Brave New Teaching University
You don’t need more resources. You need a better system.
Brave New Teaching University is the home for secondary ELA teachers who are done surviving and ready to build classrooms that are sustainable, rigorous, and actually engaging.
Teaching shouldn't be a frantic search for "what to do tomorrow"; it should be a deliberate, sustainable practice. We designed Brave New Teaching University to curate years of strategies into a streamlined professional development curriculum.
Our curriculum is divided into three distinct Fields of Study, each targeted to solve a specific challenge in the modern secondary classroom:
Focused on reclaiming your time, batch planning, and automating your workflow so you can stop working on weekends.
Focused on defeating student apathy by blending high-stakes rigor with whimsy, gamification, and tech fluency.
Focused on modernizing the canon and moving students from surface-level plot summary to deep, critical analysis and performance.
Take our "Placement Exam" to see which BNTU department will help you MOST right now!
We took everything we've ever created at BNT:
Our entire podcast catalog
All of Happy Hour
Our workshops
Curriculum Rehab
All freebies & resources
And organized it like a university (where teachers shine!) - so you know exactly where to start and exactly how to grow.
Three departments, four levels of coursework, one cohesive teaching practice.
This is the structure that holds everything else up.
If you constantly think:
“What am I doing tomorrow?”or “I need to redesign this entire unit…” this is your department.
Wake them up. Make learning rigorous AND active.
If your class feels less like class and more like blank stares, phone battles, and “Did we have homework?” - this will be your favorite department.
This is where rigor meets relevance.
If reading feels like pulling teeth and your text selection needs intense revamping, this is your department.
You don’t need to binge this.
You start in the department that matches your biggest pain point.
Then, you move up through the levels and navigate the different departments as you’re ready.
It’s not more work - it’s better design.
BNT University is for secondary ELA teachers who:
Want intellectual rigor without exhaustion
Are tired of fighting phones instead of teaching
Believe engagement and depth can coexist
Are ready to build something sustainable
If you’re looking for quick fixes and scripted lesson plans only this isn’t for you.
If you’re ready to think differently about your classroom - well, hello, and welcome!
You've got questions. We've got answers.
Brave New Teaching University is a structured professional learning hub for secondary ELA teachers. Instead of scattered resources, everything is organized into three clear departments - Systems & Design, Inquiry & Engagement, and The Modern Reader - with four levels of depth in each.
Think of it less like a resource folder and more like a roadmap for building a sustainable, engaging ELA classroom.
It’s best understood as a guided ecosystem.
Inside BNTU, you’ll find:
Podcast learning paths (Level 100)
Ready-to-use tools and templates (Level 200)
Deep-dive workshops (Level 300)
Full mastery frameworks like Curriculum Rehab (Level 400)
You can enter where you need support most and grow from there.
No - and this matters deeply to us.
BNTU is designed to reduce decision fatigue, not increase it. The entire structure exists to help you:
Stop reinventing units
Plan more efficiently
Build systems that hold up all year
Most members tell us the biggest shift is feeling less scattered within the first few weeks.
Start with the department that matches your biggest current pain point:
Constant planning stress → Systems & Design
Student disengagement → Inquiry & Engagement
Students not reading → The Modern Reader
If you’re unsure, take the “Where Do I Start?” quiz - it will point you in the right direction.
Not at all.
BNTU is especially powerful for:
Mid-career teachers who feel stuck on the hamster wheel
Experienced teachers ready to modernize their approach
Instructional leaders supporting ELA teams
Teachers navigating AI and shifting literacy demands
If anything, veteran teachers often see the biggest transformation because they finally have a cohesive system.
You may recognize some familiar tools - but the power of BNTU is the organization and progression.
Instead of standalone materials, everything now lives inside a clear framework so you can:
See how pieces connect
Build upward intentionally
Avoid starting from scratch each year
This is where everything finally “clicks.”
BNTU is designed to be flexible.
Many teachers start by:
Listening to one podcast learning path per week
Implementing one small system or strategy at a time
You do not need to overhaul your entire curriculum overnight. Small, strategic shifts compound quickly.
Yes.
