides of the ecosystem
Supporting schools
We work with schools to develop and implement strategies that expand and pilot roles for community educators to be extended team members in the school’s team-based models.
Supporting community educators
We support the field of community educators to connect and share expertise, and to strengthen their teaching and learning skills to be ready to take on meaningful roles within learning environments and to answer the call for people-powered supports in schools.
Training
Community Educator Learning Hub
The Community Educator Learning Hub is an online learning platform designed to help caring adults and teens help children learn. Prepared with accessible, evidence-based strategies, community educators can help deepen and personalize learning for all students.
Register now for a seven-day trial to explore these learning resources yourself.
What: Self-guided nanocourses — developed by world-class ASU faculty and nationally-recognized community organizations — that break down the competencies of teaching and learning into easy-to-understand tips and strategies.
Who: These training resources have been designed for community educators such as tutors, mentors, family members, and volunteers, and they also have utility for paraeducators, preservice teachers, and school support staff.
When: On-demand; nanocourses are designed with intentional consideration of community educators’ diverse backgrounds and busy lives to make the most of their training time so that they can make their time with learners the most meaningful.
Resources
Access our resource collections focused on engaging community educators which share tools, examples, and resources for meaningfully incorporating community educator roles into team-based models.
Explore resources designed to help educators and school leaders identify, connect with and incorporate community educators into educator teams.
Collection
Connecting with community educators
Community educators are youth-serving professionals and volunteers. These resources are designed to support schools as they identify, connect with and incorporate community educators into educator teams.
Explore examples of real projects from Next Education Workforce schools that have invited community educators into learning spaces to connect with learners and deepen and personalize learning.
Collection
Leveraging community educators in learning
Community educators connect with learners, leveraging their knowledge and skills to complement the work of professional educators. These resources help educator teams and schools meaningfully incorporate community educators into learning environments.
From the blog
Read the latest articles and blog posts about our community educator work
Who’s in your neighborhood? Leveraging your community to empower educators and learners
How can school systems leverage their communities to create deeper and more personalized learning for all students? One answer is to empower families, tutors, mentors and other community members with teaching and learning strategies that are easy to access and immediately put into practice with children.
Introducing the Community Educator Learning Hub
Community educators, the professionals and volunteers who assist with instruction, can now turn to this award-winning catalog of short, interactive nanocourses to access training designed to help them more effectively engage learners.
In the news
Frequently asked questions
Community educator roles align with goals that educators and schools have for students and are unique to the needs of each learning environment, see innovative ways that schools are leveraging community educators in our resource collection.
There is expertise within our communities to support schools and learners that is often untapped. Tools and suggestions to get started on finding and connecting with community educators can be found in our connecting with community educators resource collection.
Local community-based organizations (CBO) often employ youth-work professionals as community educators to support school-based programs. A CBO partner can bring support for program development, scheduling, and training community members.
Within your school district, there may also be a community partnership or volunteer management team that can introduce you to community partners that your district already has relationships with that match your needs.
ASU has developed a learning platform specifically for community educators to boost their skills in teaching and learning. The Community Educator Learning Hub hosts a catalog of over 140 Nanocourses, each approximately 15 minutes long and available asynchronously. Our nanocourses are built with community members in mind, and strive to balance context knowledge with actionable techniques and cover a wide range of competencies that are helpful for community educators to know and be able to do. Create a trial account in the Community Educator Learning Hub today! Visit the award-winning Community Educator Learning Hub at asucommunityeducators.org.
Events
Find opportunities for professional educators and community educators to engage in professional learning and connect to share expertise.
Contact