The frameworks inside BNTU are built to be adaptable, not prescriptive. Whether you teach:
Required canonical texts
District-mandated pacing
Choice-heavy classrooms
You’ll learn how to apply the systems and strategies within your real constraints.
Yes.
Depending on your level of access, support may include:
Community spaces
Guided learning paths
Implementation resources
You are not expected to figure everything out alone.
We want to be transparent.
BNTU may not be the right fit if you:
Want fully scripted, day-by-day lessons only
Prefer quick fixes over long-term systems
Aren’t interested in rethinking parts of your curriculum
But if you’re ready to build something sustainable and intellectually alive - you’re in the right place.
The 100's: The Core Curriculum (Free!)
These courses establish the essential pedagogical frameworks and mindset shifts required to move your practice from traditional instruction to a modern, inquiry-driven classroom.
Format: Audio Lectures (Podcast)
Tuition: FREE
The 200's: The Lab Work
These practical, "hands-on" courses guide you in applying foundational theories to specific texts or genres, resulting in tangible, ready-to-teach lesson plans, rubrics, and more.
Format: Audio Lectures (podcast), Video (tutorials), Digital Downloads (unlimited resource library access)
Tuition: $17 / month
The 200's: The Lab Work Annual Tuition
Get two months absolutely free.
Everything in the monthly tier, completely unlocked for the entire school year. Pay once, forget about the monthly charge, and focus entirely on building your dream classroom.
Tuition: $170/year
Think about your current Sunday afternoon. The dread creeping in around 3:00 PM. The scramble to find a "hook" for Monday's lesson. The pile of grading that you carried home on Friday and will carry back on Monday.
What is it worth to make that stop?
For $17 a month (less than you might spend on drive-thru coffee during a stressful grading week) you can step off the reactive planning hamster wheel. You are one click away from the exact systems, rubrics, and unit maps that will allow you to leave school at contract time, with a classroom that you always wanted to teach in.
Our 300- and 400-level options are excellent for furthering the work you do in BNTU.
Workshops with ready-made units that you can tweak to fit your classroom, and Curriculum Rehab (our signature methodology!) will guide you step by step through a total curriculum overhaul.
The 300's: Field Work - Zoom IN
BNT WORKSHOPS: These intensive, focused sessions drill down into specific genres—such as Shakespeare, dystopia, and memoir—to give you the tools to construct meaningful inquiry units.
Format: Audio Lectures (podcast), Video (tutorials), Digital Downloads (unit-specific resources)
Tuition: $40-$60 per workshop. One-time fee, lifetime access.
The 400's: Field Work - Zoom Out
CURRICULUM REHAB: The signature comprehensive experience where you synthesize all previous learning to completely overhaul a course's scope and sequence for maximum rigor and engagement.
Format: Video (coaching from Amanda & Marie), Digital Downloads (curriculum maps, planning tools, year-at-a-glance)
Tuition: $397 one-time fee. Payment plans available.
The co-hosts of the Brave New Teaching Podcast & co-creators of Brave New Teaching University.
We’re also besties that met on the internet!
We've been teaching for over 30 years combined, and with that experience, we know exactly what NOT to do. We've failed plenty of times, and from all of those mistakes, we've learned how to carefully adjust and align our curriculum design to best:
meet students where they are
engage our students
teach basic AND challenging skills
align instruction with assessment
de-center texts and center inquiry
If you were to go to Teachers Pay Teachers right now and piece together this level of curriculum design, here is what your cart would look like:
* A complete Problem-Based Unit Plan: $29+
* A fully designed Escape Room / Gamification Kit: $17+
* A Socratic Seminar Tracking System & Rubrics: $12+
* A Station Rotation Template & Rollout Guide: $15+
... and that’s just four resources...
There is well over $500 worth of premium, classroom-tested curriculum waiting inside the Level 200 Application Labs, but buying a random assortment of resources can't fix a broken teaching schedule.
That's why we didn't build a marketplace, we built a University.
For less than the cost of one unit plan, you get access to the entire BNT library, plus the step-by-step guidance to actually implement it.
Future you will be so glad you did :)
The 100's: The Core Curriculum
The 200's: The Lab Work
The 200's: The Lab Work (Annual)
